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January 1, 2010 ² pbingfkipunlam

Jumariati

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K vocabulary, word, word classes, word formation

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Learning a language means learning its vocabularies. We use the vocabularies in communication
either in spoken form or written form. We try to send messages, share information and ideas by
using the language. In general, no language acquisition is possible without understanding the
vocabulary, either in the first or the second language (Kweldju, 2004:18).

The process and the way that we go through in learning and using the target language usually
take hard effort especially in learning a foreign language. This is because a foreign language is
different from a mother language. The differences can be in the rules of the sounds system
(phonology), the word formation (morphology), the word structures (syntax), the words¶
meaning (semantic), and the social context (sociolinguistic). These can cause problems in
learning a foreign language. However, teachers of a foreign language should always motivate
their students to keep practicing using the language. They should use many methods which can
interest their students in using the target language in classroom communication.

Students often find difficulties in using a foreign language because they lack of vocabularies and
they often forget easily new vocabularies after they get the meaning from dictionaries.
Sometimes in speaking classes, students can not speak fluently because they lack of
vocabularies. They say only a few sentences because they can not find the appropriate
vocabularies to be used in expressing their ideas. The same problem is found in writing classes
that students can not write essays easily because they lack of vocabularies. Even though they
have already learned the strategies or techniques in writing essays, still they find difficulties in
constructing sentences. They find difficulties in choosing and using the appropriate vocabularies.
This article is not aim at neglecting the students¶ problems in sounds system, grammar, and so
on. Nor is it aim at placing vocabulary as the most influential factor in foreign language mastery.
It just intends to bring vocabularies as one of students¶ most difficult aspect to the discussion.
This writing concern with the ways teachers can use to help their students to improve the
vocabularies since vocabularies are very crucial in learning a foreign language. This writing is
hopefully can give suggestions to improve or enlarge students¶ vocabularies toward English as a
foreign language.

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Vocabulary learning is the important aspect in learning a foreign language. Students will
improve much if they learn more words and expressions. As a linguist David Wilkins (in
Thornbury 2002:13) says that vocabulary learning is very important. µWithout grammar very
little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.¶ Thus, vocabularies are the
flesh of a language while grammar is the skeleton. In order to be able to use the language
productively, students must know certain amount of vocabularies, not only for communicating
orally, but also written. It is in line with the concept of communicative approach in which
learners have a big chance to use the language directly in classroom activities. This approach is
useful in improving students¶ vocabularies. Through the approach students are forced to use the
language directly in either spoken or written communication.

The questions relate with vocabularies acquisition are what kinds of words one needs to know
and how many words he must know. The vocabularies that should a student know first are the
high frequency words. These are words that he uses most often in communication either in
classroom activities or outside classroom. The high frequency words are called the general
service vocabulary. Next, he also should know the academic or sub technical words which are
not in general service vocabulary but occur frequently over a range of academic texts.

How many words a student must know is varied. Kweldju (1997) found that the average
vocabulary sizes of students from fifteen English Departments ranged from 2041 to 3352 word
families. A study conducted to 1776 students in 21 state graduate schools in Indonesia showed
that the graduate students¶ vocabulary size averaged 2861 words, while S2 students¶ vocabulary
size 2671 words and S3 students¶ was 3211 words.

Learning the vocabulary of a foreign language presents the learner with firstly making the correct
connections when understanding the language between the form and the meaning of words
including discriminating the meanings of closely related words. Secondly, when producing the
language, using the correct form of a word for the meaning intended.

A student of a foreign language must know about the words and word formation in order to be
able to understand the form and meaning of words as well as to be able to use the correct form of
word. The next discussion is about the definition of word, word classes, and word formation.

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There are some definitions of the term . Longman dictionary of American English stated
that word is written representation of one or more sounds which can be spoken to represent an
idea, object, etc. Crowley et.al (1995:7) stated that the term  is a unit of linguistic analysis
which has these characteristics: (1) isolability, means that words can be pronounced in isolation
from other words, (2) mobility, means that words are item which can be moved around within a
sentence to form new sentences, and (3) phonological independence which means that words are
correspond to the minimal units of phonological analysis.

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The classes of word can be divided into eight different classes such as nouns, pronouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and determiners. Thornbury (2002:3) mentioned
that there are two crude division of word that is content words (lexical words) and function
words (grammatical words). Content words are those that carry high information load such as
nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The membership is unrestricted and still allow for the
addition of new members. Meanwhile function words are words that mainly contribute to the
grammatical sentence such as prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and pronouns. The
membership is restricted and definite.

  *

There are many ways of words formation. These develop and enrich vocabularies of a language.
In English, the common word formation processes are (1) derivation, (2) compounding, (3)
acronyms, (4) back formation, (5) blending, (6) clipping, (7) coinage, (8) functional shift, (9)
false etymology, and (10) proper names. (Fromkin, 1988). Below is the definition of each
process.

1.V Derivation: It is the process that derives new words by using prefixes and suffixes. Some
common prefixes are  
 

  and 
. Some common suffixes are
! 
  

