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Name : Ayu Suhesti

NPM : A1B017021

How to Teach Vocabulary to Students

vocabulary is one of the most important aspects of English language skills. The more

vocabulary we have, the easier it will be for us to understand the conversation or writing of

other people in that language and the easier it is for us to express the content of our thoughts

in that language verbally or in writing. Conversely, the fewer English vocabulary we have,

the more difficult it will be for us to understand the conversation or writing of other people in

English and it will be increasingly difficult for us to express the contents of thoughts in

English, both verbally and in writing. Having a rich vocabulary can also improve students'

ability to communicate through speaking, listening, and writing. Teaching vocabulary must

be a top priority in teaching English. The teacher has an important role in helping students to

improve their vocabulary. Students must be trained well to increase their vocabulary

knowledge.Should be at the initial level of learning English, it is better to be taught

vocabulary than grammar.

Teaching vocabulary to students is important from the development of students'

English skills, but to do vocabulary teaching requires careful planning. There are several

reasons why we as English teachers must teach vocabulary to students. the first is because

knowledge vocabulary is closely related to reading comprehension, secondly, knowledge

vocabulary helps students to understand what they are reading without looking at

dictionaries, thirdly, knowledge vocabulary becomes a benchmark of how a person's English

skills, then vocabulary helps students express themselves more right and strengthen

communication skills.

Many vocabulary teaching techniques by many experts. Among the many types of

teaching techniques, vocabulary teaching techniques can be divided into 4, namely 1) Media
that can be seen (visual aids), 2) explanation verbally (verbal explanation), 3) presentation

through sound (audio), 4) contextually (running context). Based on this technique, I give

several methods in teaching vocabularies to make it easier for students to be more interested

in increasing their vocabulary without feeling bored. Here are several engaging ways to teach

our students vocabulary.

The first is to teach vocabularies through wordwall (the name of the method).

Wordwall is a collection of systematically organized vocabulary that is displayed in large

letters and affixed to the walls of a class. Wordwall is a learning media that must be used not

only displayed or seen. This media can be designed to improve the activities of study groups

and can also involve students in their making and activities for their use. By using wordwall

it is expected that students will increase their understanding of their English vocabulary

without having to always depend on the use of the dictionary or also the meaning of the word

given by the teacher. There are several ways to make wordwall efficient, practical and easy to

remember. Wordwall is an interactive media in the classroom to support learning listening,

speaking, reading and writing. The several ways are: (1) Make it easy to remember by using

favorite words on a particular theme. (2) Make it useful by frequently using these words in

various activities of listening, speaking, reading or writing. (3) Make it easy to see, by writing

it in large letters and pasting it on a wall in the class. In making this media the author makes

key words in certain themes in accordance with the curriculum and writes them in large

letters on a carton with a size that can be seen as clearly as possible by all students in the

class. These keywords can be in the form of Adjectives, nouns, verbs, or adverb that are

tailored to the theme to be studied. The author gives between 5 and 10 words per week. The

thing that the author emphasizes is in terms of quality, namely the words will always be

easily remembered by students and not from the many vocabulary but easily forgotten for

students. For the next stage, the writer can collaborate with students in making this wordwall.
Students are told to make a vocabulary on a piece of cardboard that is related to a particular

learning theme. After that it is collected and selected which words are most suitable with the

theme to be taught. All the results of this student's work are collected as a student portfolio

and rated.

The second method for increasing students' vocabulary, we need media to make it

easier. One of them is a game. The game is an activity carried out for fun. With the method of

passing the game it is expected that students can focus more on learning, because students do

not feel that they are forced to learn. The game will be very useful and effective that the

teacher can apply in the vocabulary class. Using a game in teaching vocabulary can make the

lesson more interesting, fun, and effective. The aim of the game in the learning process is to

strengthen and train what has been taught and even increase vocabulary knowledge. During

the game, students will play an active role in fun and challenging activities with clear

objectives. Often, students are very involved and really enjoy playing games without them

knowing they are practicing English. So the game can provide vocabulary training.

Many kinds of games that teachers can use in practicing vocab. Games like

Balderdash, Taboo, Scrabble, Blurt, word bingo, and others. For example: Miming (the name

of the game) can be used as a guessing game, the technique of this game is to direct students

to speak naturally and spontaneously. This game strategy is that someone performs or

demonstrates an action and others try to guess what is being demonstrated. This kind of

guessing game can provide further training from a broader range of lexical and grammatical

units, such as those related to work. Furthermore a student chooses animals for example and

demonstrates typical actions related to animals or words while others try guessing the animal

by asking about the action or the animal, for example, Can it fly? Is it crawling? Is it wild

animals? Is that a pet? Of course they speak must use English. Students who imitate only

provide nonverbal instructions to help the rest of the class guess what the animal is.
Other games that can be used in the classroom to increase the vocabulary there is

scrabble game. Through scrabble, vocabulary learning can take place more fun and more

easily absorbed. Teachers can use Scrabble maximally to increase students' vocabulary in the

classroom. Simply put, this is what teachers can do: (1) Teach students how to play scrabble

correctly. For the time being, there is no need to care about scoring. Make sure students can

form crossing words horizontally or vertically. (2) each student succeeds in making words,

making sure the teacher asks students what the word means. If students do not know, tell and

ask to immediately remember it. (3) At the end of the game, if all tiles have been installed or

if other words cannot be formed, have students record all the words made (including those

made by other players), and memorize it. If the simple steps above are already done, the

teacher can begin to teach students how to play games with scoring and strategy, where

vocabulary learning will penetrate into a more comprehensive order.

So the conclusion is that vocabulary is very important to teach to students. We as

teachers in teaching vocabularies must be creative because teaching vocabulary does not only

need explanations in oral form but must be implemented through practice. For that there are

lots of fun methods or methods and make it easy to teach vocab.


Reference

Essays, UK. (November 2013). Teaching and learning vocabulary. Retrieved from
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/teaching/teaching-and-learning-vocabulary.php

Effective Srategies for Teaching Vocabulary. (2008-2018). Retrieved 2018, from k12reader:
https://www.k12reader.com/effective-strategies-for-teaching-vocabulary/

Setiadi, A. (n.d.). Upaya Peningkatan Vocabulary Siswa dengan Media WordWall. Retrieved 2018,
from alamsetiadi08's Weblog: https://alamsetiadi08.wordpress.com/upaya-peningkatan-vocabulary-
siswa-dengan-media-wordwall/

Suparmin. (n.d.). PENTINGNYA KOSAKATA PADA KETERAMPILAN BAHASA INGGRIS. Retrieved from
Widyasari penerbit dan percetakan: http://widyasari-press.com/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=1265:pentingnya-kosakata-pada-keterampilan-bahasa-
inggris&catid=134:vol-1-no-5-oktober-2017

Teaching Vocabulary. (2009). Retrieved 2018, from Colorín Colorado:


http://www.colorincolorado.org/teaching-vocabulary

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