Sebuah Kajian Pustaka: English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ) Vol. 2, No. 1, 2019, pp. 32-38 E-ISSN: 2621-6485 Using Pictures for Teaching Vocabulary to the Junior High School Students Khafidhoh, Anita Carolina Universitas Ahmad Dahlan khafidhoh@pbi.uad.ac.id Abstract This research aimed at investigating the impact of using pictures for teaching vocabulary. There are various kinds of teaching media. Pictures in the form of both picture series and pairs can be chosen as the media in the instructional process. Related to the teaching vocabulary, different kinds of vocabulary require different media for teaching, including the different kinds of pictures if the teacher chooses the pictures as the teaching materials. Moreover, the impact of the pictures as the teaching media is affected by several factors. Thus, it is interesting to conduct further investigation through a research. The research belonged to the experimental study. The population was seventh-grade students of SMP N 2 Imogiri while the research groups involved the experimental and control groups. The data collection technique used was pre-test and post-test. The research data were the pre-test and post-test scores. There were several findings of this research. First, using pictures can improve the students' achievement. Besides, it can also attract the students' attention so that the students really wanted to participate in the instructional process. Keywords: impact, picture, vocabulary, experiment. How to Cite: Khafidhoh & Carolina, A. (2019). Using Pictures for Teaching Vocabulary to the Junior High School Students. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 2(1), 32-38. INTRODUCTION Vocabulary is one of the important aspects to students for mastering a certain language. It becomes the microskills in learning the language. Ur (1996) stated that vocabulary is the words taught to people when they learnt a foreign language. It means that vocabulary is used to convey the aims of people and without them people cannot say or write what they want. Moreover, Wilkins in Thornburry (2002) says that people can improve their English language more with words and expressions without concern of grammar. It means that besides mastering the grammar, mastering vocabulary is another way to master English. The fact, nowadays, is that students have low mastery of vocabulary. It can be caused by many reasons. Based on the preliminary study, one of the reasons might be caused by the absence used of media in the teaching-learning process. Moreover, the used of media might help a teacher to teach or deliver vocabulary to students. It also helps the teacher and students to achieve the goal of the learning process. According to Murcia (2001) in Silviana (2013), “media are tools or physical things used by the teacher to motivate the students by bringing a slice of real-life into the classroom and by presenting language in its more complete communication complex.” So, media have an important role in the instructional process. One of the media commonly used is the picture. A picture is a part of visual media. Visual media are everything which can be seen by the human eyes. Then, a picture can be defined as an image that is designing or describing by many sense (Merriam Webster). While according to Shing (1981) as cited in Aldhionita (2015) pictures are kinds of visual instruction material. Wright (1989) stated some kinds of pictures, they are; pictures of single item, pictures of one individual, pictures of popular individuals, photos of a few people, pictures of individuals activity, pictures of spots, pictures from origin, pictures with ELTEJ ISSN: 2621-6485 ◼ Khafidhoh & Carolina 33 a lot of data, photos of the news, pictures of fictions, pictures of maps and symbol, sets of pictures, pictures and scrips, single stimulating photos, bizarre photos, and explanatory photos. Then, Wright (1989) stated that pictures contribute to interest and motivation. Moreover, pictures can be an illustration of the objects (thing, people, animal, etc.) that the teachers cannot take the real object into the class directly. Pictures help students understanding the unfamiliar word. They help students to illustrate or understand the meaning of words. Thus, pictures can be good visual media in the instructional process. From the previos studies, most of the finding of using picture showed a positive result. Based on Astuti (2014) and on Soviyah and Purwaningtias (2018), pictures can improve students' score of the test. However, there is also the result variation of using pictures for teaching vocabulary based on students' background in the learning process. In line with the statement, the context which is mostly related to the setting of the research plays the keyrole in conducting the research. In this case, the researchers choose a certain junior high school as the setting of this research. This is what makes this study different from the previous one. As this research focused on the impact of using the pictures in the instructional process, there would be two probabilities to happen as the research findings. The first would be the fact that the pictures is effective to use in the instructional process. The second, the fact might be the use of pictures isn’t effective to apply in the instructional process. Teaching English for Young Learners In the learning process, students become one of the important elements. According to experts, the age range of young learners is varied. Pinter (2011) classifies three groups of young learners. The first group is children who have the age range about 3-5 years old and they at pre-school, the second group is children at primary school and the age about 6-12 years old and they finish primary