Words of Crime: An Alternative Materials for Developing EFL Learner’s Awareness of Moral Values

Words of Crime: An Alternative Materials for Developing EFL Learner’s Awareness of Moral Values

Supardi

Faculty of Law, University of Jember, Indonesia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2023.70591

Received: 11 May 2023; Accepted: 17 May 2023; Published: 14 June 2023

ABSTRACT

In recent years many scholars have argued that language teachers have two vital roles both as trainers of helping students acquire language skills and as agents of helping students become aware of moral values.  As a consequence, it is necessary for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers to be able to develop their teaching materials in order that at the same time they cannot merely teach their students’ English language skills but also develop the moral value awareness of their students. For this reason, this article aims at proposing the words of crime that EFL teachers can uses for their teaching materials to help the students develop their language skills as well as  their awareness of moral values in the classroom.  To meet this aim, the article firstly focuses its discussion on the importance of word in English Language Teaching (ELT). It then exlpores the understanding of crime. For the next exploration, the words of crime in ELT are presented in this article. Finally, it provides the sample materials designed with the words of crime. At the end, the article can hopefully become a considered material for EFL teachers to develop their teaching materials.

Keywords: words of crime, moral value, learner, EFL teacher

INTRODUCTION

In the classroom, teachers have a vital role because they can become an influential factor in determining the learning success of their students. Concerning this fact, Dörnyei and Murphey (2003) argue that the success of classroom learning is very much dependent on what roles the teachers and learners play. According to Brown (2007), the  teachers can play many roles in the course of teaching and this might facilitate learning. This Brown’s explanation certainly leads to an understanding that the teachers can play their vital role as a facilitator in the classroom. As a facilitator, the teachers consitute  those who are democratic rather than autocratic and those who foster learner autonomy through the use of group work and pair work and by acting as more of a resource than a transmitter of knowledge (Harmer, 2007).  In addition, in the classroom the teachers do not only play a role as a facilitator, but they also serve such other vital roles as controller, prompter, participant, resource, tutor, orgganiser, performer, rapport builder, teaching aid, language model, and provider of comprehensible input Harmer (2007). In ELT, the teachers usually play these roles in the framework of helping the students acquire language skills.

In recent years the roles of the teachers have changed. Many scholars have argued that as well as helping the students aquire language skills, the teachers of English have a duty of helping the students become aware of moral values. Johnston (2003), for example, in Chapter One of Values in English Language Teaching, discusses the importance of moral dimension of English teaching and in Chapter Two he explains that English language teachers have to pay attention to moral dimension they interact with students, with the curriculum and with their role as a representative of their school. Mangubhai (2007) focuses a study on The moral and Ethical Dimensions of Language Teaching. Different from Johnston and Mangubhai, Cook (2002) lists the goals of language teaching that one of them deals with a form of religious observance. As a result, the teachers of English have two vital roles as both language trainers and moral agents.

Paying attention to these two roles of language teachers, it is therefore important for  the EFL teachers to to develop or design their teaching materials which can lead them at the same time to improve their student’s language skill and to develop the moral value awareness of their students. To help the EFL teachers able to play these two roles, this article proposes the words of crime as an alternative of teaching materials for promoting  EFL learner’s awareness of moral values. Using the words of crime, they are hopefully able to develop their students’ language skills and their awareness of moral values in the classroom.  To realise this proposal, this article presents three points of discussion. It firstly discuses the importance of word in ELT. Secondly, it explores the understanding of crime. The next discussion is focused on the words of crime for ELT. Finally, the article provides some samples of materials for the teaching with the words of crime.

THE IMPORTANCE OF WORDS IN ELT

In every language including English, words are very important for people in their daily lives. Without words, it can be difficult for students to communicate with others. Even, without enough words, they cannot understand others or express their own ideas. Concerning the importance of words, Wilkins (1972:111) argues that without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed. Similarly, it is noted by Milton (2009:3) that words are the building blocks of language and without them there is no language. In order the students can develop their English words, it is therefore vitally important for the teachers to  teach words or vocabularies to the students.

Because of this importance of words in ELT, many scholars have devoted their attention to teaching words or vocabularies. For example, Harley (2006), in Chapter One of his book English Words: A linguistic introduction, discusses the intuitive notion of what a word is and presents several perspectives on wordhood. Graves (2006), in his book The vocabulary book: Learning and Instruction, proposes a guideline for successful vocabulary teaching that supports effective teaching and students’ development of word knowledge. In addition, concerning the teaching of words, Nation (2005) argues that the main problem with vocabulary teaching is that only a few words and a small part of what is required to know a word can be dealt with at any one time.

