ABSTRACT
The study is meant to describe the students’ mastery of vocabulary, to know the students’ level of vocabulary achievement and also to know whether the level of the students’ vocabulary mastery meets the criteria of Basic Course Outline (GBPP) standard and to find out the problems faced by the students in mastering the vocabulary.
The population of this study was the first year students of SMU N I Slawi in the academic year of 2005/2006. The number of the population was 360 students, 11.1% of which (40 students) were taken as a sample. In this case, cluster proportional random sampling was used. The instrument consisted of a vocabulary test and a questionnaire. The vocabulary test consisted of 55 items in the form of multiple-choice test. The test was tried out first to determine its validity and reliability before it was applied.
The result of the test showed that the mean of the scores is 87.25 which equals to 87.25%. Based on this, it could be concluded that the students’ mastery of vocabulary met the criteria of Basic Course Outline (GBPP) standard and according to Tinambunan (1988), it was classified into above average achievement.
The result above may be affected by some factors. Based on the results of the questionnaire, there is one positive point that affecting the students’ mastery of vocabulary, that is teaching learning facilities. There are also some negative points why the students have not mastered the vocabulary maximally. They are teachers’ competence, teacher method of teaching, motivation and students attitude towards English. The writer suggests the English teachers of SMU N I Slawi take some strategies to improve the students’ motivation and effort in learning English and find the most appropriate technique of teaching vocabulary.
