Teaching English Vocabulary by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy

Vocabulary is noticeable to foster learners develop language knowlege that will contribute to their language learning success. Vocabulary, which refers to all the words which exist in a particular language, is the basic of language learning process. Ferreira (2007) argues that vocabulary requires not only word meanings knowledge, but it also requires the usage of the word in the appropriate context. In this era, vocabulary is not explicitly taught in most language classes, but students are expected to "pick-up" vocabulary on their own without any guidance. Courses on reading, writing, speaking, listening, and grammar are common in foreign language learning, but very few vocabulary courses exist. Many teachers merely give students lists of words to memorize or provide limited practice opportunities, without further assistance. In result, some foreign language learners may think that English vocabulary is somehow difficult. However, English teachers have an important role to help students recognize words and use them appropriately by applying appropriate and effective teaching ways to reach language pedagogy principles. To do this, language teachers should have some teaching English vocabulary strategies to help students understand the use of English vocabulary properly.
This essay argues in general that teaching English vocabulary needs an appropriate strategies that teacher can use. These strategies are divided into three broad categories. First, this essay explains the importance of visual aid as a teaching English vocabulary strategy in which visual aid accomplishes learner to understand vocabulary through picture and other visual images. Next, writer also discusses how work group can be helpful for teacher in teaching English words based on part of speech, grammatical form, topic, etc. Finally, this essay reveals the use of bilingual dictionary as one of the tools in teaching and learning English words.

Firstly, common strategy which teachers use the most is using visual aids. The use of visual aids for vocabulary learning is by making associations between a picture and word. Ferreira (2007) believes that those students who are intelligent in visualizing pictures can learn vocabulary faster and effectively. Moreover, this technique is founded because learners are capable to associate new information in memory by meaningful visual images, and the visual images make teaching more efficient (Oxford & Croockall, 1990). In this strategy, teachers are able to use some pictures of particular word that student can use in their communication. For instance, teachers apply this strategy by showing students a picture with particular description such as picture of living room with some different furniture with their description. Then, students are able to see this picture and also read the English words of furniture in that picture. In result, student will feel enjoy learning English vocabulary from the given picture.

On the other hand, this method of teaching will be not appropriate for those who cannot learn from visual aid. Actually, Gilakjani (2012) emphasizes that there are three kinds of learning styles: visual, auditory (understand through listening and interpreting information), and kinaesthetic (learn best with hand-on approach). For those who cannot learn vocabulary and be interested through visual aid, they will not learn it. However, by applying visual aid, student can listen the words said and see the movement done by teacher. Moreover, Alqahtani (2015) believes that introducing a word by showing the real object often helps learners to memorize the word through visualization. Therefore, the use of visual aids is definitely one of the most useful strategy teachers can apply to teach vocabulary. As an old saying says "a picture is worth a thousand word", students should be able to understand vocabulary from an image.

Secondly, word grouping in learning foreign language vocabulary is also significant. In this term, word grouping involves dividing a longer word list into new, shorter lists by classifying or reclassifying the target language terms according to one or more important attributes. In this way, some degree of context is created. Oxford & Croockall (1990) argue that word grouping establishes new groups or sets of words which hang together because of some common theme or characteristic, unlike the generally unorganized, decontextualizing word lists described earlier. In addition, Ferreira (2007) emphasizes that word grouping provide a useful framework to understand semantic boundaries which guide learners toward word meaning comprehension.

Groups can be based on part of speech (e.g., noun, verb, or adjective), grammatical form (e.g., irregular verbs of a certain kind), topic (e.g., words about weather or holiday), language function (e.g., apology, request, permission), synonym or similarity (e.g., warm, hot, tepid, tropical), antonym  or opposition (e.g., ugly/beautiful), the way one feels about something (e.g., like, dislike), and so on (Oxford & Croockall, 1990). This strategy implies student to comprehend sense relation among words which helps them to use vocabulary in appropriate context in writing or speaking.

In contrast, word grouping, with all its benefits, is nevertheless limited in one sense: it does not usually show the specific relationships among the words in a group. Oxford & Croockall (1990) give example a group of Car Words might include carburetor, battery, hood, seat, and so on which are not specifically related one another in term of function, form, or placement in a car. However, the words above are still important strategy to help student memorizing and understanding the word meaning in context. Due to not all English words are semantically related, this strategy remains powerful to teach vocabulary.

