Nowadays, we live in a world in which practice is gaining ground. And, English is the language of business, science, technology and empowerment, So, students need to speak English to be operational in today’s world. As a reminder, it is known that before the adoption of CLT, vocabulary was considered by other methods such as the Grammar Translation method and the Structuralism as the Cinderella of teaching. Therefore, for many years, vocabulary has been the victim of discrimination by practitioners who claimed syntax to be a more significant issue in the language development process [3]. Because of the effect of structuralism and the Chomsky’s School of Linguistics, which did not regard vocabulary as an area to focus on, the issue of vocabulary remained ignored [3]. According to those schools, learners were assumed that once they have learned the structural frames and the grammatical rules, they will be able to fill in the lexical items as needed. And oftentimes we are judged by our ability in using words, whether we are students or teachers, politicians or salesmen [4]. In this respect, Harmer says that If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh [1]. That illustration confirms that vocabulary is central to language and is of great significance to language learners because words are the building blocks of a language since they label objects, actions, ideas without which people cannot convey the intended meaning [5]. This new importance given to vocabulary teaching as far as learning a foreign language is concerned, has oriented our view towards a study on the strategies used in teaching vocabulary.

As defined by Rupley et al, vocabulary is the glue that holds stories, ideas and content together… making comprehension accessible for students [6]. In line with this, Harmer [1] adds that neither literature nor language exists without vocabulary. Laufer [7] asserts that English proficiency has been found to be closely related to vocabulary knowledge. The statements given above converge towards the idea that vocabulary is essential for communication. Taking that into consideration, CLT focuses more on vocabulary acquisition. If one does not know the words of a given language, it will be impossible for one to communicate in it. In the light of this, to have a good command of a language, one should be well equipped with vocabulary items related to it. In this respect, Miressa Amenu acknowledges that without the mediation of vocabulary, no amount of grammatical or other types of linguistic knowledge can be employed in second language communication or discourse [5]. That is to say that it will not be possible for one to understand what others say or to be understood. Furthermore, practitioners have come up with the idea that in CLT, learners should learn a language by using it, meaning by communicating in it.  

For vocabulary teaching to be more effective, a variety of vocabulary teaching strategies such as teaching a new word in a context, teaching a new word through antonyms, synonyms, definitions, explanations, drawings, etc. is suggested and discussed in the research findings with a view to improve learners’ communication and competence tools. The paper will finally give some recommendations to EFL teachers in order for them to better teach vocabulary.

The Population of the Study

The population of this study is 10 Senegalese EFL teachers who, regarding their own experience in teaching vocabulary, are called to participate in order to assess the effectiveness and practicality of some vocabulary teaching strategies that should be used by EFL teachers. 

In the Senegalese context, EFL teachers generally teach vocabulary for students to understand a text they are going to read (pre-reading phase) or reading (while-reading phase). After that, learners are supposed to use the vocabulary items learnt in the first two phases in a third phase called post-reading phase with discussions, oral presentations, etc. They also teach vocabulary to help students get enough background knowledge of words they can recall and use when writing or speaking. 

However, it is no easy task for Senegalese EFL teachers to effectively teach new words to their students because of many factors. The sample teachers we have chosen complained about Senegalese students’ reluctance to speak a foreign language. That is a problem because the communicative method of language teaching advocates learning a language by speaking it. That theory even recommends to say a word, meaning to be able to pronounce it before seeing it, its motto being « hear, say and see ». For the respondents, another problem related to vocabulary learning in the Senegalese EFL context is languages’ intereference. I do not deny that because as a student, I experienced that difficulty. That idea will lead us to the next point of this work.

A Self Story Based on My Beginnings with Learning English as A Foreign Language

Assignment: Here is a story I wrote in 2011, year when I was a second-year student at the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies of Education and Vocational Training (abbreviated FASTEF in French) in Senegal. This piece of writing was an assignment given to us by one of our trainers from who we were taking a course entitled Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and English Language Teaching (ELT) methods. The first part of the lesson outline was Language Learning Experiences. It is before tackling that part that our trainer gave us the task. The following is the instruction: « Write a self-story based on a language process you experienced. The basis for this may be your beginnings with English or with any other language learned through conscious study. To help refresh your memories, you may join one of the special language learning mini-classes organized within this course. In these classes, one of your classmates will teach his or her mother tongue. He or she will have a total of 3 hours to do this. I recommend that you divide the 3 hours into 3 separate sessions of approximately one hour each. All the students of the class must follow one of these classes. Your story should cover issues such as