The above scholarly works certainly lead the teachers of English to devote their attention to helping the students acquire their English skills through teaching words. Refering to the book theme, Situating Moral and Cultural Values in the ELT Materials, this chapter focuses its discussion on words of crime. Using the words of crime in ELT, the teachers can hopefully help the students develop their language skills (word/vocabulary) as well as their awreness of moral values in the classroom. In this sense the teachers can become the English language trainers on the one hand and at the same time the moral agents on the other hand. In this chapter, the words of crime are presented in the following section.

UNDERSTANDING CRIME

Before discussing the words of crime for ELT, it is firstly necessary to understand what the word crime itself is. Scholars define this word differently. Walsh (2011) defines it as an act in violation of a criminal law for which a punishment is prescribed; … In the words of Lindner and Firth (2008), it is defined as any act, or omission of an act, in violation of a public law. According to Brieger (2003) crime is any act or omission (of an act) that violates the law and punishable by the state. Although the word crime is defined in the different words, the three definitions can lead to a further understanding that an act of crime occurs when someone breaks the law by an overt act, omission or neglect that can result in punishment. In other words, the persons who commit crime are those who commit an overt that bring them to break the law and because of this unlawfulness they can be punished.

In relation to the moral value, according to Gardner and Anderson (2012), a crime may also be a tort or a moral wrong. In addition, to clarify this definition, they give an example that  murder can be a crime, a tort, and also a moral wrong. For this clarification, they also explain that murder is forbidden not only by the criminal law but also by the moral law. From this explanation about crime, it is understandable that when someone commits a crime, at the same time he or she commits criminal offense as well as moral offense. Because crime is also morally wrong, according to Carpenter and Hayes (2015), it is then called crime against morality.

To be concerned with the theme of the book Situating Moral and Cultural Values in the ELT Materials, this understanding of crime can certainly lead the teachers of English to devote their attention to enhancing the student’s awareness of moral value. For this purpose, this chapter offers an alternative teaching material with the words of crime. With this kind of teaching material, the teachers can play two vital roles in the classroom. On the one hand they become the language  provider in helping their students acquire the words of crime. On the other hand they become the moral agent of helping their students enhance the awreness of moral value.

THE WORDS OF CRIME IN ELT

Crime, defined as the above definitions, is commonly classified into two main categories, namely crimes against person and crimes against propert Gardner and Anderson (2012). In daily life, there are of course many words refering to the two main categories of crime. To help the students aquire the words of crime, it is important for the teachers of English to devote their attention to teaching the words related to crime. For this purpose, however, there is still a limited number of books  presenting the teaching materials on the words of crime that the teachers can use in the classroom. These books are frequently found in those of English for Law or Legal English. In Introduction to International Legal English: A course for classroom or self-study use, for example, Lindner and Firth (2008) presents an exercise on different crimes in Unit Four. In Test Your Professional English: Law, Brieger (2003) gives a test on the types of crime in Section Four. In addition, Wyatt (2006) lists crime categories on page 25 of Check Your English Vocabulary for Law. As well as on these books, the teaching materials on the words of crime can also be accessed from the websites in Internet.

The Intenet, defined as a global network of computer networks (Son:2008) and an extensive resource and communication network linking other computer networks across the world (Lin:1997), has contributed to English language teaching and learning since its emergence to the present time. For this fact, the Internet has become very important in English language classroom (Supardi:2015). Regarding the importance of the Internet in ELT, the web with its ease of use and accessablity will continue to grow in the importance of English language teaching (Eastman, 1996:34). Because of this importance of the Internet in ELT, many webs have provided so many materials that the theachers can develop for teaching in the classroom. In term of teaching words, the words of crime can be accessed from such webs as mentioned in the followings.

• http://www.manythings.org/vocabulary/lists/e/words.php?f=crimes
• http://esl.about.com/library/vocabulary/blwordgroups_crime.htm
• https://www.englishclub.com/english-for-work/police-crime.htm
• http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/crime-vocabulary
• http://www.stickyball.net/esl-vocab.html?id=480
• http://andrealessons.blogspot.com/2012/04/43-crime-vocabulary.html
• http://www.englishmedialab.com/Quizzes/advanced/antisocialbehavior.htm
• http://www.englishwithjo.com/english-conversation-crime/
• http://www.macmillandictionary.com/thesaurus-category/british/words-used-to-describe-crimes

Apart from the above webs, the words of crime can also be accessed from YouTube, a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch online videos. The followings are YouTube websites that the teachers of English can use to develop their teaching materials on the words of crime.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIhN1x7ycSI
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrji5ChWd
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8YpI2I1Dcg
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LhyXtlqL9w
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCaz2YTjCb0

From such teaching and learning resources, both from the ELT book and from the webs, the words of crime in this chapter are classified into such parts of speech as nouns (types of crimes, and criminals), verbs, and adjectives related to crime.

