Teaching vocabulary for junior high

A.     WHAT IS VOCABULARY

Vocabulary is the vital organ and flash of the language. An ability to manipulate grammatical structure does not have any potensial meaning unless the words are used so that the vocabulary become the most important skill of language. As the most important organ in language structure, For many years vocabulary was seen as incidental to the main purpose of language teaching – namely the acquisition of grammatical knowledge about the language. Vocabulary was necessary to give students something to hang on when learning language structure, but was frequently not a main focus it self. 

Recently, however, methodologist and linguist have  increasingly been turning their attention to vocabulary, stressing its importance in language teaching and reassessing some of the ways in which it is taught and learnt. It is now clear, for example about the acquisition of vocabulary is just as important as the acquisition of grammar-taught the two are obviously interdependent – and teachers should have the same kind of expertise in the teaching vocabulary as do in teaching structure.

  Language students need to learn the lexis of the language. They need to learn what words mean and how they are used. Whilst this obviously involves giving them the name for things (e.g. ‘table , chair etc ) it also involves showing them hoe words are stretched and twisted (e,g to table a motion, or to chair a meeting). Clearly some words are more likely to be taught at lower levels than others, and some uses words may be more shopisticated than others – and therefore, more appropriate for advance students. We should ensure that our student are aware of the vocabulary they need for their level and that they can use the words which they want to use – and / or the words we have selected for them to use

B.      TEACHING VOCABULARY

Teaching vocabulary is clearly more than just presenting new words. This may, of course, have its place but there are other issues, too. For example, student see a lot of words in the course of a week. Some of them are used straight away, others are not. Should we teach some words which we need for structure practice, and not teach other ? is there any way in which we can encourage students to learn a new words ? we will look at ACTIVE and PASIVE, insteraction with words.

 B.1.    ACTIVE AND PASSIVE

a distinction is frequently made between active and passive vocabulary. The former refers to vocabulary that students have been taught or learnt – and which they are expecting to be able to use – whilst the letter refers to words which the student will recognize when they met them but which probably they will not be able to use. At beginner and elementary levels it certainly seems a good idea to provide sets of vocabulary which the student can learn. Most of these early words will be constantly practice and so can, presumably, be considered as `ACTIVE’. But at intermediate levels and above the situation is rather more than complicated. We can assume that students have a store words but it would be difficult to say which are active and which are passive. A words that has been `ACTIVE’ through constant use may slip back into the passive store if it not used. A words that students have in their passive store may suddenly become active if the situation or the context provoke to use, in other words, the statue of a vocabulary item dows not seem to be a permanent state of affairs.

 B.2.   INTERACTION WITH WORDS

the students who remember the words  `CUDDLE’ because they like the experience of learning it and because they like the word seem to provide another example of hoe students retain words.  We could predict that the word `cuddle` is a word that they are remember for a long time- though it may eventually fade trough lack use. This word touched them in some way. Theords that  had some kind of relationship with it. It was not just a word they had repeated because it referred to the picture that they had shown. Example It`s an apple.  It was a word that had personal meaning for them. Not all vocabulary items have the warmth of a word like ( cuddle ) however. But it would be nice if we could provoke the same kind of relationship with the words we teach as those students seem had the experience with their words. Somehow or other, then it seem that we should get the student to interact with words. We should get them to adopt the words that they like and the words that they want to use.  We should get them to do things with words so that they become properly acquinted with them.

 B.3   DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES

Especially in intermediate levels and above, discovery techniques( where the student have to work out rules and meaning for themselves rather than being given everything from the teacher) are an apropiate  alternative to standard presentation techniques this is certaintly true of vocabulary learning where student will often be asked to discover themselves , what a words means and how and why its being used. At intermediate levels we can assume that students already have a  considerable store of vocabulary. Rather than teach a new words we can show the example of words in a example of words action. And ask them to use their previous knowledge to work out what words can  go with others, when they should be used and what cooptation they have.  Discovery techniques use with vocabulary materials allow students activate  their previous knowledge and to share what they know( if they working with others ). They also provoke the kind of interaction with words which we have said is desirable.