• description of the context for this language learning experience

• An account of the content taught and the method used by the instructor

• The difficulties you faced as a learner and their explanation

• What you liked or disliked in the teacher’s method and why

The Story Proper

In Senegal, we start learning English in junior high school, precisely in the first form after getting our primary school certificate. The first form is a period in which some kind of enthusiasm livens students up who are beginners in the new cycle.  There is a rupture between primary education and secondary education. It is an occasion for learners to get rid of old practices and discover new courses like foreign languages and new methods of teaching and learning. However, teaching a foreign language in an environment where it is hardly spoken is not an easy task. In this country, English is referred to as EFL in contrast with French, the Senegalese second language. In Senegal the second language is barely spoken on streets let alone the foreign one. That lack of language practice explains the tremendous difficulties both teachers and learners of second or foreign languages are faced with. 

My beginning with English is an unforgettable experience for me. We had a small and thin teacher who always put on good face and used to tease students. What was more exciting in his classes was about his physical appearance. He used to walk very fast and whenever he entered the classroom, we started smiling. Coming to the course, as we did not have the intuitive knowledge of English, we had to acquire enough vocabulary and grammar items to be able to express ourselves. Since it was the beginning of the year, all the words were new to us. Our teacher was fluent, and he used to articulate like a native English speaker. I remember our first meeting, after entering the classroom, he greeted, introduced himself and started familiarizing with some students. The village where I went to junior high school is a Serer (a Senegalese ethnic group) area and the teacher was a Toucouleur (another Senegalese ethnic group considered as the cousin ethny of Serer). According to the Senegalese culture, the two ethnies that are Serer and Toucouleur are supposed to tease each other. So, he used to tease us. During that first class, after trying to socialize with learners, he didn’t reach his objective. We could not react because of lack of understanding, what he was uttering sounded like Chinese to us. We were lost. It was as if we just had someone like a puppet owing to his physical appearance, way of speaking and moving in front of us.  Everything looked like cartoon. However, some similarities between Toucouleur and Serer words used to amuse us. For instance, when we were dealing with the lesson on food, on hearing the word, we thought that he meant ‘belly’, the latter being pronounced [fud] in Serer and we all touched our bellies. But after his explanations of the word, we kept laughing at ourselves and repeating the word. We did the same with « match » meaning « light », which is pronounced the same way as in our kind of Serer (there are many Serer dialects). Other words like the quantifier « some », the indefinite article « a », etc. drew our attention. In Serer we say [so:m] to mean « little » and [a] or [ᴐ] to mean the English indefinite article « a ». 

Apart from that, I really appreciated my former teacher’s dynamism and way of motivating us. Our teacher seldom used French, he often brought realia in the classroom to explain new words. Besides, he was flexible and patient. He did not mind our slow speed of understanding. We kept repeating and revising until something was understood enough to move to another step.  At the end of a lesson, he generally designated groups of students to go in front of their peers to perform a dialog related to that lesson. That is the reason why I can’t forget the two main characters who are Manga and Namondo of English for French-Speaking Africa (EFSA) textbook.

In the long run, we liked English and by the end of the year, we began to communicate in English and were able to write an essay in acceptable English.

Comment

That is the story of my beginning with English. This story is relevant in the way that it raises awareness on the effectiveness of the teaching strategy used by the teacher who, by the end of the year, succeeded in making his students love English and be able to communicate and write in it.

Data presentation 

It is a rank response questionnaire, meaning a questionnaire whose answers are strongly agree (SA); agree (A); strongly disagree (SD); disagree (DA)

The questionnaire consists of 20 statements destined to know the Senegalese EFL teachers’ reactions towards some vocabulary teaching strategies. The questionnaire is tabulated and introduced as follows

Introduction 

We are doing a small research project on some suggested Language (EFL) context. We ask your help in completing this questionnaire. All responses will be kept strictly confidential. Please do not sign your name.

Many EFL teachers are not successful in using good vocabulary teaching strategies. To what extent do you strongly agree (SA), agree (A), strongly disagree (SD) or disagree (D)? Please tick the box corresponding to your opinion.

Data Analysis 

Quantitative Data Presentation: Teachers’ response to the vocabulary teaching strategies used in an EFL context.

