Journal of English Language Teaching 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt 

DOI: 10.33394/jo-elt.v5i1.2296 

Volume 5 Nomor 1, Juni 2018 

online: 2548-5865, print: 2355-0309 

pp.40-48 

 

40 

 

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF VOCABULARY BUILDING STRATEGY 

IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO YOUNG LEARNERS 

Syafrizal
1)

, Haerudin
2)

 
1)

Associate Professor at University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa 
2)

Teacher at Daar El-qolam Tangerang Banten 

syafrizal@untirta.ac.id
1)

, Haerudin168@gmail.com
2)

 

 

Abstract 

Vocabulary as one of English component and it’s very important to learn. Before the 

students master the four skills they have to know some vocabularies to support them in 

learning English. English vocabulary as one of the language skill elements has an important 

role for young learners in learning foreign languages. In presenting English, especially 

vocabulary, the teacher should be creative in choosing materials and able to stimulate the 

student's interest. The teacher needs to manipulate some strategies to support the teaching 

and learning process. Teaching English for young learner is different from teaching adults in 

a way that they are often more enthusiastic, active and easily adaptive than adults. The type 

of this research is descriptive qualitative research. This research is a descriptive qualitative 

research that focuses on vocabulary building strategy in teaching vocabulary to young 

learners. It describes the technique and method used by the teacher in teaching English 

vocabulary to young learner. 

Keywords: Vocabulary, Building Strategy, Young Learner 

 

INTRODUCTION 

Teaching English has developed 

dramatically in the recent years. because 

globalization impact and everyone should 

understand English as their International 

language. The development of English 

education can also be seen in Indonesia, in 

which English starts to be taught earlier to 

young learner. There are four skills that 

should be mastered by students in learning 

English. They are speaking, listening, 

reading, and writing. Besides the four 

English skills, to support the mastery of the 

four language skills the students should 

have well understanding of English 

components such as vocabulary, 

pronunciation, and grammar.vocabulary is 

core component of listening, speaking, 

reading and writing. Vocabulary is very 

important to be learned by the students 

who want to master a language.  English 

vocabulary as one of the language skill 

elements has an important role for young 

learners in learning foreign languages. In 

presenting English, especially vocabulary, 

the teacher should be creative in choosing 

materials and able to stimulate the student's 

interest.  

The teacher needs to manipulate 

some strategies to support the teaching and 

learning process. Teaching English for 

young learner is different from teaching 

adults in a way that they are often more 

enthusiastic, active and easily adaptive 

than adults. Elementary school students are 

children who still like playing, so the 

teacher is expected to be imaginative and 

creative in developing their teaching 

strategy to make the English lesson more 

exiting. 

Identification of Problem  

Based on the background of the 

study, here some reasons why the 

researcher identifies the vocabulary 

mailto:syafrizal@untirta.ac.id
mailto:Haerudin168@gmail.com2


 

41 

 

building strategy in teaching vocabulary. 

First, teaching vocabulary to young learner 

is not easy. Second, teaching English for 

young learner is different from teaching 

adults. 

Problem Statements  

Based on the background of the 

study, the researcher formulates some 

problems as follows: (1) How is the 

implementation of vocabulary building 

strategy in teaching English vocabulary to 

young learners at pesantren Daar el-qolam 

3? (2) What are the problems of 

implementation of vocabulary building 

strategy in teaching English vocabulary to 

young learners at pesantren Daar el-qolam 

3? (3) How is the problems solving of the 

implementation of vocabulary building 

strategy in teaching English vocabulary to 

young learners at pesantren Daar el-qolam 

3? 

Review of Related Literature 

Teaching Strategy  

Strategies are steps or action a taken 

for the purpose of winning a war, another 

definition of strategy is an effort to achieve 

success goal. In an education context, J. R 

David in Hamruni, stated that strategy is a 

plan, method, or series of activities 

designed to achieve a particular 

educational goal. 

According to (Hamruni, 2009) the 

components of teaching strategy are 

consisting of:  Teacher is teaching agent so 

that in this matter teacher is the important 

point. Teacher can manipulate other 

components of teaching strategy to be 

variations. But the other components of 

teaching strategy cannot manipulate the 

teacher; Student is component that does 

study program to improve ability to reach 

study purposes; Purpose is base to 

determine strategy, material, media and 

teaching evaluation. So that, in teaching 

strategy, determining purpose is the first 

thing that must choose by the teacher; 

Teaching material is media to reach 

teaching purpose. According to (suharsini, 

1990) teaching material is core component 

in teaching process; Method is a 

generalized set of classroom specification 

for accomplishing linguistic objectives. 

