Sylwester Nowek 07.02.2008
III rok fil. angielska


„Different aspect of teaching vocabulary”

Teaching vocabulary of the foreign language seems to be not so difficult - we give to the students new words with explanation or we give the task in order to check meaning of the new word in the dictionary. But if we look closer to the problem, teaching vocabulary is not so easy.
How we teach vocabulary depends on age of the students, their education level and what kind of knowledge we want to pass to our students.
Vocabulary teaching should be part of the syllabus, and taught in well – planned and regular basis.
We should use different methods to gain success in teaching vocabulary. One of those methods are mnemonics techniques, word games, flash cards. They are good especially for children. But one of the best methods for children is gathering and organizing new words around certain subject – „ mind maps”. We can use pictures or visualization methods to create such a „mind maps”.
New words should be introduced always in context, on the basis of the known structure. When students see new words in context, they remember the words better and see how the words are used.
When I teach I use different kinds of children’s stories, jokes and magazines articles. Sometimes I introduce the difficult vocabulary first, sometimes I let students read quickly first to get the main idea.
When we teach vocabulary out of context, students see the words they are supposed to study and believe they must be making a progress.
Another aspect of teaching vocabulary is that we need to choose active or passive vocabulary.
For passive words we only realize and don’t spend a lot of time to explain them. Students will research themselves by looking up in the dictionary or guessing from the context.
For active words, by brainstorming students find out which words are really new words and which words are needed to review. Sometimes we have to ask directly our students which words they don’t know. The best way is to teach by realia, real story, object, pictures, and visual aids.
Translation is certainly one way round the problem of the new words; however it is not good for grasping the meaning. A suitable mother tongue equivalent is not always available. Besides we can use synonym, a quick and efficient way of explaining unknown words. Also to explain new words we can use antonym and words family including suffixe and prefixe. Gestures and mimic play an important role when we are teaching new words.
In this case we should know that meaning of the new word can’t be fully understand or explain by translation but in terms of its relationship with other words in the language.

Wyświetleń: 0