The quantitative data were collected in figures (F) and converted into percentages (%)

Qualitative data analysis

The data will follow a linear analysis. In the Senegalese educational system, teachers dispose of 3 or 4 hours a week to teach foreign languages with a broad program. Besides, factors like strikes and feasts shorten the year. That’s why it is inconceivable for teachers to waste time on less essential things. Based on their experience on teaching, respondents are aware that teachers cannot teach all the new words of a passage, they have to select key words whose ambiguity hinder understanding. That is illustrated by the respondents’ reactions to statement number 1. 80% of them strongly disagreed with teaching all the new vocabulary items of passage and 20% disagreed with that idea. None of them agreed.

Before starting a lesson, there is what is called the pre-phase teaching, which consists of warm-up, brainstorming, predicting, etc. That phase can take 15 minutes. Suppose the teacher has 10 key words to explain, if he takes more than 2 minutes for each word, it will not be possible for him or her to finish a lesson in a session. The respondents are conscious about that. 70% of them had a negative reaction to that question. 40% strongly disagreed and 30% disagreed.

As for statement number 3, we know that a word can have two meanings, a literal meaning and a figurative meaning. It is better to precise both meanings because if the teacher just gives one meaning, the students can meet the word elsewhere with another meaning and that will create problems. 60% of teachers disagreed with statement number 3. Those who agree also consider that it is time consuming to teach other meanings that do not fit the present context.

Analyzing the result of statement number 4, we say that it is sometimes easier to grasp the meaning of a word through its antonym than its synonym. For instance, instead of teaching the word ‘angry’ through its synonym ‘cross’, you can give the antonym ‘happy’, which is a more common word and easier to understand. In this regard 90% of the target teachers strongly agreed with statement number 4. Coming  to  statement 5,  as  the  statistics reveal (100% for), vocabulary teaching  strategies  used in English as a Foreign examples should be contextualized to fit real life situations and not be given in meaningless and general situations. In that respect, Hartmann and Blass confirm that ontextual clues give information or feed a learner about the word by providing information in multitude constructs. In other words, figuring out what a word means by looking at the words or phrases nearby [8]. Bielmiller and Boote join that idea by asserting that research indicates that contextual word teaching is more effective than non-contextual word teaching [9]. When a new word pops up, the students should be able to guess the meaning through the context.  Guessing the meaning of a word instead of looking up for the meaning in a dictionary. The dictionary meaning may differ from the contextual meaning of the word. 

Table 1: The quantitative data were collected in survey (F) and converted into percentages

