<![CDATA[This study aims to identify the strategies used by an English teacher to teach vocabulary to trilingual students, the reasons for selecting those strategies, and how the teacher implements them at SMPN 1 Pringgabaya. A descriptive qualitative approach with a single-case study design was employed. Data were collected through four classroom observations in two seventh-grade classes (VII.1 and VII.3), semi-structured interviews with one English teacher and purposively selected seventh-grade students and document analysis of the teacher’s teaching module. The observation sheet was developed from Thornbury’s (2002) four vocabulary-teaching strategies—visuals and gestures, verbal explanation, translation, and elicitation—which were further operationalised into eleven sub-indicators. Data were analysed using Miles et al.’s (2014) interactive model. The findings show that: (1) visuals and gestures and translation were the most consistently used strategies, appearing in all four observed sessions, while verbal explanation was used selectively and elicitation was the least frequently used; (2) the teacher cited three main reasons for strategy selection: limited school facilities and infrastructure, alignment with students’ comprehension levels, and students’ learning motivation; and (3) there was a discrepancy between the teaching module and classroom practice: the module included only seven of the eleven sub-indicators, whereas all eleven were observed in practice. The novelty of this study lies in its focus on trilingual students who use Sasak, Indonesian, and English, extending previous vocabulary-strategy research conducted mainly in bilingual contexts.]]>
