III.

DESCRIPTION OF VOCABULARY
1. DEFINITION OF VOCABULARY:
According to Richards (2002:255), vocabulary is the core component of
language proficiency and provides much of the basis for how well learners
speak, listen, read, and write. Jackson and Amvela (2000:11) say that the
terms of vocabulary, lexis, and lexicon are synonymous.
Vocabulary is one of the language components that can affect macro
skills. Some definition of vocabulary is proposed by some experts. Nunan
(1999: 101) states that vocabulary is a list of target language words.
Furthermore, Jackson and Amvela (2000: 11) say that the terms vocabulary,
lexis, and lexicon are synonymous. In addition, Richards and Schmidt
(2002: 580) state that vocabulary is a set of lexeme, including single words,
compound words, and idioms.
Vocabulary is the total number of words in a language; all the words
known to a person or used in a particular book, subject, etc; a list of words
with their meaning, especially one that accompanies a textbook (Hornby,
1995: 1331). Those definitions show that vocabulary is the first element that
the English learners should learn in order to master English well besides the
other English components and skills.
The vocabulary of language always changes and grows. As life become
more complex, people devise or borrow new words to describe man‟s
activities. No one knows exact numbers of words in the English vocabulary
today. From the interpretation above, we can conclude that vocabulary is the
core component of language proficiency that consists of a set of lexeme,
including single words, compound words, idioms; provides much of the
basis for how well learners speak, read, listen,and write; and has similarities
with the term “lexis” and “lexicon”.
In language learning, vocabulary takes place in building the language
proficiency. The objective of the vocabulary mastery is to make the students
have a good language proficiency in the language skills. It depends on the
quality and quantity of the vocabulary that they have mastered. The richer
the vocabulary that can be mastered by the students, they will get the better
skill that can be reached in using language.
Talking about vocabulary, Lehr, Osborn, and Hiebert (in Kamil and
Hiebert, 2005: 2-3) define vocabulary as knowledge of words and words
meaning in both oral and print language and in productive and receptive
forms. More specifically, they use it to refer to “the kind of word that
students must know to read increasingly demanding text with
comprehension.”
Harmer (1991: 158) summarizes that knowing a word (vocabulary) means
knowing about meaning, word use, word formation, and word grammar.
Word meaning is also governed by metaphors and idioms, e.g., the word
hiss refers to the noise of snake and to someone’s threat to others. In
collocation, a word goes with each other, such as, headache, earache, and so
on. In addition, style and register is applied by differentiating the language
to be used by someone either in a formal or informal context, for example
hello (formal) and hi (informal).
Moreover, word formation may also create word meaning vy seeing them
on their grammatical contexts. It means that we look at how the suffixes and
the prefixes work (im-, or in-) such as in imperfect and perfect, inappropriate
and appropriate.
The last is about word grammar which is employed by distinguishing the use
of words based on the use of certain grammatical patterns such as noun,
verb, adjective,adverb,etc.
Learning vocabulary is not only learning about the words or new
vocabulary, but also about how to use the vocabulary into correct usage.
What is meant by the meaning of a word, is determined by the context where
it is formed and also determined by its relation to other words. The word
book sometimes means the kind of thing you read from, but it can also mean
a number of other things. The example of the second context is vegetables
which has general meaning whereas carrot is more specific.
Furthemore, Hammer (1991:151-161) says that teaching vocabulary is
clearly more than just presenting new words. This may, of course have its
place but there are other issues too. However, not all vocabulary can be
learned through interaction and discovery techniques. Thus statement
implies that learning vocabulary cannot always be done through interaction
and discovery techniques for the beginners. The reason is that, in doing such
as technique, the learners are demanded to have an adequate number of
vocabularies. It means that the students need to memorize and recall many
vocabularies that have been mastered before.
Meanwhile, according to Cameron (2001), vocabulary is not simply about
learning words, but it is actually much more than that. It is also about
learning chunks and finding words inside them.
2. KINDS OF VOCABULARY:
According to Nation (2001), there are two kinds of vocabulary. The type
of vocabulary is divided based on the vocabulary knowledge, namely
receptive and productive vocabulary. The types of vocabulary will be
discussed below.
a. Receptive Vocabulary
Receptive vocabulary is learners’ words that are generally understood when
heard, read or seen without knowing everything about a word in order to
understand it fully. Receptive vocabulary is used passively in either listening
or reading. There are two units of receptive vocabulary namely, listening
vocabulary and reading vocabulary. Listening vocabulary is every word that
can be recognized when listens to speech. People may still understand words
which they are not exposed to before by using cues such as tone, gesture, the
topic of the discussion, and the social context of the conversation. Reading
vocabulary is every word that can be recognized when reading. This is
generally the largest types of vocabulary because people tends to be exposed
to words more by reading than by listening.
b. Productive Vocabulary
Productive vocabulary refers to a word which people used within an
appropriate context. Productive vocabulary is used actively either in
speaking or writing. There are two units of productive vocabulary that are
speaking vocabulary and writing vocabulary. Speaking vocabulary is every
word that is used by the person in speech. Writing vocabulary is every word
that is used in numerous forms of writing from formal essays to twitter
feeds. Many written words do not commonly appear in speech.
In short, there are four units of vocabulary such as listening vocabulary,
reading vocabulary, writing vocabulary, and speaking vocabulary.

