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 ELT FORUM 5 (1) (2016) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

THE USE OF CHARADE GAME TO TEACH VOCABULARY 

(An Experimental Study of the Seventh Graders of MTs. Miftahul Khoirot 

Branjang in the Academic Year of 2014/2015) 

 

Nur Rohmah Hidayati 

 

English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Semarang. 

 

Aticle Info 

________________ 
Article History: 

Received in February 

2016 

Approved in March 2016 

Published in April 2016 

________________ 
Keywords: 

Charade Game, Vocabulary, 

Experimental Research. 

____________________ 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 
This article is about the use of charade game to teach vocabulary in the seventh graders of MTs. Miftahul Khoirot 

Branjang in the academic year of 2014/2015. This research is conducted by using quasi-experimental design. 

The population is all seventh graders of MTs. Miftahul Khoirot Branjang in the academic year of 2014/2015. 

The researcher chooses 54 students from two classes as the sample of the study, 27 students as experimental groups 

and 27 students as control group. In the pre-test, the average score of experimental group is 59.70 and the average 

score of control group is 57.63. Then, the experimental group is taught by using charade game whereas the control 

group is taught by using conventional method. The results from post-tests show that the average score of 

experimental group is 87.26 whereas the average score of the control group is 79.26. After calculating by t-test, 

the result of the t-value is 3.05 and t-table is 2.006. The t-value of the post test is higher than the critical value 

means that statistically there is significant difference between two groups. Since the experimental group gets 

higher average scores (87.26 > 79.26), it can be concluded that teaching vocabulary using charade game results 

better achievement. 

 

© 2016 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Correspondent Address:  

   B3 Building  FBS Unnes  

   Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 

   E-mail: nuro3333@yahoo.com 

 

 

 

 

 

ISSN 2252-6706 



 

Nur Rohmah Hidayati / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

2 

INTRODUCTION 

In learning foreign language that must be 

focused first is learning vocabulary. David 

Wilkins in Thornbury (2002) stated that “without 

grammar very little can be conveyed, without 

vocabulary nothing can be conveyed... You can 

say very little with grammar, but you can say 

almost anything with words”. McCarthy (1990:8) 

said, “No matter how well the students learns 

grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds 

of L2 are mastered, without words to express a 

wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 

just cannot happen in any meaningful way”. 

From the statement, it is clear that vocabulary 

takes very important role in language. Then, 

learning vocabulary in the beginning of English 

learning is a must. 

Vocabulary keeps growing and learning it 

is challenging. What teacher should do to help 

learners in developing learners’ vocabulary is 

developing their love for vocabulary learning. 

Teachers must be creative in teaching vocabulary 

because students often have no interest in 

learning English especially vocabulary. One of 

the techniques for teaching vocabulary is using 

media. One of the functions of teaching using 

media is to increase the students’ motivation. By 

using media during teaching-learning process, it 

is hoped that the teacher will be able to motivate 

the students to learn and pay attention to the 

material the teacher presents.  

Changing the feeling that English is 

difficult and boring should be directed. So, 

teachers have to apply the appropriate method or 

media in teaching vocabulary based on students’ 

level. Students should enjoy and have fun in 

learning vocabulary. Besides game as a media 

that can provide context in learning vocabulary, 

it is also challenging and provides enjoyment in 

teaching and learning process. 

Based on the writer’s experience in practice 

teaching, the writer’s students tend to have 

insufficient vocabulary mastery. They are also 

reluctant to learn English, let alone to develop 

vocabulary mastery. Although students realize 

the importance of vocabulary when learning 

English, most of them learn it passively because 

of several factors. First, the students are difficult 

to understand teacher’s explanation. Second, the 

students usually only acquire new vocabulary 

through new words in their textbooks or when 

given by teachers during the lesson. Third, the 

students are reluctant to memorize words. It can 

be said that the students do not have motivation 

to learn new vocabulary. Conversely, they are 

motivated when they are invited to learn English 

in a game. Games can catch their attention and 

increase their motivation with the spirits of 

competition. Therefore, here, the writer does an 

experiment to help students to improve their 

vocabulary mastery through charade game.  

 

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 

Definition of Vocabulary 

Because the research is related with 

vocabulary, it is important to know what is meant 

by vocabulary. There are many definitions of 

what vocabulary is. According to Linse 

(2006:121) “vocabulary is the collection of words 

that an individual knows”. It refers to all the 

words in a language, the entire vocabulary of a 

language (Barcroft, 2011: 571). In Oxford 

Advanced Learners’Dictionary (1995:1331), 

vocabulary is defined as “all the words that a 

person knows or uses, or a list of words with their 

meanings, especially in a book for learning a 

foreign language”. In addition, Rafinggi (2013: 2) 

stated that “vocabulary is a collection of words 

used in the language to communicate”. From the 

definition above, it comes to a conclusion that 

vocabulary is all of words used to communicate 

in a language that not all of them are known by 

everyone because everyone’s vocabulary is some 

of all words that he or she knows in a language. 

