Teachers’ Techniques In Teaching Vocabulary For The First Graders Of Laboratorium Elementary School Salatiga

Learning vocabulary is important in communication. Without learning vocabulary and understand the words we cannot express the ideas and communicate freely. Since teaching children is not easy and need special teachers, the teachers must be creative in teaching English vocabulary. In this case, vocabulary becomes the important things to learn for the basic of communication. Based on the reason above, this study was conducted to find out the techniques of Laboratorium Elementary English teachers in teaching English vocabulary. The subjects for this study were two English teachers and their students at Laboratorium Elementary School in Salatiga. Five classroom observations were conducted during teaching vocabulary and to obtain more data, I interviewed the teachers. The result of this study showed that there were nine teaching techniques in teaching vocabulary used by the English teachers. Those techniques were Translating of a Literary Passage, Fill in the blanks, Dictation, Repetition Drills, Question and answer Drills, Role Play (Flashcards, video/movie), Creative Adaptation (Game, Song), Authentic Materials (Experiencing the real world), and Picture Strip Story (Pictures). The purpose of those techniques was to teach vocabulary especially to unify the concepts of materials which are being learned by the students. Another finding revealed that almost all the English teachers at Laboratorium Elementary School assumed that teaching vocabulary using different techniques in a fun way was easier for the students to learn new words. Since the students were still young and had different characteristics, the teachers decided to use many kinds of techniques to make the students understand and try to use the new words to communicate with others. Besides that the teachers also used thematic system to make easy when the teaching and learning happened, so there were still a connection between one subject to others. By applying this thematic system, the teachers hoped that they can deliver the materials easily although with different subjects.The first grade students were really interested and easy to learn the new words through many kinds of techniques which given by the teachers