Vocabulary teaching and learning

1. Vocabulary teaching and learning • Vocabulary Learning Strategies • Selecting, recording, revising • Guessing word meaning from context • Explicit teaching of vocabulary – using a range of methods • Assessing vocabulary knowledge

2. Metacognitive Strategies Discuss: What would you consider when deciding whether to learn or pass a new word that you encounter in reading / listening? How do you (or your students) usually record and revise vocabulary?

3. Which words should you skip learning? (Nation, 1990)

4. Recording vocabulary • Relate new words with old words (e.g. words that look / sound similar, synonyms, antonyms • collocations • Grammatical behavior (e.g. prepositions, pos, c/unc, regular/irregular verb) • use a drawing • Word cards? Portable devices?

5. Revising vocabulary Plan for “spaced repetition” Follow a particular topic reported in the media over a few days, e.g. reading about the development of an issue on the Internet or in newspapers over a few days so that you keep meeting the same words or synonyms of these words Use quizzes to test yourself regularly Revise the words recorded in your vocabulary notebook or cards regularly (e.g. cover up the word or definition and test yourself) Try to use the words you learnt before, e.g. by writing sentences or paragraphs using these words Ask a friend to test you / practice using words you learnt before with a friend Others??

6. Guessing word meaning from context

7. How easy is it to guess the meaning of the underlined words? The Nanu region is famous for its wonderful scenery, ancient temples and, above all, the indigenous people of Sofa. In their remote village, reached after an arduous and dusty drive, live the Sofans, with their welcoming smiles and warm affability. Few visitors, however, make this trip as it is not on the normal itinerary of most tour groups. As I sauntered through the village, I stopped for a few moments on a bridge to watch the boisterous children splashing each other with water. School hours are short here and many of the teenagers seem to squander their daylight hours riding around the square on noisy old motorcycles. Groups of local women spend their days weaving coloured silk into stunning fabrics. Their remuneration is only a few dollars although they may have worked for several days to create each one. As dusk approaches, the men return from the fields where they have been toiling all day, hungry and ready for a quiet evening with their families.

8. Guessing strategies • Study the word itself (what pos? any word parts?) • Examine immediate context • Examine wider context • Make a guess • Verify your guess by using a dictionary

9. Strategies for guessing word meaning from context (Nation, 1990) Step 1: What part of speech is it? Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb? Step 2: Does it contain any familiar parts? (e.g. in-digest-ible) Does it look similar to another word you already know? Step 3: Examine the immediate context. If the unknown word is a Noun What adjectives describe it? What verb does it go with? What does it do and what is done to it? Verb What nouns go with it? Does an adverb tell you more about it? Adjective What noun does it go with? Adverb Which verb does it go with?

10. Step 4: • Examine the wider context. Look at the relationship between the clause or sentence containing the unknown word and other sentences or paragraphs. • Sometimes this relationship is signalled by a linking word, e.g. but, because, if, when, however, as a result. • Word like this, that and such as provide useful information. • Look for a definition or synonym in the wider context. • Make use of that / which clauses that give further information. • Look at punctuation for clues. • dashes - • brackets ( ) • colons : • semi colons ; • Step 5: • Guess the meaning. • Step 6: • Substitute your guess. Does the sentence make sense? If you’re still unsure, look it up in a dictionary.

11. Answers • Arduous – difficult / tiring • Affability – friendliness • Saunter – walk slowly • Boisterous – noisy / energetic • Squander – spend in a wasteful way • Weave – make cloth • Remuneration – payment • Dusk – early evening • Toil – work very hard

12. Presenting words in cotext • Better show students: • It was so stifling in the room that I could hardly breathe. • Rather than: • It was stifling in the room. • Better say: • There’s a word in the first line that means “huge”. What word is that? • Rather than: • “Enormous” in the first line means huge.

13. Provide rich contextual clues - answers • Carnivorous • Vehicles • Huge / enormous • Mean / stingy • Cut • Reduced / offset / compensated • Revenue / income; afford

15. Helping students with confusing words

16. Confusing words Complimentary vs complementary Principal vs principle

17. Sökmen (1997): Explicit teaching of vocabulary • Build a large sight vocabulary (e.g. GSL, AWL) • Integrate new words with old (e.g. gradable antonyms on a scale; more precise words to a general word; semantic maps) • Promote a deep level of processing** • Provide a number of encounters with a word (5-16 times; successful recall leads to longer retention) • Facilitate imaging (e.g. mental pictures; mind maps) • Making new words “concrete” by connecting them to student’s world in some way (e.g. personal feelings, personal examples, current issues, pictures, videos, real objects & situations) • Use a variety of techniques** (e.g. dictionary work, word parts activities, using rhymes, semantic grids, semantic maps, ...etc.) • Encourage independent learning strategies

18. Sight vocabulary • Words that students can recognizeinstantly in reading • Do not need any decoding or pictorial clues • children with a large sight vocabulary can read more fluently and comprehend texts more easily

19. For very young / elementary learners The most basic / frequent words should be taught by sight Repeated encounters in reading / wall postings E.g. McNally & Murray’s 200 High Frequency words (http://abcprimaryteachingresources.co.uk/downloads/1046-200-high-frequency-words-mcnally-murray.html)

20. The Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme (Peter and Jane books) E.g. The first book uses the 12 key words repeatedly ("Here is Peter", "Peter is here", "Here is Jane", "Jane is here", "I like Peter", "I like Jane"). http://www.theweeweb.co.uk/ladybird/key_words_reading_scheme.php

21. Using a variety of techniques in explicit teaching

22. Learning Word Parts prefix root suffix Trans / port / ation Prefix: added to the front Root: carries main meaning Suffix: changes part of speech

23. How many words can you make? -cede pre- inter- bene- -tain sub- -scribe -vene -fit con- -scient omni- re-

24. Some word parts and their meaning Reference: www.prefixsuffix.com

25. Some common suffixes that form adjectives

26. Some common suffixes that form nouns

27. Resources for learning word parts www.prefixsuffix.com Roots of English – downloadable software

28. Rhyming words in songs / poems

29. Rhyming words in songs / poems

30. Emphasize the combination of words

31. Emphasize the combinability of words

32. When recording vocabulary, note collocation patterns…

33. To sum up… • Teach and consolidate the 2000 most frequent words • Encourage students to become independent learners • Provide students with a variety of vocabulary building activities • Encourage students to read widely • Train students on using vocabulary learning strategies • … …

34. Vocabulary Assessment Tools What sorts of vocabulary knowledge are being tested in each of the tests? Do you see any problems with some of the tests?

35. Peer Discussion of Assignment