ASSESSING VOCABULARY IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Fitri Rayani Siregar

IAIN Padangsidempuan Sumatera Barat
Email: Fitrisiregar@yahho.com

Abstract: Vocabulary is ultimate aspect in learning a language. A student who learns a foreign
language should have a lot of vocabularies to developt some skills, namely speaking, writing,
reading and listening. Also, the teacher needs a guide in assesing the tasks, examinition, and
daily tasks.

Keywords Vocabulary, Assessment

INTRODUCTION In this paper, the writer will discuss

Vocabulary is one aspect should
be owned by every student to make them
understand and master English language.
Considering that English language consists
of skills that have a mutual affect to the
achievementof vocabulary. HowardJackson
said Vocabulary is a representative
collection of the words that exist in English
language. It means that vocabulary is a
collection of English words or it can be
another language has a part and to make that
collection be easier to find out. Penny Ur
also definites vocabulary as the words we
teach in foreign language. It means
vocabulary is the list of words that work in
language and it is taught by the teacher
based on the students level. However, new
items of vocabulary many be more than a
single word, for example: post office and
mother in law, which made up of two or
three words but express a single idea.
certain assessment decisions that teachers
need to make in the assessment of
vocabulary in the classromm,the types and
the format, and the reason why the teacher
give the task for the students in vocabulary
mastery.
DISCUSSION
The Nature of Vocabulary
Vocabulary is one of component
for the language, where is vocabulary help
people to speaking and language in
communication. It is a part of language that
so important to all aspect in life. Thomas
Nelson considered that vocabulary is a list
of word usually in alphabetical order and
with explanation of their meanings less
complete than a dictionary. Then, Shirly
Burnidge says Vocabulary is all the words
in language list of word in lesson or books,
all the word that one person knows Next,
Hornby says Vocabulary is all the words
that a person knows or use, the words that
people use when they are telling about
particular subject. So, vocabulary is all the
words that use to speaking, writing and
communication, it is all alphabetical in form
word to tell all subjects.
According to Jack C. Richard
and Willy A Renandya sayVocabulary is a
core component of language proficiency and
provides much of the basis for
how well learners speak, listen,
read and write. It means words can be
noun, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
preposition, and conjunction to use
language. Then language has some words or
vocabulary for speaking, writing, reading
and listening.
Vocabulary Ability
Discussing about assessing
vocabulary there is perspective about the
vocabulary ability. It has three component.
They are:
1. The context of vocabulary
use;
2. Vocabulary knowledge and
fundamental processes;
3. Metacognitive strategies for
vocabulary use.
The context of Vocabulary Use
Traditionally in vocabulary
testing, the term context has referred to the
sentence or utterance in which target occurs,
for example in amultiple choice vocabulary
item, it is normally recommended that the
stem should consists of sentence containing
the word to be tested, as the following
example:
The headmaster endorsed the
proposal
a. Discussed
b. Supported
c. Knew about
d. Prepared.
Vocabulary knowledge and Fundamental
Process.
There are four component when
discuss about it. They are
a. Vocabulary size: this refers to the
numbers of words that a person
knows for example: how adequate is
the learners vocabulary for reading
an international news magazine.
b. Knowledge of word characteristics:
just a native speaker do, second
langauge learners know more about
some words than other. The learners
are likely to be confused about some
of the words that they have learned,
because the word share certain
common features.
c. Lexicon organization: this concerns
the way in which words and other
lexical items are stored in the brain.
d. Fundamental vocabulary processes:
language users apply these processes
to gain access to their knowledge of
vocabulary, both understanding and
for their own speaking and writing.
Metacognitive strategies for vocabulary
use.
The learners have a particular
need for metacognitive staregies in
communication situations because they have
to overcome theor lack of vocabulary
knowledge in order to function effectively.
In language testing the learners need to
apply metacognitive strategies is when they
encounter in their reading words that they
have never seen before. They have various
options:
a. Read on without trying to understand
the word;
b. Look it up in a dictionary or a glossary;
c. Ask the teacher or some othet proficient
person what it means; or
d. Try to guess their meaning using
contextual clues.
Assessing Vocabulary
In this part we discuss how to assess
vocabulary. There are some question for to
the teacher when they want to test
vocabulary, the following questions:
a. Why test vocabulary?
b. What to test
c. Types test
Why test vocabulary?
In response to the first question,
quite simply why test vocabulary is related
how the teacher teach it. However , most
teacher today would not recommended that
students simply memorize long list
vocabulary. Testing provides a form
feedback , both for the students and
teachers. Morever, testing has a useful
backwash effect: if the students know they
are going to be tested on their vocabulary
learning, they may take vocabulary learning
more seriously. Testing can motivate the
students to reviewer vocabulary in
preparation test. For instance: when the
teacher goes over the answers in class. In
this way, testing can be seen of the recycling
of vocabulary generally.
What to test
There are aspect of word knowledge
that will be tested, they are:
a. The words from both spoken and written
b. The words meaning
c. Anny connotations the word might have
d. Whether the word is specific to a certain
register or style
e. The words grammatical characteristic
e.g. part of speech
f. The words common collocations
g. The words derivation
h. The words relatively frequency
Next, all the aspects above can be
realised receptively( in listening and
reading) or productively ( in speaking and
writing). Any vocabulary test, therefore,
needs to take into account the multi-
dimensional character of word knowldege.
In this article, the writer discuss the use of
objective test items such as multiple-choice,
matching, picture labelling, blank-filling and
word translation.
Multiple-choice
Multiple choice one of the most
common test in professionally developed
language test. They are widely used to
assess learning at the recall and
comprehension lebels. In this test, the
students can identify the correct or best
response choice. There are main four
advantages multiple choice:
a. They are very reliable.
b. They are quick and easy to
mark and thereby deemed
very practical from a
teachers perspective.
 c. It can be used to assess
knowledge at various levels
d. The students from all the
world familiar with the
format.
Here, on the other hand,
there are negative side,
multiple choice tests have
been criticised because:
a. Learners may choose, the
answer by a process of
elimination, which
hardly constitutes
knowing the right
answer.
b. Depending on the
number of possible
answer, there is one in-
three( or one in-four)
chance of getting the
answer right.
c. They test recognition
only not the ability to
produce the word.
d. They are not as easy to
design as might appear.
On what basis are the
dictractors chosen, for
example?synonyms?wor
ds commonly
confused?words of a
similar sound or
spelling?false friends.
Matching items
The basic matching task requires
learners to make a connection between
target words and their synonyms or
definitions. As such, it is a recognition
rather than a recall task, focusing on basic
word meaning. The standard practice is to
group a number of words together with a
larger number of definitions. There are some
aspects of the design of this item type which
worth nothing:
a. The reason for adding one or two
extra definitions is to avoid a
situations where the learner knows
four the target words and can then
get the fifth definition correct by
process of eliminations, without
actually knowing what the word
means.
b. Assuming that the focus of the test
is on knowledge of the target words,
the definitions should be easy for the
learners to understand.
c. To assess knowledge of word
meaning, then all the target items
should belong to the same word
class-all nouns, all adjectives, etc.
Here is a sample set of items:
Next to each word, write the number
of its meaning.
Region 1. Position in
relation to others
Status 2. Gas that we
breathe
Cell 3. Part of country
Oxygen 4. Smallest part of
living things
Skeleton 5. Useful liquid
6. Set of bones in
the body
7. Exciting event
Completion items or blank filling
Completion itms or blank filling
items consist of a sentence from which the
target word has been deleted and replaced
by a a blank. The function of sentence here
is to provide a context for the word and simple vocabulary ourselves. One way
perhaps to cue a particular use of it. Here are round this is to use pictures.
some sample items: Here are some examples. Write
Write one suitable word in each down the names of the object:
blank. Make sure thatyou write the correct
from of the world.
When meat and fish are not
a. b.
available, a ............sources of protein must
be found
Many gold mines are b..........in
Batangtoru. c.
In the tropics there is not much This method of testing
c.......in temperature from one season to the vocabulary is obviously
next. restricted to concrete nouns
Modern jetliners fly at an d.........of which can be unambiguously
35,0000 feat. drawn.

