Теория и методика обучения иностранному языку (стр. 7 )

2.2 Teaching Vocabulary

Aims: By the end of the session the students will have a clear idea of what vocabulary is, what is to be taught and what the stages of teaching vocabulary are.

To the Anglo-Saxons a vocabulary was a “Wordhoard”, to be owned and treasured, to the Chinese, a sea of words to be fished. How do you see your own vocabulary? Which of these words best captures that image? Explain your choice.

Activity 1. Individual work.

stock nursery store poll raft armoury

palette file mine reservoir web treasury

forest tunnel spectrum orchestra well

mountain reserve theatre field tool-kit

wardrobe telescope

Activity 2. Group work

What words come to your mind when you see the word ‘vocabulary’. Write down your ideas.

Activity 3. Individual work

How is your vocabulary? Individually write down all the words you can think of that begin with a letter you see on the board (no slang, abbreviations or proper names) Stop when you hear ‘time’. How many words do you have?

Activity 4. Group work

Vocabulary as one of the language aspects is connected with grammar and phonetics. How? Draw a scheme.

Activity 5. Group or Pair work

Are all the English words necessary to be learnt? Choose the answer which you think is right.

Are all the English words necessary to be learnt? Choose the answer, which you think, is right:

1.  How many words are there in English?

a) 10000 b) 100000 c) 250000 d) 500000

2.  Winston Churchill was famous for his particularly large vocabulary. How many words did he use in his writing?

a) 10000 b) 60000 c) 100000 d) 120000

3.  How many words does the average native speaker use in his / her everyday speech?

a) 2500 b) 5000 c) 7500 d) 10000

4.  How many words make up 45% of everything written in English?

a) 50 b) 250 c) 1000 d) 2500

There are many words your students don’t need at all. And there are words they need simply to understand when they read or hear them. Finally there are words, which the students need to be able to use in speech or in writing!

Activity 6

What’s needed to be taught? Is it enough just to teach the meaning of a new word? Look at the list of the necessary aspects to be taught and write the characteristics of the words below next to each aspect:

The characteristics to choose from:

1)  rich – poor; 2)  keen /ki:n/; 3)  toss a coin; 4)  ‘a dog’ has positive associations in Britain but negative in Arabia; 5)  untranslatable; 6)  enjoy + - ing; 7)  ‘weep’ is used in writing more than in speech;

8)  intelligent – bright, clever, smart; 9)  a dark green cabbage; 10)  fruit for orange, apple, kiwi; 11)  brown – red, blue, green; 12)  spring, autumn, summer for season; 13)  учиться

Aspects to be taught:

a)  Form: pronunciation and spelling

b)  Grammar

c)  Collocation

d)  Aspects of meaning (1):

-  denotation,

-  connotation,

-  appropriateness

e)  Aspects of meaning (2): meaning relationships

-  synonyms

-  antonyms

-  hyponyms

-  co-hyponyms (co-ordinates)

-  super ordinates

-  translation

f) Word formation

1.  Form: pronunciation and spelling

The learner has to know what a word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like (its spelling).

1.  Grammar

We need to teach grammar because a lexical (or a vocabulary item) may have a change of form in certain grammatical contexts; it is important to provide learners with this information at the same time as we teach the base form. When teaching a verb, what should we give?

(Forms (2, 3), transitive or intransitive, followed by the to –inf.

(bare inf. or - ing form), prepositions)

2.  Collocation

A collocation is a combination of two words which should go with one another and can’t be used with the other word. Collocation always implies combinability. There are a lot of dictionaries of collocations, mostly verbal. Ex.: we introduce the word conclusion we should note that we can come to the conclusion. As for the word ‘decision’ we can take a decision, make a decision but not ‘come to a decision’.

Ex.: mistake Give collocations with the word

3.  Aspects of meaning:

Ö  denotation

Ö  connotation

Ö  appropriateness

The meaning of a word is what it refers to in the real world, its denotation.

Dog – denotes a kind of animal

A less obvious component of the meaning of an item is its connotation, the associations, positive or negative feelings, and its special flavour.

The word Dog understood by the British has positive connotations of friendship and loyalty. In Arab countries it has a negative connotation of dirt and inferiority.

