Идеи, методы и техники работы с лексикой в лексическом подходе к обучению иностранным языкам

Elena Belichenko,

A teacher of English in ML№1

Magnitogorsk

Ideas, methods and techniques of teaching vocabulary in the lexical approach

A word is a meaningful unit in the language which collocates with other words and produces word combinations and phrases. Speakers put words into phrases to fulfill a purpose of communication. Teaching vocabulary should be therefore effective and efficient for learners to understand what vocabulary is appropriate to use, how and when. I would like to present ideas how to make the learning vocabulary more successful.

First things first, teaching vocabulary includes the aspects: meaning, pronunciation, form and use. Realization of the aspects depends on a certain purpose of the lesson. According to Riddell (2010), the teacher can do a vocabulary-based lesson dedicated to some topic or teach words required for the reading or listening coming up later. If a word is meant to be spoken by learners, the teacher should come up with more classroom speaking activities to practise it. If vocabulary is for passive use, less practice can be provided.

Considering my own teaching experience, I generally offer reading or listening tasks not only for practising perceptive skills but also as a source of exposure of students to the context in which words live. Thus they can clarify the meaning, the form and the use of a word, with my support given when necessary. This degree of autonomy can be encouraging for intermediate learners.

With the clear idea of the purpose of teaching vocabulary at the lesson, the teacher chooses a strategy to present meaning, to provide practice and use. There are different approaches to it but the commonly used sequence includes: engage, study, activate (Harmer, 2007).

I think that engaging students should not be formal. The genuine engaging arouses learners’ interest and logically leads to the discovery of new information as learners realise the necessity to fill the gap in their knowledge. Another advantage of well-organised engaging is eliciting what students know or do not know on the topic. Lead-in activities may effectively respond to the key activity of the lesson if the teacher is aware of the students’ background and ready to share his own experience. For example, the teacher is planning the vocabulary-based lesson ‘Free time activities’. The teacher can start the lesson speaking about his own plans for the weekend and invite students’ comments and ideas for pastime. I believe it can increase students’ confidence in classroom interaction as well as in speaking a foreign language.

When it comes to working out the meaning of new words, the choice depends on age and level of learners. For young learners illustrating meaning is much more effective than explaining it, so pictures, realia or mime may be of great help here. Pre-intermediate students would like to have more independence in language discoveries that is why a teacher can use contrasts, synonyms, spoken gap-fill sentences to clarify meaning (Riddell, 2010). Intermediate and higher level students appreciate the student-centered approach a lot. I keep it in mind as I mostly work now with 14-17 year olds. These students can use contextualized sentences to find out meaning or monolingual dictionaries as “they provide meaning, spelling, a pronunciation guide (syllables, stress, sounds), information about the part of speech (e.g. vfor verb) and sometimes, example sentences” (Riddell, 2010, p. 89).

With the regard to learners’ level, their independence is different but in any case it should be well-prepared and conducted by the teacher. The teacher arranges learning conditions (dictionaries, aids, the Internet resources, methods of discovery) and provides help.

It is also important to check the understanding of new words by students. The question ‘Do you understand?’ is often useless. Instead concept questions can be very useful. For example, the essential meaning of the word ‘medicine’ is:

1. • you cannot buy it in a shop;

   • you can buy it at the chemist’s;

   • it is used for treating illnesses.

The concept questions for ‘medicine’ can become as follows:

Can you buy it in a shop?

Can you buy it at the chemist’s?

Is it for treating illnesses?

Practice of vocabulary is supposed to become gradually sophisticated. Tasks can include ‘filling gaps’, ‘matching synonyms’, ‘paraphrasing’ and ‘transformation’. All of them should provide context for students to see how a lexical unit is used. Then students practise vocabulary in speaking and writing activities thus fulfilling different functions of the language.

In teaching vocabulary there are basic principles that are advisable to follow. Some of them have been described above. Still, there is a variety of methods and approaches and a teacher should gain ‘principled eclecticism’ (Harmer, 2007, p.51) to avoid the risk of a disorganized and illogical lesson.

Reference list

Harmer, J. (2007). How to teach English (2^nd ed.). England: Pearson Education Limited.

Riddell, D. (2010). Teach English as a foreign language (3^rd ed.). Great Britain: Hodder Education, a Hachette UK Company.

Адрес публикации: https://www.prodlenka.org/metodicheskie-razrabotki/603573-idei-metody-i-tehniki-raboty-s-leksikoj-v-lek