Teaching Vocabulary

Aims of this unit 1 What are some of the assumptions about vocabulary learning? 2 what does knowing a word involve? 3 How can we present new vocabulary items? 4 How do we help students develop vocabulary learning strategies?

What does it mean to know a word? (1)Knowing its pronunciation and stress (2)Knowing its spelling and grammatical properties (3)Knowing its meaning (4)Knowing how and when to use it to express the intended meaning

Denotative meaning Denotative meaning of a word or a lexical item refers to those words that we use to label things as regards real objects. the word‘niece’and‘nephew’in English refer to one’s brothers or sister daughters and sons,while in Chinese there is a distinction made between the names used to describe one’s brothers children and siste- rs.

Connotative meaning It refers to the attitudes or emotions of a language user in choosing a wore and the influence of these on the listener or reader’s interpretation of the word Expressing a positive or negative attitude or subtle feelings towards something

Collocations It refers to words that co-occur with high frequency and have been accepted as ways for the use of words. Teaching word collocations is a more effective way than just teaching one single word at a time

Synonyms, antonyms,hyponyms Synonyms mean the same,or nearly the same Antonyms refer that mean the opposite of a word Hyponyms refer to words which can be grouped together under the same superordinate concept

Receptive and productive vocabulary Receptive and productive vocabulary refers to words that one is able to recognize and comprehend in reading or listening but unable to use automatically in speaking or writing. writing are considered as one’productive/active vocablary.

Ways of presenting vocabulary Try to provide a visual or physical demonstration whenever possible, using pictures, photos, videos clips,gestures to show meaning Provide a verbal context to demonstrate meaning. Then ask students to tell the meaning first before it is offered by the teacher Use synonyms or antonyms to explain meaning Use lexical sets or hyponyms to show relations of words and their meanings Translate and exemplify,especially with technical with technical words or words with abstract meaning

Use word formation rules and common affixes to build new lexical knowledge on what is already known Teaching vocabulary in chunks.Chunks refer to a group of words that go togerher to form meaning. It is also referred to as pre-fabrivated formulaic items Thick about the context in real life where the word might be used.relate newly learned language to studentss real life to promote high motivation

Ways of consolidating vocabulary Labelling Students are given a picture.They are to write the names of objects indicated in the picture.A competitive element can be introduced by making the first students to finish the winner

Spot the difference Students are put into pairs.Each member of the pair receives a picture which is slightly different from his partner’s Students are hide the pictures from one another and then, by a process of describing, questioning and answering,discover what the differences are

Describe and draw Play a game Use word series Word bingo Wore association Find synonyms and antonyms Categories Using word net-work Using the internet resources for more ideas

Developing vocabulary learning strategies Due to limited class times, students will not be able to learn all the vocabulary simply from class teaching. Thus we need to help students develop items vocabulary learning strategies so that they can effectively acquire more vocabulary on their own,especially outside the class

Review regularly Guess meaning from context Organise vocabulary lary effectively Use a dictionary Manage strategy use

Conclusion In this unit we started from reflections on our own vocabulary learning experiences, leading to the discussions of assumptions about vocabulary and vocabulary learning. Following the discussion, we focus on the question of what knowing a word means. In our effort to try to understand this ques- tion, we got to know how complicated it was to learning vovabulary.