Types of Crimes

As presented in the previous discussion, crimes are commonly classified into two main categories. They are crimes against person and crime against property. In criminal matters, many words refer to the two main categories of crimes. It is therefore necessary for the students to understand the types of crimes and the teachers to teach them words of crime  in order they can enhance their awareness of moral value. For this purpose, this section presents the types of crimes displayed in the table below. The table shows the names of crimes on the left couloumn and the definition of each crime on the left coloumn.

Table 1: Types of crimes

Types of Criminals

The word criminal has two functions, both as noun and as adjective. As noun, criminal means a person who commits a crime, for example in the sentence of  A dangerous criminal escaped from the prison yesterday.  As  adjective, it means relating to crime, for example in the sentence of It belongs to a criminal case. In this section the criminal refers to that as noun. It means the persons who commit the types of crimes mentioned in Table 1. The types of criminal are then presented in the following table.

Table 2: Types of criminals

Verbs Related to Crime

In English grammar the term verb belongs to parts of speech. Concerning this term, Sargeant (2007) explains that most verbs describe actions, so they are called action verbs. Action verbs tell what people or things are doing. For this explanation, the verbs in this section means the actions committed by the criminals in Table 2. These verbs are presented in the table below.

Table 3: Verbs related to crimes

MATERIALS DESIGN WITH WORDS OF CRIME

Materials for both teaching and learning constitute a vital part in the classroom activities. Without materials, no classroom activities can take place. Without materials, the teachers cannot teach and the students cannot learn. In order both the teachers and the students can perform their activities in the classroom, they need materials. Because materials are very important in teaching and learning process, the teachers have to be creative in designing materials for supporting their teaching and their students’ learning activities.

Regarding the material design for teaching vocabulary, there are at least three points that the teachers have to pay a better attention to. They are guiding principles for materials design, guideline for teaching vocabulary, activities for teaching vocabulary. In case of guiding principles for materials design, Widodo (2010) describes eight guiding principles of ESP materials design. Although these guiding principles are intended for ESP, I am very sure, they are also applicable for other ELT materials design, including teaching vocabulary. These principles include:

(1)  Teaching materials should have a clear set of learning goals and objectives.

(2)  Teaching materials should contain learning tasks, which allow for students’ schemata or background knowledge or experience activation.

(3)  Learning tasks in the materials should allow students to explore their specialized needs and interests.

(4)  Learning tasks in the materials should enable students to develop their language skills for authentic communication and content competence.

(5)  In the materials, learning tasks should integrate language skills emphasized.

(6)  Learning tasks in the materials should be as authentic as possible.

(7)  Teaching materials should have impact on learner language development.

(8)  Teaching materials should inform what roles leaners and teachers play in and out the classroom.

In term of the guideline for teaching vocabulary Graves (2006) offers a four part vocabulary program that supports effective teaching and students’ development of word knowledge. This guideline includes:

(1) Providing rich and varied language experiences,

(2) Teaching individual words,

(3) Teaching word-learning strategies, and

(4) Fostering word consciousness.

As well as the guiding pricinciple and the guidelines for materials design, the teachers also have to look at the types of activities for teaching vocabulary. For this point,  Nation (2003) presents a range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning as mentiones in the table below.

Table 4: A range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning by Paul Nation

On the basis of the guiding principles of materials design, guideline for materials design, and the range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning, furtherly this afticle presents some samples of materials design with the words of crimes as mentioned in the followings.

Learning Materials Related to Types of Crimes

According to the guiding principles of materials design as noted earlier, this task provides the students a stimulus for activating their background knowledge (schemata in cognitive sense)  of words relating to the types of crimes. Based on the above guidelines for teaching vocabulary, it provides the teachers a teaching word-learning strategy. In addition refering to the range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning, it serves the students an activity of written form (finding spelling rule). As noted earlier in the guiding principles of marterials design and the range activities for vocabulary teaching, this task can be a mediating tool for connecting learning tasks in the next sessions or activities such as matching words and defitions, drawing and labelling pictures, filling word part table, making words maps, and many others. In term of matching activity,  the schemata the students use in the above task can certainly enable them to recall their real life stuations regarding the meanings or the definitions of each crime type for completing the Task 2 below.

This task aims at enriching the students’ vocabulary related to crimes (types of crimes). It is the continuation of Task 1. According to the guiding principles discussed previously, it allows the students to explore their specialized needs and interests in criminal law. Based on the guidelines for teaching vocabularly in the section above, this task also provides a teaching word-learning strategy for the teachers. In term of the range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning it refers to activity of form-meaning connection.

Like Task 2, Task 3 is also the continuation of Task 1. This task provides a chance for the students to explore their specialized needs and interests in criminal law. In addition, it also offers the teachers a teaching word-learning strategy. Viewed from the range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning, Task 3 is of course different from Task 2. It belongs to activity of finding meaning (concept and reference), that is choosing the right meaning.

