INTRODUCTION
Learning foreign languages has always been a concern for human beings throughout the history. Accordingly, a lot of studies have been done on the nature of language, language teaching, and language learning. Language teaching and the teacher-centered methodology were dominant and less attention was paid to language learning and the role of learners themselves. But, since the 1970s, the shift of focus in language education from teaching to learning has created an explosion of research aimed at investigating learner characteristics and language acquisition. One of these characteristics which has enjoyed notable attention is the learning strategies employed by the learner in the process of acquiring a second or foreign language.
The vocabulary field has been especially productive in the last two decades. Numerous studies have been conducted comparing the retention effects of different vocabulary presentation strategies. Psychologists, linguists, and language teachers have been interested in vocabulary learning strategies for a long time (Levenston, 1979). This article aims to provide a digest of recent research on vocabulary acquisition and to pinpoint areas that need further exploration. To this end, the article focuses on one area, in example, vocabulary learning strategies, the purposeful analysis of the vocabulary learning task, the planning, deployment, monitoring, and evaluation of learning behaviors in order to acquire the vocabulary of a second language. It is argued that despite the impressive amount of recent research on vocabulary acquisition, a person-task-context-strategy perspective that is presented here is needed in order to anchor existing research in a larger framework and to point to areas for future efforts.
Everybody everywhere communicates! The communication process is used in every kind of relationship, including a friendship, an acquaintance, a significant other, a family, work place and many more. The two-way process that we call communication is a natural skill. There are many different languages in the world, continent, and our country. Knowing a second language can give a person an edge in our multilingual world. This advantage could be used almost anywhere. These places include the work place, in a foreign province or country, and even in schools. Today there are many jobs and occupations that either require or would benefit from a second language. Even simple every day jobs can profit from knowing a new language. For example grocery clerks benefit from their knowledge of a second language by being able to help customers that do not know English and need help finding what they need.
Theorists and researchers have presented the same framework in slightly different ways. Williams and Burden's (1997) social constructivist model outlines four aspects of the teaching-learning process, i.e., teachers, learners, tasks, contexts. Cohen (2001) focuses on learners and discusses the intersection of learning style preferences, learner strategies, and language tasks. Flavell's (1979) conception of the three components of metacognitive knowledge, i.e., person, task, and strategy, also applies in the language learning field (Wenden, 1987). Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, and Campione (1983) include learning activities, characteristics of the learner, criterial tasks, and nature of the materials as the four aspects of their framework for exploring problems of learning. The person-task-context-strategy model outlined here can be viewed as a synthesis of this body of knowledge, specifically for the purpose of analyzing research work on language learning strategies.
KEYWORDS
1. Teaching
2. Foreign language
A foreign language is a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to. It is any language used in a country other than one's own; a language that is studied mostly for cultural insight.
3. Vocabulary
THEORIES
1. Teaching
Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the "naturals," the ones who somehow know how to teach. (Peter Drucker ).
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. (John Steinbeck)
2. Foreign language
A foreign language is a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to. It is any language used in a country other than one's own; a language that is studied mostly for cultural insight.
3. Vocabulary
"In effect, the overall vocabulary is beyond strict statistical assessment. Nonetheless, limited counts take place and serve useful ends, and some rough indications can be given about the overall vocabulary. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) defines over 500,000 items described as 'words' in a promotional press release. The average college, desk, or family dictionary defines over 100,000 such items.
Specialist dictionaries contain vast lists of words and word-like items . When printed material of this kind is taken into account, along with lists of geographical, zoological, botanical, and other usages, the crude but credible total for words and word-like forms in present-day English is somewhere over a billion items." (Tom McArthur, The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford Univ. Press, 1992)
A list or collection of words arranged in alphabetical order and explained; a dictionary or lexicon, either of a whole language, a single work or author, a branch of science, or the like; a word-book. Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt. (Jose Saramago)
Oxford, Lavine, Hollaway, Felkins, and Saleh (1996), on the other hand, discovered that females were significantly more willing than males to try out new vocabulary learning strategies, a finding that has been corroborated in a few other studies (Gu, 2002; Young & Oxford, 1997).
