AN ANALYSIS OF THE EIGHTH GRADES STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES ON LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY OF SMP NEGERI 4 TARAKAN
The purpose of this study was to analyze the difficulties experienced by the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 4 Tarakan in learning English vocabulary. It used a descriptive qualitative method. The subjects of this study were the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 4 Tarakan in the 2020/2021 academic year. The total student population was 343. The sample was 52 students selected using a simple random sampling technique. Data collection was carried out using test documents, questionnaires, and interviews. The test document was used to analyze the types of difficulties students had in learning vocabulary. The questionnaire was used to analyze the students' most dominant difficulties in learning vocabulary. Interviews were used to find out more about students’ difficulties in learning vocabulary. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis to analyze student difficulties in the form of vocabulary tests and the percentage of student difficulties in the form of questionnaire. The results of this study indicated that; first, from the results of the vocabulary test, there were 10.96% of students who had difficulty in the aspect of meaning. Whereas in the grammar aspect, there were about 43.6% of students who have difficulties. Second, the results of the questionnaire show that 55.8% of students could understand aspects of meaning and 46.6% of students could understand aspects of grammar. Third, the results of interviews with the English teacher showed that the students had a lot of difficulties in grammar. Thus, it was concluded that there are two types of student difficulties in learning vocabulary, namely meaning and grammar. Second, the most dominant difficulty was grammar.