STRATEGY IN VOCABULARY TEACHING
Introduction.
Learning vocabulary cannot be separated from the language
skills, speaking, reading,
listening and writing; also pragmatics and discourse.
English teachers should teach
vocabulary in its context. Otherwise, the vocabulary that
the teacher teaches will lose its
exact meaning and make the language user misunderstood
during the communicative
activity, because vocabulary cannot stand alone to create
meaningful language. One must
know how the words work together in sentences, and it is the
basis of a
language before a learner can use language as a means of
communication.
In this essay I will discuss the definition of vocabulary.
Secondly, I will discuss what vocabulary
students should learn. Thirdly, I will discuss how to teach
vocabulary in meaningful
and enjoyable way. I will present a meaningful and enjoyable
vocabulary activity. Finally, I will draw a conclusion about teaching
vocabulary in an enjoyable and meaningful way to develop students’ vocabulary.
Definition of Vocabulary.
In an orthographic definition, a word means any sequence of
letters, which are tied on
either side of the word by a space or punctuation mark. Such
as book, pens, newspaper
and others but this definition faces some problem like ‘will
not’ is two words but ‘cannot’
is one word, ‘instead of’ is two words but ‘in place of’ is
three words. While, a more
accurate definition of a word is the minimum meaningful unit
of language. This definition enables us to differentiate the separate meanings
conveyed in the word can in so far as it can be said to be a different semantic
unit. This definition also faces a problem such as the single unit of meaning
which is performed by unit words like bus driver, tram driver, goal keeper,
line man. Are they one word or two? It is difficult to have a fixed definition.
Both of them have weaknesses. Since, the meaning of these words are closely
related. In addition, it is said that “a word’ is a word if it can stand on its
own as a reply to a question or as a statement or exclamation like Shoot! Goal!
Help!
What vocabulary should be taught.
In determining the vocabulary to be taught to students, the
teacher should know which
should be taught first, second and so on. According to
Harmer (1991: 154), the general
principle of vocabulary that should be taught first is the
frequency of vocabulary that
appears in the students` daily communication. Such as,
‘books’, ‘house’, ‘names of
subjects’, ‘teacher’ and so on. Another principle of
teaching vocabulary is to teach from
concrete words and gradually become more abstract ones. The
words like chair, table,
chalk, book are easy to explain because those words are in
front of the students. The word
‘ concept’, however, is difficult to explain, because it is
not physically represented in the
classroom. One more principle that has been used to
determine which words to be taught
is coverage “ a word is more useful if it covers more things
than if it only has a very
specific meaning”. For example the word “book” it covers a
lot of meanings. It can be
notebook, exercise book, text book, hand book, and so on.
How to teach vocabulary?
Teaching vocabulary is more than presenting new words to the
students. The students
must know how the words work together with other words to
perform meaningful
communication. There are a lot of strategies in learning and
teaching vocabulary. Firstly, there is learning vocabulary through explicit
learning. In this activity students learn the
most frequent words that appear in the students’ daily
communication or the words that
they are most needed in their academic purpose. The list
contains the target language and the synonym or the translation in the
students’ first language or it can be taught by pictures or other means such as
realia. A large number of words are learnt directly if given sufficient
repetition. Much vocabulary teaching with beginners involves
repetitive meaning matching with it’s a referent such as “banana” with its
picture, “monkey” with its picture. Most words are learnt incidentally in context
through reading, listening and conversation. This approach provides students
with a lot of activities that enable them to find new words they do not know
the meaning of which they try to infer through the context. Learning vocabulary
from a context means learners try to infer the meaning of words from the use of
context clues. The ability to guess meaning from context is really a valuable
skill and should play a part in teaching textual exploitation in the class.
It should be remembered that there are students who use
context as their strategy to guess
the meaning and do not need much time but there are students
who have difficulty with
this strategy and need to have this skill gradually
developed. So, for the teacher who
teaches vocabulary using this approach, it is important to
consider the difficulty level of
the text as well as the students’ vocabulary level.
All the approaches I have presented above will be more
helpful if teachers present the
materials in a meaningful and enjoyable way. How to teach
vocabulary in a meaningful
and enjoyable way? I suggest that the activity is done in
group work, because, group
works have proved to be more effective and enjoyable in
learning languages. There are a lot of
advantages. First, it gives more practice in speaking
(pronouncing the words) especially
in big classes when the teacher leads the class. Second, it
creates a relaxing, comfortable
and non-threatening atmosphere, in which the students can
work more relaxed and freely
without being afraid of making mistakes. So they can apply
their ability to answer the
questions. Third, group work also supports the students’
correct language production
through peer correction. This peer correction will be
beneficial for them because the
students who make mistake will not feel uneasy.
Making learning and teaching vocabulary enjoyable, it is
suggested to present it in a
game activity. There are some group vocabulary games for
classes:
Game 1.
You’ll Never Guess!!
Objectives: To encourage students to derive the meaning of
new vocabulary items from
contextual clues.
Procedure:
- Teacher prepares the contextual clues on the paper. The
clues begin with the less
- obvious detail toward those that make the students easy to
guess. Example: The clues
It is big and usually black.
