THEME 11 : LEX LEXICA ICAL L AN AND D SEM SEMAN ANTIC TIC FIE FIELDS LDS OF THE EN ENGL GLISH ISH LAN LA NGUAGE. LEXI XIC CON REQUI UIRE RED D FOR TH THE E SOCIA IALI LIZA ZATI TIO ON, INFO FOR RMATI TIO ON AND EXP XPR RESS SSIION OF ATTI TITU TUD DES. TY TYP PES OF ACTIVITIES JOINED TO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF LEXICON IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE.
The first thing thing a a child does in his/her Mother Tongue, once he/she has carried out the emission of sound stage, is to say words, words, isolated words but with meaning. They are connected with the world around aroun d him/h him/her er and and are probably those with which the child has a narrow relationship. According to the increase of his/her perception and knowledge of the reality, his/her vocabulary also increases. So, So, in orde orderr to establish which vocabulary can have MO! "#T!!ST for our students$ learning learning,, we must take into account the worl wo rld d th they ey li live ve in an and th the e pu purpo rpose se th they ey ha have ve wh when en th they ey le lear arn n a Foreig For eign n Lan Langua guage ge , with the purpose of being a S"%#"&"'A#T (O'A)*+A for them. them. "t must must be a vocabulary for 'OMM*#"'AT"O#, 'OMM*#"'AT"O#, based on the child or being specially interesting to him/her. So, vocabulary is an important factor in all language teaching students must continually be learning words at the same time they learn %rammar and honetics. resenting resenting new words is only the first step in the process process of langua language ge learni learning, ng, and studen students ts must must rememb remember er them them and make make them part of their own vocabulary. )ut sometimes it is uite difficult because there are SO SOM! M! O) O)+! +!MS MS that do not allow the acuisition process to be easier On the one hand, hand , some of the words taught in &oreign +anguage lessons occur naturally in seuence - days of the week, numbers, etc0 etc0 and and thes these e serie series s are are easi easily ly memo memori ri1e 1ed, d, but the the prob proble lem m arises when students have to use them out of the seuence. On the other hand, hand , some similar words or 'O%#AT!S facilitate the learning of new words 2 some of them are “True cognates” , it is, their meaning is more or less euivalent in both languages 3e4., 5real6 7 5real6 8, and some of them are “False cognates” , which lead studen students ts to confus confusion ion 3e4., 3e4., 5Actua 5Actually lly66 means means 5en realid realidad6 ad6,, not 5actualment 5actualmente6 e6 8. "n the first case case they are easy easy to remember, remember, but in the second case we have to help our students.
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Another problem arises when the words in the Mother Tongue and in the &oreign +anguage do not cover the same area of meaning. There are words in the Target +anguage which do not make distinctions that the &oreign +anguage does 3e4., 5trip, travel, 9ourney,068. These distinctions imply that there is a change in the way of viewing reality and, therefore, this change must be learnt too.
"n order to remember this vocabulary better, it can be connected in groups which have a common element- a topic, semantic associations, or the formal relations used to form derivations of these words 2 when words are associated this way, we call it 5S!MA#T"' &"!+:S6 or 5;O: &AM"+"!S6, and when the connectors are the formal relations they form LEXICAL FIELDS . At the same time we should look for general centres of our students$ interests so that we could choose the most suitable vocabulary for those settings, which could be the following ones <"nformal conversations with the classmates. <:escriptions of ob9ects, persons or animals. <"nterviews.
#"?*!S !C"#$E%SI"# &!AFFIXATI"# '!C"()"*#DI#+
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@.'O#(!S"O# "t is a process in which an item is adapted or converted to a new word
C.A&&"DAT"O# "n this group we include a.8 )%EFIXES , which do not generally alter the word
5uni<5 , 5bi<5 , 0 !4., unise4, bicycle.
G. refi4es of Time/Order - 5pre<5, 5post<5, 5e4<5,0 !4., pre
I. +ocative prefi4es -
J. !tc0 3
5co<5, 5anti<5,0 !4., co
5sub<5 , 5inter<5,0 !4., subway, interplay.
