but “fair” in the first sentence means someone ask for justice. Besides, the word “fair” in the second sentence means she has a bright skin.
6. Homophone
Another word that include in a language is homophone. According to Thornburry, homophone is another word in English that it has similar sound but
are spelt differently.
11
There are some words that are include this word, such as, to and too, flower and flour, our and hour, etc. There is a tip for helping students to
distinguish of homophone word that they must understand about context that they are talking about.
7. Homograph
Besides homonym and homophone, there are words which are called homographs. Homographs are words that are same spelled, yet, those words have
different pronunciation and meaning.
12
For example, Lia brings a great present for her best friend. In the sentence, th
e word “present” is pronounced \’pre-z
ǝ
nt\, the meaning of present in the sentence is a gift and the part of speech of the word is a
noun. Meanwhile, the word “present” in the following example has different
meaning and pronunciation. He presents a good presentation of new product. In the second sentence, the meaning of “present” is a formal talking towards a group
of people. The part of speech of the word is a verb and the way pronounce the word is \pri-
‘zent\. If students can realize about content word that they want to use, and they know how to pronounce it well, they will use homograph words correctly.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
8.
Word Classes
According to Thornby there are two groups of word classes, namely, function word or grammatical word such as prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and
pronouns and content words such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverb.
13
Saddleback explains definitions of 5 word classes, as following: a.
Nouns are words that name people, places, and things. For examples: Vanessa, street, government, and engine.
b. Pronouns are words used in place of nouns.
For examples: she, I, you, its, them, their, our, mine. c.
Verbs are words that express action or being in the past, present, or future. For examples: walk, walked, buy, wash.
d. Adjectives add to the meaning of nouns or pronouns by telling which one,
what kind, or how many. For examples: that pencil, red car, three boys.
e. Adverbs add to the meaning of verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs by telling
how, when, where, why, or to what degree. For examples: cried loudly, almost dark, very happy, arrived early, come here,
still waiting.
14
Content words are important for young learners, because they can use it independently without adding additional words to utter something that they want.
For instance, a child is hungry, then he says “food” to his parents many times.
Automatically, his parents understand that his child is hungry and he wants eat something.
13
Ibid., pp. 3-4.
14
Vocabulary English in context, US: Saddleback educational publishing, 2000, p. 9.
9. Types of Test Vocabulary
After teaching vocabulary, teacher need to examine students’ vocabulary, for
knowing about how far hisher students understand about vocabulary that they have learned. So, teachers need to give them a test.
There are four types for testing vocabulary, as a following: a.
Multiple choice test. According to Thornbury, multiple choice are a common test that is easy to
score and design.
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For example: 1. He’s not married. He’s ________________. A.
young B. single C. first D. a husband
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In reality, teacher often use this type of test, because the test is not time consuming for scoring and designing. Moreover, teacher can get students
’ score on the same day when the students take the test.
b. Gap-fill test.
Thornbury said gap fill tests require students to bring back the words from their memory in order to complete a text or sentence. For example, cloze
test. In a cloze test the gaps are regularly spaced – e.g. every seventh, eight,
or ninth words. In addition, the ability for completing the gaps depend on understanding the context.
17
15
Scott Thornbury, op. cit., p. 132.
16
Douglas Brown, Language Assessment Principles and Classroom Practices First edition, New York: Pearson Education, 2003, p. 194.
17
Scott Thornbury, op. cit., p. 133.