The purpose of vocabulary learning should include both remembering words and the ability to use them automatically in a wide range of language contexts when the need arises (McCarthy, 1984). In fact, evidence suggests that the knowledge aspect (both breadth and depth) requires more conscious and explicit learning mechanisms whereas the skill aspect involves mostly implicit learning and memory (Ellis, 1994). Vocabulary learning strategies, therefore, should include strategies for "using" as well as "knowing" a word.
METHODOLOGY/ANALYSIS
Data Collecting
Data Collection is an important aspect of any type of research study. Inaccurate data collection can impact the results of a study and ultimately lead to invalid results. Data collection methods for impact evaluation vary along a continuum. At the one end of this continuum are quantatative methods and at the other end of the continuum are Qualitative methods for data collection .
Analysis
The types of data are basically classified on the basis of their collection methods and their characteristics. Primary data is that which is collected first hand by the researcher himself, without relying on any kind of pre-researched information. Common primary data collection techniques are interviews and questionnaires. On the other hand, secondary data is that which is collected from other means, instead of the researcher's. Few examples of secondary data include government census and company surveys.
Most studies on the effectiveness of dictionaries in vocabulary learning have been conducted in First Language settings, and most have compared dictionary definitions with contextual guessing. In general, results in these studies favored the contextual guessing approach (Crist, 1981; Crist & Petrone, 1977; Gipe, 1978). These results were, however, confounded by the fact that the contextual guessing groups read texts that included definitions or examples, and were therefore exposed to dictionary-like situations as well as natural texts (Knight, 1994). Stahl and Fairbanks' (1986) meta-analysis of L1-based vocabulary studies did reveal that a combined approach is more effective than either dictionary only or contextual guessing only.
Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in dictionary research in second Language contexts (e.g., Hulstijn, 1993; Knight, 1994; Laufer & Hadar, 1997; Laufer & Hill, 2000; Laufer & Kimmel, 1997). Knight (1994), for example, discovered that while incidental vocabulary learning through contextual guessing did take place, those who used a dictionary as well as guessed through context not only learned more words immediately after reading but also remembered more after two weeks. She also found that low verbal ability participants benefited more from the dictionary than high verbal ability participants who, in turn, benefited more from contextual guessing. Another interesting thing Knight found was that high verbal ability students would look up a word even if they had successfully guessed its meaning, a finding in line with Hulstijn (1993).
The advantage of a dictionary was corroborated in a study of 293 Japanese EFL university students by Luppescu and Day (1993). Participants were randomly assigned to a treatment (dictionary) group and a control (no dictionary) group and were asked to read a short story in class. The treatment group used a bilingual English-Japanese dictionary of their own choice, and the control group were not allowed to use any dictionaries. Neither group were told of the multiple-choice vocabulary test that was administered immediately after reading. Results suggested a clear advantage for the dictionary group in vocabulary learning through reading, but the dictionary group took almost twice as long to read the passage as did the control group.
Further evidence of the usefulness of a dictionary for ESL/EFL students can be found in Summers (1988) who reported the results of three experiments done on the effectiveness of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English both in reading comprehension and in vocabulary learning. The first two experiments focused on reading comprehension and found that comprehension was significantly improved by the use of the dictionary. The third experiment asked participants to produce nine of the tested words in sentences. Results suggested that the mix of definition plus example in the dictionary entry was the most successful, and that the use of the dictionary in all conditions tested was more conducive to the successful production of new words in sentences.
One way to see the overall task of vocabulary learning is through the distinction between knowing a word and using a word. In other words, the purpose of vocabulary learning should include both remembering words and the ability to use them automatically in a wide range of language contexts when the need arises (McCarthy, 1984). In fact, evidence suggests that the knowledge aspect (both breadth and depth) requires more conscious and explicit learning mechanisms whereas the skill aspect involves mostly implicit learning and memory (Ellis, 1994). Vocabulary learning strategies, therefore, should include strategies for "using" as well as "knowing" a word.
