Critical
Review on “Vocabulary Learning and Teaching”
By
Jeanette S. Decarrico
Abstract
The
paper reviews the article made by Decarrico, S., J., with title Vocabulary
Learning and Teaching. The article deals with current issues in vocabulary
learning and teaching, deciding which items to teach and how to teach them on
explicit and implicit learning, vocabulary learning strategies and on the role
of collocations. Then, it focuses on recent corpus studies and their
implications for analysis of multiword phrasal units and for new directions in
vocabulary instructions. On the other part, in term of critical review on this
article, there will be another discussion due to the usefulness and the
weaknesses of this article.
Keywords : Review, Vocabulary,
Reading, Strategies and Learning
1.
Introduction
Jeanette S. Decarrico is a
researcher on vocabulary learning and teaching. In this article she discussed
towards the notion of learning strategies which was motivated by two fields,
namely explicit learning and implicit learning. First, in the explicit learning students engage in activities that
focus attention on vocabulary. The principles of explicit learning include the
goal of building a large recognition vocabulary, integrating new words with
old, providing a number of encounters with a word, promoting a deep level of
processing, facilitating imaging, using a variety of techniques, and
encouraging independent learning strategies. Second, implicit learning is learning that
occurs when the mind is focused such on understanding a text or using language
for communicative purposes. However, the lack of exposure is a common problem
facing language learners, then, a good way to combat this problem is to
exposure students to extensive reading. Incidental learning from exposure
to texts will be greatly facilitated if learners use vocabulary learning
strategies. Such kind of vocabulary learning strategies are guessing meaning
from context, mnemonic devices, and vocabulary notebooks. Surely, there are
another implications in vocabulary learning strategies. Such as the use of
collocations, corpus studies and their implications for analysis of multiword
phrasal units and for new directions in vocabulary instructions.
2.
Result
and Discussion
Indeed this article is considered as a
good one since the information presented in the article is complete enough.
However, there are several things that should be considered to support the
article. The first one is read-aloud and
vocabulary exercises. Dealing with the beneficial practically for teachers and
students as well in order to gain the goal of vocabulary learning and
teaching. The second one is the
advantages between explicit and implicit learning on the vocabulary competence
of the learners . Thus, the usefulness of explicit and implicit learning should
be given more details towards the goal of vocabulary learning and teaching.
First, the discussion on read-aloud and vocabulary
exercises. Decaricco (2001:289) mentioned that extensive reading is a good way
to combat this problem dealing with teaching and learning vocabulary. Her opinion was supported by Kindle (2010:67)
that stated read-alouds at the beginner level is important and Whitehurst et al. cited in Kindle
(2010:67-68) stated that for primary-grade children,
who are typically pre and beginning readers, read-alouds are an important
source of novel words and a vehicle for instruction. In fact, in their review
of the literature, Biemiller and Boote concluded that in the 13 studies of vocabulary
development with younger children, all of them featured storybook reading as
the foundation of the instructional design. Additionally, Stoolmiller et al.
cited in Kindle (2010:67) stated that the read-aloud context may be an
important venue for vocabulary instruction that narrows the word gap between
low-verbal children and their classmates. Read-alouds are adult-mediated
interactions, and provide a supportive context for learning. Through
intonation, gestures, and facial
expressions, teachers provide clues about word meanings. They may digress from
the text to add information, examples, and clarifications that support young
children in the construction of word meanings. Questions can be asked to
encourage deep processing. Children can join in the reading in ways that foster
active learning. Based on opinions which have been mentioned above, the
reviewer assumes that read-alouds take an important part in vocabulary learning
and teaching. Particularly, these advantages are for childhood or young learners
aged. Meanwhile, Wesche and
Paribakht as cited in Nam (2010:129) also demonstrated that students learned
vocabulary more effectively when they engaged in text-based vocabulary
exercises in addition to reading a text than when they read multiple texts
without exercises, because in the latter case, they could learn not only target
words, but also their lexical features. Meanwhile, there are such kind of
learning activity to engage students in text-based vocabulary exercises before
goes to text-reading activity. Web-text and pictorial vocabulary learning are
some of learning activity (Nam, 2010:130).