school at about 11 or 12 years old, but in some other countries they graduate at 13 or 14 years old. Pinter mentions that early teenagers are children who have an age of 13 years old onwards. Pinter (2011) in Puskás (2016) claimed that in Slovakia, children at the age of 6 or 7 years old begin their primary school and graduate at around 15 years old, while the elementary school is usually divided into lower and upper primary ages. It means that children at 13 years old are still in elementary school and do not continue to secondary school yet. Then, every person has his/her characteristics. Young learners have different characters from adults. Generally, young learners are easy to learn something new and they prefer to do the action or learn from real things. According to Pinter (2006) cited in Juhana (2014), the curiosity that young learners have to try and explore new things is very high. Scrivener (2011) explains the characteristics of young learners. He stated that young learners are keen, noisy, curious, have low attention, like to experiment, have a sense of humor and like to have fun. They can't concentrate for very long time span and always want to learn new things. However, in learning English children don’t prosper to respond and work on language components like grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Children may not understand English as a whole, but they may understand by doing interesting activities, games, and tasks. Scrivener (2011) also explains how to consider when teaching young learners (middle and higher primary). The first, teaching English to young learners, teachers not only just talk, but they should use pictures, models, short videos, drawing on the board, and toys. The second keeps the focus of the children's and use things that they understand rather than abstract things. The third, don't expect immediate (or even long-term) student use of English. Just keep using English. The fourth, find tasks and activities that are exciting and motivating them. 34 ◼ E-ISSN: 2621-6485 Teaching Vocabulary The important aspect of learning English is vocabulary. Everything that people want to say and write needs words or vocabulary. The description of vocabulary by Hornby (1995) in Sholihah (2009) is that vocabulary is the list of words in a language. While Ur (1996) says vocabulary as the words taught to people when they learn a foreign language. Vocabulary has an important function in English because it will be the basic skills before getting other skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Vocabulary is used to convey the meaning, the opinion, and the aim of someone. Wilkins in Thornbury (2002) says that people just can say little with grammar but they almost can say anything with word. If people just spend their time to learn grammar, their English will not improve, they will see the progress if they learn about words and expressions. Pictures as Instructional Media Media is a tool in teaching and learning. Media help the teachers to convey materials to students. Learning media can be a hard file or soft file. Moreover, picture is a part of visual media. Visual media are everything that can be seen by eyes. Then, according to Merriam Webster, "a picture is a design or representation made by various means (such as painting, drawing, or photography). While according to Shing (1981) cited in Aldhionita (2015) pictures are kinds of visual instruction material. According to Wright (1989), there are some types of pictures; pictures of single objects, pictures of one person, pictures of several people, pictures of famous people, pictures of people in action, pictures of places, pictures from history, pictures with a lot of information, pictures of the news, pictures of fantasies, pictures of maps and symbol, pairs of pictures, pictures and texts, single stimulating pictures, bizarre pictures, and explanatory pictures. Media have important roles in the teaching-learning process. The use of media can help teacher and students to achieve the aims of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, media support teachers' explanation and help students to understand the materials or the lesson. A picture is one type of media that have important roles in the teaching-learning process. It's beneficial to the teacher, especially in learning English. According to Werff (2019) pictures have many functions, with pictures teachers and students can practice structures of grammatical, practice comprehension of listening, do activities of writing, do the free practice of speaking (likes problem-solving activities, role plays, discussions, etc.), do guided practice (drills), and teach, practice, or review new vocabulary. Wright (1989) also states that pictures play a role in interest and motivation, a sense of language context, and a specific reference point or stimulus. Furthermore, Wright (1989) also states some roles of pictures in speaking and writing skills. First, they can motivate students, and make students want to participate and give their attention. Second, pictures contribute to the use of language context. Pictures bring the world into the classroom (such as a specific object like a train). Third, pictures can be used to describe the object in an objective way (this is a train) or interpreted (it’s probably a local train) or respond subjectively (I like traveling by train). Fourth, pictures can give responses to questions or substitutions through controlled practice. The last, pictures can stimulate and give information to be referred in conversation, storytelling, and discussion. RESEARCH METHOD The purpose of the research is to investigate the impacts of using pictures for teaching vocabulary to the seventh grade of Junior High School. So, this