Phonetic transcription helps students pronounce words correctly and is suitable for all students. It should not be systematic. Only words whose pronunciation is difficult should be transcribed. For that, 80% of teachers are against the fact of always using phonetic transcription. The seventh item of this questionnaire states that teachers can maximize question-answer (Q/A) practice of a new lexical item in a given situation by finding a familiar situation and multiplying questions. To that extent, the teacher should not only give other examples, but he or she should ask other questions to push the students draw the meaning of a word through Q/A. According to the population of this study who unanimously agreed with statement 7 (50% strongly agree and 50% agree), Q/A is a good and communicative strategy to teach vocabulary. For item number 8, instead of asking students to improvise sentences, the teacher can prepare his own examples and turn them into questions and answers in order to get a satisfactory and correct sentence as learners will take it in their copybooks. 70% agreed with statement number 8. But a handful of teachers considers that it is better to let students produce themselves without teacher’s influence. In this similar vein, the respondents retorted strongly agree by 30% and 40% agree. Yet, all the teachers (10% strongly disagree and 90% disagree) disagreed with the fact that every piece of new vocabulary needs an illustrative sentence. Some words such as chair, desk, house, mosque, church, etc. can be taught through pictures or drawings especially for beginners. Besides they all (80% strongly agree and 20% agree) know that some examples may be bad illustrative sentences. A bad illustrative sentence is a sentence which may create confusion as far as the meaning of the word is concerned. It can also be a sentence that does not reflect the real meaning of the word. That runs counter to statement number 3 which asserts that one should teach the particular sense a new item has in a new lesson. This method proves to be insufficient. Again, all the respondents are for the idea that good illustrative sentences have common characteristics. A good illustrative sentence must be clear, meaningful and related to the students’ background knowledge. It should be authentic and contextualized, that is to say it should reflect real life situation. For that statement, 60% strongly agreed and 40% agreed. The target population also unanimously adopted (90% of the teachers strongly agreed and 10% agreed) the statement according to which the illustrative sentence should be written at the final moment after the students have already heard and pronounced the word. Another strategy to teach vocabulary is to gather words by center of interest to draw attention on words that go together. The data collected show that  40% strongly agreed with using a center of interest as an alternative to teach vocabulary and 60% agreed. For statement number 15, it is better to gather words in a center of interest rather than presenting new words in a running context, which follows words’ appearance order in the text. In fact, the running context should occur after finishing comprehension questions, then the teacher goes back to the text to explain unknown words during a running comment. These unknown words are not written. No teacher agreed with the fact that instead of a center of interest, a running context can be used to explain new vocabulary in the while-phase teaching. Another effective strategy to teach a new word is by giving its definition. For example if you want to teach the word ‘smuggler’, instead of giving the synonym ‘contrabandist’, you can give the definition that is : ‘a smuggler is a person who imports or exports goods secretly and illegaly, or a person who makes people travel secretly and illegally. To my mind, learners will understand better with that definition than with the synonym. As a result, 80% of the respondents strongly agreed with that strategy and 20% agreed. What’s more, clear explanations are undeniably good because jotting down notes you don’t understand does not make sense. As far as teaching and learning are concerned, explanations should always be followed by taking notes. After having carefully listened to the teacher’s explanations, learners should always jot down notes in their copybooks. The latter is supposed to be some kind of reference copybook the students can learn from while preparing a test. They can also use it for further studies. As such, the blackboard layout is as important as the explanations, especially for beginners. This explains the reason why all the respondents disagreed with the fact that the blackboard layout is not important. Besides, the blackboard build up helps the teacher mention everything of a teaching process that can help show the different points to be taught. In teaching, the best way to lay out a board is to move from left to right. Statement number 18 didn’t have positive reaction: 80% strongly disagreed with it and 20% disagreed. Learners must be taught standard correct English and not pidgin English which can be picked up everywhere. This kind of English can just be used in speaking on streets. When writing, students are bound to use bookish English. To interpret item 19, the respondents believe that going back to the text to elucidate other vocabulary items that have not been taught can enrich students’ list of known words and improve their communication skills. 50% of teachers strongly agreed and 30% agreed. Nevertheless, 20% of teachers didn’t agree because they take it as a waste of time. They assume that learners will have other occasions to come across many other vocabulary items. For the last item of the questionnaire, the respondents all agreed (40% strongly agree and 60% agree) that games are also an effective way to teach vocabulary.

To wind up, we assume that a close look at the result clearly shows that the population of this study is composed of experienced teachers

Recommendations 

This study has proved that vocabulary is crucial in language pedagogy. To that end, teachers should lay the emphasis on vocabulary by using a variety of effective teaching strategies while bearing in mind that some strategies are better for students at a certain level. Variety is very important because it is the spice of teaching. Using a single method of teaching every time will lead to boredom and hatred of a subject.

As recommended by CLT, the teacher should help the students build up and use a mental lexicon in such a way that they will be capable of storing, keeping and retrieving words when needed [5]. 

Some teachers do not teach vocabulary, they test it by asking learners to find synonyms, antonyms, definitions, etc. They cannot make the difference between teaching and testing, Teaching is about giving synonyms, antonyms, definitions, explanations, etc. In order to make their students autonomous learners, teachers should familiarize them with guessing meanings through contexts. Richards [10] states in the principles of CLT that the students learn to communicate by negotiating meaning in real context. 

Another thing is that vocabulary teaching is a process. I would suggest my peer teachers to try these different steps of complete teaching of a word in an EFL context:

• Orally present the word through a context or situation, reuse the word so as to pronounce it. Then, students repeat the word individually then in choral. After that, the teacher writes the phonetic transcription on the board. 

• Reuse of all the words taught through Q/A to check understanding. Last, the teacher writes the words on the board so as to let students take them in their copy books in 5mn. At the moment the students jot down notes, the teacher copies on the board another activity or exercise in order not to waste time. 

In the communicative language teaching method, the vocabulary teaching should be done in the following way : hear, say and see, that is to say that learners should hear the word first and be able to pronounce it before seeing it.Phonetic transcription should not be left apart, teachers should teach learners how to pronounce words so that they pronounce the distinctive speech sounds and sound patterns of the language clearly enough for people to distinguish what they say. This includes making tonal distinctions [11].