IV. TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY

Teaching is a process to transfer the knowledge and the materials to the
students by using some methods that are suitable with the matter in the
learning process. Beside that, in using of the method, the teacher should know
what the material and about the condition of the students itself.
“As a teacher of language, you have thoughts about your subject matter, what
language is, what culture is, and about your students, who they are as learners,
and what you can do to help your students learn. It is very important for you
 to become aware of the thoughts that guide your actions in the
classroom”.(Diane Larsen and Freeman, 2000 : 1)

From the quotation above, it means that we as a teacher should know the
materials that will be teach and the condition of students who are the learners.
After we know what will be teach and who they are the learners, in learning
process we should have to choose or apply some methods. The method that
we choose should suitable with the material or subject that will be teach to the
students. To know the characteristics of the students, the condition of the
students, and the necessary of the students are the important point that the
teacher should know about that before teach in the class.
1. Using objects, illustration and pictures
Teaching vocabulary using pictures will make the students easily to understand.
“ Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar. Although work on all four skills occurs
from the start, oral communication is seen as basic.” (Diane Larsen and Freeman,
2000 : 29). From that quotation, it means that the vocabulary is the main basic of the
language that mastery by the students to improve their skills (such as four skills :
speaking, reading, listening, and writing), without vocabulary, the student cannot
mastery of that four skills anymore. It is because, vocabulary is provide all of the
words that will be used by the people to get the communicate with the other. So,
vocabulary is important for the students who are the beginners in learning language,
especially in foreign language learning.
There are many kinds of vocabularies such as vocabulary of transportations,
colours, shapes, vegetables, animals, fruits, and others. In teaching vocabulary,
especially for the children, we as a teacher should have to choose the methods or the
techniques that are suitable with the materials, so that students will enjoy and easily
to understand the subject that will be teach. For example, teaching vocabulary using
pictures, illustration and objects as media. “Picture and pictures stories : many
communication activities can be stimulated through the use of pictures (e. g. Spot
the differences, memory test, sequencing pictures to tell a story).” (Nunan, 2004 :
58). It means that the pictures, objects will make the students easily to remember
and to understand the vocabulary.
“Teachers who use the Direct Method believe students need to associate meaning
and the target language directly. In order to do this, when the teacher introduces a
new target language word or phrase, he/she demonstrates its meaning through the
use of realia, pictures, or pantomime : he never translates it into the students’ native
language.” (Diane Larsen and Freeman, 2000 : 29).

Teaching vocabulary using pictures or objects will make students easy to

understand because they know directly the things , for example “There is a car” or
“There is an apple”. The teacher shows the picture of the car or the real apple. This
way will make students easy to remember what they learn about. Teaching
vocabulary using pictures is the branch of Direct Method.
“As with the Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method is not new. Its
principles have been applied by language teachers for many years. Most recently, it
was revived as a method when the goal of instruction bacem learning how to use a
foreign language to communicate. Since the Grammar Translation Method was not
very effective in preparing students to use the target language communicatively, The
Direct Method became popular. The Direct Method has one very basic rule : No
translation is allowed. In fact, the Direct Method receives its name from the fact that
meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of
demonstration and visual aids, with no recourse to the students’ native language.”
(Diller : 1978, cited in Larsen, 2000 : 23)

Teaching vocabulary using pictures or objects as media is the branch of the Direct
Method. It is because teaching using pictures or objects as media explains about
something to the students that show the pictures or objects as the meaning of
something without translation. In this term, when the teacher will introduce the new
words, the teacher should not translate the meanings of words, but the teacher should
use the other ways, such as show the real things, describe the things, show the
pictures, show use the gesture, and the others.