Methods tend to be concerned primarily 

with teacher and student role and behaviors 

and secondarily with such features as 

linguistics and subject matter objectives, 

sequencing and materials. They are almost 

always thought of as being broadly 

applicable to variety of audiences in a 

variety of contexts; Media is the plural 

form of the term “medium”. Media 

includes many things around us, like 

television, computer, picture, radio, and 

newspaper. In education, there are the 

certain media used in teaching learning 

process to convey the knowledge to 

students. this called by the media 

education; Evaluation is component to 

know the result teaching-learning process, 

so that teacher can know the result of 

expectation. Evaluation can be summative 

and formative; Environment influence 

teacher in decides teaching strategy. 

Situation in this matter means situations 

and physical condition, such as: climate, 

school, location, facilitation, and others. 

Vocabulary 

Vocabulary can be defined as '' 

words we must know to communicate 

effectively; words in speaking (expressive 

vocabulary) and words in listening 

(receptive vocabulary)'' (Neuman, S. B., & 

Dwyer, J., 2009). (Thorburry, 2002) 

“Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as 

the words we teach in the foreign 

language. However, a new item of 



 

42 

 

vocabulary may be more than just a single 

word: for example, post office, and 

mother-in-law, which are made up of two 

or three words but express a single idea.  

There are two types of vocabulary, 

they are active and passive vocabulary 

(Read, 2000). While learning new words, 

people need a lot of practice and context 

connections to learn them well, store the 

vocabulary in the memory and recall it 

when speaking or writing. Thus two main 

groups of person’s vocabulary are active 

and passive vocabulary. 

The Teacher’s Vocabulary Strategies 

Similarly, searching for theoretical 

background and, at the same time, for 

practical advice for this investigation, by 

(Virginia French, 1983) was found most 

useful in this area since it is devoted 

entirely to the presentation and 

exemplification of practical techniques in 

the teaching of vocabulary. 

There are several strong reasons for 

which the vocabulary components of 

language course need to be carefully 

planned. Firstly, because different 

vocabulary gives a greatly different return 

for learning, it is important to make sure 

that learner has a good control of high-

frequency words of the language before 

moving on the less frequent vocabulary. 

Secondly, most language teaching course 

makes vocabulary learning more difficult 

that it should be as a result of the way 

vocabulary in the course is sequenced. 

Grouping, opposites, synonyms, and items 

in a lexical set together courses. 

Young Learners 

There are many statements about 

meaning of Young Learners. “Young 

learners are convinced as students of 

English between age of 7 and 15”. The 

young learners are students who are 

studying in Elementary or Senior High 

School aging 7-15 and they studied 

English as second language.  

In learning a foreign language, 

children and adults have different 

perceptions because they have different 

characteristic. Children are more 

enthusiastic than adults. Moreover, they 

like to please their teacher but they can 

lose their interest easily in the materials 

given (Cameron, 2001) stated that children 

have a number of characteristics that 

teachers of English need to keep in mind 

when they are planning to set up activities. 

They are high motivated, enthusiastic and 

lively learners. 

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

The Research Design 

The type of this research is 

descriptive qualitative research. This 

research is a descriptive qualitative 

research that focuses on vocabulary 

building strategy in teaching vocabulary to 

young learners. It describes the technique 

and method used by the teacher in teaching 

English vocabulary to young learner in 

pesantren Daar el-qolam 3. 

Research Setting  

Place of Research  

The research was carried out at 

pesantren Daar el-qolam 3which are 

located at pangkat, Jayanti, Tangerang.  

Daar el-qolam is one of pesantren in 

Banten.  

Time of Research  

The researcher conducted the 

research from 1 may 2018. Before to the 

study conducted, researchers have 

conducted a pre-research on the 9 May 

2018. 

 



 

43 

 

Subject and Object of  Research  

There are two subjects of the study in 

this research the teachers and the students, 

firstly is the seventh-grade students and the 

teacher who taught English vocabulary.  

The researcher took seventh-grade students 

as the sample. Whereas, the participants of 

this study are teacher and students of the 

seventh grade of pesantren Daar el-qolam 

3. 

Research Instrument  

The instrument of the research is the 

researcher himself because it is descriptive 

qualitative research. The researcher during 

the entire process of the researcher takes 

roles as a designer, data collector, analyst, 

data interpreter, and result reporters of the 

research (Moleong, 2001). The instruments 

used for gathering the data were; 

observation, interview, and documentation. 

Research Data Collection  

Observation  

In this observation, the subject of 

observation is teacher and student’s 

activities in teaching English vocabulary 

class. It focuses on the vocabulary building 

strategy in teaching vocabulary. The 

observation is done by the researcher in the 

seventh grade of junior high school in 

pesantren Daar el-qolam 3. 

