Page 107 - E-Modul Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris SD
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language vocabulary and are still in the process of acquiring and organizing
concepts. The first language background needs to be taken into account in
order to know what will work and what may be too difficult for children. It
is also common sense that teaching names of animals will go fine with
young learners, however, teaching more complex adjectives e.g. relevant,
significant or exhausted to seven or eight year-olds is rather a pointless
effort. Basic level words are likely to be more appropriate for young
learners, while building up more sophisticated, complex and abstract
vocabulary should come later and should rely on basic vocabulary.
Teachers should also note that learning a new word is not a simple
task that is done once and then completed. Lynne Cameron puts it in the
following way: "Learning words is a cyclical process of meeting new words
and initial learning, followed by meeting those words again and again, each
time extending knowledge of what the words mean and how they are used
in the foreign language."29 Teaching vocabulary is a continuous activity,
words need to be continuously revised, refreshed and used again and again.
Children need to be exposed to words in many different situations, which
means that learning a word takes a long time. In addition, the above quote
also suggests that teaching words should be carried out in intervals; teachers
should go back to previously taught words regularly, e.g. in different
activities where the same words are used or met again.
Brewster, Ellis and Girard explain that children go through five main
stages in their efforts to learn new words and attach the words they already
know.
The stages they identify are the following:
1. Understanding and learning the meaning of new words
2. Attending to form
3. Vocabulary practicing, memorizing and checking activities
4. Consolidating, recycling, extending, organizing, recording and
personalizing vocabulary
5. Developing strategies for vocabulary learning
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