b.8S*FFIXES , which freuently alter the word
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G. Ad9ective suffi4es. There are some ad9ective suffi4es for which it is impossible to specify a particular meaning, that is, their semantic functions are e4tremely varied. !4., 5
E. 'OMO*#:"#% A compound is a unit consisting of C or more bases. "rtographically , compounds are written b.8 S"LID - in @ word. !4., 5bedroom6, 6headache6, 5hangman6,0 c.8 ,-),E#ATED - !4., 5ta4
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Se.antically , they can be seen to be isolated from ordinary syntactic constructions by having a meaning which may be related to but cannot simply be inferred from the meaning of its parts. 'ompounds may be @.< %eduplicative , which are compounds with C or more elements that are identical or only slightly different, such as 5knock
KAt rimary School we know the vocabulary presented to our students must be related to their necessities and world around them such as the family, animals, toys, etc0and we also know we must provide them with the +inguistic and #on T>! OT>!S through, for e4ample ow are youL6,0 ave a nice weekend6,0
So, it is a very important point for us to bear in mind that we have to help children relate the new vocabulary and e4pressions they are learning in the foreign language to their lives, it is, they must reali1e that if they are learning, for instance, the members of the family, it is going to be useful for them to get information about their classmates$ families and vice versa too2 we mean that new words are learnt, not only to do the activities in the book or to pass a test, but to favour their SO'"A+"AT"O#, to know their classmates better, and to e4change "#&OMAT"O# about their feelings, needs, interests, lives, etc0 So it is very important the %O* ;O= in the !nglish class. )ut, as well as these &!AT*!S, when teaching new vocabulary, we have also to take into account a. The students2 needs . "t is very useful to study in depth which are the most common fields that the children would like to deal with in class. These fields will depend very much on the students$ age, social background, interests and hobbies, etc0 b.The 1re3uence o1 the ite. , because it is not very useful to keep on teaching new words which are #OT freuently used. c. The ti.e we have at our disposal to teach new vocabulary. d.The students2 conditions to learn new words , such as phonological problems, difficulties for memori1ing, etc0 e. The lac0 o1 .aterials such as dictionaries, T(, flashcards,0 f. And the %eceptive and )roductive $oca4ulary . The first kind comprises the words students recogni1e but which are not mostly used2 the second type are the words which are mostly used by them. &or e4ample, the eceptive vocabulary is 5pullover and sweater6 and the roductive one could be only 59umper6.
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;e know that 9ust telling the students the e4pressions and mechanisms of the &oreign +anguage does #OT make them learn. ;henever we do an activity for pupils to learn certain vocabulary we must try, in the first place, that this vocabulary is presented in %EAL SIT*ATI"#AL or LI#+*ISTIC SETTI#+ that let them guess the meaning2 on the other hand, new words and e4pressions must be always presented in an "%AL 5A- to avoid pupils getting wrong conclusions about their pronunciation when they see the written form. After this, students must try to use the new items productively, that is, to insert the words in a conte4t they think suitable to use it. This is the best way to make them understand all the different meanings that the new words have, since they always relate the meaning of these items in the &oreign +anguage with the possible meanings that these words may have in their Mother Tongue. The classroom is where the most of the students$ interactions take place, and we know these communicative e4changes are not always spontaneous, it is, they are started, guided and controlled by the teacher, and the main reason could be that pupils do not receive from the very beginning of the Teaching and +earning process the necessary linguistic and non
KThere are many different methods to teach vocabulary. They depend0 #"?*!S or A'T"("T"!S we can present to children in order to help them develop their autonomous learning of le4icon little by little could be the following ones -
@. "n order to "#TO:*'! new vocabulary -
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A. *sing ob9ects, because as much of the vocabulary at this educative stage consists of concrete nouns, so introducing a new word by showing the real ob9ect often helps them memori1e it better.
). *sing flashcards or transparencies with the picture and the written form of the new item.
'. :rawings, that is, ob9ects can be drawn on the blackboard or in their notebooks.
:. Mime, gestures,0may be used for certain descriptive ad9ectives, prepositions of place, action verbs, etc0
!. Songs are another way of introducing new vocabulary. There is a great variety of them we may use in class with this purpose
&. Synonyms and Antonyms, what let pupils associate the new word with a concept they already know.
%. %uessing the meaning from conte4t. This meaning can be obtained by means of the relation with the pictures, the orthographic or pronunciation similarities with their mother tongue.
>. #ames of categories can also be taught verbally if the students know some names of items that belong within a particular category. !4., 5Tennis/&ootball/)aseball/)asketball/0 is a sport6
". !tc0 N. Translation, if none of those techniues works. The use or the avoidance of the Mother Tongue is a matter that must be decided by each individual teacher according to his/her group$s 8
characteristics- some students at the elementary levels feel more comfortable when they mentally relate the new words with a native euivalent, but other students like to discover the meaning of the new items that have been e4plained without the resource of the #ative +anguage and they feel very proud of their discovery. "n any case, it .ust 4e .ini.i6ed in the classroo. . C.Once we have presented the vocabulary, the following step is to give the students the opportunity to A'T"S! it in suitable real conte4ts within the classroom. Some of the techniues we may use are the following A. %ames, such as <5=im$s game6 . <5:ominoes6 or 5)ingo6.
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%. Ordering a te4t, in which we have a te4t and we cut it into stripes2 then we hand them out to pupils for making the te4t up. >. !tc0
E.Many children learn new words relatively uickly, but they also forget them uickly. Once vocabulary has been introduced and practised, some techniues may be used to 'O#SO+":AT! and !("S! it, such as A. )icture dictionaries7$oca4ulary 4oo0s created by the own student. ;e can organi1e these alphabetically or by topics. "t is useful to use a ring
K;e could conclude that, starting from our class$ characteristics, we will select which vocabulary and which of the previous techniues e4plained are the most suitable and useful. The use of varied resources and materials will encourage children and will make the !nglish lessons be more effective and pleasant, 10
which is very important if we want to create a suitable atmosphere in the class and to develop our students$ motivation.
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