In addition, when an individual has his or her 

vocabulary, he or she has collection of words that 

the amount of words is different from every 

individual.  

 

Teaching Vocabulary 

Teaching is guiding, facilitating learning, 

enabling the learner to learn, and setting the 

condition for learning (Brown, 2000:7). As stated 

before that learning vocabulary is the basic of 

learning English, teachers’ role is as a bridge to 

help their students to learn vocabulary. Wilga 



 

Nur Rohmah Hidayati / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

3 

Rivers in Thornburry (2002: 144) offers ways to 

teach vocabulary.  

Vocabulary cannot be taught. It can be 

presented, explained, included in all kinds of 

activities, and experienced in all manner of 

associations … but ultimately it is learned by the 

individual. As language teachers, we must arouse 

interest in words and a certain excitement in 

personal development in this area … we can help 

our students by giving them ideas on how to 

learn, but each will finally learn a very personal 

selection of items, organized into relationships in 

an individual way.  

It tells that to teach vocabulary for 

students, teachers only can help direct them how 

to learn and find the meaning of vocabulary either 

by presenting, explaining, or including in all 

kinds of activities, or by experiencing in all 

manner of associations to it. The thing is to make 

them interested in learning vocabulary. Then, 

teaching is a process of helping learners how to 

learn themselves.  As teachers, what must be 

done in teaching vocabularies is motivating 

learners to be interested in words. 

 

Charade Game and Conventional Method 

Charade game is a kind of game in which 

words are represented in pantomime. The idea is 

using physical rather than verbal language to 

convey meaning. Physical language like mime 

and gestures will be able to facilitate 

communication, understanding, and 

participation. Students will be more engaged and 

more likely to retain what they are taught in the 

classroom. Excitement and enthuasiasm that are 

resulted in playing charade game can drive lesson 

content and lesson delivery at the same time.  

Teare in Rafinggi (2006:76) states that 

“charade game is a technique miming the 

individual parts of a word”. It means that this 

game uses mime to know the meaning of words. 

Charade game can be conducted in pair or in 

groups. When charade game is applied in groups, 

students are encouraged to think cooperatively, it 

makes them more comfortable in conducting 

activities in the classroom and outside. In other 

words, charade game can facilitate students to 

learn vocabulary. They can learn and play 

simultaneously so that they are easy to remember 

the word. 

The procedures of charade game are as 

follows: 

1) The teacher explains the rules and 

demonstrates how charade Game works. 

2) The teacher finds one of the students to 

select one of cards provided by the 

teacher. The card contains vocabulary 

and its meaning or its picture.  

3)  The student as the one player acts out 

something specific, such as pretending or 

describing to be doing a certain activity 

such as washing, cutting, folding, and so 

on. 

4) The other students try to guess what the 

acting player is doing. 

5) Then, the teacher groups the class into 

three. In turn, each members of groups 

as one player move forward in front of 

the class to act or mime what the 

vocabulary he or she gets in order to be 

guessed by the others. 

6) Each members in teams try to guess what 

the player acts.  

7) The quickest one guessing correctly the 

vocabulary collects a point for his or her 

group. 

8)  The group with the most points is the 

winner. 

Conventional teaching is the common 

teaching method used by the teachers for carrying 

out the teaching learning process in the classroom 

situations. According to Chhabra (2013:4), “In 

this method, the teacher talk more or less 

continuously to deliver the facts and ideas worth 

remembering but the class does not converse with 

the teacher. This implies that it is one of the 

autocratic teaching strategies”. In conventional 

method, teaching vocabulary focuses on teaching 

rules and practicing it in translating. The activity 

in classroom are routines such as lecturing, 

translating activities, drills, memorizing rules, 

and isolating item or lexis. The activity lacks of 

context and practise similar to real life situation.  

 

 

 



 

Nur Rohmah Hidayati / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

4 

METHODS OF INVESTIGATION 

In conducting this study the writer uses 

quasi experimental research. Quasi experiment is 

experimental situations in which the researcher 

assigns, but not randomly, participants to groups 

because the experimenter cannot artificially 

create groups for the experiment (Cresswell, 

2012: 626). The procedures of the research are as 

follows; The researcher assigns intact groups of 

experimental and control treatments, administers 

a pre-test for both groups, conducts experimental 

treatment ( charade game) to the experimental 

group only, and then administers a post-test to 

assess the differences between the two groups. 

The treatment, charade game is only given to the 

experimental class while the control class is 

taught conventionally. The pre-test and post-test 

result of each group is calculated so that the 

researcher finds the means of the results. The 

means of scores are then compared and analyzed 

by using t-test formula in order to know whether 

or not there is significant difference between both 

groups. 

