Vocabulary to Enrich Communicative Competence

A popular saying from the past says "Words are even sharper than a two edge sword." Words could pierce through people hearts and change their attitudes; they are capable of making someone tear and ending up turning to be negative. Words help a user to express himself/herself more clearly. Some words are weak, while some others are strong, potential, affective, and expressive. Thus, the knowledge of words truly determines our capability in performing thinking and carrying out a task.

Vocabulary to Learners 

How are words best learned? Dr. Steven Krashen in his Monitor Model regarding natural ways of learning  language (Acquisition) suggests that a learner must strive to learn many words that are suitable to his ability, which he calls "Comprehensible Input." I personally advise you to learn words, phrases, and any expressions naturally. What does it mean? The fact that students try to crab words by force such as by memorizing will ultimately result in the loss of words, confusion, frustration and time wasting. One could learn vocabulary more effectively and more efficiently by playing with them, making sentences in spoken and written modes, having conversation with friends by using those words you wish to learn, and etc. The below presentation will offer you 7 ideas to learn vocabulary. I hope that those tips could be useful to you.

Vocabulary to Teachers

I have been teaching English over ten years now, and it has been such fun to experience different methods of teaching. I believe that to teach vocabulary productively is to engage active approaches, i.e. Communicative Language Teaching, Task-Based Language Teaching, Content-Based Language Teaching, and Integration of tasks and activities. Allow students to be communicative, exploring, and expressive through performance. Every time students encounter new words, they need to highlight, underline, or circle around. Acting on words helps students to be enthusiastic and thus understand words unto their natures. Teachers need to pay extra attention on words, and spend sometime to explain students. When teaching vocabulary, a teacher should draw students' to the language elements such as:

1. Spelling

2. Pronunciation

3. Defintion

4. Grammatical elements

5. Collocation

6. Synonyms, Antonym, and hyponym

7. Word origin

8. Usage

These language features are to be considered according to the levels of learners. The presentation below will provide more guides and understanding regarding teaching vocabulary.

 

Posted in: Learning Tips,Teaching,Vocabulary