Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary by Halimah



Name             : Halimah
Reg. Number : 1610117220010
Writing
Academic Paper

Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary

Abstract
In this paper, the writer will describe about the strategies that can be use for teaching vocabulary. These strategies will enable the teachers easier to teach vocabulary. Based on H. Douglas Brown, in his book titled Teaching by Principles (2015) there are four (4) strategies that can be use, 1. Allocate specific class time to vocabulary, 2. Help students to learn vocabulary in context, 3. Engage in “unplanned” vocabulary teaching, 4. Encourage students to develop word-learning strategies. The strategies are suitable for the teachers also for the students because it can interest students while learning vocabulary and by the strategies also can make the students more active in the class.
Key words : strategies, teaching, vocabulary, teacher, and students

Introduction
Vocabulary is one of the study that must be taught to the students. According to Hidayati (2007: 7) stated that vocabularies are the words that are taught in the foreign language, another statement by Sasa Astra Pamungkas (2012: 4) Vocabulary is a list of words, which means any unit of language used in writing. Based on the definition above, we can conclude that vocabulary is all of the list of the word that has meaning in the language and taught in the foreign language.

As we know there must be a teacher to teach about vocabulary, and when they were teaching, they must have a strategies how to teach vocabulary to their students. According to Kemp (1995) Expressing that learning strategies are activities learning that must be done by the teacher and students so that the goals learning can be achieved effectively and efficiently. Base on that definition, strategies is a ways or a step to do by the teacher and the students in a lesson process.

It is important to teach by using strategies, because it can easier the teaching process and also can make the students interested to the material and more active in the class.  Based on H. Douglas Brown, in his book titled Teaching by Principles (2015) there are four strategies that can be use in teaching vocabulary. All of the strategies are suitable  for teaching process and the teacher can use it while teaching.

The Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary :

1.      Allocate Specific Class Time to Vocabulary Learning
According to Webb  & Nation (2013), they were stated that spreading 20 minutes across a few days at progressive intervals will be much more effective for long-term recall than spending 20 minutes all at once. From that statement, we know that they were prefer to assigned the students to memorize several new vocabulary in 20 minutes. 20 minutes here means the students can divided 3-5 minutes per day to memorized new vocabulary, continuing all day until the total time is 20 minutes, rather than memorizing in 20 minutes at one day, because it can make the students can’t memorize well. By allocate the time, the students can do memorizing new vocabulary at school, or at their home.

2.      Help Students to Learn Vocabulary in Context
Other strategies that can be use is to help students to learn vocabulary in context. Learning vocabulary in context here means that the teacher are teaching vocabulary by the rule or the pattern of vocabulary. For example, teacher taught vocabulary by the form of regular and irregular verbs, the teacher also can give the list of the verb start from verb 1 until verb 3, so the students can understand about the pattern or the rule of vocabulary. Refer to Zimmerman (2014) he states that good learners dictionaries additionally include information about collocation, grammatical forms, register, word parts, and so on. From the statement, we know that it is not only the material from the teacher, but the students can also learn about information of rules, form, and also the part of word by their dictionary that including the information of vocabulary.

3.      Engage in “Unplanned” Vocabulary Teaching
The teacher not only can give a list of vocabulary to memorized or teach about the form of vocabulary. In this strategy, the teacher can give a new vocabulary to the students, then the teacher help the students to guest the meaning by giving an example using another words that students can understand or words that already know by the students. This strategy is related to McCarthy (1990), he stated that vocabulary knowledge is most efficiently absorbed when it is assimilated to the already known words by using it in a context. This is what we call unplanned, that the teacher indirectly give a new words to the students to guest.

4.      Encourage Students to Develop Word-Learning Strategies
Refer to the statement from Zimmerman (2014) that Word-Learning strategies refer to “the planned approaches that a word-learner takes as an agent of his or her own word learning”. From the statement above, we can know that word-learning strategies are different from the previous strategies. In word-learner strategies the students are assigned to analyze several kinds of word and the students can divided the words. For example, the teacher give a kind of words, like synonym, antonym, and so on, then the students can add the words and categorized several word that has synonym or antonym then they make the sentences of the words. In this strategy, the student also able to analyze or make a sentences of the word by using their own words to make them easier to do the assignment.

Conclusion
Teaching vocabulary isn’t an easy thing for a teacher. It is why the teacher must use several strategies to make their lesson good and succeed. The first strategies that can be use is by giving an allocation time for students to memorize some words and they can spent 3-5 minutes per day to memorizing. Second strategies is by teaching the context of vocabulary, the teacher can give the information of the rule, the form, also the pattern of several vocabularies, it can make the students not only know about the new vocabulary but also the pattern or the kinds of vocabulary. 

The third is by giving an example to the students, the teacher can give a new vocabulary then the teacher give the sentences as an example of the word by using several words that already known by the students, it can make the students easier in guessing the mean of the new vocabulary. The fourth of the last strategies is by giving several kinds of word like synonym and antonym, then the students are assigned to find the word that has synonym or antonym. Those strategy are very good and useful for the teacher to teach vocabulary and make them easier to teach their students.














References

Brown Douglas H. Teaching by Principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. America: Pearson Education, Inc. 2015. Print

Hidayati, Suci. The Analysis of Students' Ability in Using Derivation Vocabulary. Unpublished Thesis Proposal. Tadris Bahasa Inggris of Tarbiyah Department of STAIN Bengkulu. 2007. Pdf

Pamungkas Astra Sasa. Strategies in Teaching Vocabulary at the First Year in SMP N 2 Bringin, Kabupaten Semarang. Publication Article. School of Teaching Training and Education Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta. 2012. Pdf

Kemp. Jerrold E. Instruction Desigen: A Plan for Unit and Course Development. Belmon: Feron. 1995

Webb. S., & Nation, P. Teaching Vocabulary. In C. Chapelle (Ed.). The encyclopedia of applied linguistics (pp. 5670-5677). West Sussex. UK: Wiley-Blackwell. 2013

Zimmerman, C. Teaching and learning vocabulary for second language learners. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. Brinton, & M. A. Snow (Eds.). Teaching English as a second and foreign language (4th ed., pp . 288-302). Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning. 2014

McCarthy, M. Vocabulary (Language Teaching: A Scheme for Teacher Education). Oxford: OUP. 1990



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