1.The role of vocabulary uncertainty
2.What does knowing a word involve
How it is pronounced and stress
How it is spelling and grammatical properties
how&when to use it to express the intended meaning
Denotative meaning
The connotations that the item may have
sense relations
The situations when the word is or is not used
How the word is related to others
Collocation or the way that words occur together
3.two aspects of meaning
the understanding of its denotative and connotative meaning;
The first aspect of meaning regarding vocabulary learning involves of its denotative and connotative meaning;
Denotative meaning
1.Denotative meaning of a word or a lexical item refers to those words that we use to label things as regards real objects.In physical world primary meaning of a word and may seem relatively easy to learn.
2.However,problems exist as we may not always be able to find equivalent concepts from one language to another.For example,the word 'brother'and 'sister'in English
Connotative meaning
1.A connotative meaning of a word refers to ‘the attitudes or emotions of a language user in choosing a word and the influence of these on the listener or reader’s interpretation of the word.
2.This words that may express a positive or negative attitude or subtle feelings towards something.
3.connotative meaning derives from a mix of cultural,political,social,and historical sources and learners will be aware of this phenomenon in their own language'but may not be so aware of it in the target language.But in different cultures the same word may have different connotative meanings.
understanding the sense relations among words
The second aspect of meaning regarding vocabulary learning involves the understanding of sense relations among words.Lexical items of this kind include word collocations,synonyms,antonyms,and hyponyms.
1.collocations.Collocations refer to words that co-occur with high frequency and have been accepted as ways for the use of words.For instance,in English,the words 'see','watch',and 'look'are similar in meaning but are often used with different collocations as we will say'see a movie',watch a play'and 'look at a picture It is believed that teaching word collocations is a more effective way than just teaching one single word at a time as Nation (2001:318)notes that all fluent and appropriate language use requires collocational knowledge.
2.synonyms. These are by no means as frequent as people think. Though words may have similar denotative meaning ( they represent the same concept) their convocational meanings may differ. Sometimes, it is possible for the teacher to say ‘ enormous means the same as large.’
3.Antonyms. These are often thought as “ opposites” such as hot/cold.
5.Hyponyms. Often such words are can be grouped togrther under the same superordinate concept.such as Car, van, bus ,lorry are hyponyms of vehicle.
4.Receptive and productive vocabulary
1.Receptive vocabulary words that one is able to recognize an comprehend in reading or listening but unable to use automatically in speaking or writing.
2.Productive vocabulary words that one is not only able to recognize but also to use inspeech and writing.
3. Implication:As teachers,we need to make decisions when teaching vocabulary what words should become the learners'productive vocabulary so that we can design various activities to help learners use the words actively and automatically when they are speaking or writing.
5.Ways of presenting vocabulary
1.try to provide a visual or physical demonstration whenever possible,pics/photos/videos and so on
2.Provide a verbal context to demonstrate meaning
3.Use synonyms or antonyms to explain meanings.
4.Use lexical sets or hyponyms to show relations of words and their meanings,e.g.cook/fry/boil/
5.Translate and exemplify,especially with technical words or words with abstract
meaning.
6.Use word formation rules and common affixes to build new lexical knowledge onwhat is already known.
7.Teach vocabulary in chunks.Chunks refer to a group of words that go together to form meaning
8.Think about the context in real life where the word might be used.
9.Think about providing different context for introducing new words.
10.Prepare for possible misunderstanding or confusion that students may have.
7.Things a teacher does after presentation
Try to provide opportunities for students to use multiple senses such as visual,auditory,action,etc,to get familiar with the newly learned words.
Engage the students in variety of activities,such speaking,listening.reading,writing or acting,using multiple senses.
To create meaningful and personalized tasks for the students to use the
words in their own ways.
Remember,a word can not be learned by only being presented to the
students,often it has to be encountered at least seven times in different
contexts/tasks before it can be learned by the students.
The time to make vocabulary learning more fun and effective(When students study vocabulary together,say in groups,through various activities,under the teacher's supervision,when students understand the meaning of the new vocabulary
8.The time to make vocabulary learning more fun and effective
9.Ways of consolidating vocabulary
1.Labelling. Students are given a picture.
2.Spotting the differences
3.Describing and drawing.
5. Using word thermometers.
10. Synonyms and antonyms.
10.Developing vocabulary learning strategeies
(1)Guess meaning from the context, especially using sentence hints for word meanings.
(3) keep a vocabulary notebook.
(4)organise vocabulary effectively
(5) Review regularly. Evidence shows that regular review helps students to maintain largest amount of recall. Look at the following figure.
(7) some sentence use a word you do know to help explain a word you don’t know.
(4) Sentence before or after a sentence containing a difficult word sometimes explain the meaning of the word.
(6) Because some sentences gives examples for a new word, you can build a definition.
(3) Use your own experiences to figure out the definition of a word.
(5)Some sentences are just written to give definition of difficult words--- words readers need to know in order to understand what they are reading.
Implication(consolid vocabulary)
1.It is important to note that after presenting new vocabulary,the teacher should try toprovide opportunities for students to use multiple senses such as visual,auditory,action,etc.to get familiar with the newly learned words.
2.In other words,students need furtherpractice of the words through activities involving listening,speaking,reading,writingor acting.
3.Also,it is important for the teacher to create meaningful and personalised tasksfor the students to use the words in their own ways.
4.Remember,a word can not be learnedby only being presented to the students,often it has to be encountered at least seven timesin different contexts/tasks before it can be learned by the students.