 

DISCUSSION 

The research problems of the study are: 

“how is the difference of achievement between 

students taught by using charade game and 

students taught by conventional method?”, and 

“how is the effectiveness of using charade game 

to teach vocabulary”. The research problems 

were answered by using quantitative approach. 

Before continuing the research, the try out test as 

the instrument of the research is checked whether 

it has validity and reliability or not. The result 

showed that 26 items of the try out test were said 

to be valid because rxy > r-table, and 4 items were 

said to be invalid. For example, item 1 was valid 

because its rxy was 0.544 greater than r-table 

0.388. The computation of reliability also showed 

that the test is reliable because it obtained 0.876 

greater than r-table 0.388. The pre-test is then 

conducted. On the pre-test, the experimental 

group achieved 59.70 averages, and the control 

groups achieved 57.63 averages. The averages of 

the two groups did not have significant 

differences proved by the calculation of 

normality, homogeneity, and t-test. The pre-test 

scores of the experimental groups is said to be 

normally distributed since X2 obtained 3.81 < 

7.82 as in the chi square table, and the control 

class pre-test is said to be normal since X2 

obtained 3.19 < 7.82 The pre-test result of the two 

groups is homogen since F obtained 1.008< 1.453 

as in F-tabel. The t-test calculation showed that 

there was no significance difference since t 

obtained is 0.854 < t-tabel 2.006. 

After conducting the treatment, there was 

a significant difference between the experimental 

group result and the control group result. The 

average score of the experimental group was 

87.26 higher than the result of the control group 

79.26. The variance of experimental group was 

98.83 higher than the control group 86.62. The 

post-test of the experimental group was normally 

distributed (6.28 < 7. 82) and so the post-test of 

the control class (7.46 < 7.82). The result of the 

two groups’ post test was homogen (1.14 < 1.42) 

so that t-test can be computed. The t-test 

computation indicated that after getting the 

treatment, there is significance difference (t 

obtained =3.05< 2.006 = t-table) between the 

experimental group achievement and the control 

group achievement. The first research problem 

about the difference of the two groups was 

answered, students taught by using charade game 

got better vocabulary mastery than those who 

were taught by conventional method.  

The second research problems about the 

effectiveness of using charade game to teach 

vocabulary was answered by the statement that 

charade game is effective to be used to teach 

vocabulary. It is based on the result that before 

treatment, the experimental group got score 

averages of 59.70 and after treatment they got 

average scores 87.26 compared to control group 

that got average scores 57.63  in pre-test and got 

79.26 in post-test. It showed that charade game is 

effective to be used to teach vocabulary to the 

seventh graders of MTs. Miftahul Khoirot 

Branjang. 

 

CONCLUSION 

There is a different result between students 

taught by using charade game and students taught 

by using conventional method. In pre-test, there 



 

Nur Rohmah Hidayati / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

5 

is no significant difference between the two 

groups. After treatments, post-test is conducted. 

There is a significant difference of the post test 

results, the experimental group achieves 87.26 on 

the average and the control group achieves 73.26 

on the average. From the results, the 

experimental group achieves higher score than 

the control group. 

 The use of charade game is effective to 

improve vocabulary mastery of the students. The 

t-test measurement for α = 5 % with dk = 27 + 27 

– 2 = 52 obtains 3.05 whereas the t-table obtains 

2.006. Since the t-test measurement is higher than 

t-table, it is found that the experimental group 

taught by using charade game achieved 

vocabulary mastery better than the control group.  

There are some factors that support the 

effectiveness of charade game in teaching 

vocabulary to the students. Charade game is new 

in English class for them because their teacher has 

not used it before. The game is attractive so that 

they can easily activate their memorization of 

new vocabularies they have got in playing this 

game. They feel free to be creative in acting new 

vocabularies. The game helps them learning 

vocabulary better and easier, it is proven to be one 

of the effective ways in teaching vocabulary to the 

seventh graders students. 

  

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Handbook of Applied Linguists (pp.571-583). 

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Brown, H. Douglas. 2001. Teaching by Principles (An 

interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy). 

New York: Pearson Education. 

 

Chhabra, S. And Neelam D. Comparative Study of 

Computer Assisted Instruction and 

Conventional Teaching on the Achievement of 

Pupil Teachers in Method of Teaching English 

Language. In MIER Journal of Educational 

Studies, Trends, and Practices. May 2013, 

vol.3, No. 1 pp. 107-118. Available at 

www.mierjs.in [accessed 4/1/2016) 

 

Creswell, J. W. 2012. Educational Research (Planning, 

Conducting and Evaluating Quantitative and 

Qualitative Research). Boston: Pearson 

Education. 

 

Linse, C.T. 2006.Practical English Language Teaching 

Young Learners. New York: McGraw-Hill 

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