Teaching English Vocabulary Based on 2004 Competence Based Curriculum

English is a tool to communicate verbally or nonverbally. To communicate here

means understanding and expressing the information, mind, feeling and developing the
science, technology and culture by using the language. In education context, English has
a function as a tool to communicate in accessing the information and in daily context, as
a tool to build interpersonal relation, exchanging information and enjoy the language
aesthetic (Depdiknas, 2003: 6).
English lesson has the purposes: (1) Developing the abilities to communicate in
English either verbally or nonverbally. The abilities include listening, speaking, reading
and writing; (2) Growing the realization about essence and the importance of English as
one of foreign languages for being the main tool of studying; (3) Developing and
understanding of correlation between language and culture, and also broadening the
students’ horizon. So, the students have cross culture knowledge and are involved in the
culture of language itself.
Based on Depdiknas (2003: 7), the scopes of English lesson include: (1) The
language skills that are listening, speaking, reading and writing; (2) Sub-competency
which includes language act competence, linguistic, socio culture, strategy and view
competence; (3) The development of positive behavior of English as a communication
tool. The teaching of English is directed to the competence achievement seen on the
student’s ability to do the communication steps. The purpose of teaching based on
Competence-Based Curriculum is the achievement of competence itself.
English vocabulary is as one of the components in linguistic competence that is
included in sub-competency of English lesson. English vocabulary plays an important
role in acquiring the language skills that are listening, speaking, reading and writing. It
links the four language skills altogether. Based on 2004 Competence Based Curriculum,
the students start giving the English vocabularies and then having the definitions or
meanings of those words in English too. The purpose is to encourage the students gain
extensive number of vocabularies. By having good mastery of vocabulary, it will be a
great help or asset for them to master the four language skills.

Depdiknas. 2003. Kurikulum 2004: Standar Kompetensi Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris
SMA dan MA. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan Nasional

The Concept of 2004 Curriculum

The word ‘curriculum’ is taken from Greek, that is ‘curir’ whose meaning is courier.
The word ’curere’ means the place for courier. Therefore, the word “curriculum” can be
defined as the distance that must be reached by a courier. In education, curriculum refers
to the whole subjects that must be learned by the students in order to get a certificate
(Sudjana, 2002: 2). Clark and Starr (1994: 204) state that curriculum is a school’s attempt
to take what society thinks to be important and turn into what students learn. Because
what society thinks will change, then school curriculum should be changed to meet the
society’s expectation.
The 2004 Curriculum is expected to put more emphasis on the needs of job market
and to prepare students for specific tasks. In relation to teaching English, it is hoped that
the students will have good English competencies in order to involve themselves in the
globalization era. Riyandari (2004: 1) says that English competency is one of the basic
competencies, which should be acquired by a school graduate in order to enter
international market and survive in the global competition.
Furthermore, the 2004 Curriculum asserts that English is a global language and
functions as language for many fields of sciences, technology and art which is used to
reach the aims of economy, trade, relationship among countries, socio-culture and
education, and career development as well (Depdiknas, 2003: 42). Based on the Basic
Course Outline of 1994 and 2004 Curricula, there are three standard competencies that
students must have in teaching and learning process (Dikmenum, Ditjen, Didasmen, 303).
For the competency of the first year students, they are demanded to use the appropriate
language variety fluently and accurately in interactional discourse either in written or oral
communication. There are also some disourses that are taught to reach the competence.
They are: narrative, procedure, spoof/recount, report and news item form.
Next, for the language competency of the second year students, they are required to
use language variety fluently and accurately in interactional discourse in written or oral
communication. There are also some discourse that they must have, namely descriptive,
narrative, anecdote, analytic exposition and hortatory exposition that refer to the
interpersonal meaning variation. Meanwhile, for the third year students, they are
demanded to use appropriate language variety fluently and accurately in interactional
discourse in written and oral communication with the discourse, which is more
complicated than the discourse at the first or second year. They are: narrative,
explanation, discussion, commentary and review with emphasis on the complexity of
interpersonal meaning and the textual meaning variation.
The curriculum itself consists of a set of plans about competency, which is made to
reach the goal of education by dealing with the situation and the ability of the region and
school. There are two structures in the curriculum for senior high school. They are: (1)
specialization study program and (2) non-specialization study program. Specialization
study program is applied in tenth grade, and non-specialization study program begins in
the eleventh grade, and for this there are three programs available; Science Program,
Social Program, and Language Program (Mulyasa, 2003: 80).
Following the diversity and decentralized education principle, the curriculum
development uses “unity in policy and diversity in implementations”. To achieve the
objectives of education, there must be standard of competence that must be achieved by
the students at every stage. Meanwhile, the diversity in implementation involves planning
and implementation of learning process, evaluation and management in accommodating
the differences that are dealing with the readiness, academic potential, interest,
environment, culture, local resources or schools based on their own characteristics
(Depdiknas, 2003: 7).
In more detail, the development of 2004 Curriculum considers some aspects below:
1. The faith, norms and morals that must be discovered, comprehended and applied by
the students.
2. The reinforcement about national integrity that is reached through educational system
that gives information about the diversity of Indonesian people.
3. The balance of any forms of students’ learning experience that involves ethics, logic,
aesthetics and kin aesthetics.
4. Classroom setting that deceives all students to gain knowledge, skill and attitude.
5. The ability to think and learn with access, select and evaluate knowledge to handle
unstable and uncertain situation.
6. Life skill that makes the students to have skill, adaptive, cooperative and competitive
attitude in facing challenge and daily life demand effectively.

The Concept of Teaching English in 2004 Curriculum

Teaching and learning process is an educative interaction between the students and
their environment. Teachers are free to choose the strategies, methods or techniques
according to the characteristics of subject contents, students and conditions (Mulyasa,
2003: 183). There are many methods that can be chosen to be used by the teachers like
direct method, audio-lingual method, cognitive method, total physical response and
communicative method.
The teachers holds a role as an organizer; he/she has to decide, prepare a teaching
program that will be done and procedure the activities that are applied using
Competence-Based Curriculum. Sofyan (2003: 11) states that as an organizer, there are
some steps that must be done in preparing and organizing teaching and learning process:
1. General Instructional Objectives
2. Specific Instructional Objectives
3. Teaching Materials
4. Teaching-Learning Activities
5. Evaluation

In preparing and organizing teaching and learning activities to teach productive

skills (speaking and writing), the teacher has to consider these two phases:
1. Presentation
2. Practice
3. Production Words

Before coming into presentation phase, the teacher has to do “lead in” in every skill
that will be taught. “Lead in” here is done to make the students ready to study.
To teach receptive skill, the teacher is required to use “lead in”, and some steps as
follows:
1. Direct comprehension task (teacher asks and students answer directly)
2. Listen and read for task (students listen to the cassette and read a story)
3. Direct text related task (students do the tasks which are related to the reading text)