IDENTIFYING VOCABULARY OF GRADE VIII STUDENTS AT SMPN 19 PALU

The objective of this research aims at finding out the students’ vocabulary at the grade VIII grade of SMPN 19 Palu. This research was conducted through a quantitative research design in which the results were tabulated and described. Total students were 23, based on the calculation, it is found that seven students’ score belong to the excellent category (30.43%) as the student obtained final scores ranges in 95-100; six students’ scores belong to the very good category (26.09%) as their final scores ranges in 91-94; five students’ scores belong to the good category (21.74%) as these students obtained final scores ranges in 81-90; three students belong to the fair category (13.04%) because they obtained final scores ranges in 75-80, and two students belong to the poor category (8.70%) because they obtained final scores ranges in 40-74 or below the passing grade. In conclusion, the students’ vocabulary (88.04) falls into good category. Most of the students have sufficient vocabulary when taking the test. On the other hand, there are also some students still lack of vocabulary. This was due to lack of motivation in learning English.


INTRODUCTION
Being fluent in English means a person are skilled in listening, reading, speaking and writing. Meanwhile, to complement those skills, three componenets (vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation) are also obligatory to be possessed. Vocabulary can be perceived as the starting point of acquiring fluency of a language. It is a list or a set of words. Even though we understand all the English grammatical rules, it would be pointless without knowledge of words. Further, the bigger the amount of vocabularies owned by a person, the freer he or she can speak, write, read or listen.
Vocabulary is one of language components in English, plays an important role in students' English learning itself. This is since it covers all aspects including the four skills (writing, reading, speaking and listening) related to the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. Nevertheless, it usually gets less attention from teachers of English because they think that vocabulary could be learned through experience. When learning vocabulary, the learners will get some difficulties, especially in remembering all vocabulary items that they have obtained at school because the safe capacity on average human brain. Tarigan (1987) also provides an explanation regarding to vocabulary mastery that the quality of one's language skill depends on the quality and the quantity of the vocabulary itself. In brief, the researcher can point out that the more students master the vocabulary; the better they use their language skill. Vocabulary learning takes a lot of time. Even though it needs a lot of time to study vocabulary, it still could be reached by providing some exercises to the learners and asking them to use every new vocabulary item that they have got in their daily activities like writing a letter or reading some sophisticated materials (novel, short story and newspaper). The reason why they have to use it repeatedly is because when they forget about the vocabulary item they've learned, they are able to recall it by rewriting another interesting thing.
The very basic argument why the researcher is interested in this component is that students have some difficulties in learning English vocabulary. As you could see that there are lots of ranges in English vocabulary items that will make some difficulties for the students to master. The other reason is that there is a lack of attention from teachers of English in teaching vocabulary. On the one hand, most of teachers of English only pay attention on teaching grammar rather than on teaching vocabulary. 50 | ELTS | Vol. 10 No. 1 | January-April 2022 | 48-55 Based on the explanation above, the researcher is interested in identifying students' Vocabulary. The subject of this study was VIII grade students at SMPN 19 Palu.
Several studies have been conducted previously regarding the students' vocabulary. The first study that has relation to this current study was conducted by Hasanah (2018) entitled "Analyze Students' Vocabulary Mastery at the Second Grade of MTs-TI Batu Belah in Academic Year 2016/2017." The purpose of this study was to describe how the students' vocabulary mastery. The result of the data showed that the students have fair vocabulary. The second was conducted by Mutmainah (2021). The purpose of this study aims to find out the level of students vocabulary level of students in grade X of SMA Labschool Untad Palu. Based on calculation, most students have sufficient vocabulary. Considering this, the researcher then formulates the research questions as follow: "How is the vocabulary of grade VIII students at SMPN 19 Palu?"