What is the picture or object as media in teaching vocabulary ?

According to Hornby (2007 : 1138), picture is a description that gives you an
idea in your mind of what something is like. It means that using the
pictures will make the children easier to remember and understand
the new vocabulary that they get.
Media is a tool that can be used to show somethings or objects to make
the students become easily to know and to understand what the object means. In this
case, there is a picture or object as media in teaching vocabulary. According to
Hornby (2007 : 953 ) media is the main ways that large numbers
of people receive information and entertainment, that is television, radio, newspaper,
and the internet : the news/ broadcasting/ national media. The trial was fully reported
in the media. The media was acused of influencing the final decision.
The picture or object is one of the element in media which
is very important. There are several media that can be used in
teaching a new vocabulary to students. Beside that, the teacher has to describe
the words in questions, in a way to tell a story, describe, using the gestures of
body, showing the real objects, showing the pictures, and the last one
is translating. The picture or object is considered as an easy
way to teach vocabulary to students who are in their infancy at
the beginner level to learn English. By looking at the pictures or real objects, the
students will be easily aroused to remember the pictures that shown to them. At this
time, the students’ brain development is the still that is very good enough, so it must
be utilized to the maximum in learning vocabulary, especially in learning the foreign
language.
The picture shown by the teacher will bev ery impressive on a
child, so something they perceive will be the first impression
on their mind forever, when we introduce a new picture or object as a
new vocabulary, we also have to be careful especially in pronunciation.
So, the picture as media in teaching vocabulary is a tool that used to give an
explanation, understanding, or understanding of an object in the mastery
of vocabulary in foreign language learning, especially for the students that are the
beginners. The picture or object will greatly help the students to understand
directly about the meaning of the words from a picture or object, so they will be
easier to learn and easier to remember new vocabulary that they
have mastered to support the mastery of foreign language skill in the learning
process.
What are the principles of picture as teaching media ?
In teaching vocabulary using pictures, there are some principles in choosing a
picture. in selecting the first image that we consider is to choose the picture
that should be clear. The clear pictures are appropriate and in accordance with
reality, for example, when we introduce the vocabulary of the glass, the image must
also be shown images glasses, do not have showed dishes, spoons, and others. The
picture should be in the large size so that all students can see clearly.
“In presenting the material using the picture, you can choose flash cards. You can
have word flashcards matching the picture flashcards, thus allowing you to teach the
whole word and develop reading and writing skills. Word flashcards should never
be used to introduce a word for the first time. Always use the picture flashcards first
and revise the vocabulary orally.” (http://gibaud.pagesperso-
orange.fr/tetyc/practic/flashcards.htm) accessed on 21 January 2012, at 23: 45
A flashcard is the picture of medium sized paper on a particular theme that is
used to teach new vocabulary to the students. For example, a theme that will be
taught is fruit, so we have to prepare the pictures of fruit such as mango, banana,
orange, apple, melon, strawberry, papaya, grape, and other.
In using the flashcard we also have to master in the technique or the
way how to use the flashcard, so that we can easily use the flashcards in the
classroom when teaching and learning process is ongoing. With this
technique, we can set the time to the maximum, so that the goals or the
targets that will be achieved can be met and students can also understand the
material that we teach about.
So, the good pictures greatly affect students in learning foreign language, the
teacher must choose the pictures that really fit and proper, so that the children more
quickly and easily to capture the foreign language learning materials.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Pictures, Objects

a. In addition, according to Gerlach and Emily, there are some advantages
of using pictures or objects as teaching media as follow:
A. They are inexpensive and widely available.
B. They provide common experiences for entire group.
C. The visual details make it possible to study subject.
D. They can help you to prevent and correct disconcerting.
E. They offer a stimulus to further study, reading and research visual evidence
is power tool.
F. They help to focus attention and to develop critical judgement.
G. They are easily manipulated.
b. Whereas, there are some disadvantages of using pictures or objects as
teaching media as follow:
 A. Students pay attention on the pictures or objects more than on learning
material.
B. It takes time and costs much to provide attractive pictures or objects.
C. Small and unclear pictures or objects may arouse problems in teaching
learning process since the students may misunderstand about the pictures or objects.

