Importance of vocabulary in language teaching –
breakdown in communication without knowing necessary vocabulary.
Indirect versus direct teaching.
-indirect teaching – exposing the children to a lot of vocabulary items when the teacher uses the language as means of communication, when children are being red/told stories, when they are watching cartoons, videos or films (focus on the gist).
-direct teaching – explicit teacher’s presentations and practice by means of drills. The teacher has to select the vocabulary items, which the learners have to use and remember.
Active vocabulary – those items which are introduce, practice. The learners must be able to say them and use them. Remembering, more practice, frequent revising.
Passive vocabulary – those items which the learners have to recognize and understand but not use.
Memory and vocabulary learning.
Children have good memory (iconic, mechanic), they tend to remember pictures/images better. The teacher has to recycle the items as many times as possible, engage all students’ senses, bodies into learning.
Stages of vocabulary teaching:
1.introducing new vocabulary
2.practicing and reinforcing new items
3.revising and consolidating new vocabulary
Ad.1 Introducing new vocabulary:
-should be presented in a context familiar to the child
-necessity of visual support to help convey meaning and to help learners memorize new words
-words are often remembered in thematic groups – grouping words helps learners associate new words with words they already know and can help retention and recall;
lexical sets (e.g. shops, fruit, rooms in a house)
rhyming sets (e.g. pat, bat, rat, hat)
color sets (e.g. things that are yellow)
grammatical sets (e.g. adjectives, verbs, nouns)
-whenever possible children should use their senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, and touching – help memorize words and understand their meaning
number of words to be introduced – not more than ten (consider the linguistic and conceptual level of learners, the similarity of the words to the mother tongue, how rich and memorable the context is)
Techniques of introducing new vocabulary:
-using objects (realia – concrete vocabulary)
-drawing (board drawing, flashcards)
-using pictures and illustrations
-mime expressions and gestures – to show some action
-using opposites/synonyms – associate words with concepts
-guessing from context (general knowledge, illustrations, similarity of spelling or sound in the mother tongue) – encourage the learners to guess meanings even when they don’t know it
-eliciting – after establishing a context, ask pupils what words they would expect to hear or find in a particular situation (words in L1 show that the learners are thinking in the appropriate semantic area)
-translation – recommended when none of the techniques above work
Procedure for introducing new words:
-illustrate and model the word orally
-repetition drills (choral, individual, backchaining – children repeat particular syllable)
-checking pronunciation and meaning – showing flashcards and expecting the kids to tell what it is
-writing on the board – learn to read globally with flashcards
Practicing and consolidating vocabulary.
Practicing and checking vocabulary – activities:
1.What’s missing? – based on pictures, helps to focus the children’s attention,
kids are asked to close their eyes and the teacher removes one item
2.Kim’s game – the teacher collects some objects from the ?? cover object,
the learners guess which item disappeared
3.Matching words to pictures.
4.Guessing games – hide & seek, hot & cold, I spy, miming games
5.Giving instructions / picture dictation.
6.Sequencing – arranging jumbled pictures/stories into the right order
7.Labeling – the teacher has picture of sth and the LS task is to label it
8.Bingo.
Consolidating vocabulary:
-using words in different contexts
-encouraging children to devise techniques they can use on their
own to consolidate and revise words
Techniques allowing children to build up their own personalized vocabulary learning strategies:
-picture dictionaries / vocabulary books
-word families / sets
-vocabulary cards
-collages researching – the teacher may ask the children to look around and search for English words in different places (supermarkets, cinemas, etc.)
Principles of teaching vocabulary:
1.Vocabulary is necessary in order to develop communicative competence,
thus the teacher must make some effort during the presentation stage and practice stage.
2.The teacher must revise and consolidate both newly learnt words and previously taught ones.
3.Revision and consolidation of new vocabulary items must take place very often
and regularly (importance of revision lessons).
4.Vocabulary recycling should not take place in the same order
(we tend to best remember items learnt at the beginning and at the end of the lesson.
5.Words should be consolidated in pre-communicative and communicative activities.
VOCABULARY
Organization of knowledge:
-mental lexicon-overleaping system in which words are stored,double enteries (the meaning,info about form)
-learning vocabulary
a)labeling -maping words into concept,
b)categorizing -putting a word into certain category,
c)network building -adding new words to mother tounge, creating the second mental lexicon (problems:false friends, strangers-words tha don't exist in mother tounge, acquaintances-words tha we came across before) When we learn the 2nd lang. we must create another lexical network.
Inf. processing model of memory:
-internal structures in the brain; -processes related to these:
-encoding-process of putting inf. into the brain;
-storage-refers to all the methods involved in the retention of inf.
-retrieval-processes of recalling stored inf. in our memory(recognition of a picture);
recall the things from the memory).
