AN ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITY ENGLISH STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
Writing is an idea that is written to be a text.Writing is one of the productive skills which need to be learned by language learners (Ratnaningsih, 2016).Writing can be defined as an activity that creates a work in the form of writing through a process of building some ideas into one form of writing.There are so many processes that must be completed by someone to create quality writing work.A good piece of writing will support us in achieving our goals in writing.Writing means creating, creating new works that come from thoughts and ideas from the writer.Therefore, it takes a broad idea and knowledge to create a new work.
As one of the four language skills, writing has always occupied a place in most English language courses.One of the reasons is that more and more people need to learn to write in English for occupational or academic purposes.Students, especially English education students generally need to learn to write to prepare themselves for the final academic assignment, thesis writing.Thus, in terms of students' needs, writing occupies an equal role with the other language skills.Therefore, writing becomes the most difficult skill to master for foreign language learners.There are so many kinds of writing.One of them is Essay Writing that will be focused on in this study.Essay Writing was chosen in this study because this course will develop so many vocabularies during the learning process in order to make a good writing.
Multiple components are involved such as punctuation and capitalization, material, rhetoric, vocabulary, grammatical structures, and writing mechanics.Those elements must be taken into account when a language learner make a writing (Aulia, 2021).
One of the most important component in writing is vocabulary, because vocabulary is the basic of any language skills.According to Yesapogu (2016), vocabulary is a collection of learned words and phrases.Vocabulary is important for mastering English since it will affect all skills to be mastered, such as writing, speaking, listening, and reading.It is supported by Shao (2016) who stated that vocabulary plays an important role in second language writing.
Vocabulary is used to compose and contain a sentence so that it becomes a correct and effective sentence.A good sentence requires a lot of vocabulary that must be arranged in such a way as to form a good sentence.In writing, a good sentence requires a broad insight to get a lot of ideas and creativity.
In addition, vocabulary will be very helpful in making a good writing.Vocabulary will indirectly make a writing process easier because the ideas will continue to emerge, which will continue to be poured through the vocabulary that is known.Mastering vocabulary will make it easier for us to compose sentence by sentence as we write, so that the writing results are interesting.Interesting ideas are also very influential on the use of vocabulary.If the idea is not interesting and monotonous, then the vocabulary used is usually not increased.However, if the idea is interesting, the result of writing will continue to develop with a vocabulary that is widely used in writing, and will be more creative in writing.
Furthermore, in writing, vocabulary is needed to develop what will be written.Lack of vocabulary mastery will greatly affect the writing results.Knowledge in vocabulary is often viewed as a critical tool for foreign language learning and impedes successful communication (Ebrahimi, Azhideh, & Aslanabadi, 2015).To improve ability of communication with other people, it is needed to improve knowledge of vocabulary.If someone has a lot of vocabulary, it will help them to communicate with others.However, on the other hand, if a person has a lack of vocabulary, it will make it difficult for him to communicate with others since they can not express the idea using the right words.It is important to use vocabulary correctly, taking into account both the denomination and connotation of the word (Mallia, 2017).Therefore, increasing knowledge about vocabulary is very important.Unfortunetly many students still face many difficulties in writing such as the ideas are not interesting, some mistakes in choosing words, do not understand the generic structure, difficulties in making a good and correct sentence because of the lack of ability in grammar, etc. thosse problems affect students' vocabulary development in EFL classroom.
Vocabulary development is the process of acquiring new words in a text.There are some ways to improve vocabulary.Developing the reading habit to build new vocabulary is the easiest way to ecounter words in context, seeing words in a novel or a newspaper article can be far more beneficial than seeing them on vocabulary lists.Not only exposed to new words, but also see how they are used.In addition, students also can use a dictionary or thesaurus.Online dictionaries and thesauruses are valuable resources.They can help recall synonyms that would be better words in the context of writing.A complete dictionary definition can also teach about antonyms, root words, and related words, which is another way to expand the vocabulary.It is possible to have a large vocabulary without knowing how to use it.This means that we must use personal dictionary on the initiative or communicate with new words in conversation and make a point of using an interesting word that come across in the reading in conversation.
Experimenting in low-stakes situations allows us to practice the art of word choice and, with some trial and error, hone in on the right word for a specific context.
There are so many factors that affect someone's English skills as well, esspecially the writing skills.Some factors that influence the students' writing skill generally are material, media, classroom activities, classroom management, teacher's strategy, and teacher's approach.
The teacher is obliged to possess knowledge of how to improve students' proficiencies in an efficient way, since writing is such a prominent part of the English language (Yakoob, 2015).
Based on his research, he found that the reality of students' learning writing skills and the main problems were found.Firstly, students have lack of vocabulary and it is not really effective.
Secondly, students encounter a lot of difficulties in grammatical structures.Thirdly, students were not interested in writing's topics.Fourthly, students do not have many chances to be corrected.Fifthly, the students' sources of reading materials do not vary due to their lack of awareness.Lastly, the time allocated to learn writing is not enough for students to practice.
Other factors that influence mastering English in general are their mother tongue, their age to learning English, their interest in learning English, the level they have reached while learning English, and how often they study English.All of these factors have their respective roles that cause an influence on their mastery of English.
Based on those problems of vocabulary and wriitng developments, this study attempted to describe the students' vocabulary development and analyze the problems faced by students in their vocabulary development in writing skills, especially in the Essay Writing course in fourth semester of university sstudent.In hope, the result of this research will help to answer and explain the students' problems of writing skill in term of the use of vocabulary.After collecting the data, it wass analyzed using lognostics.Lognostics by Meara & Miralpeix (2016) is a tool to calculate TTR, total words produced, and less frequent words that used.

