Teaching of English Vocabulary

Abstract

Learning Vocabulary is an essential part of teaching and mastering English as a second language or foreign language for teachers, students, researchers, and material writers (Bai, 2018). However, syllabus and textbooks have not been giving clear guidelines on how teachers and learners can best pursue English vocabularies. Besides, vocabularies are important for student’s communication and language skills development, since lack of adequate words makes it difficult to relate ideas, feelings, and thoughts of who individuals are and their surrounding world ( Susanto, 2017).In this case, language teachers teach English Vocabulary by application of various strategies in either introducing new vocabularies, making the students easy to recall, and practising the vocabularies in a relevant and engaging manner( Asyiah, 2017). Deni and Fahriany (2020) point out that when teaching English second language vocabulary either in a classroom or through the internet, language teachers should apply several strategies such as, creating context around the vocabularies being taught, teaching relevant English vocabularies that students can practice immediately and repetitively in their daily activities,and considering the age of the students (Den & Fahriany, 2020). In addition, Vocabulary is one of the three key areas of language learning that includes grammar and pronunciation. It is the basic part of any language since it’s the part required to make sentences, express ideas, and communicate. Schmitt, (2007) maintains that it is important for teachers to acknowledge the vocabulary challenge facing learners before designing the principled vocabulary programs for their students because English compromises of the greatest number of words of other major languages, thus the learning of its vocabularies sufficiently is a formidable role. This essay seeks to explain and critically reflect the ways of teaching the English language in an observed lesson episode, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the observed episode, and provide recommendations for its improvements.