2. Kinds of Vocabulary Items
Knowing a word is needed to understand the meaning of a sentence. There are two kinds of words: full words and form words. A.M Zainuri says:
Full words and form words are often known as a content word and an empty word. For instance: the boys will play golf tomorrow. From the example, it can be
classified: boys, play, golf, are included in full words category or content words. Meanwhile the, and will, are included in form words or empty words. A word whose
meaning is expected to be found in a dictionary is a word which is included in full words or content words. Form words or empty words are included in grammatical
category and have grammatical meaning.
12
Furthermore Fries explains vocabulary items have four kinds that are classified into four groups as follows:
13
s a. first, there are th
e “function words” those words which, although some of them may have also full-word meaning content, primarily largely operate as
means of expressing relations of grammatical structure. These include so- called auxiliaries: prepositions, conjunctions, interrogative particles, and a
miscellaneous group consisting of the words for degree, for generalizing, the article, etc. the important auxiliaries are; be, have, do, may, might, can
could, will would, shall should, must, ought to. The important preposition-adverb most frequent used: at, by, for, from, to,
of, on, and with, behind, in front of, over, under, above, below, beside, between, beyond, around, place, direction through, into, out of, toward,
away from, up, down, across time, before, after, during, since, until,
comparison like, different, as…as, …than. The important conjunction; and, that, which, if, as, but, so, who, when, while,
what, where, most frequently used; time after, before, until, cause for, because, since, purpose
in order that; comparison as …as than: concession although, condition unless.
Interrogative particles: who, which, what, whose, when, where, why, how, article the, a, an, degree words more, most, the generalizing particle ever, and
special uses of there, it, and one whether; conclusion therefore. b. the second
kind of vocabulary items consists of the “substitute” words: the personal pronoun: I, me, us, you, he, hem, she, her, they, them, our, your, his,
its, their,
mine, ours,
yours, theirs,
the indefinites,
any onebodythingwhere; and the negative; none,, no bodythingwhere;
12
A.M. Zainuri, Vocabulary I, Jakarta: UIN Syarif Hidayatullah,2003, p. 13
13
Charles C. Fries, Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language Ann Arbor: the university of Michigan Press, 1970 p.38
quantity or number each; both, all, some, any, few, many, several, much, one, ones, two, etc.
Other substitutes include; do yes, I do, think, say, tell, seem, appear, hope, believe, fear, guess, and the word so.
c. the third kind of vocabulary item consist of those that are distributed in use according to such grammatical matters as the presence or absence of a
negative; some I have some, any
I don’t have any, too, either, already, yet,, etc.
d. the fourth group is of “content” words in English, these content words fall
into three classes; class I, the words for things; such as; hat, stone, water, paper, knife, food, blood, etc.
The fourth group is of content words becomes the larges and the meanings can be looked up in the dictionary.
From the descriptions above, it can be summarized that in a sentence there are content words that their meanings can be found in a dictionary and empty words are
included as grammatical category.
3. What Do Students Need to Know?
Language students need to learn the lexis of the language. They need to learn what words mean and how they are used. Whilst this obviously involves giving them
the names for things it also involves showing them how word are stretched and twisted. Clearly some words are more likely to be taught at lower levels than others,
and some uses of words may be more sophisticated than others- and, therefore, more appropriate for advanced students.
We know that our students are aware of the vocabulary they need for their level and that they can use the word which they want to use- andor the words we
have selected for them to use. Vocabulary, what it means and how it should be taught.
14
a. Meaning
15
14
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching New Edition, London: Longman,1991, p. 23
– 24
15
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching New Edition, London: Longman,1991, p. 156
Kategori