study is an experimental study. The goal of this method is to determine the cause and effect relation between one variable (independent variable) and another variable (dependent variable), in line with the theory proposed by Shadish William R., Cook Thomas D., Campbell, (2002), “an ELTEJ ISSN: 2621-6485 ◼ Khafidhoh & Carolina 35 experiment is a study in which an intervention is deliberately introduced to observe its effects.” The researchers used or applied two groups as the sample of this study. The first is the experimental group taught by using pictures and the second is the control group taught without using pictures. The research design can be followed: Table 1. The Design of the Research Group Pre-test Treatment Post-test Experimental    Control  -  Moreover, in giving the treatment, the only way used by the researchers is giving pictures to the students by using cards. The cards contain several vocabularies related to the students’ daily life. The vocabulary is also suitable with the basic competence that the teacher should teach to the students, such as about jobs. Related to the ‘job’ as the topic of the materials, the researchers give some cards mentioning kinds of job to the students, such as police, doctor, teacher, seller, etc. The population is total members of people, animal, phenomenon, or thing that stay together in one place (Sukardi, 2011), whereas the sample is a quantity or group of the population. This research population is the seventh-grade students of SMP N 2 Imogiri and the sample involves two classes of all the classses. Random sampling is used to determine the research sample. The population and samples are chosen based on the researcher’s experience during the internship program. Pre-test and post-test were used for collecting the data. The pre-test is the first step to gather the data. It was conducted before the students got the treatment. The second step is post-test. It was used to gather the data after students got treatment. The data from the pre and post tests are then analyzed in the next step. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION From Table 2, the pre-test and post-test mean score of the experimental group are 63.04 and 90.54. Then, the std.deviation is 21.872 and 6.714. While the pre-test and post-test mean score of the control group are 70 and 84.29. The std.deviation is 18.527 and 10.248. Table 2. Pre-test and Post-test Data Description Group Pre-test Post-test Mean Score Standard Deviation Mean Score Standard Deviation Experimental Group 63.04 21.872 90.54 6.714 Control Group 70 18.527 84.29 10.248 From Table 3, the mean score of the experimental group increases 27.5 from 63.05 in pre-test up to 90.54 in post-test, while the mean score of the control group increases 14.29 from 70 in pre-test up to 84.29 in post-test. There is a significant difference between both groups. The mean differences of pre-test between both groups is 6.96, and the post-test was 6.25. The mean difference of the experimental group is higher than the one of the control group. Table 3. The Mean Difference between Pre-test and Post-test Group N Mean of Pre-test Mean of Post-test Mean Difference Experimental 28 63.04 90.54 27.5 Control 28 70 84.29 14.29 Mean Difference 6.96 6.25 13.21 36 ◼ E-ISSN: 2621-6485 From Table 4 on output "independent samples test" on the "equal variances assumed," the Sig. (2-tailed) is 0.009. It means that the Sig. is lower than 0.05 (0.009 < 0.05). Moreover, according to the hypothesis test criterion that the Sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05 means the Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted. So, it can be said that there is a significant difference in students’ vocabulary achievement between the experimental group and the control group. Thus, the hypothesis of this study was accepted. Table 4. The Result of the Hypothesis Test t-test for equality of means t Df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean difference Std. Error difference Post- test Equal variances asssumed -2.699 54 .009 -6.250 2.315 Equal variances not assumed -2.699 46.570 .010 -6.250 2.315 The experimental group of this study was the seventh graders of class D. In this group the researcher taught using pictures. After getting the treatment, the students’ vocabulary achievement significantly improved. The pre-test mean score is 63.04 and the post-test mean score is 90.54, it means that their mean score increases 27.5. This fact is supported by Astuti (2014), in her research finding that picture can improve students’ scores of test and students’ achievement. Related to the writing skill, some experts agree that the use of pictures can stimulate the writing skill of the students. Raimes (1983) stated that pairs of pictures or picture series provide for a variety of guided and free writing exercises. Picture series is helpful for teaching writing text which includes series of events or activities. For example, the teacher can use pictures series to teach narrative or recount text. In narrative text, there are several parts which are orientation, complication, resolution, and reorientation. The flow of the story in a narrative text can be represented by series of pictures showing the illustration of the story. Next, in recount text, it has orientation and series of events. The series of event can be represented by the series of pictures in the instructional process. In the other hand, paires of pictures can be used to teach the language aspect one by one in detail. For example, it can be used to teach some parts of speech. In teaching nouns, the teacher may give several pictures showing the illustration of the goods. Then, for teaching verbs, the pictures can show the illustration of the activities. Moreover, for