DISCUSSION
Foreign Language Learning is generally differentiated from second language acquisition in that the former refers to the learning of a nonnactive in the environtment of one’s native language (e.g French speakers learning English in France or spanish speakers learning French in Spain, Argentina, Mexico, etc). This is commonly done within the context of the classroom.
Since the 1970s, attention to vocabulary acquisition strategies has shifted from various aspects of word list repetition to deeper processing strategies. The following section will focus on four of these areas: memory, form, meaning, and use.
The Ahmed (1989) study referred to earlier was amongst the first to elicit vocabulary strategies learners spontaneously employ. The good learners were found to be more aware of what they could learn about new words, paid more attention to collocation and spelling, and were more conscious of contextual learning. By contrast, the underachieving learners refused to use the dictionary and almost always ignored unknown words. They were generally characterized by their apparent passiveness in learning. They also took each word as a discrete item unrelated to previously learned words.
Vocabulary acquisition research in the linguistics tradition has largely concentrated on vocabulary (target: what is to be learned; or product: what is learned) rather than acquisition (how is vocabulary learned, the learning/acquisition process) (Crow, 1986; Meara, 1980).
Another study that explored students' ability level and their guessing strategies is Schouten-van Parreren (1989). It was found that, compared to their strong counterparts, weak pupils tended to focus on the problem word and ignore the context; their knowledge of the world was more restricted; they had difficulty integrating knowledge from different sources; they lacked mother tongue vocabulary knowledge, and they had difficulty generalizing from words they had already learned to slightly different new words.
Gu and Johnson (1996) studied 850 university EFL students in China, and tried to establish how different vocabulary strategies were related to language learning outcomes. Both Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analyses revealed that self-initiation, selective attention, and deliberate activation of newly learned words consistently predicted both vocabulary size and general proficiency. Other predictors of success included contextual learning, dictionary, and note-taking strategies. Interestingly, a more recent study (Kojic-Sabo & Lightbown, 1999) of EFL students produced strikingly similar results, suggesting that "time and learner independence were the two measures most closely related to success in vocabulary learning and higher overall English proficiency"
The debate of whether dictionaries should be used in the foreign language classroom, and what dictionaries, if at all, should be used has always been a lively one amongst language teachers and lexicographers. Empirical research on dictionaries has largely focused on comparing the usefulness of dictionaries with that of guessing (Knight, 1994). And only a handful of these studies took vocabulary growth as their dependent variable (Knight, 1994; Luppescu & Day, 1993), most others investigated the usefulness of dictionaries in reading comprehension. Dictionary strategies, if at all encouraged, have normally been proposed in a prescriptive manner (Scholfield, 1982; Thompson, 1987).
When we are learn about vocabulary, it has a correlation with a dictionary, because we can get a/more words from dictionary. There is a correlation between the dictionary Use and Vocabulary Learning.
The debate of whether dictionaries should be used in the foreign language classroom, and what dictionaries, if at all, should be used has always been a lively one amongst language teachers and lexicographers. Empirical research on dictionaries has largely focused on comparing the usefulness of dictionaries with that of guessing (Knight, 1994). And only a handful of these studies took vocabulary growth as their dependent variable (Knight, 1994; Luppescu & Day, 1993), most others investigated the usefulness of dictionaries in reading comprehension. Dictionary strategies, if at all encouraged, have normally been proposed in a prescriptive manner (Scholfield, 1982; Thompson, 1987).
Most studies on the effectiveness of dictionaries in vocabulary learning have been conducted in L1 settings, and most have compared dictionary definitions with contextual guessing. In general, results in these studies favored the contextual guessing approach (Crist, 1981; Crist & Petrone, 1977; Gipe, 1978). These results were, however, confounded by the fact that the contextual guessing groups read texts that included definitions or examples, and were therefore exposed to dictionary-like situations as well as natural texts (Knight, 1994). Stahl and Fairbanks' (1986) meta-analysis of L1-based vocabulary studies did reveal that a combined approach is more effective than either dictionary only or contextual guessing only.
