1 Promoting fluency Students who recognize and understand many words read more
quickly and easily compared to those with smaller vocabularies. 2 Boosting comprehension
Vocabulary knowledge strongly influences comprehension. It is found that words meaning make up 74 of comprehension.
3 Improving achievement A large vocabulary means a large of conceptual knowledge which
makes academic learning easier. Students with large vocabulary score higher on achievement test then those with small vocabulary.
4 Enhancing thinking and communication Words are tools for analyzing, inferring, evaluating and reasoning. A
large vocabulary allows for communicating in ways that are precise, powerful, persuasive, and interesting.
Realizing that the knowledge of vocabulary is very important, teachers must pay greater attention in vocabulary teaching. Teachers can
teach vocabulary early in the school to give the students opportunities to build word skills.
d. Vocabulary Mastery
Vocabulary is needed by people to understand the meaning of words and it helps them to express precisely Burton, 1982: 98. The
students need to learn vocabulary since they will learn speaking or writing.
Vocabulary mastery must be learned since early ages because it is the foundation of learning English.
According to Read 2000: 16, vocabulary is knowledge of knowing the meanings of words and therefore the purpose of vocabulary
test is to find out whether the learners can match each word with a synonym, a dictionary
– tape definition, or an equivalent word in their own language. In learning vocabulary, automatically they have to know the
meaning of words themselves and can use it in sentences. There are some factors should be achieved by learners to master
vocabulary. Ur 1995: 60 explained some factors needed to be taught in mastering vocabulary. The factors come from the 1 forms; pronunciation
and spelling, 2 grammar, 3 collocation, 4 aspects of meaning; denotation, connotation, appropriateness, 5 aspects of meaning; meaning
and relationship and 6 words formation. Mastering a word means mastering the aspects of word knowledge.
Thornbury 2002 summarizes that word knowledge includes the meanings, the spoken form, the written form, the grammatical behavior,
the word derivation collocations of words, the register of the word- spoken and written, the connotation or associations of the word, and word
frequency. The vocabulary mastery is not a spontaneous process which is easy
to be done. The process of English vocabulary mastery should begin from the early stages. Moreover, vocabulary mastery is not merely
remembering the words. Remembering them is not enough. Students have to know the meaning. Knowing words means knowing its denotative
meaning and some aspects surround them.
e. Learning Vocabulary
Vocabulary mastery is an important thing in order to master four major skills in English. Vocabulary is the basic knowledge to be able to
master English. Wilkins in Thornbur y 2002: 13 “without grammar very
little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” Learning vocabulary does not only occur in one time of learning.
In vocabulary learning, until one certainly knows a word it requires meeting it more than one time and one circumstance. Lightbown and
Spada 2006: 100 say that learners usually need to encounter a word many times in order to learn it well enough to recognize it in new context
or produce it in their own speaking and writing. Learning vocabulary needs a process. In order to make an effective
process, the learner should be in the effective condition of acquiring vocabulary. Thornbury 2002: 2 adds that the condition should help
learners to acquire a critical mass of words to use in both understanding and producing language. In addition, it will enable them to remember
word over time and be able to recall them readily. Hedgcock and Ferris 2009: 285 add that learning a word involves process layers of meaning, a
set of syntactic rules and co nstraints that is, the word’s grammar, as well
