TEACHING VOCABULARYTEACHING VOCABULARY

Калинина Е.А.Калинина Е.А.

доцент кафедры доцент кафедры филологического образования филологического образования

СарИПКиПРОСарИПКиПРО

How many words are there and how many do we need

to teach?

Estimates for native speakers vary between 12000 and 20000 depending on the level of education.

Learners can understand a large proportion of texts with a relatively small vocabulary.

Learners who know the most frequent 2000 words will understand almost 80 % of the words in an average text.

1.It is important to identify the most frequent 2000-5000 vocabulary items and give them priority in teaching.

2.Students need to become self-sufficient learners.

A corpus is a collection of texts which is stored in a computer.

What can we learn from the Corpus about

vocabulary?• Frequency• Differences in speaking and

writing• Contexts of use• Collocation• Grammatical patterns• Strategic use of vocabulary

What do we need to teach about vocabulary?

• The meanings of the word• Its spoken and written forms• What “word parts” it has• Its grammatical behaviour• Its collocations• Its register• What associations it has• What connotations it has• Its frequency

How can we help learners learn vocabulary?

•FOCUS ON VOCABULARY“…without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”

•OFFER VARIETY•REPEAT AND RECYCLE

•PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES TO ORGANIZE VOCABULARY:

REAL-WORLD GROUPS LANGUAGE-BASED GROUPSPERSONALIZED GROUPS

•Make vocabulary learning personal

•Don’t overdo•Use strategic vocabulary in class

HELPING STUDENTS BECOME INDEPENDENT

LEARNERS:

•Vocabulary notebooks•Research tools•Everyday usage

Learner’s word listLexic

al item

Pronunciation

Translatio

n

Grammar

Collocatio

n

Example

Idea

Things you can know about a lexical item:

• Spelling • The number of syllables• Phonemes• Which syllables are stressed• What part of speech it is• Grammatically related forms• The basic meaning

• Other meanings• The semantic space it occupies (where

the meaning of one word ends and another begins)

• Metaphorical meanings• Collocational field• Translation• False friends (words which in

translation suggest a wrong meaning)

• True friends• Lexical families• Synonyms• Homonyms (words that have the same

spelling but different meanings)• Homophones (words that are

pronounced the same but have a different meaning)

• Antonyms• Suffixes or prefixes that can be added to

the word• The visual image people have for this

word• Personal feelings about this word• Mnemonics (things help you remember

the word).