contexts. What we say is specified by the style and register we are in. Therefore, the students need to recognize metaphorical language use and they
need to know how words collocate. The students also need to understand what stylistic and topical contexts words and expressions occur in.
c Word Formation
Words can change their shape and their grammatical value, too. Students need to know facts about word formation and how to twist words to fit different
grammatical contexts. The students also need to know how suffixes and prefixes work. Here, students need to know how words are spelt and how they
sound. It make the students are to be able to understand and use words in speech.
d Word Grammar
Here, students make a distinction between countable and uncountable nouns. The former can be both singular and plural. There are many other areas of
grammatical behavior that students need to know about adjectives and adverbs.
From the explanations above, this section is that knowing a word means far more than just understanding one of its meanings. The teacher has to help the
students to understand in learning vocabulary to a language, because the teacher has important role in teaching and learning process which the teacher know what students
should learn or what do students need to know. Therefore, the teacher has known various kinds of material in teaching and learning vocabulary. Those can summarize
‘Knowing a word’ in the following way:
9
9
Ibid.
Meaning in context Sense relations
Metaphor and Idiom Collocation
Style and Register Part of Speech
Prefixes and Suffixes Spelling and Pronoun
Noun: countable and Uncountable, etc.
Verb complementation Adjectives and Adverbs
1.4 How to Assess Vocabulary
In teaching and learning vocabulary, English teacher almost gives many ways in practicing the vocabulary for students in mastering vocabulary. But, those
exercises do not show that the students have master of vocabulary. Therefore, to construct and find out the stude
nts’ vocabulary size by scoring accurately, the teacher can use a test. It is one of ways to assess the
students’ vocabulary mastery which students have. According to Madsen says the goal of vocabulary tests is to measure
students’ comprehension and production of word used.
10
Vocabulary test has various kinds to evaluate vocabulary mastery for students. There are four general kinds of vocabulary tests are presented based on Madsen:
11
10
Harold H. Madsen, Techniques in Testing, New York: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 12
11
Ibid., p. 14-30
WORDS
MEANING
WORD USE
WORD FORMATION
WORD GRAMMAR
a Limited Response
It is a test which emphasize to children or beginning level students and this activity use physical responses and visual directly. The students do not
focused to master of speaking, writing, or reading. This test can be presented individual or group testing.
b Multiple-choice Completion
It is a test in which a sentence and make the students focused on context clues and sentence meaning. The test is with a missing word is presented, and then
the students choose one of four vocabulary items are given. This test has alternate ways toward the vocabulary materials to prepare vocabulary
multiple-choice completion items, following about definition, phrase completion
idiomsappropriateness, phrasal
context not
sentence completion, and multiple-choice cloze.
c Multiple-choice Paraphrase
It is a test in which as sentence with the word is underlined and then the students choose close answer or has similar meaning with the underlined
word. It is called to find the best synonym or related word. This test has alternate forms of testing vocabulary. Following ways to write paraphrase
items, there are idiom and other phrases, phrasal context, reading passage context, related-word identification, and unrelated-word identification.
d Simple Completion Words
It is a test emphasizes word-formation which the students write in the missing parts of words that appear in sentences. The missing parts are usually focused
on prefixes and suffixes, for example un- in untie and –ful in thankful. Here
are four additional ways to prepare simple completion questions, there are stem-first procedure changes when suffixes are added, phrasal context
grammatical clues are sometimes given, compounds, and inflectional cloze.
