Pre-teaching Vocabulary in Teaching Reading Skill: A Hindrance to Learner Autonomy?

Abstract

Pre-teaching vocabulary of unfamiliar words of a reading or listening lesson is a technique used by English language teachers where they define and explain unfamiliar but essential words of the text just before the start of the comprehension task.Conversely, learner autonomy is an educational practice that refers to the learners' responsibility for their own learning, both in terms of what they learn and how they learn. These two diametrical ideals in English Language Teaching (ELT) demand research to justify pre-teaching vocabulary in teaching receptive language skills. Accordingly, this review paper investigated the effectiveness of pre-teaching vocabulary in teaching reading skills to English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners by reviewing recent literature. It sheds light on the concepts of learner autonomy, strategies to teach vocabularies in reading, pre-teaching vocabulary, and the extent pre-teaching is justified. This paper concludes that, while the principle of vocabulary pre-instruction is generally in conflict with that of learner autonomy, this particular strategy in ELT cannot be entirely disregarded to facilitate comprehension of a reading text and thus in promoting the use of target language, and can selectively be used by the teachers in interesting and useful ways. The study will help teachers to better understand to what extent pre-teaching vocabulary is useful and what strategies of this teaching technique can help motivate students to read and comprehend a reading text. Scope for future research is provided