A more subtle aspect of meaning that needs to be taught is whether a vocabulary item is appropriate to use in a certain context or not. It is useful for a leaner to know that a certain word is common or rare, or ‘taboo’ in polite conversation. It can be formal or informal.

Weep – formal (in writing)

Cry – informal (in speech)

How would you present the meanings of the words?

Childish, kid, bastard

Connotations? Appropriate contexts?

‘Childish’ means like a child usually about an adult with negative connotations

‘Kid’ means the same as ‘child’ – in informal, spoken speech

‘Bastard’ a child of parents who are not married, usually used as an insult in informal

4.  Aspects of meaning

·  synonyms – items that mean the same or nearly the same

·  antonyms – items that mean the opposite

·  hyponyms – items that serve as specific examples of a general concept

Autumn is a hyponym of the seasons

·  co-hyponyms or co-ordinates: other items that are ‘the same kind of thing

Autumn, winter, spring, summer are co-hyponyms

·  super ordinates: general concepts that ‘cover’ specific items

season is the super ordinate of spring, summer, winter, autumn

·  translation

Words and expressions are to be translated into the learners’ mother tongue.

5.  Word formation

Vocabulary units, whether one-word or multi\word can often be broken into their component ‘bits’.

And this information should be taught to more advanced mon prefixes or suffixes can be taught.

What prefixes and suffixes do you know? How can they help understand the meaning of a word?

Ungrateful

Untranslatable

Another way vocabulary items are built is by combining two words to make one item: a single compound word, or two separate, sometimes hyphened words (bookcase, follow-up, swimming pool).

Activity 7. Individual or group work

Now let’s play again!

During two minutes write as many words beginning with the letters of this word as possible. How many words do you have?

VOCABULARY

Activity 8. Group work

This “Step – by – step” word puzzle is very popular with the native – speakers. Try it as well.

Look at the example:

Change a boy into a man replacing one letter on each line!

BOY

BAY

MAY

MAN

Now change sea into sky, and then land into seas. The sentences on the left will help you find the right word.

a)

Morning is the time for the sun to rise. Evening is the time for it to ….

The policeman got into the car and … next to the driver.

What did you ….? I can’t hear you well.

SEA

SKY

b)

I’ve forgotten to bring any money. Can you ….me some?

Some people … their friends a card at the New Year.

Good corn grows from good …

When someone looks into water he often … his face.

LAND

SEAS

Activity 9

How do you usually remember words? Share your favourite techniques.

Tips:

·  People tend to remember words that have personal or emotive significance

·  People link items together in sense units or find some associations or look for personal significance

·  Words at the beginning of a list tend to be remembered better, so teach more important new words first, or at the beginning of a lesson.

Activity 10

Teaching vocabulary starts with presenting. Now relate your vocabulary learning experiences to presenting new words or phrases in the classroom. Together make a list of elements which make an effective presentation of new vocabulary.

Effective presentation techniques

ü   

ü   

ü   

ü   

ü   

ü   

Possible answers:

1)  concise definition (as in a dictionary, often a super ordinate, ex.: a cat is an animal …)

2)  detailed description

3)  examples (hyponyms)

4)  illustration (picture, object)

5)  demonstration (acting, mime)

6)  context (story or sentence in which the item occurs)

7)  synonyms

8)  opposites (antonyms)

9)  associated ideas, collocations

10)  translation

ActivityGroup work

What other techniques are there for presenting new vocabulary? Give them a title. Look through Activities 10-17, define them.

10. Show real objects or pictures of real objects to your learners.

Example:

The topic of a unit is cooking. The teacher brings the following kitchen tools into class and shows them to the learners: Bowl whisk fork spoon knife wooden spoon She then ‘cooks’ something, using the items and repeating the new words often.

11. Use parts of words to help learners build words or guess their meaning.

Example:

Vocabulary Development Prefixes We can change the meaning of an adjective by putting a prefix in front of it. Add the prefix un-, in - or im- to these adjectives and put them in the correct column. Check in your dictionary to see if you out un - or in - . You put im - in front of most adjectives and put them in the correct column. Check in the dictionaries to see if you put un - or in-. You put im - in front of most adjectives beginning with m or p. Tidy happy friendly realistic dependent precise expensive possible safe adequate interesting human exciting polite competent perfect mature patient

12. Act out, mine or demonstrate words.

Example:

The class is going to listen to a song, where they have to act out these verbs: clap shake snap stamp swing wiggle As an introduction, the teacher acts out the words and asks the class to act, too. As the words occur in the song, the learners act out the words.