      


and !. For instance, from the word



(verb) can be derived into some adjectives by adding prefix and suffix like
follow: believa
believa
.
2.V Compounding: It is the process that forms new words by putting together two or more
existing words. For instance by combining noun and noun like  
   or
 .
3.V Acronyms: It is the process that forms new words by uniting the initial sounds or letters
of words then pronounceable as a new separate word. For example the word 

 from
    

 



 or "#from "

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4.V Back Formation: It is the process that uses analogy in a rather backwards manner to
derive new words. For instance the word 


is derived from the word 

.
5.V Blending: It is the process that combines parts of two words, usually the initial part of a
word and the last part of another word. For example the word  is the blending
from 
$
 and  .
6.V Clipping: It is the process that derives new words by shortening the words so it is easy to
be pronounced without paying attention to the derivational morphology of the word. For
instance the word from the word  and the word  from  
7.V Coinage: It is the process that derives new words by using no morphological methods but
just take the brand of some products to name the things refer. For example the word %
to name all bottled mineral water and the word &$to name any kind of camera.
 8.V Functional Shift: It is the process that derives new words by moving the part of speech of
a word and no changing of its form. For instance the word  can be used as noun and
also as verb.
9.V Morphological Misanalysis: It is the process that derives new words by introducing new
words taken from similar words. This can be because of actual misunderstanding, or
intentional (creative) extension of morphemes. For instance the word $   derives
from    
10.VDroper Names: It is the process that derives new words from names of persons connected
with them. For example the word from '

 the name of the person who
invented electricity.

These processes of words formation can be introduced to students in order to give them the rule
of deriving new words which they can apply and to improve their vocabularies. The knowledge
of words and words formation processes is beneficial to help the students in learning
vocabularies. First, they can learn the principles in forming words. Then, the knowledge leads
them to be productive and creative that is by applying the principles in order to µcreate¶ words.
As the result, they may improve their vocabularies.

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This part proposes some activities that teachers can use to vary their techniques of teaching
vocabulary. These activities should be chosen by determining the students¶ level, the teaching
objectives, and the time allocation.

1. Introduce words in lexical sets to make good sense. The meanings of the words can be made
clearer by contrasting them with closely related words in the same set. For example if the topic
of your lesson is about 
J, the following lexical set may be useful:

airplane take-off

passport check-in

boarding Dass transit

luggage landing

Teacher can ask the students to make or to complete the set related with the topic Allow them to
use their dictionaries.

2. Take the form of derivation or affixation in your reading or speaking classes as the activity of
vocabularies developmentfor instance the adjective formation below.

Adjectives formed with !

 describe our reaction to someone or something.

For example terrify +

 becomes 

 Example:
I was terrified when I saw the movie.

Adjectives formed with ! describe the person or the thing that causes the

reaction. Example:

The movie was terrifying.

The other adjectives formations are:

Amuse ± amused ± amusing

Annoy ± annoyed ± annoying

Bore ± Bored ± Boring

Tire ± Tired ± Tiring

Interest ± Interested ± Interesting

Teachers can ask the students to use these adjectives in vocabulary exercises for instance by
filling the gaps in sentences.

3. Encourage students to bring to class jokes, magazines, and newspapers in English that they
like readingThey will find many examples of word formation that they may do not know the
meanings. Below is the example from Reader¶s Digest (1993:53):

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+
,



-


,

 
'.

From the example, the suffix !

expresses the idea of movement. The author makes use of the
similar form and meaning in ,
and ,
for a comic purpose. Then, ask your students to
find words with , (or phoneme [dz] that express the idea of movement. By using their
dictionaries they will find these words in the same list of movement: ,
$,
,
,

,
 ,

,
,,
, ,

,
,

4. Ask students to write another list of words with meanings associated with the word for
example    as can be seen in the example below taken from a newspaper advertisement
(Kompas, 2007):

  /



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 J
01
Ask the students to make a list with associated meanings with   Students will come across
words like 
2

3


4




5




They will learn a lot of new words and memorize them easily since they are all associated.

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Vocabularies are very important when we learn a language, not only in a native language but
also in a foreign language. The complexity of vocabularies may cause the problem in the
mastery. In English as a Foreign Language classroom, the most difficult aspects are the retention
of vocabulary. Teachers work hard to improve the vocabulary of their students by using many
methods and activities. Yet, this effort sometimes does not give good result because of the
complexity of vocabulary learning in a foreign language.

There are many ways to improve vocabularies recognition. This article only proposes a small
part of the ways. Teachers of EFL can develop many other ways to enrich the students¶
vocabulary. Teachers should use the appropriate method in the classroom by considering the
objectives of teaching, the students¶ level of acquisition, and the time allocation. The most
important thing is that the teacher should always motivate their students to develop good reading
habits as one basic way to enrich their vocabularies. Once they develop this habit, they will be
able to learn many things including vocabularies improvement.

#

Crowley, Terry, Lynch, John, Siegel, Jeff, and Diau, Julie. 1995. 
-




6-




 New Zealand. Longman

Daul Limited.

Fromkin, Victoria, and Robert Rodman. 1988. J

 New

York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Kweldju, Siusana. 2004. 6

)

 
7 

7

6

University of Malang.

KOMDAS. 10 Januari 2007. Hlm.5.

LONGMAN. 


-J
 
 2001. England. Dearson

Education Limited.

Reader¶s Digest. October 1993. Dp 53

Teresa, Carmem. 1996. 7


-

8

9  7 J


 

 Dp58-59

Thornburry, Scott. (

 9   England Dearson Education Limited.

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