METHOD
This research used a quantitative research design. It is intended to identify a particular phenomenon (Ary, et al., 2010) and also provide the results in numbers. They also add that there are two reasons of using this research design. They are, first, the percentages of reported research studies are descriptive in nature. Second, when the researcher cannot get access to primary data source freely, then the descriptive method that is useful for investigating a variety of educational problems is used.
The sample of this study was taken by using convenience sampling technique. A convenience sampling is a sampling procedure to select a sample of people or units that are easiest encountered or in access (Creswell;9). The researcher used convenience sampling technique because it allows the researcher in conveniently exploring the subject or social situation under the study. Also allows the researcher to choose each student from the three classes that are accessible to be the respondent of this research. Arikunto (2006) states that sample of a research is at least 10, 20, 25, 40, 50 or 100% of the total population. By that researcher chose conveniently 23 students or 25% of population to be the sample.
The researcher used a test as the instrument to find out students' vocabulary. The multiple choice test consisted of 12 items. Every correct answer of the students was scored one point and every incorrect answer was scored zero point. The data gained from the multiple choices tests was procced, computed, and analyzed by using Identifying Vocabulary of Grade VIII Students at SMPN 19 Palu | 51 descriptive statistic. In order to calculate the results of it, the researcher used a mean score analysis and the collect data was coded according to the first research question of this study. The researcher computed the score by several steps. First, the researcher computed the individual score by using the formula below.

ΣX =
x 100 The data obtained in this research was analyzed descriptively and statistically in which the result of the test was described and tabulated. The researcher then classified the vocabulary of the students using the following criteria adapted from Margono et al (2013), Arikunto (2009), and Depdikbud (2017) as follows:

FINDINGS
The result of students' vocabulary can be seen in the table below: In result of multiple choices test are provided in Table 2, the highest point obtained by the students on the multiple choice test is 12 and the lowest one is 8. Then, in order to obtain the final score, the students' obtained score is divided by the maximum score (12)  and AS= 8 points. As the explanations for the percentages of errors provided, the researcher classified the students' levels of vocabulary in Table 3.

DISCUSSION
The result of multiple choices has been elaborated. Additionally, referring to Table 4.3, the highest score achieved by the students is 100 and the lowest score 54 | ELTS | Vol. 10 No. 1 | January-April 2022 | 48-55 obtained by the students is 66.67. As the passing grade is ≥75, there are 21 students that passed the test. Moreover, there are 2 students (8.70%) belong to poor category. In conclusion, 21 students are qualified successful and 2 others are qualified failed.
The aim of this research is to identify vocabulary of grade VIII students at SMPN 19 Palu. Then, depending on the data analysis results, it was found that most students' scores are above the passing grade in which it represents 91.3% (21 students) of the samples. It can be concluded that most of the students have sufficient vocabulary.
However, some students obtained 40-74 score in their final score which is belongs to poor category.
The role of vocabulary in learning foreign language is invitable. Sufficient vocabulary will totally help the students in learning English. To overcome that problem, it is important for the students to expand their vocabulary. The students can apply some fun strategies to help them learning vocabulary. Memorize a new word in a day is a good starting point for the students to increase their vocabulary. They can also set their goals on vocabulary learning on how many words they should be able to memorize in a day or a week. They can also try to memorize vocabulary in sentences or phrases.
With the students' scores obtained and the problem identified, the researcher then correlates the findings to the previous ones conducted by Hasanah (2018) and Mutmainah (2021). The study by Hasanah (2018) found that the average of the students achievement in vocabulary is 77 or fair category. Furthermore, the students' responses showed that 65% of the students are interested in learning English. On the other hand, 35% students are not interested in learning English. The second study by Mutmainah (2021) found that the students vocabulary mastery is affected by the lack of understanding and knowledge of the background. Moreover, level of vocabulary of the students is in good category because majority of the students obtained scores in the good category of range 81-90.

CONCLUSION
As the analysis completed, it was implied that the students' vocabulary level is in good category (88.04) or successful. Most students have sufficient vocabulary based on the test. On the other hand, there are also some students who still lack of vocabulary.
The solutions fot the students who did not succeed in the test is that to practice

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The researchers want to express the highest thank to Allah SWT who has given mercy, blessing, health, favor, and much more that the researcher could not even reckon how much favor that has been given to her by saying Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alamin. For the second, the researchers truly would like to present her deepest thanks and Shalawat to the enormous prophet, Muhammad SAW as her guider that has led Muslim from the gloomy age into the bright era. Afterward, inexpressible appreciation is sent to our families specifically for our beloved parents and sibling for their unlimited prayers, astonishing patients, endless loves, cares, helps, finances, spirit, and motivation that has helped the researcher from the beginning to this stage.