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The Mental Lexicon: How to help learners with vocabulary

The Mental Lexicon: How to help learners with vocabulary. Judy Copage. What’s the big deal?. Why can learners hear or see an English word or phrase many times and still not use that word?

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The Mental Lexicon: How to help learners with vocabulary

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  1. The Mental Lexicon: How to help learners with vocabulary Judy Copage

  2. What’s the big deal? • Why can learners hear or see an English word or phrase many times and still not use that word? • Learners do plenty of exercises, but when they are asked to speak or write freely, why do they complain of a lack of vocabulary? • The big deal is to make vocabulary active

  3. Outline • What’s involved in learning vocabulary? • Memory • Teaching new words • Practising new words • Vocabulary storing ideas • Productive vocabulary – the process

  4. What’s involved in learning vocabulary? Spelling • Denotation • what it means • Pronunciation • sounds and stress • Appropriacy • Social context, • formality • Word grammar • word class; suffixes; • morphemes child • Collocation • permitted word combinations • Connotation • emotional associations • Relationship to other words • Synonyms, antonyms etc.

  5. Memory Short Term Memory • verbal learning - capacity is limited (holds about 7 items for 30 secs) • with a larger number of items or interruptions, retention capacity breaks down • when information is grouped, much larger capacity is possible

  6. mouse • banana • mobile phone • Pearson Longman • classroom • red • summer • nurse • nephew • dictionary

  7. Long Term Memory • apparently infinite capacity • have to work harder to transfer items from STM to LTM • items need deep processing and systematic organisation to be stored in the ‘Mental Lexicon’ • the Mental Lexicon is meaning-based (semantic fields); an associative network, cross-referenced • recall is through cues. Cues are: meanings, visual images, phonics, whole word ‘shapes’

  8. How quickly can you access your LTM? frequency of use recency of use relevance of words to personal lives

  9. Teaching new vocabulary a pathway to productive use Present words in context Provide meaningful practice Store in a memorable way Revise and use regularly

  10. Presentation of new words Show language in context and place the language in a real situation through texts and dialogues Need a variety of ways to help ‘deep’ processing of the new words

  11. Pictures: meaning Listen and repeat: pronunciation, receptive and productive Matching task: spelling; reinforces meaning

  12. Words shown in context Find the words you’ve just learnt

  13. Learn words with their opposites Draw word pictures for the adjectives opposite

  14. Scales of meaning excellent very good good not very good awful Make a scale of meaning for COLD

  15. Categories Make groups of words: Water Land

  16. Associations What are the jobs? What do they use for transport? What clothes do they wear? Make a spidergram

  17. Transport Jobs Work Clothes

  18. Collocations Word formation

  19. Presentation summary: • Match words to pictures to establish meaning • Show words in context for deeper understanding • Use memory games to transfer to LTM • Learn opposites • Scales of meaning • Categories • Associations • Collocations • Word building

  20. Practice activities Make a sentence level exercise more memorable for deep processing Include functional practice Make exercises relevant to personal life Use fun, engaging activities

  21. Vocabulary practice of words for illness and injuries Choose three of the sentences. Write a story using the sentences.

  22. A: How about going windsurfing? The weather’s perfect! B: Ok, that’s a great idea! What time? A: Is 5 o’clock OK for you? B: Yes, that’s fine. See you at the beach! Vocabulary practice of sports activities. Make it functional. Write a dialogue and act it out.

  23. Vocabulary practice of opinion adjectives Personalised activity.

  24. Vocabulary Storage Techniques Word Webs Categorising Geography words Vegetables Meat FOOD Fruit Snacks

  25. Phrasal Verb Tables Action verbs Word-Building Tables Collocation Tables Useful Phrases Sorry, I can’t stop. I’m in a hurry. What’s the rush?

  26. Cognates/false cognates book= buch ! sympathetic  sympatique ! Error Diaryfrom writing feedback See a dream X > HAVE a dream. Peripheral learning Use posters in class ‘Post-It’ notes around the house

  27. Presentation/Practice • contextualised • variety • guessing from context • Memory Storage • organised vocabulary notebook Productive Vocabulary • Constant Recycling • tests/quizzes good for memory, but not spontaneous use in context • Feedback • explicit feedback on vocabulary in speaking and writing with marking criteria • Meaningful Contexts for Use • ‘free’ speaking & writing activities

  28. judy.copage@pearson.com

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