We use it every day.
There is one in almost classroom.
The teacher writes on it.
- The answer:…………..
- Put the students into groups of four or five.
- The teacher reads the first clue and waits for a few
seconds for students to think and
- guess. If there is no answer, the teacher continues to the
second clue and so on.
- The group that gets the most answers wins.
Game 2.
Blockbusters.
Procedure:
- Teacher prepares a list of words beginning with different
letters of the alphabet. One possibility is to have 26, one for each
letter. You can vary the complexity of the vocabulary depending on the
level of the group.
- Divide the class into teams of four or five
students.
- The first team to give a correct answer in each case wins
a point.
- The following are examples of questions at different
levels: “What ‘a’ is a kind of fruit?”, “What ‘a’ is a joint that
joins the leg and the foot”.
- The game is very flexible and can be used to practise a
particular word family or type of word such as phrasal verbs. A variation
would be to allow each team in turn to choose a different letter of the
alphabet and then to give the question to this team only. This would be a
slower, more reflective form of the game.
Game 3.
The guide dog.
Procedure:
- This activity works well as a
warmer and is also good for practising giving and understanding
instructions.
- Divide the class into three or
four groups and ask each group to choose a volunteer.
- This student is then
blindfolded using a scarf or similar.
- The task of the remaining members
of each group is to guide the blindfolded student from one side of the
classroom to the other without him or her touching anything on the way.
Clearly this involves a lot of careful instruction-giving, with phrases
like “Turn left”, “Go straight ahead for a couple of metres” and so
on.
- The more chairs, tables and
other obstacles that are in the way the better.
- The winner is the first person
to reach the other side without touching anything.
Game 4.
Word taboo.
Procedure:
- First, the group chooses a word that
they have learned and write the chosen word at the top of a piece of
paper.
- Next, the group chooses five taboo
words and writes them at the bottom section of the paper. (The taboo words
are defined as the five most common words that a student would be likely
to use in explaining the meaning).
- After the Word Taboo slips of paper
have been completed, the papers are placed into a pool and volunteers are
selected from each group. Each volunteer's role is to take any of the Word
Taboo papers from the other groups and try to get the whole class to guess
the word by describing it in words and sentences. The group which created
the Word Taboo is not allowed to play on that occasion.
- The volunteers are not allowed to
say any of the five taboo words, to mime the words, to make sound effects,
to sing tunes that relate to the words or to spell the words. To make sure
that the volunteer does not mention the taboo words a group member who
designed the Word Taboo will stand behind the volunteer to monitor his/her
words and actions.
- The volunteer who can help the class
guess the word(s) in the shortest possible time will make his/her group
the winner of the contest. On the other hand, if the volunteer says or
does any of the taboo words or actions, they have to sit down.
Game
5.
The
hot seat.
Procedure:
·
Break class into 4 or less teams
·
Place a 'hot seat' in front of the
class and facing away from the board
·
Each team selects a leader
·
One team is up at a time and their
leader sits in the hot seat
·
Write ten words on the board so the
leader can't see them
·
Number the words 1-10
·
Each team member is assigned a word
or words on the board
·
Some team members may have more than
one word
·
Team members take turns communicating
their word to the leader without
saying the word with no spelling, writing, or drawing allowed
·
Team members can say 'pass' if their
word is too difficult
·
Each team has 1 minute to get as many
words as possible
·
The team with the most points at the
end wins
Conclusion
In short, teaching vocabulary plays an important part in
determining the success of
learning a foreign language. Now days, the method of teaching
vocabulary is
still teacher centered and the teacher prepares the
vocabulary in a list with its meaning in
the students’ first language. This condition is caused by
their low proficiency in
techniques of teaching vocabulary. Undoubtedly, good
teaching of vocabulary will help
students to develop their language. That is why the teacher
must decide which word must
be acquired first before others. It is suggested from the
words that student use frequently
and then concrete words and gradually to abstract ones and
coverage. The teacher can choose the approach that is suitable for their
students, from explicit learning, learning in context or collocation and many
others, by considering the students’ level, language level and the goal of
teaching vocabulary. Using games is one way of teaching vocabulary that is fun
and meaningful for the students’ language development. It is important for
English teachers to know how to teach vocabulary through games.
References
Allen, V, F, 1983, Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary, oxford
University Press.
Carte, R & McCharthy, M. 1988, Vocabulary and Language
Teaching, Longman Group
UK Limeted.
Carter, R. 1998, Vocabulary Applied Linguistic Perspectives,
Second Edition, Routledge
Harmer, J. 1991, The Practice of English Language Teaching,
New Edition, Longman
Group UK Limited.
McCallum, G. P. 19980, 101 Word Games, Oxford University Press.
Pressley, M. & Levin, J. R. & McDaniel, M. A. 1987,
Remembering Versus Inferring
Schmitt, N. & Schmitt, D. 1995, ‘Vocabulary Note Books:
Theoretical Underpinnings and
Practical Suggestions’, ELT journal, Vol. 49, No. 2. April
1995
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