Improving the Students Pronunciation Mastery through Homophone Games CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A.

Background In English language teaching, there are four language elements namely: structure , vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling. Those elements are though in order to develop the students skill in the language learning. One second of them should be noticed is pronunciation is considered difficult element method that can be app lied in learning pronunciation. The researcher has observed that in junior high school students are lack of pron unciation while Nurhayati (2008:1), states that the pronunciation means knowledg e of knowing to produce word which is very essential in oral communication. When speakers mispronounce some words or phrases, people can be misunderstanding. To reduce it, the teacher must equip the learner with English certain degree accur acy and fluency in understanding, responding and in expressing him self in the l anguage in speech in other the learners communicatively in using the language. The specific characteristic of English learners who categorized as a good and su ccessful oral skill developer is those who have a good pronunciation of English consonant and English vowel. A good pronunciation of English consonant and Engli sh vowel suggested is a consonant and vowel of pronunciation that sounds like na tive speaker. Therefore, it is necessary for English learners to have a good pro nunciation to support them to be good speaker (Nurhayati, 2008). Due to the problem above, most of the result indicates that the students have lo w ability in pronunciation included the students of the second year SMP. Based o n the researchers observation, she got that the students still have much difficul ty when they are asked to pronounce especially English vowels. Besides that, bas ed on the students mean score is still low. There are many interesting media that can be applied to serve the pronunciation in the class; one of them is Homophone Games. With the reason that games offer students a fun-filled and relaxing learning. After learning and pra cticing new vocabulary, students have the opportunity to use language in a non-s tressful way (Uberman, 1998:2). Games also motivate students to introduce an element of competitio n into language-building activities. This provides valuable impetus to a purpose ful use of language (Prasad, 2003). In other words, these activities create a me aningful context for language use. Most students who have experienced game-orien ted activities hold positive attitudes towards them (Uberman, 1998:2). Homophone Games are a natural follow on from the homophone dictati on and can be used to help the students to practice and remember homophones (Edi tor, 2000). A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word bu t differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) a nd rose (past tense of rise). So that they are pronounced the same but have differ ent meanings. A homophone is a type of homonym, although sometimes homonym is us ed to refer only to homophones that have the same spelling but different meaning s (Wikipedia, 2010). Based on the explanation above the researcher would like to take a class action research under the title of Improving the Students Pronunciation thr ough Homophone Games (A Classroom Action Research). B. Problem Statements Based on the background above, the researcher formulates the research questions as follow: 1. How is the improvement of the students pronunciation of English long vowels through Homophone Games? 2. How is the improvement of the students pronunciation of English short vowel s through Homophone Games? C. Objective of the Study The objectives of the study are as follow: 1. To find out the improvement of the students pronunciation of English long v owels through Homophone Games.

2. To find out the improvement of students pronunciation of English short vowe ls through Homophone Games. D. Significance of the Study It is expected that the finding of the study will be significant inf ormation for teachers of English in general and for the teachers of English in S MP. E. Scope of the Study The scope of the study is limited on the application of Homophone Games in improving the students pronunciation, focused on the students English lon g vowels and English short vowels.