THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY SIZE AND SPEAKING ABILITY

Abstract

Speaking was one of an important skill in language learning. However, it
was not an easy matter to be mastered by students because there were some
factors that influence the speaking ability, and one of those factors was vocabulary
size. Therefore, this research was interested to investigate the correlation between
students’ vocabulary size and speaking ability. The aims were to answer what the
students’ vocabulary size was, how the students’ speaking ability was and what
the correlation between students’ vocabulary size and speaking ability was.

The researcher used quantitative approach with correlational quantitative
design to find out the correlation between two variables. The setting of the
research was in ELED batch 2016 and it was conducted on February to April,
2018. The data were collected from 85 participants in ELED batch 2016. The
researcher used Vocabulary Size Test and the document of speaking ability test

score to gain the data of vocabulary size and speaking ability. Then, the researcher
used descriptive statistic to identify students’ vocabulary size and speaking ability,

and used inferential statistic to reveal the correlation between vocabulary size and
speaking ability.

The findings showed that the average of students’ vocabulary size was
5.191 word families. It means that students were able to communicate in some
topics even with native speakers, write English text, understand some discussions,
and understand if someone talks in English. Meanwhile related to speaking ability,
the mean score was 57.86 that it was categorized in good level. Furthermore, the

finding of correlation showed that the significance value was 0.408. It means that

the eionificance value was hicher than 0.05 (0 408<0.05). Thus. Hn was accepted