2. CONTRAST

Some words are easily explained to learners by contrasting it with itsopposite, for
instance, the word " good" contrasted with the word "bad". But some words
are not. It is almost impossible to contrast the words whose opposite is the gradable
one. When the word "white"is contrasted with the word "black", there is an "in
between" word” grey”. Furthermore, verb "contrast" means to show a difference,
like photos that reveal how much weight someone lost by contrasting the "before"
and "after" shots Manymore studies have also shown that vocabulary is best acquired
if it is similar to whatis already learnt (e.g. Rudska et al., 1982, 1985), it is not
surprising that learning synonyms is a way to expand our vocabulary. Learning about
synonyms is important also because this is how dictionaries are organised. Putting
bilingual dictionaries aside, mono-lingual dictionaries essentially use words to
explain words, and in this process, synonyms are often used(Ilson, 1991)

3. GUESSING FROM CONTEXT THROUGH CLUE

Guessing from context technique is the technique to find the meaning of new word
with the clues used in context. This technique is used to find the meaning of new
word through the relationship of the words around with some clues that are
provided in the context. Guessing from context is one of the techniques that really
help students to memorize and increase their vocabulary list.

Guessing technique provides many advantages for students in learning English

vocabulary. Ying (2000: 18) mentions that in addition to enlarging students’
vocabulary, it helps them not only to derive word meaning but also know how to
use these words in other contexts. Guessing makes students aware of the fact that
context determines the meaning of words. This technique enables students to cope
with vocabulary problems independently and makes them more confident while
handling texts. This technique gives them a powerful aid to comprehend and speed
up their reading. This technique also involves the skills of interpreting the
surrounding text; predicting and checking prediction during reading. In addition, it
replaces the use of the dictionary which has the disadvantages of interrupting the
flow of reading. So, this technique is very useful for students in learning
vocabulary. To decide the use of an appropriate word to be learnt by students, the
teacher has to study words in context. In order to make the students to be
successful in figuring out an unknown word, it depends on how many times the
word presented in the context, whether the context is oral or written, and the ability
of the students to use context clues and whether the context is sufficient.

This technique can stimulus student’s brain to be intelligent and meaningful

guesses with try to decide with one is the correct answer after student guess the
meaning of unfamiliar word with combined their knowledge and their guess. This
technique helps to increase the students’ vocabulary.

There are many ways of teaching vocabulary and presenting the meaning of new
items. The process of teaching vocabulary throough contextual clues has been
specified as follows:

a) Pre-teaching

-Greeting students: the teacher comes to classroom and students greet him/her.

-Informing the students that they are going to study context cues.

-Classifying the handouts of the materials to students.

b) While-teaching

-Helping students find and choose reading and listening materials of appropriate
difficulty. -Demonstrating the materials and presenting by examples each type of
cues; illustrations (pictures, realia..), context (story of sentence in which the item
occurs).
-Matching a given synonym with a word in the text.

-Providing words before reading, then seeing if the learner can use context to find
meaning of the words.

-Testing the students’ comprehension by training them in guessing from context,

by filling blanks with the suitable words.

-Developing awareness of text features that could help guessing in order to

improve their reading skills, so they read fluently and with good comprehension.

c) Post-teaching

-Giving them feedback and asking them whether they have questions.

The teacher should have good techniques for teaching vocabulary. Contextual
cues technique has been chosen as a way to support vocabulary development and
help struggling readers to build word identifications and the development of
figuring out word meaning (Allen, 1998). The ways described above are ranked in
order to improve and help students in learning vocabulary because when a reader
has common knowledge and background information with context, it is easier for
them to learn, and it encourages them to give deliberate thoughtful attention to
vocabulary items (Nation, 2000).

Training to Use Contextual Clues

Training students to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words using the context
cues is helpful for their reading comprehension. Carnine et al., Kameenui and
Coyle (1984) have given learners training on guessing from context by teaching
them a rule “when there’s a hard word in a sentence, look for other words in the
story that tell you more about that word” (pp. 188-190). The rule was not as
important as the practice in bringing about improvement.

