Abstract:
The objective of this study was to explore practices and challenges of vocabulary teaching in
Grade 10 EFL classroom: Tatek-Lesira Senior Secondary school in focus. To this end, descriptive
case study design was employed. Then, eight Grade 10 English language teachers were chosen
using comprehensive sampling technique for classroom observation, semi- structured interview,
and textbook analysis. Thus, the data were analyzed qualitatively. The finding shows that even
though there were a number of approaches to teach vocabulary, teachers were not committed to
use them appropriately and frequently. They only depend on some of them. They also stressed on
some of the aspects of vocabulary activities even these were also repeated. There were found a
number of challenges frequently affecting teachers to teach vocabulary. The results also indicated
that it was unlikely that students had successfully acquired most of the 683 vocabulary items
designed in their textbook. As a result of these findings, it was concluded that the various aspects
and approaches of vocabulary teaching at this school in relation to the above cases was found to
be less practiced by EFL teachers. Based on this conclusion, it is recommended that teachers
should be aware of the use of various aspects of vocabulary beyond its meaning and develop
favorable tendency to practice vocabularies in various approaches besides giving possible remedies
accordingly to the prominent challenges they face while teaching vocabulary.
