M. A. in Applied Linguistics MAAL6018 Vocabulary Teaching and Learning Session 1 Building blocks and dimensions of vocabulary knowledge

Transcription

1 M. A. in Applied Linguistics MAAL6018 Vocabulary Teaching and Learning Session 1 Building blocks and dimensions of vocabulary knowledge Warming up 1. How many words do you think there are in the English language? 2. How many words do you think you know? 3. What is the longest word you know? 4. What is the most frequently used word in the English language? 5. What do you think is the best way to learn vocabulary? What is meant by a word? Task Grouping words Arrange the following words into 5 groups in any way you like. Explain how each group is different from the others. bring occasional cannot raining cats and dogs now and then day in and day out bringing heavily catch up why occasionally the rained brought famous brings because of occasion singer 1

2 Key concepts What is a word? In everyday language we talk about words. But when we look at the concept of a word carefully, we see that it can be defined in various ways. Below are some basic terms that linguists use to distinguish different definitions. Task Match the following items in the left column with the definitions in the right 1. Grapheme a. It changes the word class of a word. 2. Morpheme b. Any word or phrase that represents an indivisible unit of meaning. 3. Lexeme/Lexical item c. This term is used to describe a group of related word forms, including the base word, its inflections and its common derivatives, e.g. benefit, benefits, benefited, beneficial. 4. Inflection d. Also known as content word, usually with a fairly precise meaning. Examples are nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs. 5. Derivative e. Also called function word, a word which has a function rather than a precise meaning. Examples are conjunctions, determiners, pronouns and prepositions. 6. Word family f. A change in the form of a word (usually by adding word endings) to alter its grammatical function. 7. Lexical word g. Any sequence of written letters that is usually separated from others by a space 8. Grammatical word h. A new word made by the combination of more than one word, sometimes hyphenated, e.g. raindrop, proofread, spoon-feed. 9. Compound word i. A group of words in a fixed order having a particular meaning, different from the meanings of each word understood on its own. 10. Idiom j. The smallest unit of meaning. 2

3 Dimensions of vocabulary knowledge (What is meant by knowing a word?) Task How much do you know about the word agree? 1. How many g s are there in agree? 2. Can you think of another word beginning with ag that has one g and another that has two? 3. Is agree intransitive or transitive? 4. Does agree always have a human subject? 5. What preposition would you use in the sentence: We agreed a fair price. 6. Can you make a noun that is derived from agree? 7. Can you make an adjective that is derived from agree? 8. What does agreeable mean? 9. What is the antonym of agree and what kind of antonym is it? 10. What is the prefix for the antonym of agree? 11. Does I agreed with him mean the same as We agreed? 12. Does I disagreed with him mean the same as I didn t agree with him? 13. You can say We agreed to go to the cinema, but can you say We disagreed to go to the cinema? 14. Can you think of one or more synonyms of agree? 15. What is the difference between agree and compromise? 16. What is the difference between agreement and consensus? 17. Is this a good sentence: The chicken didn t agree with me. If so what does it mean? 18. What is the meaning of agreement as a term in English grammar? 19. What does agree to differ mean? 20. Complete this idiom: I couldn t agree. Knowing a word such as agree is obviously a complex matter! Do you agree?! 3

4 The complexity (depth) of vocabulary knowledge Knowing a word can mean any of the following things, such as: 1. Knowing how to pronounce the word. 2. Knowing the meaning of the word either as an L1 equivalent or as defined in L2. 3. Knowing how to spell the word and how its spelling differs from words that are pronounced similarly. 4. Knowing the grammatical word class of the word. 5. Knowing the grammatical patterns in which the word is typically used. 6. Knowing the collocational patterns in which the word typically fits and its any constraints upon the use of the word (concerned with, e.g. frequency, register, formality). 7. Knowing the morphology of the word and the forms and meanings of its inflections and derivatives. 8. Knowing the different senses of the word (polysemy) and the senses of its derivatives. 9. Knowing the antonyms of the word. 10. Knowing the synonyms of the word. 11. Knowing how the sense and usage of the word differs from that of near synonyms. Discussion Do the textbooks or vocabulary teaching materials that you are currently using with your students address all these aspects of word knowledge? Does it matter if some of these aspects are not addressed? 4

5 Discussion Referring to pp of: Read, J. (2004). Research in teaching vocabulary. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, What are some of the ways of conducting research into vocabulary teaching or learning? 2. What conclusions can you draw from these studies reported by Read (2004) about the criteria for effective vocabulary acquisition? Preparation for the next session Please bring along at least one piece of your writing of at least 300 words, and a few other texts of at least 300 words preferably in different genres (soft copies saved on a USB or your ) to the next class. 5