Second, there should be a broad range
discussion towards the strategy in the article by providing broader explanation
in the advantages of explicit and implicit (incidental) learning. In the term of the advantages of explicit and
implicit (incidental) learning, Huckin and Coady in Alemi and Tayebi (2011:83)
mentioned the following advantages of incidental vocabulary learning:
a. It is contextualized, giving the learner a
rich sense of word use and meaning.
b. It is pedagogically efficient in that it
yields two activities at the same time: vocabulary acquisition and reading.
c. It is more learner-based, in that it is the
learner who selects the reading materials.
In
addition, Krashen (1989) cited in Alemi and Tayebi (2011:83) points out that
acquisition of vocabulary and spelling is achieved through exposure to
comprehensible input, in this case, reading. Furthermore, Ellis defines explicit and
implicit knowledge as cited in Alemi and Tayebi (2011:83) that implicit
knowledge is intuitive, procedural, systematically variable, automatic, and
thus available for use in fluent unplanned language use. It is not
verbalizable. … Explicit knowledge is conscious, declarative, anomalous, and inconsistent
(i.e., it takes a form of fuzzy‘ rules inconsistently applied) and generally
accessible through control processing in planned language use. It is
verbalizable … like any type of factual knowledge it is potentially learnable
at any age. On the other hand, explicit learning involves awareness at the time
of learning, whereas intentional learning occurs by deliberately attempting to
commit new information to memory.
According
to Hulstijn cited in Alemi and Tayebi (2011:84) with the L2 vocabulary
learning, incidental and intentional learning are regarded as two distinct
categories, because while intentional learning implies the use of deliberate
retention techniques, incidental learning does not. Therefore, while incidental
vocabulary learning of vocabulary may be a useful way of acquiring vocabularies
for most advanced learners, intentional/explicit instruction is essential for
beginning learners, since their reading ability is limited.
It is clear
from above mentioned point of views that reading takes a part in the succesfull
of vocabulary learning and teaching. The benefit practically explicit learning is
for children in their vocabulary learning acquisition while incidental
vocabulary learning for most advanced learners. However, referring with the
advantages of read-alouds for young learners aged, it is still necessary to
involve read-alouds in vocabulary learning and teaching. The
reviewer actually agree with the use of extensive reading in implicit
(incidental) learning in order to face the lack of exposure as a common problem
facing language learners. Thus, the effectiveness of
implicit (incidental) learning can be achieved by children as well.
Conclusion
Lexical competence is a central
part of communicative competence, and teaching vocabulary is a central part of
teaching language. While some questions remain concerning how to teach and what
to teach, considerable progress has been made concerning the issues of explicit
versus implicit learning, and which strategies to teach. By knowing the important
things in vocabulary learning and teaching, it will guide us, as teachers to
conduct various activities in vocabulary learning and teaching. As many studies
continue to expand investigations into patterns of lexis in discourse, they
hold great promise for exciting new directions in vocabulary learning and
teaching.
References
Alemi, M., Tayebi, A. 2011. The
Influence of Incidental and Intentional Vocabulary Acquisition and Vocabulary
Strategy Use on Learning L2 Vocabularies. Finland
Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 2, No.1, pp:81-98.
Decarrico, J. 2001. Vocabulary Learning
and Teaching. In “Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language.”
Celce-Murcia (Ed). IIIrd edition.
Boston:Heinle&Heinle. pp:285-299.
Kindle, J., K., 2010. Vocabulary Development During Read-Alouds:
Examining the Instructional Sequence. Literacy Teaching and Learning,
Vol.14, Numbers 1&2, pp:65-88.
Nam, J. 2010. Linking Research
and Practice: Effective Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary in the ESL
Classroom. TESL Canada Journal, Vol. 28,
NO 1, pp:127-134.
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