After Reading Hutauruk's extract (2015) about selecting vocabulary in ESP, choose the correct answer.
Selecting vocabulary.
The initial step in teaching ESP vocabulary is to determine which words and special terms in fact to teach.
Gairns and Redman (pag.59) emphasize especially cultural reasons and the principles of need and level.
Authors of teaching materials and teachers should take into account also the criteria of learnability and
teachability. According to Harmer (pag.154), one of the most common principles of vocabulary selection is to
teach at first concrete words and gradually abstract words. Words like chair, table, sofa and wardrobe are
easily presented and explained, because students can see or imagine the real things which the words
represent. On the contrary, abstract words like density, qualifications, safety are more difficult to explain.
There is a number of words that are connected with the idea of furniture (chair, table, sofa and wardrobe).
Words that have this kind of thematic relationship are said to belong to the same lexical field. The texts of
practical part also contain the lexical field of tool-related words that partly overlap with furniture words
(hammer, screwdriver and saw) as well as terminology connected with trees (hardwood and softwood). After
selection words for teaching purpose it is also indispensable to decide what to teach about each naming
unit. According to Harmer (pag.158) and Thornbury (pag.15), knowledge of a word involves knowing its:
Meaning - meanings in context, sense of relation (synonyms/antonyms), Form - spelling and pronunciation,
affixes, parts of speech, Grammar - plurals, countability, past simple/participle forms, Usage - collocations
and appropriate register. (pag.20)
Hutauruk, Bertaria Sohnata. TEACHING MODULE for ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES . Pematangsiantar, 2015.