Vocabulary Mastery Definitions of Terms

10 Schmitt and McCarty 1997 differentiates vocabulary learning strategies into two. First category is strategies for the discovery of a new word’s meaning and the second is strategies for consolidating a word once it has been encountered. Schmitt and McCarty 1997 differentiates vocabulary learning strategies into two. First category is strategies for the discovery of a new word’s meaning and the second is strategies for consolidating a word once it has been encountered. When students do not know a word, they must discover the new word’s meaning by guessing from their structural knowledge of the language, guessing from the context, or asking someone else. Schmitt and McCarty 1997 founds that there are two strategies in knowing the meaning of the new word or discovering the new word, determination strategies and social strategies. In determination strategies, there are some ways and strategies. The learners can analyze the part of speech of the new words, analyze the affixes and the roots, guessing from the first language cognate, analyze any available pictures or gestures. Besides that, learners may be able to guess the meaning from textual context and use a dictionary bilingual or monolingual. Guessing meaning from context is one of the strategies that most often discussed in the literature. This strategy can make learners be independent learners. Decarrico 2001 defines that guessing meaning from context is a key of vocabulary learning skill for the learners who are dealing with low-frequency vocabulary, particularly in reading authentic texts. Some researchers have found that few studies of guessing words from context indicate that a large proportion of 11 the unknown words at least 80 percent can be successfully dealt with in this way Nation, 1990. Learners may be able to use a dictionary for knowing the meaning of new words. Bilingual or monolingual dictionaries can be used to help learners know the meaning of new words. However, Schmitt and McCarty 1997 cites that those monolingual learners dictionaries have been much improved by a careful consideration of the kinds of information that the learners need and also the use of large corpora to ensure natural usage. One of the strategies in determination strategy by Schmitt and McCarty 1997 is using any available pictures or gestures. There are some other learners’ strategies like vocabulary notebooks, using flashcards, word lists, etc. Nation 1982 suggests that word lists can be very useful for initial exposures to a new word. N. Schmitt and D. Schmitt 1995 recommend arranging the notebook, a loose-leaf binder or index card file, or any paper with good space for learners to write word pairs and semantic maps that can help the learners to visualize the connection between new and familiar words. The second way to discover of a new words’ meaning based on Schmitt vocabulary learning strategy taxonomy is social strategies. The core strategy of the social strategy is asking someone who knows. The learners can ask the teachers or friends. Teachers are the subjects that are often to be asked in this position, they can help in a variety of ways like giving the first language translation, giving a definition by paraphrase, using new word in a sentence, giving the synonym, or any kind of these combination. Schmitt and McCarty