Like it or not, a dictionary is amongst the first things a foreign language student purchases (Baxter, 1980; Luppescu & Day, 1993), and learners carry their dictionaries around, not grammar books (Krashen, 1989). Empirical research on whether dictionaries are helpful and how best dictionaries can be used, however, is only beginning to catch up.
A learning strategy is a series of actions a learner takes to facilitate the completion of a learning task. A strategy starts when the learner analyzes the task, the situation, and what is available in his/her own repertoire. The learner then goes on to select, deploy, monitor, and evaluate the effectiveness of this action, and decides if s/he needs to revise the plan and action. Cohen (1998) distinguishes between language learning strategies and language use strategies, the former being strategies for learning tasks such as remembering, and the latter being strategies for language use, such as communicating in an L2.
Person, task, context, and strategy are interrelated and work together to form the chemistry of learning. An analysis of learning strategies will never be complete without knowing the person-task-context configuration of the particular learning situation. Some strategies are more person-dependent, some are more task-dependent, and others are more context-dependent.
Baxter (1980) described one common problem amongst EFL students: not being able to access a word in speech and lacking the ability to circumvent that word by providing a definition in the target language. He attributed this problem primarily to students' use of bilingual dictionaries and strongly advocated the use of monolingual dictionaries that would encourage "conversational definition". In general, Baxter reiterated the basic concerns of most language teachers, that bilingual dictionaries 1) encourage translation; 2) foster one-to-one precise correspondence at word level between two languages; and 3) fail to describe adequately the syntactic behaviour of words.
By contrast, Thompson (1987) argued against monolingual dictionaries and supported the development of "a new generation of learners' bilingual dictionaries". He pointed out that monolingual dictionaries tend to be circular in their definitions, e.g., laugh, amuse, amusement and humour are normally used in each other's definitions. Even if defining vocabulary is restricted, monolingual dictionaries still "employ a special register which is not necessarily the most useful or rewarding for learners to be exposed to" , and are therefore of little value to foreign language learners below the advanced level. Thompson did admit that objections to traditional bilingual dictionaries are valid, and he advocated the compilation of new bilingual dictionaries that, in addition to providing clearer understanding in the learners' first Languge, "avoid reinforcing the belief in a one-to-one relationship at word level", and provide full semantic, grammatical, and stylistic information, examples, and usage notes that are not available in traditional bilingual dictionaries.
Since a combination of good features of both types of dictionaries is not impossible, there has been considerable interest in the last twenty years in the "new bilingualised compromise dictionaries", hybrid dictionaries that essentially provide translations in addition to the good features of monolingual dictionaries (Hartmann, 1991, p. 79). Evaluation of the effectiveness of such dictionaries emerged mainly in the 1990s. Laufer and Hadar (1997), for example, compared monolingual, bilingual, and bilingualised dictionaries among EFL learners in Israel. They found that irrespective of the learners' proficiency level, the bilingualised version was either significantly better than, or as good as, the other two types in both comprehension and production tasks.
Learners' dictionaries are certainly compiled with the language learner in mind. And almost every such dictionary is accompanied by at least one workbook (most notably Underhill, 1980; Whitcut, 1979) aiming for the training of dictionary strategies to maximize the effect of dictionary use in language learning. With only a handful of exceptions, little has been done empirically to find out what dictionary strategies are used by learners and whether and how these strategies influence their learning outcomes.
Another important aspect that needs more attention is how learners should make full use of the dictionary as a tool for active production of the target language. As Summers (1988) noted, "the student and non-native teacher have a powerful tool at their disposal . . . with which to gain further understanding of the range of use of new language, leading eventually to accurate production, mainly in writing" (p. 123). If learner autonomy is to be the aim, learners have to be able to make use of this useful tool when the teacher is not available. In this regard, one recent and timely addition is a study of ESL learners by Harvey and Yuill (1997), which mapped out 1) the reasons for dictionary use for a writing task, 2) how exactly learners used the dictionary, and 3) how successful they were in achieving their purposes.