Next, another typical strategy in teaching English vocabulary is through the use of bilingual dictionary. Oxford and Croockall (1990) argue that this kind of book contains the meanings of new words that help the learner who would otherwise read, understand, and memorize the meaning and the use in proper context of particular words, especially English words. She also explains that this particular use of the dictionary is analogous to memorize infinitely long. In this part, teachers should show students how to identify and select the most appropriate meaning of the word based on how word is used in context. Teacher can also accomplish this strategy by having students locate the word in the text, read the sentence, and then discuss as a class how to determine its meaning. Hanson & Padua (2011) propose some steps to use dictionary in vocabulary teaching:

1. Read the sentence containing the unknown word.
2. Before looking in the dictionary, think aloud and guess the meaning of the word based on the clues in and around the word.
3. Explain that many words have several meanings and then read all of the dictionary’s definitions for that word.
4. Decide which definition makes sense within the context of the text being read.
5. If the meaning is still unknown, provide further discussion about the context and look at word parts.

As foreign language learner, bilingual dictionary helps to find the meaning of unknown word. It is undeniable for students to open their dictionary while reading a text to understand the meaning to comprehend the message or information from what they read. Many dictionaries offer word meanings exemplifying typical usage, pronunciation, and relationships with other words. Also, other dictionaries may even expand the amount of information included which are helpful for students’ understanding (Hanson & Padua, 2011).

However, the use of dictionaries can be complex and difficult tasks to achieve vocabulary knowledge. Ferreira (2009) argues that the use of dictionaries may not result in gaining a full understanding of word meanings. In addition, Oxford & Croockall (1990) believe that many students look up every single word they do not know and thus fail to use their ability to understand the context. For instance, book refers to a note if it is functioned as noun. Contrarily, book can also refer to make a reservation if it is function as verb. Once students open their bilingual dictionary, the first meaning they would commonly find is book as a note. This example emphasizes that checking word meaning using dictionary sometimes will vary its meaning and context.

On the other hand, although the use of dictionaries can be complex and difficult tasks, teachers are able to give explanation how to translate foreign language into target language. In addition, by using dictionary, teachers are also able to educate student to think the proper meaning of particular texts independently and actively so that they will be accustomed to reading smartly. Moreover, when students look up a word in the dictionary, their retention becomes higher than other reading conditions such as marginal glosses (Marmor & Almela, 2013). This notion shows how dictionary use contributes positively to the form-meaning connections and association with other types of knowledge.

In conclusion, the effective principles of teaching English vocabulary in which teacher can apply involve visual aids use, word group, and bilingual dictionary. These three proposed ways would help teacher in teaching English vocabulary and also student who learn this international language. Moreover, powerful techniques for vocabulary growth should be explored, so that language learners will be able to make their way more easily to their proficiency goals. Thus, when students are effectively able to recognize and use a word in different context, speak, write, pronounce the word well, they will have a good comprehension of foreign language.

*please include reference list while using this essay for your consideration

 

 

Referennce List

Oxford, R., & Croockall, D. (1990). Vocabulary Learning: A Critical Analysis of Techniques. TESL Canada Journal, 7(2), 9-18.

Ferreira, Lanisia H.F. (2007). How to Teach Vocabulary Effectively (Undergraduate Thesis, University of Praia). Retrieved from http://core.ac.uk/display/38681258

Gilakjani, A.P. (2012). Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic Learning Styles and Their Impacts on English Language Teaching. Lahijan: Macrothink Institute

Hanson, S. & Padua, J.F.M. (2011). Teaching Vocabulary Explicitly. Mariana: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning

Marmor, G.A. & Almela, A. (2013). The Bilingual Dictionary and Foreign Language Learning: Facts and Opinions. Murcia: Porta Linguarum

Alqahtani, M. (2015). The Importance of Vocabulary in Language Learning and How to Be Taught. International Journal of Teaching and Education, 3, 26-27. doi 10.20472/TE.2015.3.3.002