Djuwairiah Ahmad ABSTRACT This study attempts to discuss some problems that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers need to be aware in vocabulary instruction in Indonesia teaching context, since there have still been many mistaken views or false assumptions exist in the EFL teaching and learning situation which indirectly give influences on the classroom teaching and learning processes. Among them are: the traditional assumption, the direct-translation assumption, and the single meaning assumption. Several vocabulary teaching techniques which are suitable to be applied to the Indonesian beginner classes (first or second grade students), along with several contributing factors that may affect the teaching and learning process need to be also considered by the teachers. Key Words: problems, English vocabulary instruction, Indonesia teaching context I. INTRODUCTION In learning a foreign language, vocabulary plays an important role. It is one element that links the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together. It provides the vital organs and flesh to the language (Harmer, 1991:153). In order to comprehend passages and to communicate well in a foreign language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them accurately in context. “To understand a text or a passage, a student must have a good command of the vocabulary of the target language, though learning a language does not mean merely learning words, vocabulary proficiency, however, will enable the students to acquire the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing” (Kustaryo, 1998:2). Even though students realize the importance of vocabulary when learning English, most Indonesian students learn vocabulary passively due to several factors. First, they consider the teacher's explanation for meaning or definition, pronunciation, spelling and grammatical functions boring. In this case, language learners have nothing to do in a vocabulary learning section but to listen to their teacher. Second, students only think of vocabulary learning as knowing the primary meaning of new words. Therefore, they ignore all other functions of the words. Third, students usually only acquire new vocabulary through new words in their textbooks or when given by teachers during classroom lessons. For example, learners find many new words in a text and then ask the teacher to explain the meanings and usages. Forth, many Indonesian learners do not want to take risks in applying what they have learnt. Students may recognize a word in a written or spoken form and think that they already "know the word", but they may not be able to use that word properly in different contexts or pronounce it correctly. This paper, therefore, attempts to highlight some problems that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers need to be aware in vocabulary instruction in Indonesia teaching context, since there have still been many mistaken views or false assumptions exist in the EFL teaching and learning situation. In addition, it also presents two examples of ‘simple’ vocabulary teaching techniques which are suitable to be applied to the Indonesian beginner classes (first or second grade students), along with several contributing factors that may affect the teaching and learning process, which, again, need to be considered by the teachers. II. DISCUSSION A. Several Mistaken Views/False Assumptions in Vocabulary Learning and Instruction Specifically, there have been several mistaken views or false assumptions arise from vocabulary learning among Indonesian students and even the teachers, which indirectly give influences on the classroom teaching and learning processes. Among them are: 1. Traditional Assumption Students who learn English with this assumption think that they can master the language by simply memorising as many words in the dictionary as possible. They assume that learning English is learning the words of the language in order to be able to automatically understand and use the language in conversation. These students believe that every time they come to a new word, they must know "exactly what it means", and so they turn constantly to the dictionary to find out. This is doubly sad, because it not only slows them up so terribly that they cannot do a tenth of the reading they ought to do; it also in fact ‘prevents’ them finding out "exactly what the word means" (Herbertson, 2000). There is the added danger for some that these students are not satisfied till they can think of the translation of the word in their own language (Indonesian). This makes them waste even more time with the dictionary. Furthermore, Indonesian students who believe with this view may translate the following English sentence: “This is a guest house” into Indonesian: “Ini adalah sebuah tamu rumah” since they merely translate the sentence word for word without considering the rules of the grammatical sentence construction in English, which is slightly different from Indonesian. In addition, the precise translation of the sentence should be: “Ini adalah rumah tamu” English teachers who have this assumption often give their students a number of vocabulary lists to be memorised at home. As a result, the students only learn the words ‘by heart’ and looking up their meanings in the bilingual dictionary most of the time. Traditionally, vocabulary instruction in Indonesia has not been a particular subject for students to learn, but has been taught within lessons of speaking, listening, reading and writing. During the lesson, students use their own vocabulary and are introduced to new words provided by the teacher and classmates which they