1 High Frequency Words : this vocabulary constitute 80 of the running words in the text
2 Academic Words: this vocabulary cover 10 of the general academic text 3 Technical Words: this vocabulary made up about 5 of academic text
4 Low Frequency Words: this vocabulary cover 5 of running words in the text
Beck, McKeown, and Kucan 2002 classify vocabulary into three classes. They classification are presented as follow.
1 Tier One words Tier One words are the words that used in everyday speech usually
learned in the early grades. Although average native speaker do not consider them as a challenge, English language learners of any age have to give careful attention
to them. 2 Tier Two words
Tier Two words usually refer to as general academic words. These words are more likely to appear in written texts than in speech. They appear in all sorts
of texts: informational texts i.e., relative, vary, formulate, specificity, and accumulate, technical texts i.e., calibrate, itemize, periphery, and literary texts
i.e., misfortune, dignified, faltered, unabashedly. Tier Two words often saying relatively simple things in subtle or precise ways. Since Tier Two words are found
across many types of texts, they are highly generalizable.
3 Tier Three words Tier Three words are often referred to as domain-specific words. These
words are specific to a domain or field of study i.e., lava, carburetor, legislature, circumference, aorta and they are keys to understanding a new concept within a
text. Because of their specificity and close ties to content knowledge, Tier Three words are far more common in informational texts than in literature. Recognized
as new and “hard” words for most readers particularly student readers, they are often explicitly defined by the author of a text, repeatedly used, and otherwise
heavily scaffolded e.g., made a part of a glossary.
g. Procedure of Vocabulary Learning
Hunt and Beglar in Richard and Renandya eds, 2002: 259 propose three approaches in vocabulary teaching and learning. They are presented as follow.
1 Incidental learning It is expected that L2 learners require many vocabulary exposures since
for native speakers themselves, a single exposure of vocabulary gives 10 chance that they learn the meaning from context. Thus the learners need more than a one-
time exposure. The exposure can be gathered not only by reading, but also extensive listening. The teacher may assign extensive reading to add the exposure.
2 Explicit instruction Explicit instruction or direct instruction relies on the identification of
vocabulary target for the learners. It involves diagnosing the words learners need to know, presenting the new words, elaborating words knowledge, developing
frequency with known words. Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986 argue that after specific
content-area terms have been taught in a specific way, it raises the learners comprehension ability to the 83
rd
percentile. 3 Independent strategy development
Promote the learners to guess meaning from context and use dictionary is important features of independent strategy development. This strategy provides
the learners knowledge to be autonomous learners. Teaching method is another thing that should be considered in developing
vocabulary learning material. National Reading Panel 2000 identifies five methods of teaching vocabulary which are:
1 Explicit Instruction Learners are given with specific algorithms or external cues to connect
the words with meaning. A common example of this technique is the pre-teaching of vocabulary prior to reading a selection.
2 Indirect Instruction In this method learners are exposed to words by doing a great deal of
reading. It is assumed that students will infer any definitions they do not have. This implicit method simply suggests that students should be encouraged to do
wide reading to increase vocabulary. 3 Capacity method
Reducing the cognitive capacity is the aim of this method. It focuses on making reading activity automatic. These methods allow the student to
concentrate on meaning of words rather than their oral representations.
