23104842 topic 4 vocabulary skills

7/27/2019 23104842 Topic 4 Vocabulary Skills

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X INTRODUCTIONTopic 4 addresses the importance of vocabulary knowledge and provides the

different strategies of vocabulary skills such as the use of contextual clues,morphological analysis, structural analysis and the use of the dictionary. Thistopic also provides information on the vocabulary skills that you as a teacher canemploy at different stages of the lesson.

VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE

Teachers instructional intent is presented through the use of objectives.Objectives need to be clearly written so that teachers can communicate theirintentions clearly. According to Johnson (1986), the objectives of a lesson can be

related to at least three domains of learning: cognitive, psychomotor andaffective.There are two types of vocabulary, as shown in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Two types of vocabulary

4.1

TTooppiicc VocabularySkills

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3. Discuss how vocabulary knowledge can be developed.2. Produce appropriate words based on affixes provided; and

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this topic, you should be able to:

1. Identify the two different types of vocabulary and the importance ofvocabulary knowledge;


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TOPIC 4 VOCABULARY SKILLS W 67

Receptive vocabulary are vocabulary that readers recognise and have ageneral sense of meaning but are not confident enough of using when theyspeak or write.

Productive vocabulary is the vocabulary that readers know well and use inspeaking and writing. Vocabulary acquisition both receptive andproductive is important in reading.

According to Grabe (1991:383), reading involves the interaction of lower levelrapid, automatic identification skills and an array of higher level/interpretation

skills. This is also supported by Stanovich (1980:58), who asserts that goodreaders are usually data driven, in that it is the speed of their context-free wordrecognition that allows capacity to be free for comprehension processes.

These statements suggest that accurate and automatic word recognition skills areprerequisites for fluent reading. Vocabulary knowledge directly contributes toautomatic recognition of words and may prevent readers from the slow, letter byletter, and syllable by syllable sounding of words. It is central to comprehendingtherefore, giving attention to vocabulary is unavoidable(Nation 1990:2).

How do you develop vocabulary knowledge? One is through extensive readingwhich is discussed here.

Figure 4.2: The benefit of extensive readingPast studies such as Hafiz and Tudor (1990) found that there is a significantincrease in vocabulary gained between low proficiency L2 learners who readextensively than those who did not. Other than extensive reading, there are otherstrategies that can be employed in the intensive reading class to help studentsdeal with unknown words.

Before deciding on which skill to employ, one of the questions that need to beaddressed is What vocabulary do the students need to know? (Nation, 1990).


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X TOPIC 4 VOCABULARY SKILLS68

Class time and constraints on memory do not permit students to learn all thewords that they need.

Therefore, teachers need to prioritise words that students need to know and howthis can be learned meaningfully. Usually the main principle is to learn highfrequency words i.e.words that are frequently used in texts, which is usuallyshown in the word lists.

ACTIVITY 4.1

1. In your opinion, how do you best develop vocabulary knowledgeamong your students?

2. What are the different types of vocabulary? Discuss theimportance of vocabulary knowledge.

Vocabulary skills can be carried out during the different stages of reading pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading (Aebersold and Field, 1997).

PRE-READING4.2

Discussing vocabulary before reading is usually done only if failure in

understanding the target vocabulary impedes comprehension. Students mayusually need to work on topic-specific or content-specific vocabulary. This willhelp students to think about the new concepts and can this can be done throughthe use of semantic mapping (refer to Figure 4.3).

4.2.1 Semantic Mapping

To do semantic mapping, write down the word or concept that you want yourstudents to think about. Then, brainstorm for ideas or related ides or words that

come to mind. During this process, you may want to organise the ideas giveninto different classifications or subtopics.

For instance, on a topic about clothes, words such as bracelet, purse, andjewellery may appear frequently. Then come words for different types of clothes,materials, costs, functions etc. These provide for different subtopics which youmay want to turn into a pre-reading map for the topic clothes.


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Figure 4.3: Semantic mapping on the topic clothes as pre-readingVocabulary that is introduced during pre-reading should also be discussed incontext of the reading text rather than as an isolated list of words separate fromthe topic. The context provides students with a better framework to understandand remember the words.

Introducing vocabulary is important so that later, further practice and the reviewcan help students to not just remember the words, but also learn to use the words

in their own sentences. This will eventually develop the vocabulary fromreceptive to productive.