This is a kind of activity some Senegalese teachers very often use in what they think is a vocabulary teaching session.

Word Building Activities

Activity 1: Complete the table 2 Correctly 

Expectations

• 1st line: verb:   approximate    noun: approximation adjective: approximate/approximative

• 2^nd line: verb: categorise   adjective:  categorical  adverb: categorically

• 3^rd line:  noun: danger    adjective: dangerous   adverb: dangerously 

• 4^th line: verb: prevent   noun: prevention   adverb: preventively 

Table 2: World Building Activities 

Activity 2

Fill in the passage below with the appropriate words taken from the chart above:

Many species of animals are in (1) ……………………… nowadays. Animals are (2) ………………. into endangered and threatened species. There are (3) ……………… 1,117 endangered species among which is the African Elephant. But to solve this phenomenon, (4) ………………. measures should be taken. 

Expectations

• Danger

• Categorized

• Approximately

• Preventive

This kind of activity is always contextualized. It is either based on a reading or listening comprehension passage. For students to be successful in this sort of activity, the teacher should beforehand give the rules related to word building and word order in a   passage, if not it will be a waste of time.

Comments

The table is an instance of linguistic competence; the learner needs only to manipulate linguistic forms at the word level: it is a micro skill. But it features language in isolation and as Harris stated, language does not occur in stray words or sentences [12]. That highlights the two English Language Teaching (ELT) concepts that are integration and conceptualization.

The passage is an instance of appropriate language use in a given context at the discourse level. The learner has to integrate different skills to complete the task successfully: it is a macro skill. He or she should be linguistically, grammatically and communicatively competent so as to put words in their right places and modify them if necessary. This method is nearer to testing than to teaching, but it is challenging. What is important in this kind of activity is that it obliges students to work with dictionaries in which they try to find the words derived from a given word to complete a chart. Some teachers prevent students from using dictionaries in a teaching session. I would like to precise that a dictionary is a useful learning tool. Thus, learners should use it in a teaching/learning process if need be but not in testing which is another thing.

The study has revealed that vocabulary is of paramount importance to communication and as normal people use words to express themselves whatever the situation, it is compulsory for EFL teachers to focus on vocabulary teaching so as to meet the requirements of CLT. For the principals for teaching and learning English as a foreign language, English should be taught both as a subject and as a means of communication. The vocabulary teaching strategies should be varied, effective, doable and appropriate. If teachers teach vocabulary effectively, they will broaden vocabulary knowledge of students and allow them to have a good command of English.

1. Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. New ed., Longman, 1991.

2. Wilkins, D.A. Linguistics in Language Teaching. Hodder & Stoughton Educational, 1972, p. 224.

3. Carter, R., and M. McCarthy. Vocabulary and Language Teaching. 1st ed., Routledge, 1988, p. 254.

4. Sloat, C., and S. Taylor. The Structure of English Words. Kendal/Hunt Publishing Company, 1996, p. 192. In Rehmana, S.S.F. Forn et al. "Tested and Tried Vocabulary Teaching Strategies: By EFL Trainers at Jazan University." Journal of Critical Reviews, vol. 7, no. 9, 2020, pp. 851–855.

5. Amenu, M. An Assessment of the Practice of Vocabulary Teaching Strategies in EFL Classes: Kellem Secondary School Grade 9 and 10 English Teachers in Focus. Thesis, Jimma University, 2014, p. 99.

6. Rupley, W.H., and T.R. Blair. "Assignment and Supervision of Reading Seatwork: Looking in on 12 Primary Grade Teachers." The Reading Teacher, vol. 40, no. 4, 1987, pp. 391–393.

7. Laufer, B. "The Development of Passive and Active Vocabulary in a Second Language: Same or Different?" Applied Linguistics, vol. 19, no. 2, 1998, pp. 255–271.

8. Blass, L., and P. Hartmann. Quest 3: Reading and Writing. 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 2007.

9. Bielmiller, A., and C. Boote. "An Effective Method for Building Meaning Vocabulary in Primary Grades." Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 98, no. 1, 2006, pp. 44–62.

10. Richards, J.C. Communicative Language Teaching Today. Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 1–52.

11. Nunan, D. Practical English Language Teaching. International ed., McGraw-Hill, 2003, p. 88.

12. Harris, Z.S. "Language." Language, vol. 28, no. 1, 1952, pp. 1–30.