Neubach and Cohen (1988) studied how six EFL students (2 high, 2 intermediate, and 2 low-level) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem used the dictionary while reading. Verbal report protocols and interview data were obtained from these students. They listed a number of interesting strategies these students used, and concluded that generally "advanced students do not need the dictionary so much, while weak ones cannot use it to their advantage". Specifically, high-proficiency students went into their dictionaries with correct expectations at both the sentence and the word levels, while the intermediate learners did not always determine the part of speech of the word being looked up, had frequently wrong expectations of the word as well as problems with other words in the definition when a monolingual dictionary was used. And the low proficiency students were frustrated for not being able to get the right definition from the dictionary and refrained from using it.
More studies are needed to determine how ESL/EFL students use dictionaries and how their dictionary strategies influence their learning results. Indeed, it is alarming to see how much time and effort we have spent in areas such as contextual guessing or mnemonics and yet how little energy is dedicated to an area such as dictionary strategies that can be just as illuminating.
After getting information about a new word, learners may take notes, in the form of vocabulary notebooks, vocabulary cards, or simply notes along the margins or between the lines. However, learners differ in what they do in note-taking, when they take notes, and how they take notes (McCarthy, 1990). These differences, among other things, may well distinguish the good from the poor learners. Teachers instinctively know how important note-taking is, and a lot has been said on how note-taking should take place (Allen, 1983; Gairns & Redman, 1986; Schmitt & Schmitt, 1995), very few studies have touched upon vocabulary note-taking and how it affects vocabulary learning.
Not many studies have looked at whether and how learners use semantically based strategies and how their use of these strategies affects both their learning of vocabulary and the target language in general. While some empirical evidence did suggest their effectiveness (e.g., Crow & Quigley, 1985), other researchers warned us against the danger of presenting closely related new words at the same time (Higa, 1963; Nation, 1994; Tinkham, 1993; Waring, 1997). Specifically, Nation (1990, p.191) maintained that when a group of related items require the same response from the learner, such as the tasks involved in Crow and Quigley (1985), learning would be helped. On the other hand, if a different response is required for each item in a group of closely related items, the differences between the items will interfere with each other, thus making the learning task more difficult. "The network of associations between words in a native speaker's brain may be set as a goal for second language learners, but this does not mean that directly teaching these associations is the best way to achieve this goal" (Nation, 1990, p.190). How much these associations in Firsat language and second Language correspond to each other, and how they can be employed to develop the second language lexicon, need much more empirical exploration.
Theorists and researchers of different traditions have long been fascinated by lexical phrases, lexicalised chunks, (Lewis, 1993; Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992; Willis, 1990), multiword units, and collocations (Arnaud & Savignon, 1997; Bahns & Eldaw, 1993; Cowie, 1988; Sansome, 2000). The availability of computer-generated corpora has made it simpler to find not only patterns of multiword units from authentic contexts, but also their respective frequency of use. Pedagogical suggestions are either in favor of an inductive (e.g., Lewis, 1997; McKay, 1980) or an explicit and deductive type (Sansome, 2000). So far as learning strategies are concerned, Arnaud and Savignon (1997, p.168) note two kinds of strategies associated with complex lexical units: awareness strategies and retention strategies.
It was concluded earlier that incidental learning alone is not enough in developing a functional vocabulary in a second or foreign language. Similarly, the intentional and direct learning of vocabulary does not, and should not, rule out contextual learning. In fact, learning new words from context might well be only the first step learners employ, and they should carry on, with metacognitive choice of words and treatment, to encode the new word together with the context where it appears (e.g., remembering the word together with the surrounding sentence). Some may even try to create a sentence using the new word and thus put it back into context (Sanaoui, 1995). Most empirical studies on contextual learning have compared incidental vocabulary learning from context with other forms of vocabulary presentation. Future research can examine how the other forms of contextual encoding (i.e., remembering new words with context, and using a new word in context) relate to other strategies and to learning results.
Despite an obvious lack of effort on learner-dependent vocabulary learning strategies, patterns are already emerging. Good learners seem to be those who initiate their own learning, selectively attend to words of their own choice, studiously try to remember these words, and seek opportunities to use them.
In the psychology tradition on vocabulary learning, memory strategies have occupied the lion's share of attention at the expense of other vocabulary learning strategies, probably because vocabulary learning has largely been construed as a memory problem.