Inferring words’ meaning from context is a complex activity relying on a range of

skills and types of knowledge. It is a sub-skill of reading, listening, and it relies
heavily on learners’ ability to read and listen with a good level of proficiency.
Learners should work with texts where at least 95% of the running words are
familiar to them. This will allow them to have access to the cues that are there
(Nation, 2001)

Guessing words from context needed to be taught in classrooms. Students,

especially advanced learners, are recommended to learn how to guess in the best
place for this acquisition which is the classroom. Hence, teachers were supposed to
be trained on how to teach students how to guess in an effective way. Van Parrern
and Schouten Van Parrern (1981) suggested another strategy for L2 teachers to
train learners on inferring the meaning on new words, throughout a framework of
linguistic knowledge. In addition, Clarke and Nation (1980, pp. 250-256)
suggested another strategy to learn how to guess from context:

-Ask students to decide a part of speech of the target word.

-Ask them to concentrate on the immediate context of the word within a sentence
or a clause.

- Encourage them to extend their focus to a wider context.

-Let them check the meaning whether by checking the part of speech; if the word
has a prefix, root, or suffix, it might give a clue to the meaning; put the guessed
word in the passage to see whether or not it is appropriate.

Moreover, they have suggested a practical procedure for teachers to help learners
how to guess properly:

-The teacher has written the steps on the board then he has mentioned a particular
word of the context to be guessed by the student in goups or pairs.

-The teacher asked them to focus on one step for each and repeat this until they
became ready to do the whole process by themselves.

To sum up, training guessing from context is helpful for intermediate and
advanced second language learners. Teachers may try them in classrooms in order
to find out the most suitable strategy for their students.
Causes of Poor Guessing

A major difficulty faced when guessing words from context is the form of the
word to be guessed. Laufer and Sim (1985) and Bensoussan and Laufer (1984)
have found that L2 learners made many responses that were based on known words
that had some similarities to the unfamiliar word. Laufer and Sim (1985) looked at
the errors that learners made in trying to interpret an unsimplified text and
described the faulty approach that 15 learners took to interpreting the text. They
argue that guessing from context should not be focused on until learners have a
sufficiently large vocabulary to support such guessing.

Wittrock and Doctorow (1975) found that if young native speakers read a story
containing familiar words, and then read the same story again but with some
unfamiliar words replacing the familiar one this has been to take a common sense
of the issue and to see how the density of unknown vocabulary the learner can keep
through reading words that have not been met somewhere else. The foundation of
the familiar context on the first reading seemed to make it easier to learn the
unfamiliar words later. So, an important factor affecting guessing from context is
the similarities between learners’ first language and second language.

Saemon (1970) in a study of native speakers has found that “uncommonly known
meanings of polysemous words were harder to guess from context when real word
form was used, compared with the use of nonsense word”(p. 39), that is, the known
form led learners towards a known but in an appropriate meaning. Li (1988)
compared second language learners’ guessing from context in repeated original
contexts through listening and reading and has found that greater successful
guessing coming from reading.

Advantages and Shortcomings of Using Context

a. Advantages of Using Contextual clues

-The student does not have to memorize a list of words and definitions.

-They become aware of the meanings of words in different passages.

-They use the skill only when they come across difficult words in text,
newspapers, novels and so on.

-They read and understand general vocabulary without needing precise

definitions; general meanings usually enable them to continue reading.

- It encourages them to develop the quality of taking risks and make them more
confident in their approach of reading.

-They read and understand precise meanings of terms on which they will be tested.

b. Shortcomings

In spite of the importance of using contextual clues on obtaining vocabulary

meanings as discussed above, a lot of researchers have also criticized it. The
students who have just enough vocabulary will face difficulties to understand the
clues given in a sentence. Successful guessing meaning from context is related to
the students’ vocabulary size.

Laufer (1997) insisted on the fact that there are certain words that cannot be
guessed and make them difficult to interfere. For her, Contextual clues are not
always available surrounding the new term. She argued with the finding of Kelley
that:

Unless the context is very constrained, which is a relatively rare occurrence, or

unless there is a relationship with a known word identifiable on the basis form and
supported by context, there is little chance of guessing the correct meaning (Kelley
as cited in Laufer, 1997, p.28).

So, the availability of inferring meaning from context clues is not always certain.

It is also difficult to guess if students do not have knowledge or they have no

experience to decide whether the unknown word is a noun, verb, or adjective, etc.
They will be unable to choose the most suitable meaning of the unfamiliar word
because they do not understand the clue. So finally they will look up the words’
meaning in a dictionary.
All in all, despite these impediments, using the contextual clues is still advocated
by readers who need training in it to improve their ability in guessing words’
meaning.