13. Use words learners already know to teach them similar words.

Example:

Learners read a text and have to find the words in the text which mean the following: very thin identical short and fat tiny very large crying

14. Use well-known English song titles, books or people.

Example:

When introducing new words, the teacher reminds learners of famous or familiar places where they might have come across the words before, for example in film titles or songs or pop groups. Examples: wiggle pop song with chorus ‘Wiggle, wiggle’ jungle Jungle Book rolling The Rolling Stones

15. Give examples of words you want to introduce.

Example:

The teacher wants to introduce the word fruit. She explains that you can eat fruit and there are various kinds: apples, bananas, peaches, oranges, etc. (The class knows the words for some individual fruits already). She asks the learners for more examples of fruit.

16. Draw the words to represent their meaning.

Example:

LARGE small

17. Work out the meaning of the words ‘wound, injury, lungs, buried’ from the context and write their translation. Discuss your translations with each other and change as necessary. Now check your answers with your teacher or in a dictionary.

Activity 18

Now that the new vocabulary is presented you should practice it at the lesson. Put the stages of the vocabulary practice in the correct order.

Practice exercises (gap-filling, matching, translation…)

Communicative practice

Drill on Pronunciation and Spelling

Activity 19. Group work

What drills on pronunciation and spelling can you think of?

Ex.: 1) go around the class and find out …

2) in the word ‘THREA’ the letters are scrambled. Can you guess the word?

3) let’s play a game: I packed my bag to Alaska and put … chain (snowball).

Activity 20. Match these practice techniques with their names:

A.  Multiple choice

B.  Matching

C.  Gap-filling

D.  Word-building

E.  Choosing definitions

F.  Defining words

G.  Synonyms / antonyms

H.  Translation

(see the supplement)

Activity 21. Let’s play a game

“Simple and compound”

Look at the list of prefixes, suffixes and simple words. You now have 5 minutes to write as many simple or compound words with these words or affixes as you can. How many words do you have?

Prefixes	Suffixes	Words
Un- Dis - Re-	-tion -ment -ous	self Head heart

What kind of words do you know? Write examples.

Roots	Derived words	Compound words

Activity 22. There are a lot of different types of vocabulary testing techniques. Study the following techniques, define what aspects are being tested and match the techniques with their titles.

Titles of techniques:

1.  Translation

2.  Dictation

3.  Dictation-translation

4.  Sentence completion

5.  Matching

6.  Gap filling

7.  Odd one out

8.  Multiple choice

9.  Writing sentences

(see the supplement)

2.3 Teaching Pronunciation

Aims: By the end of the session the students will be able to make up a list of activities for improving learners` pronunciation, to identify major phonetics terminology.

Materials: Ur P. “A Course in Language Teaching”

The concept of “pronunciation” may be said to include:

-the sounds of the language or phonology

-stress and rhythm

-intonation

Sounds:

It’s necessary to be able to list and define the sounds or phonemes of the language by writing them down using phonetic representations. Different books vary as to exactly which, and how many symbols are used.

Do not mix the two terms: phonetic and phonemic.

Phonetic- transcriptions of the sounds of all human languages which make distinctions between sounds that may not be distinguished in a given language system.

Phonemic- transcriptions of a particular sound system

Activity1

Step1. You are given ten words; try to transcribe them into phonetic script

concept summary

function listening

language implement

predict observe

background syllabus

Step2. Use a dictionary and Box 4.1 “The Phonemic Alphabet”, check your transcription

English Speech Rhythm - is characterized by tone-units: a word or group of words which carries one central stressed syllable; other syllables; if there are any, are lightened. Stress can be indicated in writing: probably the simplest way to do so is to write the stressed syllable

1) in capital letters: for ex. Peter, come HERE, please

2) to put a short vertical line above and before the stressed syllable /'pi:tәkΛm'hiә/

Activity 2. I’m dictating you three short sentences. You write them down, making the stressed syllables capital.

Be back home before nine.

Could you turn it off?

You can’t always have fun and do nothing.