apply to classroom activities. For many Indonesian learners of English, whenever they think of vocabulary, they think of learning a list of new words with meanings in their native language without any real context practice (Achsin,1986:5). A number of learners may share the same experience of looking up words in a bilingual dictionary to find their meanings or definitions when they encounter new words. They may even write down lines of new words without any idea of the real use of them in context. Working this way, after a short period of time, many learners may find out that learning vocabulary in lists does not satisfy themselves, and they think the cause for it is just their bad memorisation (Rasyid,1997:12). Research and publications have shown that this is not a very effective way to study. “The goals of vocabulary teaching must be more than simply covering a certain number of words on a word list” (Richards, 1985:188). Similarly, Scott and Nagy (2004:205) states that words should not be learnt separately or by memorisation without understanding. Moreover, "learning new words is a cumulative process, with words enriched and established as they are met again" (Nation, 2001:6). Therefore, the "look and remember" way of vocabulary learning seems to be not very effective for learners of the English language. 2. The Direct-Translation Assumption Some Indonesian learners and teachers who believe with this assumption presume that English vocabulary has equivalent words in Indonesian. The difference is just laid on the way these words are written, so that every single English word can be directly translated into Indonesian. As a matter of fact, words in one language do not usually mean exactly the same as words in another language (Gethin and Gunnemark, 1996). Based on this assumption, many English teachers in Indonesia apply the ‘direct-translation method’ in their teaching because they believe that the students can learn and know the word meanings of English by looking up their equivalent meanings of the words in Indonesian. Moreover, to see that this is a mistaken view in learning English, the following example shows the difference of word ‘time’ in English and Indonesian: English: Indonesian: ‘time’ ‘waktu’ “What time is it? “Jam berapa sekarang?” In Indonesian, it is incorrect to say: “Waktu berapa sekarang?” Similarly, if the word ‘jam’ is translated into English, it means ‘a clock’ or ‘a watch’. However, it is totally wrong to say in English: “What clock is it?” or “What watch is it?” Actually, some students in the classroom teaching may require teachers to give meaning and grammatical function for words that they are not familiar. Learners wait for teachers who control the lesson to provide new forms of words then they write those words in their notebooks or complete their exercises. They may use words they learn in the exact formats as the original patterns in which those words appeared. This kind of rote verbal memorisation is good to a certain extent since it helps learners learn and use the correct form of words. However, according to Decarrico (2001, cf. Huyen 2003), the vocabulary used in such context is rather simple because grammatical and phonologic aspects are emphasised; and as a result, the lexical aspect is neglected. In other words, learners just know how to use the vocabulary in an exact form, but they do not know how to use it with different shades of meanings in real life communication. 3. The Single Meaning Assumption English learners and teachers who hold this assumption often think that every English word has only one exact meaning in Indonesian. Most of English words, in fact, have several equivalent meanings in Indonesian words. ‘Time’ is an example of a word that possibly has no exact equivalent in any other language. It can of course be translated, but only in a very rough and approximate way. The first thing to notice is how ‘time’ has to be translated in one context by a certain word and in a different context by another word (in some contexts it might even have to be translated by a combination of words). In addition, the following are examples of the word ‘time’ which reveals several different meanings in Indonesian: - What time is it? (Jam berapa sekarang?) - We had a good time during the last vacation. (Kami bersenang-senang selama liburan akhir pekan ini). - This is a good time to do research. (Sekarang ini adalah saat yang tepat untuk mengadakan penelitian). - The Indonesian Thomas Cup Team made good time in the final round match. (Tim Piala Thomas Indonesia bermain dengan sangat baik pada putaran final). - You kept good time. You always arrive on time. (Anda menghargai waktu. Anda selalu tiba tepat waktu). - William Shakespeare was the best writer on his time. (William Shakespeare adalah penulis yang terbaik pada masanya_). - Your proposal does not fit in with the time. (Usulan anda tidak sesuai dengan kondisi saat ini) Moreover, further uses of ‘time’ in other contexts might require further different Indonesian translations and there is almost certainly a part of the meaning in ‘time’ that is missing in all translations, whatever word is used. ‘Time’ is perhaps a rather extreme case but there are huge numbers of words in the world's languages that have this same unique character, even if not always so clearly. B. Some Considerations and Examples of Vocabulary Instruction in Indonesia Teaching Context There are some considerations that EFL teachers need to take into account when teaching vocabulary, including in Indonesia teaching context. They are: (1) the teaching technique should arouse the students’ interest; (2) it should make students focus on the form, meaning and use of the words; and (3) it should give students a chance for repetition (Rasyid, 1997; Frost, 2002; Stirling, 2003; Thornbury, 2003). In relation to this, there have been several techniques for vocabulary instruction developed by educational experts and teachers so far. In this instance, however, only two examples are presented as they are suitable to be applied in Indonesian learners for beginner level/class. 