Sex differences in vocabulary learning have also received some attention. Boyle (1987) found that, despite a female superiority in general proficiency, male students outperformed their female counterparts in listening vocabulary. Oxford, Lavine, Hollaway, Felkins, and Saleh (1996), on the other hand, discovered that females were significantly more willing than males to try out new vocabulary learning strategies, a finding that has been corroborated in a few other studies (Gu, 2002; Young & Oxford, 1997).
Much of the emphasis on incidental vocabulary learning has centered on how useful incidental learning is and how much can be learned incidentally, often overlooking the fact that a lot can be learned intentionally during reading with the help of a range of strategies (e.g., guessing, dictionary use, note-taking, activation, as well as intentional repetition.
Contrary to the language learning strategy tradition, vocabulary acquisition research has thus far adopted a primarily top-down approach. Most studies are experimental comparisons between some favored strategies and various combinations of control techniques. And most involve artificial memory and recall tasks without asking if these tasks are ecologically valid and how big a role these tasks play in authentic second/foreign language classrooms. If helping the learner in the classroom rather than testing a hypothesis in the lab is to be the final aim, more ecologically valid designs should be in order in the field of vocabulary acquisition.
Existing research on vocabulary learning strategies does point to a direction that good learners pay more attention to collocations (e.g., Ahmed, 1989), but the field would definitely benefit from a clearer focus on how exactly learners learn multiword units and how these strategies are related to learning outcomes (Schmitt, 2000).
Strategies good for meaning retention may not be good for overall proficiency. This is because, among other reasons, proficiency in a second/foreign language involves the automatic activation of individual words and the automatic contextual processing of these words during comprehension and production. As Ellis (1994) rightly stresses, when we consider the semantic aspect of vocabulary acquisition, the depth of processing principle will stand out. On the other hand, if the learning task centres on the acquisition of automaticity of vocabulary use, strategies that focus on the frequency, recency, and regularity of practice will be most helpful. In this connection, more studies such as Segalowitz, Watson, and Segalowitz (1995) that take into account the attainment of lexical automaticity should produce valuable insights.
Contrary to the language learning strategy tradition, vocabulary acquisition research has thus far adopted a primarily top-down approach. Most studies are experimental comparisons between some favored strategies and various combinations of control techniques. And most involve artificial memory and recall tasks without asking if these tasks are ecologically valid and how big a role these tasks play in authentic second/foreign language classrooms. If helping the learner in the classroom rather than testing a hypothesis in the lab is to be the final aim, more ecologically valid designs should be in order in the field of vocabulary acquisition.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, a lot of work has been done along a more nomothetic line, in terms of finding overall patterns of strategy use. However, the choice, use, and effectiveness of vocabulary learning strategies very much depend on the task. Future research, therefore, needs a more idiographic touch that takes all the previous aspects into account. Enough attention on what vocabulary is (the task of vocabulary acquisition) would prevent us from focusing exclusively on word list retention strategies. Likewise, the context perspective is much needed if we are to stop the quixotic search of the strategy grail. Strategies that work in one educational, cultural, and linguistic context might not work in another.
The field needs a diversification of labor. While theory building is certainly in order so that future empirical research receives clearer guidance (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001; Meara, 1998), more bottom-up empirical effort on different aspects of vocabulary learning at different stages of acquisition for different learners in various cultural and educational contexts will help us answer so many other research questions beyond the presentation and retention of words. After all, a full-fledged, interrelated, functional, and dynamic L2 vocabulary is developed, gradually, and grows by itself, if the learner makes use of strategies that aim for the use, rather than retention, of words. Therefore, what we need is a developmental model which moves us beyond strategies for the initial handling of vocabulary and gives more emphasis to the really hard work of vocabulary acquisition.
REFERENCES
Yufrizal, Hery. 2008. “An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition (a Text Book for ESL Learners and English Teachers)”, Pustaka Reka Cipta : Bandung.
Juniardi, Dkk.2010.Lesson from EFL classrooms.Bandung : Penerbit Alfabeta
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