Intonation, the rises and falls in tone that make “the tune” of an utterance, is an important aspect of the pronunciation of English, often making a difference to meaning or implication. Stress is most commonly indicated not by increased volume, but by a slight rise in intonation. The different kinds of intonation are most simply shown by the symbols \ / in order to show falling and rising intonations; and the symbols ۷ ٨ to show fall-rise, and rise-fall.

The rhythm of English is mainly a function of its stress patterns; these may also affect such aspects as speed of delivery, volume and pauses.

Activity 3. Listen to a brief recording. Write down a sentence from the recording, using spelling and indicate the rising and falling intonation.

Flow of Speech

It is important to know that different sounds, stresses and intonations may affect one another within the flow of speech.

-  The way a sound is articulated is influenced by what other sounds are next to it: the –ed suffix of the Past Simple may be pronounced / d/, /t/, or /id/ depending on what came immediately before.

-  Intonation affects how we hear stress. Stress is more often a matter of a raised or lowered tone level with a slight slowing-down.

-  A change in the stress pattern of a word will change its sounds as well: the word subject has the stress on the first syllable when it is a noun, on the second one when it is a verb, and now, the difference in transcription

/ 'sΛbdgikt/ /sәb'dgekt/

Activity 4. Think of examples when sounds affect one another in the stream of speech, or stress and intonation changing the way the sounds are articulated.

Teaching pronunciation involves three features:

1). Segmental (divided into parts, separated into)

2). Suprasegmental (over, beyond, above separated)

3). Paralinguistic

Activity 5. Work in groups, distribute the following phonetic terms into three groups according to the feature.

Miming intonation gestures

Sentence stress body language word stress

Sounds syllables timbre

Activity 6. What is easier to teach? Can a non-native teacher serve as a model for target language pronunciation? What factors affect pronunciation? Make a list of them.

Possible answers: level of education; social status; place of origin; male or female; individual peculiarities; motivation and concern for good pronunciation.

The Objective of Teaching of Pronunciation

Activity 7. 1).The aim of teaching and improving pronunciation is to achieve a perfect imitation of a native accent.

2).The aim of teaching and improving pronunciation is to get the learner to pronounce accurately enough to be easily and comfortably comprehensible to other complement speakers.

? Which of the two ideas seems more correct to you? Discuss it in groups and present your opinion. Explain WHY.

Possible explanation: “Perfect” accents are difficult or not possible for most of us to achieve anyway and may not even be desirable.

Do you want to achieve a “perfect” native accent? If yes, why?

Activity 8. Learners often make pronunciation errors. Make a list of errors students often make. What are some possible reasons for these errors?

Error	Reason
1. devoicing of voiced consonants 2. mixing short and long vowels 3. ignoring diphthongs or pronouncing two sounds instead of one 4. lack of aspiration 5. mispronouncing( s instead of θ) 6. replacing some English sounds with Russian similar ones 7. palatalization 8. ignoring of phonetic phenomena: loss of plosion, nasal plosion, and lateral plosion.	1. P. Ur: - a particular sound doesn’t exist in the mother tongue - a sound exists in the mother tongue, but not as a separate phoneme -the learners are using their mother tongue intonation 2. my ideas: -lack of practice -no similar sounds in the mother tongue

Teaching Pronunciation Presentation

Activity 9. a). Look at the table and decide which steps are more important than the others. Put them in order of priority.

 Say the sound alone

 Say the sound in a word

 Contrast it with other sounds

 Write words on the board

 Explain how to make the sound

 Get students to repeat the sound in chorus

 Get individual students to repeat the sound

b). Put the number of the steps into each speech bubble

1. 'th-th'

2. 'think' 'than you'

3. Listen 't'- 'th'

4. Look-tongue between your teeth let the air go through: 'th'

5. Everyone - 'th'

6. Sri - can you say it?

Activity 10. Here are some ideas for improving learners` pronunciation. Read them thoroughly; discuss in groups and say which of these ideas you find most appealing for teaching pronunciation to schoolchildren.

