Introducing Vocabulary To Lower Level Learners Through The Use Of Word Lists (4) Article Summary
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5. The Problems My Students Encounter
Although every Student is unique in their perception of the world, there are definitely numerous similarities shared by learners that come from a particular culture or society. When thinking in terms of learning vocabulary, Turkish learners of English can generally by classified as sharing the following common factors.
5.1 Common Ground
Both Turkish and English contain a body of modern borrowings from the French language, examples being enflasyon (inflation), kalite (quality), and televizyon (television) . It has been noticeable that this common ground has not always been immediately realised in the classroom, mainly due the the vastly different ways in which the English equivalent is pronounced (English having retained the spelling but changed the pronunciation, Turkish having done the opposite).
5.2 L1 Equivalents
It is common to hear Turkish students comment on how nervous they feel in a particular situation, when the feeling they actually have is one of excitement. This illustrates the fact that there are no direct equivalents for many near synonyms (words with very similar though not identical meanings), and in many cases one Turkish word exists where that in dictionaries is translated as having the same meaning as several English words that are close synonyms (see Appendix 2 for a list of examples).
5.3 Inadequacy of Dictionaries
Thompson (in Swan and Smith, 1987) suggests that the range of dictionaries available can be classified anywhere between very good and abominable, and that no worthy idiomatic dictionary exists . This has been evident in the author’s experiences with L1 to L2/L2 to L1 dictionaries.
6. Other Classroom Considerations
Thompson also states that Turkish students have gone through an authoritarian schooling system, and as a consequence the coursebook and the teacher are generally deemed to be correct . Consequently, some learners have difficulty adjusting to a learning environment in which control may be negotiated, and autonomous learning promoted.
7. Current Practices
As mentioned in section 4.2, certain coursebooks are now taking greater care about the way that vocabulary is presented and, equally importantly, the way in which students are guided towards recording it. I have experienced both good and bad (examples will be shown in several appendices), and these will now be discussed in some detail. In order to consider the approaches made in diffeent books, it is necessary to consider different styles of presentation. As the issues of content (both in terms of words to be taught and in terms of productive or receptive ability) have already been made, the appropriacy and effectiveness classroom of presentation is my primary concern here.
7.1 Key Vocabulary Wordlists
One of the problems I have encountered is the presenation of key vocabulary word lists. In section four I highlighted the problems inherent in traditional word lists such as that of the Enterprise Pre-Intermediate coursebook (appendix 1). This is just a list of words that happen to appear in a unit of the coursebook, and it is impossible to see which words will benefit the students the most. I have worked from such lists and found them to be of little use to students.
7.2 Examples in Context
Lewis (2000) states that noticing examples of language in context is central to the acquisition of language . However, Lewis goes on to suggest that an example is only of use if it can be considered a good example for a student at a given level of study . Considering this issue made me look at some of the contextualised vocabulary I have had to teach. As such, the NTC Vocabulary Builders exercise (appendix 3) can be considered to be a less than adequate example, in that the text itself does not offer enough clues for the student to acquire meaning of the chosen lexical items.
For this reason I prefer to design my own contexts. Whilst Gairns and Redmanpoint out that this is time consuming , they also make the point that the teahcer has full control over the input , and therefore can meet the needs of the students more effectively.
7.3 Learner Training Tools
As well as presenting vocabulary in a way that engages the student, it is also important that the student records the vocabulary effectively. The best example I have found in a coursebook so far have been the tasks given in the Cutting Edge series (see appendices 4 and 5). In my classes I encourage students to record new words in ways that will aid them when they come to revise at a later date. Activities such as that shown on ‘Learner-training worksheet C, in which two vocabulary lists are compared, proved particularly effective in showing students the importance of elaborating and exemplifying. I also regularly use other tools, such as spider diagrams, to enable students to record collocations. Even recording information about word forms (as in Learner-training worksheet A) has been something of a new phenomenon for many students.
8. Bibliography
o Channell, J. (1988) Psycholinguistic Considerations in the Study of L2 Vocabulary Acquisition, Cited in Jordan, (1997)
o Gairns, R. & Redman, S. (1986) Working With Words, CUP
o Harmer, J. (1991) The Practice of English Language Teaching, LONGMAN
o Jordan, R.R. (1997) English for Academic Purposes, CUP
o Lewis, M. (Ed.) (2000) Teaching Collocation, LANGUAGE TEACHING PUBLICATIONS
o Nation, P. (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary, cited in Jordan, (1997)
o Swan, M. & Smith (Ed.) Learner English, CUP
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