Teaching Vocabulary

Teaching Vocabulary

What information does a learner need in order to know a word receptively and productively?

· Meaning.

Attached to meaning are:

Connotation = an extra attitudinal meaning attached to the word e.g. terrorist Vs freedom fighter.

Appropriacy: An understanding of which word is acceptable in a particular situation e.g. Thank you very much vs Ta; toilet vs W.C vs Loo

Register: an understanding of its restricted use in a particular micro-community e.g. heart attack vs cardiac arrest

Polysemy: multiple meanings of a word e.g. bat (zoological) Vs bat (cricket)

Use: some words (especially grammar words) carry little or no intrinsic meaning but serve to glue the language together e.g. of/the (They are also highly frequent).

· Part of Speech: noun verb adjective etc

· Grammar : Are there any rules regarding it’s pluralisation? Is it countable/uncountable? etc

Are there any rules governing its position in a sentence e.g. always/however.

If a verb, regular or irregular etc. Also attached to this is the idea of

Collocation: some words are glued to other words e.g. listen to/interested in/married to/rancid butter

· Spelling

· Pronunciation : sounds/stress/weak forms

When your aim is teaching vocabulary the above will be too much to deal with. The package can be extended as they get older. The most important thing is that the children understand the meaning. If you help them with the pronunciation, then they benefit even more.

Peter Redpath 2012

Eliciting from the children

What is elicitation? It is providing the children with enough clues for them to process and to arrive at the concept of the vocabulary item.

There are two major pitfalls to beware of:

· Under-eliciting: not providing clear, appropriate clues or enough of them. The children end up trying to guess what is in my mind

· Over-eliciting: doing the work for the children and not engaging them in the process of understanding. I am spoon-feeding them the information.

Other pitfalls include:

· Not using appropriate “wait-time”. This is accurately judging the space/time link between knowing that I have conveyed the meaning of the language and pausing long enough to allow the children to say/provide the language. It includes my acute awareness that the children have understood the concept in their own language but do not have the word in English to express it – at which point I provide it and drill it, if appropriate. When my awareness is less acute, when I am not “reading” the children accurately, I will rush into the golden silence of processing and give the word; a trigger-fingered response. At the other extreme I will over-wait so that the children start to question or hesitate about their understanding and start guessing in other directions. Wait-time is a skill which deserves continuous attention.

· Not listening carefully enough to the children’s’ suggestions and missing a contribution that is, in fact, “correct”. Again this child will move away from the word and start chasing red herrings.

· Accepting the first correct answer. The effect of this is that I only fly with the faster children, consequently leaving shyer or less vocal children behind. If I do this, I am seduced into assuming that all the children understand. This is a common problem for many teachers because of their perceived need to push on and get through their material or plan.

· Noticing but not acknowledging the correct answer from a child. Again this child will move away from the word and start chasing red herrings. I can acknowledge with a look/smile or gesture and keep this child/children “on hold” while other children continue to process the clues.

Peter Redpath 2012

Using Dialogues

Using dialogues

For a long time memory and rote learning was out of fashion and was dismissed as part of a redundant “behaviourist past”. Recently this attitude has been readjusted. It seems to me that we can take advantage of childrens’ well-developed capacity for rote learning and memorisation.

The concept of “chunking” has highlighted the fact that a lot of day-to-day language is made up of pre-fabricated pieces of language which are easily retrieved from the memory of the speaker and easily processed by the listener. For example the exchange (for adults)

· “How do you do”

· “How do you do”

is easily remembered and hardly needs grammatical analysis. It is the formulaic exchange between two adults meeting for the first time in a formal situation. Neither party has to reconstruct this utterance each time they find themselves in this situation. The chunk is readily available in the memory and produced effortlessly. A lot of language is of this type. In fact to such an extent that we can often finish each other’s sentences. And in English this frequently happens between friends. (Politeness dictates that we try to avoid doing this when we speak to a new acquaintance or stranger.)

The argument is that the teacher can provide a lot of formulaic utterances for the students to make use of.

There are of course situations when we communicate a complex or new idea. During this type of transaction the speaker slows down their delivery and carefully selects the vocabulary and grammar to transmit their message as carefully and precisely as possible. This is demanding on both the speaker and the listener. For both it is “new”. This type of conversation is arguably less frequent.

If you can provide the learners with a range of pre-fabricated chunks, they may be able to communicate quickly and effectively by throwing up walls of communication rather than building the walls of communication brick by brick. Many young learners are accustomed to exercising their memories and are proficient at memorising and producing an extensive range of items, for example in the playground chants and songs or in the classroom the multiplication tables. This ability deserves to be exploited to the benefit of the learners.

If the speaker had to construct their message word by word each time they wished to communicate, the cognitive effort would rapidly exhaust them. It is hard work. Equally, the listener would have to engage in such a concentrated mode of listening that they too would rapidly become exhausted.

In addition there is a strong argument that, given the human need to find patterns and connections to make sense of the world around them, the students, if given enough data (language chunks), will start to deduce and acquire a lot of the basic grammar which glues the language together. It will not be a conscious process necessarily, but it will be happening.

Elicited dialogues

Dialogues are a useful way to get students using language embedded in a meaningful context. The exchange can be restricted and controlled by the teacher demanding accurate production. The skilful teacher will provide clear clues and prompts to convey the meaning to the students. Pace and clarity is critical. The procedure should be demanding, engaging and fun. It should not go on for too long.

These are accuracy-based activities where the teacher elicits familiar language from the students or provides new language meaningfully and builds up the short conversation or story with students getting lots of careful practice of the language. Do you remember the dialogue we did on the 2nd day between the 2 friends? One of them had just been to the hairdresser and looked like Dracula! This was a procedure I followed:

A basic procedure

1) Select the language to be practised. This can include tenses, functional language and vocabulary.

2) Write out a dialogue / narrative which you feel would be appropriate and useful or select it from the coursebook.

3) Revise / focus on the target language e.g. look like

4) Revise /pre teach any key vocab students will need.

5) Use prompts (mime, pictures, drawing etc), to show the context and meaning.

6) Elicit the first line from the students.

7) Practise the first line round the class. Lots of individual practice. Everybody should be able to say the first line accurately!

9) Move on to elicit- establish- practise the next line as above.

10) Recap to include the first line with one student.

11) Elicit- establish- practise - recap the next line and so on till you have built up a short dialogue orally.

12) Students now write it. Check this written record for accuracy...spelling etc.

13) Students could use the framework of the dialogue to substitute other ideas and language.

Prompts.

• Picture stories (large cards or photocopies)

• WB drawings.

• WB word prompts

• Photos.

• teacher mimes / students mime

• Video

Remember to be unrushed and steady in your procedure. Demand accuracy once the dialogue is established. Do not allow variations to intrude. This will confuse the students and allow the dialogue to “wobble”. Your skilful correction is essential.

To summarise the steps.

· Elicit/Give line 1 via clear clues prompts

· Drill it

· Elicit/Give line 2 via clear clues prompts

· Drill it

· Re-elicit line 1 and join it to line 2. (The students can now say line 1 and line 2 in conjunction

· Elicit/Give line 3 via clear clues prompts

· Re-elicit line 1 and join it to line 2 and 3 (The students can now say line 1,2 and 3 in conjunction

Etc

Peter Redpath 2012