teaching adjectives, the teacher can give some pictures related to the time, place, and so on. Next, for the adjectives, the pictures can show the illustration of the related adjectives. In this research, types of the picture used during the research are pairs of pictures and in fact it is helpful to teach some kinds of occupation. It means that there is interconnection between the theories and the fact found by the researchers through this research. Moreover, the use of pictures in the instructional process during this research is beneficial. It can be drawn the attention of students, students want to participate in the learning process, work in pairs, enjoy and have fun in the learning process. This statement is in line with Wright (1989) that pictures play a role in interest and motivation. Therefore, pictures have a good impact to teach vocabulary to the seventh-grade students of SMP N 2 Imogiri. Then, the seventh graders of class F were the control group. In this group, they were taught without pictures. The mean scores of pre-test and post-test of this group also increase. The pre-test mean score was 70 and the post-test mean score was 84.29, it means the increase was 14.29. The situation or atmosphere in the learning process of the control ELTEJ ISSN: 2621-6485 ◼ Khafidhoh & Carolina 37 group is different from the one in the experimental group. During the research, students in this group are lazy and have low motivation in learning English. Only some students wanted to participate in the learning process. According to the explanation above, pictures have impacts on teaching vocabulary. It can be proved from the post-test mean differences of experimental group and control group. The post-test mean score of the experimental group is higher than the control group. The mean differences of post-test of both groups were 6.25. Hypothesis test also indicated that there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement of students (Sig.>0.05 = 0.009>0.05). Moreover, it can be concluded that pictures are more effective and have a good impact to teach vocabulary. It can be proved from the students' achievement that the experimental group who accepted the treatment is higher than the control group who didn't receive the treatment. This is supported by Wright (1990) that pictures can motivate students to give their attention and to participate in the instructional process. CONCLUSION The research objective is to know the impact of using pictures for teaching vocabulary and to find out the difference in vocabulary achievement of students between both groups. In the experimental group taught with pictures, the mean score of pre-test was 63.04 and the mean score of post-test was 90.54. So, the increase in the mean score of the group is 27.5. While in the control group taught without pictures, the mean score increased 14.29 from 70 in pre-test up to 84.29 in post-test. Then, the hypothesis testing or t-test [Sig. (2-tailed)<0.05 = 0.009<0.05] indicated that there is a significant difference between both groups. This statement is supported by Sujarweni (2014; 99) who stated if the Sig. (2-tailed) < 0.05 the Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted, it means there is a significant difference between both groups. Thus, teaching vocabulary using pictures to the seventh-grade students of SMP N 2 Imogiri is effective and pictures have good impacts. REFERENCES Aldhionita, L. 2015. A study on teaching vocabulary using pictures to the seventh grade students at SMP Muhammadiyah Kediri academic year 2014/2015. Kediri: Artikel Skripsi Universitas Nusantara PGRI Kediri, page 1-9. Astuti, Desi Sri. 2014. Teaching vocabulary by using pictures to the second year students of SMP Negeri 1 Embaloh Hilir Kapuas Hulu in academic year 2007/2008. Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa Vol. 3, No. 2, page 189-200. Juhana. 2014. Teaching English to young learners: Some points to be considered. Asian Journal of Education and E-learning Vol. 02, page 43-44. Pinter, A. 2011. Children learning second languages. London: Palgrave Macmillan Raimes, A. 1983. Techniques in teaching writing. New York: Oxford University Press. Scrivener, J. 2011. Learning teaching, The essential guide to English language teaching. MacMilan Education. Sholihah, H. 2009. Teaching English vocabulary using pictures to the fifth grade students of SDN Tugu Jebres No. 120 Surakarta. Surakarta: English Diploma Program Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts, Sebelas Maret University. 38 ◼ E-ISSN: 2621-6485 Silviana, Dilla. 2013. The Use of jigsaw II technique and still pictures combination to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. Semarang: Journal of English Language Teaching. Soviyah. & Purwaningtias, Y.(2018). Old but gold: The use of picture cues to teach writing (An experimental research). English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 1(1), 38-48. Sujarweni, Wiratna. 2014. SPSS untuk penelitian. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Baru Press. Retrieved from https://www.spssindonesia.com/2015/05/cara-uji-independent- sample-t-test-dan.html Sukardi. 2011. Metodologi penelitian pendidikan. Jakarta: Bumi Aksara. Thornbury, S. 2002. How to teach vocabulary. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Ur, P. 1996. A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Werff. 2019. Using pictures from magazines in ESL classes. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. IX, No. 7, July 2003. Wright, A. 1989. Pictures for language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.spssindonesia.com/2015/05/cara-uji-independent-sample-t-test-dan.html https://www.spssindonesia.com/2015/05/cara-uji-independent-sample-t-test-dan.html