This items can exlpore the several Embedded Vocabulary Assessment

aspect of their vocabulary ability, they are: his assessment for testing
a. Whether they understand the vocabulary looks at the students use or
meaning of the target word; quality vocabulary as it pertains to a text that
b. Whether they know how the the student has written, read, listened to or
word functions spoken.
grammatically within a
sentence and what its correct Assessing Vocabulary in Reading
from is; Comprehension
c. Whether they know how the One of the most common
word collocates questions that teachers include on reading
appropriately with other comprehension test is assessing
words; and vocabularyin context: Ther are some
d. More generally, whether common questions types: Multiple choice
they can use the word vocabulary, by far the most popular method
productively in their writing. of testing a reading knowledge of
vocabualry is the multiple choice format,
Pictures multiple-choice cloze vocabulary,
The mainly difficulty in testing contextualized multiple-choice
productivr lexical ability is the need to limit vocabulary,vocabulary matching task. Here
the candidate to the usually one lexical item is some examples multiple choice cloze
that we have in mind, while using only vocabulary
Ive lived in The United States(1).......three
years. I (2) .....live in Costa Rica.
I(3)......speak any English. I Used to 9-7 Very poor:essentially translation; little
(4)......homesick, but now I enjoy (5)....here. knowledge of English vocabulary, idioms,
I have never (6).... back Home(7).....I come words forms or not enough to evaluate.
to the United States, but I might (8)...to visit
my family soon. Assessing Vocabulary in speaking
1. a. Since b. For The teacher in the classroom
c.during can be used several well-known instuments
2. a. Used to b. Use to c. Was sucha as the TOEFL and the IELTS assess
3. a. Couldnt b. Coul d c. Can the quality and range of a students
4. a. Been b. Be c. vocabulary during speaking exams.
Being Vocabulary as one of four categories upon
5. a. Live b. To live c. which a studenrs is assessed, they are
Living looking for range, the correct and
6. a. Be b. Been c. Was appropriate selection of words in speech and
7. a. When b. While c. their impact on meaning.
Since
8. a. Go b. Will go c. CONCLUSION
going The teacher needs a guidance
how to assess vocabulary, the type until to
Assessing vocabulary in writing the score and why giving a test in each
In this skill, the teacher can be used aspect skill in English and its related with
analytics scales for the marking, it is Vocabulary is one aspect in learning English
recomended by Jacobs and his friends, they should be owned by every student to.
are incorporate five scales in their ESL various. The suitable the test for to students
composition profile, the five scales in this make them understand the meaning of the
very popular instrument include: content, target the task and finally their can use their
language use of grammar, vocabulary and word in their English skills.
mechanics. Their scale for assessing
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