Interview   

The researcher adds the document by 

conducting interview with the English 

teacher and student of pesantren Daar el-

qolam 3 recorded using audio recording. 

The researcher asks the teachers and 

students about the condition of the class 

and how does the learning process occurs. 

Documentation  

Document refers to materials such as 

photographs, videos, films, memos, letters, 

diaries, clinical case records and 

memorabilia of all short that can be used as 

supplemental information as part of study 

whose main data source is participant 

observation or interviewing. 

Research Data Analysis  

In analyzing the data, the researcher 

used the descriptive method. To describe 

the teacher’s strategies in improving 

students writing. 

 

FINDING AND DISCUSSION 

Finding Description  

This part presents the research 

findings which the researcher found in the 

field by doing observation and interview. It 

related to the teacher’s strategies in 

teaching vocabulary at pesantren Daar el-

qolam 3. After the researcher investigated 

the teacher’s strategies in teaching 

vocabulary, finally, the researcher got 

some data. The following researcher 

presents the findings of the study that are 

divided into three findings:  

The implementation of Vocabulary 

Teaching Building Strategies  

The material used by the teacher in 

teaching vocabulary at the seventh-grade 

students of pesantren Daar el-qolam 

3.Material in teaching occupies a very 

important position of the overall 

curriculum, which should be prepared for 

the implementation of learning to achieve 

the target. The teacher uses the material to 

develop the student’s ability and 

knowledge and hopefully, it should help 

the students to understand the lesson 

easily. Then the material should be 

appropriate with the lesson plan and 

syllabus. The material as follow: Hospital, 

Food and Drinks, Times, Clothes and 

Color, and Thing in the Bedroom.   

The media used by the teacher in 

teaching vocabulary at the seventh-grade 



 

44 

 

students of pesantren Daar el-qolam 3. 

Based on the observation and interview 

with the English teacher, the researcher 

found that there are some media used by 

the teacher in teaching vocabulary. Media 

plays an important role in a teaching and 

learning process. the use of media is very 

needed to teach the purposes of teaching 

and learning and it should be various. The 

using of media will increase the probability 

that students will learn more and the 

knowledge will retain better in their mind. 

There are some media used by the teacher 

in teaching:  

Picture 

One of the media that the teacher 

used in teaching is picture. Using picture in 

teaching is very needed by the teacher 

especially in teaching vocabulary. Based 

on the observation that the researcher did 

on Wednesday, 4 May 2018 at the seventh 

grade, that was touch by Mrs. Ojah, 

researcher found that the teacher use 

picture in teaching vocabulary, let see for 

example in material about Clothes and 

Color. 

Realia / Real Thing  

On of media that the teacher used in 

teaching is real thing. One way of 

presenting words is to bring the things into 

the classroom or bringing into room. 

Words like o’clock, jacket, etc. can 

obviously present in her way. Based on the 

observation at the third-grade students of 

pesantren Daar el-qolam 3. that was touch 

by Mrs. Ojah on Wednesday, 9 May 2018, 

she teaches the students by using real 

things when she explained about times. she 

took watch then he said, “it is 7 o’clock”. 

Based on the interview with the teachers 

and students, the teachers said that they 

often use real thing in teaching vocabulary.  

 

Video  

Based on the observation, the 

researcher found that the teacher uses 

video as one of the media in teaching. On 

that day the teacher shows video, that is 

about thing in the bedroom. It was done in 

order to give the students clear 

understanding about it. 

Student English Book  

Student’s English book is one of 

media that use by the teacher. Student’s 

English book is very needed by the 

teachers and also by the students. Student’s 

English book contains the material that the 

teacher uses in teaching. The Student’s 

English book or students supplementary 

book from the other. 

In addition, the students also more 

interest with the lesson if the teacher uses 

multimedia in the class. The use of LCD 

also makes the students do not feel bored 

in learning English, even they look more 

active during the lesson. It can be seen 

when the teacher teaches thing in the 

bedroom. The teacher uses LCD to show 

their video. 

The technique of vocabulary building 

strategy used by the teacher in teaching 

vocabulary at the seventh-grade 

students of pesantren Daar el-qolam 3. 

Based on the interview with the 

English teacher and also from the 

observation the researcher found that there 

are some techniques that the teacher used 

in teaching vocabulary. The technique that 

the teacher used such translation, 

memorization, playing games and also sing 

a song. The teacher often asked the student 

to come to in front of the class and answer 

the question on the white board. Here are 

the explanations of the techniques above:  

 

 



 

45 

 

Translation  

One technique that usually used in 

teaching vocabulary is translation. In 

translating the meaning of the words, the 

teacher had applied indirectly and directly. 