METHOD
Lognostics tool is generally used for researching vocabulary.After both sets of data (data from the first test and data from the last test) are analyzed with lognostics tools, the results from the lognostics tools analyzed again used SPSS to find out the final results of the data.The technique analysis tht was used in SPSS was two-sample comparison test (Paired Sample T-Test).In addition, the ssecond data regarding the students' problems of writing Essay were analyzed using descriptive statistics in SPSS.

Result of Students' Vocabulary Development
The first finding of the study is the development of students' vocabulary, particularly in total word produced, TTR, and less frequent words.After collecting the data by writing test, the researcher counted the vocabulary development in lognostics tools and Paired Sample T-Test in SPSS.The variables of vocabulary that analyzed were total words produced, Type Token Ratio (TTR) and less frequent words.The results of lognistics tool can be showed in the figure below; The Result of TTR Score The Type Token Ratio is a measure of vocabulary variation within a written text.The value of TTR obtained from the division between the number of different words in a text and the total number of words produced in the text.A high TTR value indicates a high lexical variation, while a low TTR value indicates the opposite.Vocabulary has some of aspects, there are token list, type list and frequencies.The fists aspect is token list.Token list means the number of vocabularies in a text.Type list means the total numbers of unique words or numbers of the different words that occurs in a text.The counting of the type list is by dividing the ratio obtained with the types (the total number of different words).Frequencies means how many the same words that used in a text.Based on the sample data above, the total words produced (token list) is 119 tokens, the type list is 63 tokens.In order to know the difference between pre and post test the data above was analyzed using SPSS and the result can be showed below; The result of TTR showed that the result of Sig.(2-tailed) is 0.984 or > 0.05, which means that there is no significant difference in the results between the pre-test and post-test.The Type Token Ratio is a measure of vocabulary variation within a written text.The value of TTR obtained from the division between the number of different words in a text and the total number of words produced in the text.

Figure 2 The Counting of Total Word Produced
Total Word Produced means a total number of words in a text.Each text has a different total number of words.The more vocabulary is produced, the more the number of vocabularies increase in a text.In order to know the difference between pre and post test the data above was analyzed using SPSS and the result can be showed below; Based on the result of total word produced, the result of Sig.(2-tailed) is 0.240 or > 0.05, which means that there is no significant difference in the results between the pre-test and post-test.
Total Word Produced means a total number of words in a text.Each text has a different total number of words.The more vocabulary is produced, the more the number of vocabularies increase in a text.