TRESHOLD LEVEL-the most often used words(about2000)in daily conversation, in comunicative situations.
SHORT- TERM MEMORY-(working memory-STM)-the brain's capivity to hold a limitted number of items, for period to a few seconds(about 6objects ,words,etc)it's the moment when we hear info. Inf. from STM is moved to LTM.
LONG-TERM MEMORY-a kind of permanent filling system with an enormous capacity.
ARTICULATION LOOP-a kinf of process of subvocal repetition(going round&round playing the same sound). Subconsciously trying to repeat inf. The longer the loop is the better learner will be.
Moving material from STM to LTM:
-repetition
-repeating material while it's still in the STM(5 times)
-retrieval/recall-eg.writing down, putting into context;
-spacing-instead of learning a whole amount of vocab.,put them in a segment&keep adding new items;
-pacing-different learning styles,each learner picking info differently, teacher should allow them to work on their own;
-use-interaction with the words?use it or lose it?;
-cognitive depth-encouraging the students to use their intellect in learning vocab.;
-personal organising-realting to our own experiences in learning vocab.;
-imaging-visualisation,creating mental pictures which go with the words
;-mnemonics-tricks which help to retrieve items or rules that are stored in the memory;
-motivation;
-attention /arousal
-useful in classes where there is high attention;
-afective depth-affective inf.(related to our emotions),they may play a role in toring&recalling words from the memory. The teacher cannot improve things to studenst. They have to find by themselves some ways of learning&coping with the material.`
Techniques to consolate vocab.:-games;-asking students to write sentences wuth new words;-using songs;-various sort of fill-in ex.;-various sort of matching ex.;-rhymes;-synonyms&antonyms.
LANG. GAME-the activity which has set of rules&procedures that pupils must follow,pupils can learn&make fun of it,they practise lang. What is also very joyful activity ,generally the atmosphere is more relaxed.
Reasons:
games are perfect gap-filler,motivate&activate students to involve in the lesson,practicing lang.improve speaking skill&cooperation skills,students are mentally involved in the lesson.
FORGETTING-the state of not remembering fact,info,vocab.Forgetting is rapid in the first hour of learning,through 24h we forget 18% of material.We forget,because of adding more&more new material(overloading the memory),insufficient practice,a few reviews.-
WORD DIFFICULT
falese friend-w word which sounds similiar in both mother&foreign lang&more&less the word has the meaning that is not equivalent,
-pronouncuation-the words that are difficult to pronounce ale also difficult to learn;
-spelling-sound&spelling of a word mismatch&therefore the word is difficult to learn(silent letters);
-lenght&complexity-long words seem to be more difficult to learn
-grammar-it can be difficult to learn grammar of the foreign lang. if it is diffenrent in mother tounge;
-range, connotation, idiomaticy;-meaning-some words can have different meaning what depends on the context (e.g.like).
COGNATE -words which have the same/common origin&are similar(sound&look similar)in the other lang;they are borrowed from other lang.
PLATEAU EFFECT-a feeling of stagnation that everything you are learning has already been taught;the feeling of not doing any progress,not developing.
DOUBLED CHECHING-concept checking; a few questions that a teacher asks students to let them know how to use the new words.The students practice listening comprehension, train speaking. The studenets are activate, they get to know the new words in context, they improve listening skills ,they pay attention to what the teacher is saying.
TEACH ABILITY-how easly the words can be explained or demonstrated the meaning.
ACTIVE VOCAB.-all those word that students need to recognize,have to practise,use in writing,speaking etc.
PASSIVE VOCAB-all those words that are inessential to understand them.
PRESENTING THE MEANING. Very import_ant is the order in presenting the meaning of the new words.TPA-total physical attitude.
PERSONALISATION STAGE-trying to engage in using the words with reference to personal experience(trying to make some true sentences including the new words,trying to make up a story using the new words&realting to the personal experience,or trying to draw pictures presenting the new words)-doing by oneself.
Pre TEACHING-trying to teach each other,learn from other,make projects together.It can be quite funny fos students,because ther are all engaged in activity,children can get to know who from th group is smarter or weak
IMPLICATION FOR TEACHING-
1)learners need to develop some strategies to organize their mental lexicon,
2)teachers need to accept the fact that learners need some incubation time(it depends on individual motivation)
3)words need to be prsented in their typical context because in this way learners can get the meaning,collocation
4)learners should aim to build threshold vocab. as quickly as it is possible(the minimum of words to communicate)
5)learners need to be acitively involved in the learning words,
6)learners have to make multiple decisions about words to previously stored things,
7)the memory of new words can be reinforced if the students try to express personaly relevant things(making stories)
8)not all vocabulary items can be taught(in the classroom the teacher should create the opportunities to improve students skills)