Teaching English Vocabulary at the Tertiary Level: A Preliminary Study

Acquiring vocabulary plain an important part in learning a foreign language. Ln Bangladesh, teacher teach English through various techniques but per personal experience and interaction with students and teacher show that there is no: enough focus on vocabulary in English language teaching. Traditionally language classes even at the tertiary level are spent in in-depth study of the grammatical structures, some reading comprehension and guided or free writing whereas vocabulary learning is deemed to be only of peripheral importance. This paper investigates the methodologies followed in teaching vocabulary, at the tertiary level through a survey based on two questionnaires circulated among teachers and students of some universities of Bangladesh. To study the present vocabulary teaching scenario, we used a variety of research method apart from the questionnaires, i.e. classroom observations, interview, printed questionnaires for both students and teacher. Collating all these we have reached the conclusion that the teaching of vocabulary are the tertiary level at present is desultory and should be streamlined.