WHILE-READING4.3

What types of vocabulary lessons do you use as while-reading activities in theclassroom?

Again, at this stage, one of the most useful strategies in reading is to determine ifunknown words are important in understanding the text. This is known as key

words, failure of which may impede comprehension of the text. If the purpose ofreading is for general comprehension, and the unknown word is not a key word,it is best to skip the word.

One of the main differences between poor and good readers is that good readersare not stuck when faced with a difficult word. They keep reading ahead andtake risks in constructing comprehension of the text. Poor readers usually opt todecode and identify the meaning of every word. When faced with a difficultword, they stop reading and regress instead of reading ahead.


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There are several strategies that can be applied when teaching reading, as shownin Figure 4.4.

Figure 4.4: Strategies for teaching reading

4.3.1 Contextual Clues

If the unknown word is a key word, then guessing the word from the context is auseful vocabulary skill. Clark and Nation (1990 in Nation 1990:162-163) outlinefive steps for guessing words from the context, as shown in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1: Five Steps for Guessing Words from the ContextSteps Activity

Step 1Look at the unknown wordand decide its part of speech

Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb?

Step 2Look at the clause orsentence

If the unknown word is a noun, what adjectivesdescribe it? What verb is near to it? That is, whatdoes this noun do, and what is done to it?

If the unknown word is a verb, what noun does it gowith? Is it modified by an adverb?

If it is an adjective, what noun does it go with? If it is an adverb, what verb is it modifying?

Step 3Look at the relationshipbetween the clause andsentence containing theunknown word and othersentences or paragraphs.

Sometimes this relationship will be signaled by aconjunction like but, because, if, when or by andadverbs like howeverand as a result.

Often there will be no signal. The possible type orrelationship includes cause and effect, contrast,inclusion, time, exemplification and summary.

Punctuation may also serve as clue. Semicolons oftensignal a list of inclusion relationships; dashes maysignal restatement.

Reference words like this, that, and such alsoprovide useful information.


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Step 4Use the knowledge you haveto gauned from Steps 1-3 toguess the meaning of theword.Step 5Check that your guess iscorrect.

See that that part of speech of your guess is the samepart of speech of the unknown word. If it is not thesame, then something is wrong with your guess.

Replace the unknown word with your guess. If thesentence makes sense, your guess is probablycorrect.

Break the word into prefix, root, suffix, if possible. Ifthe meanings of the prefix and root correspond to

your guess, good. If not, look at your guess again,but do not change anything if you feel reasonablycertain about your guess using the context.

According to Warriner and Griffith (1977), there are three types of contextualclues that should be considered as shown in Table 4.2.

Table 4.2: Three Types of Contextual CluesTypes of Contextual Clues DefinitionsWords Similar in Meaning In the sentence The irritated and angry man decided to

leave the office after being scolded by his superior, readerscan guess the meaning of irritated because one knows themeaning of the word angry.

Words Used in Contrast The use of contrasts are usually signaled by words such ashowever, nevertheless, but, or and although. If theunknown word is paired with a word which is familiar,readers can use their knowledge of the known word tomake a guess of the familiar word.

For instance in the sentence, When he was walking by thelake in the country, he felt so tranquil unlike the stress healways has when stuck in the middle of the traffic in KualaLumpur, tranquil is contrasted with the word stress. Itprobably means relaxedandpeaceful.

Supplied Definition At times, the definition of the target word is given. This isdone through expressions such as in other words and thatis. At times, the definitions may also be italicized or in bold.


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Examples:

She discovered the antidote for the disease. In otherwords, she found a medicine that can fight off the

effects of the disease.

He has a tendency to use words which have similarmeanings synonyms.

4.3.2 Morphological Analysis

Other than using contextual clues, vocabulary skill can also be developedthrough morphological analysis, as shown in Figure 4.5.

Figure 4.5: Ways of using morphological analysis in developing vocabulary skills


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There are two types of affixes. They are prefixes which are placed before the root wordand suffixes which occur at the end of the root word, as shown in Figure 4.6.

Figure 4.6: Types of affixesExamples of prefixes and suffixes are as shown in Table 4.3.

Table 4.3: Examples of Affixes

Ante- antedate Il- Illegal De- decaffeinated Ultra - ultraviolet In- inadequate Un- unlikely Inter- inter-varsity

Intra- intravenous Pre- prenatal Post- postmortem Re- recur Mis- misleading For - forget Un- ungrateful

-dom -freedom -ness -kindness -cy -accuracy -ee -engineer -ism -barbarism -tion -creation -tude -attitude

-ture -culture -y -jealousy

Students also need to learn which affixes can be combined with which rootwords, the changes in spelling when affixes are employed, and the changes inpronunciation (Nuttall, 1996).


