Transcript learned

How to learn
vocabulary effectively?
词汇学习策略
Difficulties in vocabulary learning
 There are too many words to learn. I don’t know how
to cope with them.
 The words are like eels (鳝鱼). They are too slippery
(滑) to be kept in our memory.
 I know its meaning if I can see the word, but I feel
puzzled when I hear the word.
 When I come across new words, I don’t know how to
deal with it. Should I consult a dictionary or guess it,
or ignore it?
Questions for discussion
 What is a realistic goal in our vocabulary
learning?
 How do we achieve our goal in vocabulary
learning?
 How do we deal with new words in reading?
 How can we avoid forgetting what we have
learned?
 How can we know our vocabulary size?
Question One
• What is a realistic goal in
our vocabulary learning?
 An American university student
– about 20,000 words.
– (Receptive vocabulary: 接受性词汇）
Different types of vocabulary
Receptive vocabulary
Listening vocabulary
接受性词汇
Reading vocabulary
Productive vocabulary
Speaking vocabulary
表达性词汇
Writing vocabulary
They overlap considerably and they are used in
slightly different ways.
Four types of vocabulary
 Reading vocabulary
 contain common words but many more big
words
 recognize them by their context
 do not use all of them in speaking and writing
 Listening vocabulary
 contain many common words
 contain some technical words
 understand them when you hear
 do not use all of them in speaking and writing
Four types of vocabulary
 Writing vocabulary
 contain simple and common words
 Technical words
 Speaking vocabulary
 can be simple or sophisticated depending on
the audience and the subject to be talked
about
 A flexible vocabulary
What is a realistic goal for us?
 Don’t need a BIG vocabulary
 Need the right vocabulary.
 Speak and writing powerfully by
using small words effectively
 Einstein used very simple language
to express the most complex ideas
Frequency（词频）
 3,000 words most frequently used words
 4,000 words
quite frequently used words
 13000 words
less frequently used words
Two-stage goal
 Stage One
– 3000 words
– Reading, listening, writing & speaking
 Stage Two:
– 4000 words
– Reading and listening
Stage One: 3000 words
 Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
 Cover 90% of the text
 Read simplified novels and talk about daily life
 One new word in every 10 in reading
(Nation, 2001: 17)
Stage Two: 4000 words more
 Cover about 95% of the text
(3000+4000)
 Read original novels, magazines,
academic books
 One new word in 15 words
Question Two
How can we achieve the
two- stage goal of our
vocabulary learning?
Achieving our two-stage goal
by different ways
 Stage One: 3000 words
Learning each of them carefully, patiently
and effectively
 Stage Two: 4000 words more
 finding short cuts to learn them
Stage-one goal
Learning 3000 words carefully, patiently
and effectively
 What should be learned?
 How should these 3,000 words be
learned?
What should be learned?
Form (词形)
 Meaning (词义): senses (义项）
 Use (词法)
Form
 Spoken form
 What does the words sound like? (listening)
 How is the word pronounced? (speaking)
 Written form
 What does the word look like? (reading)
 How is the word written and spelled? (writing)
 Word parts
 What parts are recognizable in this word?
 What word parts are needed to express the meaning?
Meaning
Form and meaning
What meaning does this word form signal?
 Associations
What other words does this make us think of?
Use
• Grammatical functions
– In what pattern does the word occur?
• Collocations
– What words or types of words occur with this
one?
• Constraints on use (Register, frequency…)
– Where, when, and how often would we expect to
meet this word?
 You can tell the meaning of the word
when you read it in a text.
 You can understand the meaning of the
word when you hear it.
 You can write the word correctly.
 You can use the word in speaking.
 experience
 n (U). n(C)
 v.
experience
ex: out of
perience: tested
Longman dictionary of CE
Experience n
1. Knowledge /skill [U]
[+of/in/with]
previous experience had/gain/get experience
practical experience
first-hand experience
2. Knowledge of life [U]
3. Something that happens [C]
Learning a foreign language was
one of the most difficult yet most
rewarding experiences of my life.
Although at times, learning a
foreign language was frustrating, it
was worth the effort.
 Difficult experiences of my life
 Rewarding experiences of my life
• A difficult experience
• rewarding/frustrating /valuable/good/
bitter/pleasant
• Difficult experiences of my life
That experience was
rewarding/frustrating/painful/valuable
• work experience/life experience/business
experience
• Teaching experience
• Journalistic experience
 exercise n.
physical exercise
exercise-book
 exercise v.
 use sth
Exercise their right to do sth
Exercise some control over
(imagination, restraint, power, patience,
perseverance…
How should these 3000
words be learned?
 Strategies for planning vocabulary
learning
 Strategies for learning vocabulary
Planning vocabulary learning
 The strategies in this category
involve deciding on where to focus
attention, how to focus the attention,
and how often to give attention to
the form
– Choosing words
– Choosing aspects of word knowledge
to focus on
– Choosing strategies
Choosing words
 Reasons
 Impossible to learn all the English words
 Too many new words to learn in a text
 Steps helping you decide if a word is worth
learning
 Important or not? If not, guess it or
ignore it.
 If important, check in a dictionary to find
out whether it is common.
 If common, learn it. If not, guess it from
the context or ignore it.
Choosing aspects of word
knowledge to focus on
 Reasons
– Too many aspects of word knowledge to learn
– Cannot learn all the aspects of knowledge of one
word at one time
 Steps helping you decide which aspects of
word knowledge to focus on
– Form: recognition first, production second
– Meaning: learn one by one if there are several
senses
– Use: learn patterns and collocations one by one
Choosing strategies
 Reasons
– Different learning styles
– Different proficiency levels
 Three learning phases
– Memorizing
– Using
– Recycling
Vocabulary learning strategies
 Memorizing
 Using
 Recycling
Memorizing
 Say the words you are learning
 Record the words/phrases you are learning
on tape and play them to yourself whenever
you have time
 Write the words you are learning on pieces of
paper or stick-it notes and put them round
your room.
 Put the words into sentences.
 Use your knowledge of the parts of words.
Using
 Create sentences of your own.
 Write a story that includes all the words
you have learned.
 Learn words for a certain topic or
situation, and then write about the topic
using vocabulary learned or have a
discussion or conversation with a
partner.
Recycling
 Follow a news story that is printed or
broadcast every day for several weeks (e.g.
war between Israel and Palestine)
 Focus on one type of news story (e.g.
crime, disasters, sports, weather)
 Watch movies or read books on particular
topics (e.g. travel, business)
 Read several books by the same author
Stage-two goal
Finding short cuts to cope with
the 4000 more words
Stage-two vocabulary learning
• Learning strategies for dealing with
these words since the words
themselves do not deserve learning
time
Why do the stage-two words
not deserve learning time?
• The stage-two words are low-frequency words
and there are too many low-frequency words.
• Learners will meet many of these words only
once or twice.
• Any effort spent learning them will not be
repaid by meeting them on other occasions.
• It is far better to spend time on strategies that
you can use to deal with these words than to
spend time on individual words.
Importance of vocabulary
strategies
 Most vocabulary strategies
applicable to a wide range of
vocabulary and useful at all stages of
vocabulary learning.
Using prefixes, roots and
suffixes
One half of general words and two thirds of all
academic, technical, and low-frequency words
are derived from Latin, French (through Latin),
or Greek. This indicates the importance of
learning the meanings of roots and affixes
(Nation, 1990: 19).
Word analysis
 Prefix(前缀), root(词根), suffix(后缀)
place (root)
replace (prefix+root)
replacement (prefix+root+suffix)
 unwisely
wise (root)
unwise(prefix+root)
unwisely(prefix+root+suffix)
Word analysis
 It is the process of separating a word into
its parts and then using the meanings of
those parts to figure out the meaning of
the original word.
 Retrospect
 Retro: back
 spect: look
 Effective in guessing the meaning of
words but not always correct
 The sum of the meaning of their parts =
the meaning of the word

