LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:8 August 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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An Exploration of Strategies for Teaching and
Learning English Language Vocabulary in Secondary Schools
in Tanzania: A Classroom Observation

Asteria Gabriel Ngaiza, Research Scholar and Dr. M. Sivashanmugam

Abstract

This paper explored English language vocabulary teaching and learning strategies used in secondary school classrooms in Tanzania. The study used observation method to witness the process of direct vocabulary instruction through an authentic text extracted from the Novel “The River Between” to collect data from 48 students, and one teacher of English language making a total of 49 informants from Kilimanjaro Region- Tanzania. Findings showed that the informants used a number of strategies in teaching and learning vocabulary, the strategies included the use of dictionary, asking classmates and teacher for meaning, vocabulary learning through questions and answers, among these strategies, the students seemed to be better in using matching items strategy. From the observation it was found that the students were inactive in participating in the lesson this was somewhat contributed by the way the teacher was engaging them in the lesson. One of the ways teachers can aid the learning process is by helping learners become aware of and practice in using a variety of vocabulary learning strategies, since students in EFL context mostly depend the classroom for learning of English language.

Keywords: Secondary Schools in Tanzania, English as a Foreign Language, English for Specific Purpose, strategies, classroom.

Introduction

Vocabulary learning deserves a special attention as vocabulary is central to language acquisition and competence. Vocabulary makes a person to function well in day to day communication that is why Nation (2006) calculated the amount of vocabulary necessary to function in English, using a 98% coverage figure. He posits that, it takes an approximate of 6,000–7,000 word families for spoken discourse and 8,000–9,000 families for written discourse. These figures suggest the need for learners to master more vocabulary than previously thought necessary. In order to help students attain vocabularies of this size, teachers need to provide explicit instruction on the more frequent words, and they also must help students to develop learning strategies that enable them to acquire less frequent vocabulary. By high frequency vocabulary, we mean the items that occur frequently in the running text, they approximately reach 2,000–3,000 words (Nation, 1990, 2001). While low frequency words are those items whose large proportion of the items in that area are hardly known. These are those words that are also known as rare, obsolete, or dialectal in the dictionary. The low frequency words that the learners know reflect the influence of a variety of personal and social variables such as how widely the learners have read and listened.

On the other hand, students need a well-structured vocabulary program with a balanced approach that includes explicit teaching together with activities providing appropriate contexts for learning. Nation (2001: 232) asserts that ‘many learners of second and foreign language do not experience the conditions that are needed for this kind of learning to occur’. Thus, he claims that activities focusing on the word itself (explicit learning activities) are essential for successful L2 vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary learning strategies are a subdivision of language learning strategies which have attracted much attention since the late seventies. According to Nation (2001), vocabulary learning strategies enable learners to take more responsibility for their own learning. He believes that a large amount of vocabulary can be acquired by using vocabulary learning strategies. One of the methods that can help the learner acquire enough vocabulary so that they can function well is through incidental and explicit instructions. In incidental and explicit vocabulary learning students engage in activities that focus attention on vocabulary such as reading. In the present study, the students were engaged into incidental reading of a text in which the teacher targeted some vocabulary items to be acquired.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Asteria Gabriel Ngaiza
Research Scholar, Centre of Advanced Study in Linguistics
Annamalai University, India
asteriangaiza106@gmail.com
Mobile: 8056325471

Dr. M. Sivashanmugam
Professor in Linguistics, Centre of Advanced Study in Linguistics
Annamalai University, India
sivam.ling@gmail.com
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