The Importance of Vocabulary? Vocabulary is central to English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand others or express their own ideas. Wilkins (1972) wrote that "... while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary worthing can be conveyed" (pp. 111-112). This point reflects my experience with different languages, even without grammar, with some useful words and expressions, I ain often manage to communicate. Lewis (1993) went further to argue, "lexis is the core or heart of language" (p. 89). Particularly as students develop greater fluency and expression in English, it is significant for them to acquire more productive vocabulary knowledge and to develop their own personal vocabulary learning strategies.
Students often instinctively recognize the importance of vocabulary to their language learning. As Schmitt (2010) noted, "learners carry around dictionaries and not grammar books" (p. 4). Teaching vocabulary helps students understand and communicate with others in English. Voltaire purportedly said, “Language is very difficult to put into words." I believe English language students generally would concur, yet learning vocabulary also helps students, master English, for their purposes.
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| Importance of Vocabulary |
Aspects of Vocabulary knowledge » The concept of a word can be defined in various ways, but three significant aspects teachers need to be aware of and focus on are form, meaning, and use. According to Nation (2001), the form of a word involves its pronunciation (spoken form), spelling (written form), and any word parts that make up this particular item (such as a prefix, root, and suffix). An example for word parts can be seen with the word WNICOWWII native, where the prefix - means negative or opposite, communicate is the root word, and Live is a suffix denoting that someone or something is able to do something. Here, they all go together to refer to someone or something that is not able to communicate.
Nation (2001) stated that meaning encompasses the way that forms and meaning work together, in other words, the concept and what items it refers to, and the associations that come to mind when people think about a specific word or expression. Us, Nation noted, involves the grammatical functions of the word or phrase, collocations that normally go with it, and finally any constraints on its use, in terms of frequency, level, and so forth. For form, meaning, and use, Nation (2001) declared there is both a receptive and productive dimension, so knowing these three aspects for each word or phrase actually involves 18 different types of lexical knowledge, summarized in Table 1. When teachers teach vocabulary to build students knowledge of words and phrases, helping them learn any and all of these different components assists them in enhancing their English vocabulary knowledge and use. After you have looked through Table 1, please do the Reflective Break, which is to consider your students' particular strengths and weaknesses with English interns of these three aspects of vocabulary knowledge.
The Importance of Vocabulary
Vocabulary is central to English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand others or express their own ideas. Wilkins (1972) wrote that “. . . while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (pp. 111–112). This point reflects my experience with different languages; even without grammar, with some useful words and expressions, I can often manage to communicate. Lewis (1993) went further to argue, “lexis is the core or heart of language” (p. 89). Particularly as students develop greater fluency and expression in English, it is significant for them to acquire more productive vocabulary knowledge and to develop their own personal vocabulary learning strategies.
Students often instinctively recognize the importance of vocabulary to their language learning. As Schmitt (2010) noted, “learners carry around dictionaries and not grammar books” (p. 4). Teaching vocabulary helps students understand and communicate with others in English. Voltaire purportedly said, “Language is very difficult to put into words.” I believe English language students generally would concur, yet learning vocabulary also helps students, master English, for their purposes.