Teaching Media in Vocabulary Mastery (part 1)

As every body knows language is as a means to convey ideas, opinions, and feeling among the people by oral or written ways. One of the languages which is often used as a means of communication is English. It becomes the dominant language around the world, and now more and more people use English as an international language.

The acquisition of foreign language especially English as an international language has become more and more important in facing the globalization. Everyone has to be able to communicate to foreigners because there will be no boundaries among the countries. Indonesia, that is located in a strategic area, will get a strong effect of this phenomenon. Ordinary people especially the old generations might not feel the direct effect caused by the globalization. However, the young learners have to be ready as the next generation will be responsible for their better future because globalization in free trade has just started and predicted to reach a peak in relatively short period of time.

Huebener stated that as international language, many communities in many countries in this world use it. English plays an important role in every aspect of human life, such as communication, economics, education, science, and technology (1965: p.2). English is mostly used in the world. We know that it is also needed in the scientific fields as a mean of expanding science and technologies written in English. The mastery of English by Indonesian people could be significant requirements in order to be successful in the process of getting science and technology. It is reasonable enough to learn it since English plays an important role.

The importance of learning English could be seen from the fact that most scientific books are written in English and the students are supposed to comprehend those books. According to English curriculum, English teaching covers four skills, namely reading, listening, speaking and writing. The four skills are supported by the learning of language elements. They are structure, vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling. Therefore, vocabulary is one of the important language elements the students should master. Vocabulary includes collections of words. The words are known not only as individual words, but also as a group of words that have meaning.

To develop students’ language skills in reading, listening, speaking and writing, the learners must master vocabulary. The mastery of vocabulary can not sometimes be reached optimally. The mastery of vocabulary is needed by each language skill. In reading, for instance, the students will get difficulties in comprehending the text if they do not know the words in the text. Similarly in speaking, they will have the same problem if they have only few vocabularies.

Teaching vocabulary to children is not easy. There is a difference between teaching children and teaching adults. The children have certain characteristics and need a certain treatment. Halliwel (1992: p.3) states that young children do not come to the language classroom empty handed but they bring with them an already well- established of instinct, skill and characteristics in which will help them to learn another language. In this case, teachers need to develop, support, motivate and dig up their basic ability in improving it by providing a conducive environment, useful resources, and carefully structured input and practice opportunities.

Vale and Feunteun (1998: 2) add that children have many special characteristics in learning. They as young learners have specific learning needs. They learn best when they are involved and their works are valued, and they have opportunity to experience and experiment for themselves. Children’s attention span is limited. Therefore, tasks should be short, varied, motivating and interesting and should offer “concrete perceptual support”. The experience and environment at school and how language is taught and practiced play a vital role in language acquisition (http://www.englishraven.com /articleheory_piaget.html).

Teacher should find the best or the effective technique to teach English vocabulary. Media as teaching aids are needed to help the student’s understanding and to increase the effectiveness in the communication between teacher and students in the teaching and learning process. It is also used to stimulate the students’ motivation and student’s interest to the lesson. —:: ~_~ :: —