There are various ways applied by the 

teacher in translating the word’s meaning. 

Based on the observation in 1 may, the 

researcher found that the teacher used two 

languages when she explained words in 

teaching process. The teacher doesn’t 

explain the material full in English. Based 

on the observation, the researcher found 

that the teacher used Indonesian translation 

in explaining words meaning. 

Memorization  

The teacher also often motivates the 

students to always study hard. They also 

often asked the students to memorize a lot 

of vocabulary. If the students have a lot of 

vocabulary, the teacher believes that the 

students will have a good score in English. 

The teacher use memorization in teaching. 

The teacher asked the students to 

memorize the words that she has written on 

the whiteboard but the students must close 

their book.  

Playing Games  

Other activities that support the 

student’s vocabulary were games activities. 

The students will be interesting and also 

not feel bored with the lesson. In word 

games, the teacher taught by presenting 

pictures such as picture clothes, thing in 

the bedroom or time. Here, the teacher 

gave picture to the students, then asked 

them to describe the picture. So, other 

students could understand or found the 

meaning of vocabulary based on the 

picture. Through that word games, the 

students could learn vocabulary in more 

joyful ways. It also increased their 

motivation to learn vocabulary. 

The problem in the implementation of 

vocabulary building strategy at the 

seventh grade 

Seventh-grade students of pesantren 

Daar el-qolam 3 Based on the observation, 

there are some factors that make problem 

in teaching and learning vocabulary. The 

problem derived from two aspects. They 

are from the teacher, the students. The 

detail of the problems described as follow:  

The teacher  

The first problem can be derived 

from the teacher itself. The problems make 

the teacher can’t teach their students 

effectively. The teacher’s problem in 

motivates and less creative in giving 

material. The teacher’s problem described 

follow: 

The teacher has problem in 

motivating the students to learn vocabulary 

and less creative, Sometimes the teacher 

has problem in motivating the students. 

Motivation is very important to the 

students. Based on the observation, the 

researcher found that the teacher always 

tries to motivate the students but 

sometimes the teacher feels hard to 

motivate the students and the teacher less 

creative in learning process. So, the some 

of the students became lazy in learning 

English especially in learning vocabulary 

and finally they more like to play with 

their friends or make something else 

activity.  

Sometimes the teacher also has a 

problem to manage the classroom. The 

teacher got difficult to manage the class 

because every student has different 

characteristic. Based on the observation, 9 

May 2018 that was touch by Mrs Ojah, the 

researcher found that some of the students 

make a noisy or the students more like to 

play with their friends during the lesson. 



 

46 

 

The teacher was difficult to control the 

class. So, the teaching-learning process 

didn’t run well. 

The Students  

The second problems can be divided 

from the students. The problem of the 

students may be problematic because 

usually the students have more than one 

problem in learning English. The problem 

from the students described as follow: 

The class environment also gives the 

big influence to the students, if most of the 

students in that class are smart the other 

students will grow smart also but if most of 

the students in that class have low score in 

English, usually it will be affected to the 

other students. based on the observation, 9 

May 2018 at pesantren Daar el-qolam 3, 

the researcher found that some of students 

more like to chat or play with their friend 

during the lesson. While, based on the 

observation in 9 May 2018 at pesantren 

Daar el-qolam that was taught by Mss. 

Ojah. 

Based on the interview that the 

researcher did with the students, the 

researcher found that some of the students 

feel hard to learn vocabulary because 

sometimes the students don’t know the 

meaning of a word in Indonesia or they 

feel hard to memorize vocabulary. Based 

on the observation and interview the 

researcher concluded that there are some 

problems of the students. The student’s 

problem such as the student’s motivation 

in learning English. Some of the students 

have low motivation in learning English; 

they often play with their friends during 

lesson. Then, some of students also have 

low confidence in practice English and 

sometimes the students feel hard to learn 

vocabulary because there may be some 

difficult words that faced by students in 

learning vocabulary. 

Table Post-test of English vocabulary 

test 

 

Table Post-test of English vocabulary 

test 

 

CONCLUSION 

According to the findings of the 

research that the researcher gathered in 

pesantren Daar el-qolam 3, especially at 

the seventh-grade students. there were the 

conclusions of the research findings:The 

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47 

 

first is about the material, teaching 

technique and the media used by the 

teacher. The material used by the teacher 

are: Hospital, Food and Drinks, Times, 

Clothes and Color, and Thing in the living 

room. The technique of vocabulary 

building strategy used by the teacher: 

translation, memorization, playing games 

and sing a song. The media used by the 

teacher: picture, real things, and student’s 

English book. The second is the problem 

faced by the teacher and student in 

teaching-learning process. 

 

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