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ACTIVITY 4.2

1. Write at least two words which have the following prefixes: dia-,

pro-, syn-, eu-, im-, de-.

2. Write at least two words which employ the following suffixes : -ery, -ry, -ure, -y, -ous, -ose, ary.

3. Identify the root word and suffixes employed in the followingwords:

Cosmic Ineligible

Incapable Infidel

Proponent Subsequent

4.3.3 Structural Clues

Guesses on the meaning of words can also be made based on the position ofwords in a sentence. From the position, the grammatical category can beestablished and this can be used as a step towards meaning.

For instance the sentence The zugly man is standing by the door, the wordzuglyis most likely an adjective because it occurs before a noun. You may then

ask students to suggest three words that can be used to replace Zugly andanother three words that are not suitable.

4.3.4 Dictionary

Other than this, a popular strategy among Malaysian students is to use thedictionary. During the early stages of language learning, a bilingual dictionary isrecommended. This is appropriate because the students proficiency of the targetlanguage is too limited to understand definitions written in English. Asproficiency of the target language develops, the student can use the monolingual

dictionary.

Dictionary skills need to be developed so that students are familiar with therange of information provided (such as division of the word into syllables,phonetic transcriptions, synonyms, grammatical functions of the word and theword origin) and most importantly, which definition they should be looking at.Students have a tendency to provide the first meaning given in the dictionarywithout considering the grammatical function or the context in which the wordoccurred.


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The suggested activities above can be teacher or learner-focused. Teachers canprovide a list of words that they want students to work on, or they may askstudents which words they do not understand. Depending on the context, the

suitable vocabulary learning skill can be employed and done as class, group, pairor individual work.

Such lessons can be done as an integrated while-reading activity, or as a lessonon its own. Many teachers like to allocate a class period on vocabulary skills

because not only is it important, it is also less intrusive compared to conducting itin a while-reading lesson.

POST-READING4.4

According to Aebersold and Field (1997:148) The benefit of teaching vocabularyafter reading and discussing the text is that the studentscomprehension of thetext can be used as a starting point for building associations for a word, whichmakes it easier to learn.

Exercises at this stage require students to not just recognise the words, but alsouse the words either by paraphrasing the original sentences or by constructingnew sentences for different contexts. Vocabulary exercises at the post-readingstage reinforce vocabulary skills and highlight words that need to be learned.

This vocabulary exercise can also be done through the use of semantic mappingas discussed in section 4.2. For instance, the word pollution can be written downand ideas associated with it can be brainstormed. This semantic mapping can beused as a review and a consolidation exercise (refer to Figure 4.7).

During this session, the class can also be led to discuss on the implications andmoral learned from the responses triggered on the map. Time need to be taken tointroduce the word, explain the meaning, demonstrate its application andpractice the word for other contexts. These steps need to be done in discretestages, one stage at a time.

Reading is a private process. Ultimately, it is the students responsibility tocontinue expanding their vocabulary knowledge. Students need to be madeaware that they are responsible for their own learning and teachers are there asfacilitators and motivators.


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Figure 4.7: Semantic map as a consolidation exercise on the topic Pollution

ACTIVITY 4.3

Discuss the different ways vocabulary knowledge can be developed.

This topic deals with the first type of skill-based reading. It concernsvocabulary skills.

Different strategies of vocabulary skills have been suggested such as semanticmapping, contextual clues, morphological analysis and structural analysis.


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These strategies are also discussed in terms of the different stages of lesson sothat a better understanding of what to teach, when to teach and how to teachit can be achieved.

Affixes

Contextual clues

Morphological analysis

Prerequisites

Productive vocabulary

Receptive vocabulary

Semantic mapping

You ar teaching your students to read a text which is a level more diffcult thatyour students current linguistic capability. Identify the target difficultvocabulary which you think ought to be dealt with. Propose how and when youare going to develop the targeted vocabulary knowledge.

Source for answers1. Aebersold and Field (1997) Chapter 72. Nuttall (1996) Chapter 53. Grellet (1981)4. Wallace (1992)

23104842 topic 4 vocabulary skills

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