Language teachers have always tried to find the best and most effective ways to
teach new vocabulary to learners of foreign languages. The study investigated the
effect of form – focused and message – oriented in vocabulary learning through
writing input for 71 students on the tenth grade students of SMKN 1 Punggelan
Banjarnegara. The form – focused task aimed to draw students’ attention to the
word itself through word recognition activities. The message - oriented task,
which pushed the learners into considering the context surrounding the words.
The result of the post-test showed that retention of unfamiliar vocabularies was
higher in the two form – focused class than the message – oriented class. After the
data had been analyzed, the result of t-test where the t-value obtained from the
computation was 3.641. By using significant level 0.05 for df 59, it was found that
the critical value of t-table was 2.001 It means that the t-test was higher than ttable
( 3.641> 2.001). Also the form-focused tasks yielded better results than the
message – oriented tasks. These results are discussed in light of the construct of
task – induced involvement of Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). The form – focused
tasks had higher involvement index than message – oriented tasks. Form –
focused tasks and message – oriented tasks had two components need and search
in them, but in the tasks message – oriented tasks evaluation component was
absent in that because in the form – focused tasks the students had to match the
words with their meaning.