corpus of three and a half million words written in academic discourse to help the students improve their mastery of academic vocabulary through 414 academic
written texts Schmitt and Schmitt, 2005. There are 570 academic words that occur frequently across a range of academic subjects. If the students learn these
words in addition to a 2,000-word basic vocabulary, they will be able to understand more than 86 percent of words they encounter in academic reading
Schmitt and Schmitt, 2005. In academic vocabulary learning, there is specialist vocabulary or
technical words above the level of academic words. According to Nation, specialized word list can be used as a guide and focus for teachers in different
activities and as a checklist and aim for students Jordan, 1997. Specialist vocabulary or technical words may be of low frequency. Nation presents a
decision chart for low-frequency words to assist students in deciding which words to learn Jordan, 1997: 152.
low-frequency words technical
learn it as part of your subject non technical
containing known parts learn it, the known parts will help you
not containing known remember it
parts repeated
learn it, it’s useful and the repetition will make not repeated
it easy for you to remember it maybe ignored
Figure 2.1 Chart for Low-frequency Words Jordan,1997
2.1.3 Vocabulary Teaching and Learning
According to Celce-Murcia 2001, vocabulary learning is central to language acquisition, whether the language is first, second, or foreign. In language
acquisition, vocabulary has important role for the deeper understanding of a language and it needs explicit vocabulary teaching learning. According to Carter
in Celce-Murcia 2001, in explicit vocabulary learning, the learners learn the most important vocabulary list that is high-frequency words that occur about 80
percent in any written texts. The learners need to learn further vocabulary knowledge, such as low-frequency words which include academic words.
Teaching learning vocabulary can be done by recognizing new words that are presented in contexts through exercise and activities include learning words in
word association lists, focusing on highlighted words in texts, and playing vocabulary games. Learning vocabulary can also be done through the computer
programs that include the sounds of words as well as illustrative pictures provide opportunity for practice with a variety of contexts, both written and spoken
Celce-Murcia, 2001: 288. Besides learning vocabulary explicitly, the learners should learn vocabulary implicitly. Implicit vocabulary learning means that
vocabulary is learned incidentally while reading or listening. For high-frequency words often occur in explicit vocabulary learning, it does not provide enough
chances for the learners to guess the meaning of words. Therefore, in implicit learning, the learners will learn low-frequency words, such as academic words and
their chances to learn vocabulary items by guessing meaning will be done incidentally.