Learning Materials About Verbs Related to Crime

This task is also the continuation of Task 1 and Task 2 because the verbs in this task refer to the actions of the types of crimes committed by the criminals. It helps the students their specialized needs and interests in criminal law. Like Task 1, Task 2, and Task 3, this task provides the teachers a teaching word-learning strategy. Viewed from the range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning, this task belongs to completeing sets.

CONCLUSIONS:

This chapter has pointed out the importance of teaching words of crime. In the framwork of teaching this vocabulary, it has also attempted to present crime vocabulary focused on types of crimes, types of criminals, and verbs related to crimes. In order the teachers can teach these crime vocabularies, this chapter then offers such practical suggestions for teaching crime vocabularies as guiding principles for materials design introduced by Widodo (2010), guidelines for teaching vocabulary offered by (Graves, 2006), and range of activities for vocabulary teaching and learning presented by Nation (2003). Based on these suggestions, this chapter has provided the teachers with some sample materials for teaching words of crime. Such sample materials are authentic and the teachers can modify them on the practical suggestions for teaching crime vocabularies noted in the earler section.

REFERENCES

1. Brieger, N. (2003). Test Your Professional English: Law. England: Pearson Education Limited.
2. Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Pearson Education. White Plains, NY : Pearson Education.
3. Carpenter, B, J. & Hayes, S, L. “.(2012) Crimes against morality. In Hayes, Hennessey & Prenzler, Tim (Eds.) An Introduction to Crime and Criminology (3rd ed.). Pearson Australia, Sydney NSW, pp. 141-154.
4. Cook, V.J. (2002). Language teaching methodology and the L2 user perspective. In V.J. Cook (ed.), Portraits of the L2 User, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
5. Dörnyei, Z., & Murphey, T. (2003). Group dynamics in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. Eastment, D. (1996). The Internet and ELT The impact of the internet on English Language Teaching. The British Council English 2000.
7. Gardner, T.J. & Anderson, T.M. (2012). Criminal Law, Belmont, USA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
8. Graves, M. F. (2006). The vocabulary book: Learning and instruction. New York: Teachers College Press.
9. Harley, H. (2006). English Words: A linguistic introduction. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
10. Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
11. Johnston, B. (2003). Values in English Language Teaching. Marwh, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
12. Lin, C. Ho Mei. (1997). The Internet and English Language Teaching. REACT (1), 22-28.
13. Lindner, A.K & Firth, M. (2008). Introduction to international legal English: a course for classroom or self-study use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14. Mangubhai, F. (2007). The Moral and Ethical Dimensions of Language Teaching. Australian Journal of Education. August 2007, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 178-189.
15. Milton. (2009). Measuring second language vocabulary acquisition. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
16. Nation, P. (2005). Teaching Vocabulary. The Asian EFL Journal. September 2005. Volume 7 Issue 3, pp. 47-54.
17. Nation, P. (2003). Materials for Teaching Vocabulary. In Tomlinson, B, Developing Materials for Language Teaching. Great Briatain: Cromwell Press.
18. Sargeant, H. (2007). Basic English Grammar for English Language Learners. United States: Saddleback Educational Publishing.
19. Son, J.-B. (2008). Using Web-Based Language Learning Activities in the ESL Classroom. International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, 4(4), pp. 34-43.
20. Supardi (20015). Establishing Self Access Learning Mode via E-learning to Promote the Learner Autonomy. Proceedings International Conference of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, 16-17 May 2015, pp. 715-723.
21. Walsh, A. (2011). Criminology: The Essentials. SAGE Publications, Inc.
22. Widodo, H.P. (2010). Materials Design: English for Specific Purposes (ESP). In Widodo, H.P, & Savova, L. (eds), The Lincom Guide to Materials Design in ELT, Muenchen: LINCOM GmbH.
23. Wilkins, D. A. (1972). Linguistics and Language Teaching. London: Edward Arnold

WEB REFERENCES

• http://www.manythings.org/vocabulary/lists/e/words.php?f=crimes
• http://esl.about.com/library/vocabulary/blwordgroups_crime.htm
• https://www.englishclub.com/english-for-work/police-crime.htm
• http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/crime-vocabulary
• http://www.stickyball.net/esl-vocab.html?id=480
• http://andrealessons.blogspot.com/2012/04/43-crime-vocabulary.html
• http://www.englishmedialab.com/Quizzes/advanced/antisocialbehavior.htm
• http://www.englishwithjo.com/english-conversation-crime/
• http://www.macmillandictionary.com/thesaurus-category/british/words-used-to-describe-crimes
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIhN1x7ycSI
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrji5ChWdw&hl=id&gl=ID”gl=ID
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8YpI2I1Dcg
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LhyXtlqL9w
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCaz2YTjCb0