Vocabulary has not been the focus of attention in the second and foreign language research or methodology so far. However, since the 1970s interest in vocabulary has grown quite rapidly as Notional-Functional syllabus and Communicative Language Teaching began to focus on the language use rather than language usage and on meaning rather than form. Furthermore, the emphasis placed on the importance of vocabulary learning in conjunction with reading comprehension has lead to studies focusing on effective vocabulary teaching and learning methods.
The purpose of this study was to develop vocabulary teaching methods to examine their effects on student vocabulary learning and listening comprehension, and to examine the relative effectiveness of two approaches reading comprehension: the implicit vocabulary teaching methods and the explicit vocabulary teaching methods.
To accomplish the goals of this study, the experiment was carried out by researcher for a month. The subjects of the study were two classes of 1st grade from a high school in Munkyeong. To examine two types of experimental treatments on students' vocabulary learning and reading comprehension.
From the analyses of the data, the following conclusions have been drawn:
First, the planned and explicit vocabulary teaching methods were more effective for elementary school students to understand vocabulary meanings and keep a long-term memory rather than the accidental and implicit vocabulary teaching methods.
Second, in the explicit vocabulary teaching, it was found that an acquisition of vocabulary meanings through an active interaction by using a collective discussion or pictured dictionaries is important, as well as by providing learners with sufficient time to guess the presented vocabulary, rather than a method of teacher-centered meaning presentation.
Third, a class that presents English vocabulary in an explicit way was found to help the memory and reproduction of the learned content and positively affect the enhancement of confidence toward English learning.
The following suggestion is made, based on the conclusions of this study. It may be desirable for high school students to have an explicit access to English vocabulary through teaching materials or the surrounding environment of the classroom.
For further study, it is necessary that the various vocabulary-centered activities should be designed and applied in the classroom to prove its positive effects on vocabulary ability.