Title

IMPROVING STUDENTS' VOCABULARY BY USING SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORK

(FOCUSED ON FACEBOOK AT THE FIRST SEMESTER OF ENGLISH EDUCATION
PROGRAM IN STAIN PAREPARE)

A. Background

Building vocabulary is foundational at any English skill. It's much more than grammar

because is the key to communicating successfully with other people. Knowing more words

gives our mind more ways to think about things and more tools to plan or figure out about

something. There are many underlying reasons why people seek to improve their vocabulary.

It could be a work situation or perhaps for social reasons. Whatever the rationale behind

increasing our word knowledge, we should be aware of general obstacles that might confront

along the way. This is not bad news, though, as these are easily overcome. It is important to

aware of these road blocks before they come up. If aware, we wont feel inadequate as we

begin the journey of improving our vocabulary. Teaching vocabulary in any level of education

for English learners has become one of necessary thing to build and improve all of English

skill. Teaching vocabulary to students will deal with what's method or what's media that can

be applied in the class.

One of the latest methods of teaching vocabulary deals with internet function. As

internet grows, online learning has had more influence in the several countries with

consequence that face to face discussion and paper resources still dominate public

education. The Internet has become an increasingly important feature of the learning

environment for teenagers. Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in

November and December 2000 shows that teens use the Internet as an essential study aid

outside the classroom and that the Internet increasingly has a place inside the classroom.

The Project surveyed 754 online youth ages 12-17 and their parents. Teens and parents

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report that Internet is vital to completing school projects and has effectively replaced the

library for a large number of online youth. 71% of students report using the Internet at their

primary source for their last major project, and they also report accessing online study aids

like Sparknotes or CliffNotes and as another fact that really helps the English learners to

study. There are several sites that provide the English learners to study about English

especially to improve their vocabularies such as www.vocabulary.co.il, www.vocabulary.com,

www.learnenglish.de, www.english-daily.com, www.learn-english-vocabulary.com. Besides,

sharing about difficulties in learning English or just sharing about several vocabularies and

expressions for the English learners can be found in several forum sites as follow:

www.englishforums.com, www.myenglishpages.com, www.eslgo.com.

In recently year, social media network as one of the main part of internet developing

has taken part also in the learning process. As a research by K. Walsh (2011) finds that

social networking applications have a place in the classroom. Facebook as the most famous

internet social networking is the best media to be used in teaching. Besides, it helps us

connect and share with the people easily. For instance, Alessandro Cessarano, who teaches

a beginning Spanish class in the University of South Florida (USF), uses Facebook for

homework assignment and class discussions in lieu of blackboard. According to him, the

Facebook page is better than blackboard because students have more access to authentic

cultural material and not to waste class time to teaching them to use a new program because

many of them already use Facebook.

Using Facebook as a media to improve the students' English vocabulary in several

schools and universities is a brand new. K. Walsh (2011) states that so many teachers, even

those at online universities, are hesitant to use such popular tools, given their inherent risk of

exploring students to inappropriate content. The hesitance of teachers is also happened for

English students in STAIN Parepare. In the fact, several lecturers of STAIN Parepare don't

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allow their students to open Facebook while they are studying. In this case, we have to

consider not only Facebook as a media for entertainment and having fun but also how to use

it as a media for English learning especially for the English learners in STAIN Parepare who

study in the first semester that have vocabulary class as one of requirement subject.

Therefore, writer will research about using social media network especially Facebook to

improve the vocabularies of the students on the first semester of English Education Program

(Program Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris/PBI) in STAIN Parepare.

B. Problem Statement

Considering the background above, the researcher would like to formulate the

research are:

1. Is using social media network (facebook) able to improve students vocabulary at

the first semester of English Education Program in STAIN Parepare?

2. What are methods that can we use to improve students vocabulary by using

Facebook at the first semester of English Education Program in STAIN

Parepare?

C. Objective Of The Research

Based on the formulation of the problems, the objectives of this research are:

1. To find the answer by using social media network (facebook) is able to improve

students vocabulary at the first semester of english education program in STAIN

Parepare or not.

2. To decribe several methods that can we use to improve students vocabulary by

using Facebook at the first semester of English Education Program in STAIN

Parepare.

D. Significance Of The Research

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The significance of the research is dividing into two benefits for a theory and

application, where describe as follow:

1. Its expected for English teacher as one of method in the teaching process.

2. Its expected to make the students more interest to improve their vocabulary.

3. Its expected to inspire fun activities that can be done in English learning.