Names are essential for the construction of reality for without a name it is difficult to accept the existence of an object, an event, a feeling Taylor, 1990; 1.
Therefore, vocabulary
can represent
ideathought to
be decoded
in communication.
1.1. Vocabulary Mastery as Knowledge of Words
Vocabulary mastery is related to knowledge of words. Richards as cited by Taylor 1990 proposed some descriptions of knowledge of words. Learners can
be said to have mastered vocabulary if they have some knowledge of words as described below.
1. Knowledge of collocation; knowing the syntactic behavior associated with the word and knowing the network of associations between that word and
other words, for example: ‘car’, ‘plane’ is a noun and related to transport. The use of hyponyms and superordinates are helpful. For example:
‘raspberry’ and ‘strawberry’ are hyponyms of ‘fruit’ and ‘fruit’ is the superordinate. This collocation gives a meaningful context of the words
and not merely knowledge of words in isolation. 2. Knowledge of semantics; it consists of two meaning: denotation and
connotation. Denotation means knowledge firstly what the word means, for example ‘shirt’ refers to a garment worn above the waist, having a
collar and fastening at the front with buttons. Semantic knowledge as what the word ‘connotes’ can be described as the meaning beyond the words
denote. As an illustration, the connotation of the term ‘shirt’ is for men only. The same garment worn by women is normally referred to as a
‘blouse’. While women in some circumstances use the term ‘shirt’, it is never acceptable for men to use the term ‘blouse’ for the garment worn by
men. It’s easy to teach concrete things by showing the objects like pencil, plate, book, etc. for more abstract concepts, synonyms, antonym,
paraphrase or definition may be useful. Since this study is registered for children and hence will not require further thinking of the real meaning of
words, the research of this study will only cover the semantic knowledge as the words denote.
3. Knowledge of polysemy; knowing many of different meanings associated with a word depending on the context. Some words with the same spelling
or sound may have different meaning. The following words are the example of similar sound:
The sheep is eating the grass. The ship is moving to the shore.
Teaching vocabulary items in isolation ways such as in a list is likely to cause confusion. Therefore, it is necessary to present lexical items in
context. 4. Knowledge of the equivalent of the word in the mother tongue;
recognizing and comparing of how the same thing can be said in different languages. For example, an instrument with two blades used for cutting
paper, cloth, etc. can be called as “gunting” or “scissors”. 5. Knowledge of the frequency of the word in language; knowing the degree
of probability of encountering the word in speech or in print. Some lexical items in English are more frequent in speech than in writing, such as