Figure 3 The Counting of Less Frequent Words
Less Frequent Words means word that is unusual in a text or a word that is rarely used in a text because the word is classified as a difficult word.In the less frequent words, there are four aspects of the results, total words, lambda, segments, and error.Total words mean the total numbers of words in a text.Lambda means the value of the less frequent words score.Based on the sample count above, the TTR score seen by the result of lambda, that is 1.09. the small score of lambda means better results of the less frequent words in a text.In order to know the difference between pre and post test the data above was analyzed using SPSS and the result can be showed below; Result of Less Frequent Words Based on the result of less frequent words showed that the result of Sig.(2-tailed) is 0.000 or < 0.05, which means that there is a significant difference in the results between the pre-test and post-test.Less Frequent Words means word that is unusual in a text or a word that is rarely used in a text because the word is classified as a difficult word.In less frequent words, words are categorized as 2 types of words, those that are easy or words that are general used in a text and those that are difficult or words that are unusually used in a text.The results explained bellow:

Measurement benchmark:
If the result of Sig.(2-tailed) < 0.05 then the result is that there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test If the result of Sig.(2-tailed) > 0.05 then the result is that there is no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test Based on the results above, there are different results in the variables.It means that there are many factors that affect the result of the development of each variable of vocabulary.The result showed that in total word production and TTR there is no significant difference in the results, but in less frequent words the result showed that there is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test.
Almost all of the students' vocabulary was developed in new words only, but the TTR and the total word produced was same between pre-test and post-test.It is maybe because the task of the writing test given to students in pre-test and post-test were different topics, so that the vocabulary produced in the total word produced and in TTR was not significantly different, but there was new vocabulary because the frequency of the less frequent words was increased.The more vocabulary added, the better the results are produced.
Increasing knowledge of vocabulary is essential, because vocabulary is the basic knowledge of learning English.It is critical to use vocabulary correctly, taking into account both the denomination and connotation of the word (Mallia, 2017).Based on her research about strategies for developing English Academics Writing skills, it was found that another important focus is raising awareness about the value of collaborative learning.The objectives of an Academic English Pre-sessional course includes learning how to participate in a group work confidently and effectively.The important thing to improve writing skills is to focus on raising awareness about the value of collaborative learning.It means that the learning process is very affected by the results.

Result of the Questionnaire
The second finding of this study is about the problems faced by students in writing.After taking and calculating the data, the result of the questionnaire was explained with a descriptive statistical method.Based on the result, the data was explained using a descriptive statistical method, the discussions are as follow: 12 I do not pay attention of the using connectors in writing 50% 50% 13 I often did some mistake in using action verb in past form 75% 25% 14 I seldom pay attention to the aspect of grammar 75% 25% 15 I always faced problem in tense that will be used 90% 10% Based on the results of a questionnaire that was adopted from Alisha et al., (2019), it can be concluded that almost all students had difficulties with the organization of the text, grammar and tenses that were used, and language use.Almost all of the students (90%) felt that they don't rarely understand the generic structure, and more than half students (65%) felt that the ideas are not clear and well organized.Almost all of the students (85%) felt that they had difficulties expressing ideas because of a lack of vocabulary, although they always use simple words in writing the paragraph (90% of students).Almost all of the students (75%) felt that they often make some mistakes in using action verbs in the past tense and they felt that they seldom pay attention to the aspect of grammar.Furthermore, almost all of the students (90%) always face problems in the tense that were used.
There are many aspects that affect the development of writing skills.Some factors that influenced the students' writing skills are material, media, classroom activities, classroom management, teacher's strategy, and teacher approach.Based on the research conducted by Yakoob, (2015) about factors affecting students' writing skills, it was found that the truth about the students' learning writing skills and the main problem were discovered.For starters, the students' lack of vocabulary was ineffective.Second, the students face numerous difficulties with grammar structures.Third, students were uninterested in the writing topics.Fourth, students' do not have many chances for being corrected.Fifth, due to a lack of awareness, the students' sources of reading materials are not diverse.Lastly, the time that is allocatted to learn writing was insufficient for students to practice.
This research used quantitative and pre-experimental design.The population of this research was fourth semester of English Education students at a private university in Purwokerto.Whereas the sample were 20 students who took Essay Writing course.Writing test and a questionnaire were used as instruments to collected the data.According toSakkir & Dollah (2019) in quantitative research, tests are a way to quantify a person's knowledge and performance in a certain field.To determine the students' writing achievement before and after learning, the researcher used a pre-test and post-test(Hassan et al., 2021).The participants were required to write 3 paragraphs related to the topic in pre-test and post-test.On the other hand, the questionnaire contains 15 questions that are required to be filled in by the participants.