Tayabas Western Academy Founded 1928 Recognize by The Government Candelaria, Quezon

TAYABAS WESTERN ACADEMY
Founded 1928
Recognize by the Government
Candelaria, Quezon
PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS-ENGLISH 301
Deficiency in Vocabulary: Reasons for Poor Performance in Oral Communication

Among the Graduating BSED Students During the SY. 2020-2021.
Vocabulary learning helps acquire language, develop the learners’ reading

proficiency, and is beneficial for reading comprehension (Tozcu & Coady, 2004).
Learning the vocabulary encompasses four stages: discrimination, understanding
meaning, remembering, and consolidation and extension of the meanings. First, the
discrimination stage involves distinguishing sounds and letters. It helps in speaking,
listening, reading, and writing because by distinguishing sounds, the learners
pronounce words correctly and understand them when they read or hear. Secondly,
understanding meaning involves understanding the concept of words by relating them to
their referents. Thirdly, the remembering stage consists of the ability to retain the
meanings. Fourthly, the consolidation and extension stage refers to learning new
vocabulary and its integration in the learners’ vocabulary system (Grauberg, 1997).
However, learning the vocabulary usually causes a heavy burden on the learners. In
other words, languages are productive and they continually create and add new words
to their vocabulary stock. Oxford (1990) argues that generally, no rules are followed in
learning the vocabulary as used in learning the grammar. Students usually encounter
hundreds of words that they need to learn and practice during their studies.
Altyari (2017) considers that the graduating students’ weak linguistic

performance in English reflects their deficient vocabulary knowledge. The researcher
points out two compelling facts that contribute to poor vocabulary uptake and lexical
insufficiency by the students in public high schools. It means that students ineffectively
used vocabulary strategies such as by mainly relying on a bilingual dictionary, asking
others to know the meanings, and so on. Similarly, it also indicates insufficient recycling
of the vocabulary items and presentation of all aspects of the vocabulary knowledge.
The study strongly recommends an incremental process of teaching vocabulary.
Rohmatillah (2017) investigated the difficulties faced by students in learning

English vocabulary. This research points out several challenges that hinder vocabulary-
learning practices adopted by students. This study outlines the problems such as
pronouncing and spelling words (written and spoken forms do not match most of the
time), choosing appropriate meanings of words (complexity of vocabulary knowledge),
inflections of word forms, (inadequate understanding of grammar), and an excessive
number of words that students need to learn. It also reveals some important factors of
difficulty in learning the vocabulary and attributes learning difficulties to various levels of
language. To cite, pronunciation difficulties are related to the sound system of English,
inflections and word forms are related to the morphological system, word associations,
such as collocations, and phrasal verbs are related to semantics, the word categories
relevant to syntax, and so on. Khan (2011) also points out the vocabulary areas in
which the target language learners face difficulties. These areas include learning
vocabulary meanings, spelling, using synonyms, prefixes, and suffixes.
Elttayef and Hussein (2017) probed the difficulties that teachers face in teaching
English to the learners. The study argues that learners have insufficient basic
knowledge; however, they are taught English in schools. Secondly, it points out the lack
of attention on the part of the teachers in highlighting the significance of English in
classrooms. It also asserts that the teachers’ role in teaching English is doubled
because their students depend on them with the expectations that they would make
students learn English soon. This study claims that the sociocultural background also
affects teaching English to the learners who attend English classes mostly to pass the
courses. The researchers argue that with this weak background, students find
difficulties later at college and universities when they engage themselves in specialized
courses. This study concludes that the learners encounter difficulties in practicing
language skills such as listening, speaking, and highlighted problems related to
teachers and curricular (Elttayef & Hussein, 2017).
In another study, Alqahtani (2015) declares the learning of vocabulary as an

important aspect of foreign language learning with an emphasis on the meanings of new
words. This study summarizes important research on vocabulary and sheds light on
teaching techniques employed by teachers while teaching vocabulary. Alqahtani
observes that, generally, the students are taught grammar rules more than the
vocabulary.
Baniabdelrahman and Al-shumaimeri (2014), by using the cluster sampling

methods, examined the techniques adopted by the graduating students, at a Saudi
university, to guess the meanings of unknown words in reading a text. The study claims
that most students were unable to use the strategies for guessing the meaning of an
unseen vocabulary. The results of this study encourage the teachers to, practically, train
the students in using various strategies to derive correct meanings of new vocabulary.
Farjami and Aidinlou (2013) argue that learning a foreign or second language at
various levels of proficiency requires a high number of words for which the learners
make efforts to retain words in their long-term memory. This study also elaborates on
the learners’ problems in learning the vocabulary and offers some practical learning and
teaching strategies to improve these problems. However, it places stress on long-term
vocabulary techniques than short-term ones. For such reasons, Farjami and Aidinlou
suggest one of the practical approaches that enhance the students’ vocabulary
knowledge. They assert that teachers should present new vocabulary items in contexts,
which are rich enough and provide the learners' clues to guess the meanings (e.g., see
Farjami & Aidinlou, 2013).

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TAYABAS WESTERN ACADEMY

PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS-ENGLISH 301

Deficiency in Vocabulary: Reasons for Poor Performance in Oral Communication

Vocabulary learning helps acquire language, develop the learners’ reading

Altyari (2017) considers that the graduating students’ weak linguistic

Rohmatillah (2017) investigated the difficulties faced by students in learning

In another study, Alqahtani (2015) declares the learning of vocabulary as an

Baniabdelrahman and Al-shumaimeri (2014), by using the cluster sampling

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