1. Teaching Vocabulary through Guessing In teaching vocabulary through guessing, there are at least two crucial things that EFL teachers need to consider, namely the students’ individual personality and their culture. Some students may have self-doubt which often makes them hesitate or feel embarrassed to air their ideas and opinions using their own words, though the words the students use are already correct. An English teacher should be wise and look out for asking the students to guess the meaning of a new word or phrase since some cultures, particularly Indonesian culture, encourage students ‘indirectly’ to be afraid of making mistakes. It is the teachers who ‘always right’ and have ‘the authority’ to determine something is ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect.’ As a consequence, most of Indonesian learners are not used to think (and read) critically, and they tend to take everything for granted, including the teachers’ autonomy in the classroom. This, in fact, gives a very strong influence on the students’ performance in learning a foreign language because they are not brave and confident enough to express or to say their answers. They think that their classmates may laugh at them if the answer they are given are not correct. The students, as a result, will not vocalize their ideas except they are sure that they are right. Accordingly, teachers should always motivate and make the students fell confident to express their feelings and ideas even though they are not completely correct. Furthermore, the teaching of English vocabulary through guessing to the beginner class (first or second year students) could be carried out such as follow: ? Teacher draws or sticks some pictures on the board; ? Teacher pronounces one sentence and asks one student to choose or point at one of several pictures on the board, which match with the pronounced sentence. ? Whenever the student cannot match the picture and the sentence correctly, the teacher may give once chance to guess another picture. This could be repeated until the student can show the correct picture, and ask the student to repeat the sentence several times in order to correct their pronunciation as well. ? For the second step, the teacher may also point at the pictures and ask students to make sentences of their own based on the pointed pictures. This is for checking the students’ understanding of the words they have learned. 2. Teaching Vocabulary through Definition Teaching English vocabulary through definition could be very challenging for Indonesian teachers since English grammatical sentences are different from Indonesian. In every English sentence, there is always a verb (predicate), while in Indonesian sentence, the verb does not have to always exist. Consequently, the vocabulary instruction through definition should attempt to help students to give definition to English words which are in grammatically correct, since the sentence constructions between English and Indonesian as mentioned earlier may make students difficult to form the grammatically correct English sentences. This is, in fact, another consideration that teachers should take into account when teaching vocabulary to Indonesian classroom. In addition, teaching vocabulary through definition could be conducted such as follows: ? Teacher writes some sentences on the board. For instance: - They dig a deep hole, and then take water from the well. - He cures the sick who comes to his clinic, because he is a doctor. ? Teacher asks students to define the word ‘well.’ ? If a student, for example, answers ‘A well is a deep hole,’ the teacher could remind him/her that one word is missing. ? Other students may find the missing word ‘water.’ ? Teacher encourages students to conclude the meaning of ‘well,’ which are expected to answer ‘A well is a deep hole where there is water.’ ? For the second sentence, the teacher can reverse the technique by asking in sentence: ‘What is the name of a person who cures the sick in his clinic?’ There are, of course, still many other ‘more interesting’ techniques in teaching vocabulary to the beginner classes in EFL teaching context than what have been presented above. The teachers just need to suit the teaching techniques to their students and classroom condition in order to meet their teaching goals. C. CONCLUSION It cannot be denied that there are some considerations that English teachers should take into account when teaching vocabulary in EFL teaching context. In Indonesia, learning vocabulary has been considered a boring subject for a long time and the traditional way of learning vocabulary by mere copying and remembering has shown to be less than effective. The existence of some false assumptions about the vocabulary teaching and learning among the learners, and even the teachers, is believed to give a contribution as well to this situation, which in turn, may affect the students’ competence and performance in learning vocabulary. Moreover, the students’ own personality, culture, as well as the teachers’ teaching techniques and classroom condition are other important factors that need to be considered in vocabulary instruction. 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