25
teaching vocabulary is successful. If someone can master vocabulary well, she or he will be able to promote fluency, boost comprehension, improve
achievement, and enhance thinking and communication.
c. Kinds of Vocabulary
According to Nation 2001:24, there are two kinds of vocabulary in relation to the language skills of reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
They are receptive and productive or passive and active vocabulary. Receptive or passive vocabulary refers to the words that native speakers and
foreign learners recognize and understand but hardly ever use, it is used passively in either listening or reading. Productive or active vocabulary is
utilized actively either in speaking or writing. Learners’ listening vocabulary is generally larger than speaking vocabulary while learners’ reading
vocabulary is relatively larger than writing vocabulary. Haycraft 1997:44 says that vocabulary is divided into active and passive
vocabulary. Active vocabulary refers to words which the student understands, can pronounce correctly and uses constructively in speaking and writing.
Meanwhile, passive vocabulary is words that the student recognizes and understands when they occur in a context, but which he cannot produce
correctly himself. In addition, Carson 1997:6 distinguishes between productive and
receptive vocabulary in the following way. He calls the productive vocabulary as a motivated vocabulary. It consists of all the words learners
need in communication of everyday life. A receptive vocabulary includes the
26
productive vocabulary and it also includes the learners’ unmotivated vocabulary. The unmotivated vocabulary can be divided into two groups: 1
words that are only partly understood and are not well known enough to use actively, and 2 words that are not needed in daily communication.
Furthermore Hoffman 1993:232 says that there are two kinds of vocabulary. They are the core vocabulary and the peripheral vocabulary. The
core vocabulary is vocabulary that contains the words used everyday. The peripheral vocabulary is the innumerable words that one uses only
infrequently. In relation to kinds of vocabulary, Nation 2001 states that there are four
categories of vocabulary in the non-fiction text, they are: 1
High frequency words. These words are almost 80 of the running words in the text.
2 Academic words. Typically, these words make up about 9 of the running
words in the text. 3
Technical words. These words make up about 5 of the running words in the text. It is used by people working in a specialized field.
4 Low-frequency words. There are the words of moderate frequency that
does not manage to get into the high-frequency list. They make up over 5 of the words in an academic text.
In relation to the teaching language skills, vocabulary is divided into four parts. They are reading vocabulary, listening vocabulary, writing vocabulary,
and speaking vocabulary. Reading vocabulary is all the words that readers
27
can recognize when reading. This is the largest type of vocabulary simply because it includes the other three. Listening vocabulary is all the words that
the listeners can recognize when listening to speech. This vocabulary is aided in size by context and tone of voice. Writing vocabulary is all the words that
the writers can employ in writing. Contrary to the previous two vocabulary types, the writing vocabulary is stimulated by its user. Speaking vocabulary is
all the words that the speakers can use in speech. In conclusion, mastering vocabulary, including receptive and productive
vocabulary ones, is important. The learners need to master receptive vocabulary in listening and reading. They must know and understand the
words that are used by native speakers. They also do not need all the words in daily communication, whereas productive vocabulary is needed in daily
communication. Thus, the learners must understand all the words in speaking and writing.
d. Vocabulary Elements
In her book, Ur 1996: 60-62 gives some elements that need to be taught in teaching vocabulary which will
indicate students’ vocabulary mastery. They are:
1 Form: pronunciation and spelling
The learner has to know what a word sounds like its pronunciation and what a word looks like its spelling. These are fairly obvious characteristics,
and one or the other will be perceived by the learner when encountering the