Ideas for Improving Learners` Pronunciation

- imitation of teacher or recorded model sounds

- recording of learner speech, contrasted with native model

- systematic explanation and instruction(including details of the structure and movement of parts of the mouth)

- choral repetition of drills

- varied repetition of drills(varied speed, volume, mood)

- learning and performing dialogues(as with drills, using choral work and varied speed, volume, mood0

- learning by heart of sentences, rhymes, jingles

- jazz chants (see Grahah,1978)

- tongue twisters

- self-correction through listening to recordings of own speech

Young inexperienced teachers might think that English pronunciation being exceptionally difficult can be achieved and practiced through phonetics. But phonetics and drills can often lead learners to hate or fear the study of English and inhibit their speaking. There are some obstacles which prevent a learner from acquiring good pronunciation. The author of the RBT ‘Pronunciation’ Clement Laroy is sure that there are:

1.  Historical Obstacles

2.  Personal Obstacles

3.  Sociological Obstacles

Historical obstacles imply having positive and strong links with the mother tongue, and the older people get, the stronger the links become. A lot of countries and people had contacts with people speaking various brands and accents of English during wars or who were once part of the British Empire.

Personal obstacles:

Adolescents may try not to be good in order to integrate better with their classmates or they themselves may feel more attracted by members of their favourite pop group or by Americans, Australians, or Indians.

Sociological obstacles:

Immigrants may want to achieve a good pronunciation to set them above the country or they will speak English with an exaggerated accent taken from their own mother tongue.

The author believes that teaching and improving pronunciation should be indirect.

He uses 3 approaches to teaching pronunciation:

1.  Oblique

2.  Pragmatic

3.  Holistic

Oblique approach means that teachers need to know what they are teaching, but the learners need not always be aware of what they are learning. This can avoid immediate resistance. If you are going to give explicit explanation and correction, it should be when students can really benefit from it. If students ask for explanation, they are probably ready for some analysis.

A pragmatic approach means that the activities do not aim to fit any particular description of the English asking learners to do one thing, we actually get them to achieve another – the activities must be seen as steps in a process.

A holistic approach Pronunciation cannot be separated from the people who speak the language. This means that many aspects of the learners’ personalities must be involved. Make sure your learners feel you expect them to succeed. Constant repetition and correction should be banned, for there is no reason to believe that what doesn’t work once will work better by being repeated. Creating a relaxed atmosphere where learners can approach pronunciation and the language in general in a friendly way is important. Games, group dynamics, relaxation and other activities will lower the learners’ tension.

Work in groups of 3 and say which of the 3 approaches suggested by the author can be used for teaching pronunciation to our schoolchildren?

The author divides the activities given in the book into 4 groups:

1.  Tuning in to the language

2.  The beat and tune of English (stress, rhythm and intonation)

3.  Approaching speech sounds

4.  Correcting

Which principle do you think the author used for the subtitles of his coursebook for teaching pronunciation?

E. Passov thinks that there are 4 important stages for pronunciation skills:

1.  Sound perception in words, phrases in isolation to create the sound image

2.  Imitation

3.  Differentiation or perception of the peculiarity of the sound

4.  Reproduction, usage of the sound in a phrase

Ya. Kolker, E. Youstinova, T. Enalieva think that there are 3 stages for pronunciation skills:

1.  Awareness

2.  Drill

3.  Speech practice

Activity 1

How can you use these techniques and activities for Pronunciation practice? What are the possible aims for these techniques and activities? Complete the table

Classifying/ Organizing	1.  identification 2.  selection 3.  comparison 4.  matching 5.  sorting 6.  grouping 7.  ranking	1.  tick the word you hear 5. sort the words according to the sound
Drama (discovery learning)	1. role play 2.  simulation 3.  scenario 4.  language games	1.  practice of paralinguistic features 4. drill the sound
Information Gap	1.  jigsaw activities 2.  info gap activities 3.  opinion gap activities 4.  info transfer	2. to practice theory
Questioning (communicative questions )	1.  referential 2.  inferential 3.  evaluative 4.  of personal response
Reconstruction/ Restoration	1.  gap-filling 2.  completion 3.  unscrambling 4.  jigsaw activities 5.  split/jumbled dialogues
Word Association	1.  brainstorming 2.  mapping

The author of the RBT Susan Sheerin ‘Self-access’ thinks that pronunciation is a difficult skill for students to improve on their own. So it is possible to give students some guidance by organizing and classifying activities according to language group, and to state in each activity which language groups tend to have the particular pronunciation difficulty focused on. The ideal situation is that students have access to a teacher who can assess advice on their particular pronunciation needs and guide students to better pronunciation.