THE ELEMENTS OF A PROPOSAL

1.0. Introduction

 “As vocabulary is reduced, so are the number of feelings you can express, the number of events you can describe, the number of the things you can identify! Not only understanding is limited, but also experience. Man grows by language. Whenever he limits language he retrogresses!”  (Tepper, 1993)

     This chapter presents theoretical framework followed by the significance and purpose of the study, statement of the problem, the research questions and the research hypothesis. Definition of key terms and a short summary is given at the end.

     The term vocabulary has a range of meanings. Some teachers define it as sight-word vocabularies; that is the student’s ability to recognize the words in print immediately while others refer to vocabulary as listening vocabularies, some others refer to it as what students mean and understand, there are also content teachers who use the term academic vocabulary to refer to content-specific words. Within this study, the main focus is on the proportion of students’ vocabulary achievement through three different techniques. In particular these three techniques include learning vocabulary through equivalences (Farsi and English) and learning in a context.

     Vocabulary teaching and learning is a constant challenge for teachers as well as students because historically there has been minimal focus on vocabulary instruction in the EFL classroom. Due to this, an increased emphasis on vocabulary development is crucial for the English language learners in the process of language learning. In order to elicit data on learning vocabulary strategies from learners, this study has used the aforementioned three techniques for teaching vocabulary.