inspect

inspector

inspection

speculate

speculator

speculation

speculartive

speculator

spectacular

spectacle
Question Three
 How do we deal with new
words in reading?
Options for dealing with new
words
•
•
•
•
•
Ignore it
Guess it from the context
Consult a dictionary
Guess it first and then consult a dictionary
Look for clues to meaning in the word
itself
• Ask the teacher or a friend for assistance
Question Four
• How can we avoid forgetting what we
have learned?
Suggestions
• Learn words repeatedly, with increasing
intervals between learning sessions.
• Have the words you want to learn with you
whenever you go.
• Set aside a regular time for vocabulary
learning
• Spend more time on the words you find
difficult.
Suggestion One
• Research in psychology shows that we do not
forget things gradually. (See the graph)
• Most of our forgetting occurs within 20 minutes
after we have first ‘learned’ something.
• More is forgotten with one hour.
• Still more within 8 hours.
• After 8 hours, the rate of forgetting stays
surprisingly steady.
Suggestion Two
• Make full use of ‘dead’ time
– Vocabulary notebook
– An electronic dictionary
Suggestion Three
 Regular revision
– Daily revision (10 minutes a day)
– Weekly revision (One hour a week)
– Monthly revision (One hour a month)
Suggestion Four
Spend more time on the words you find
difficult
 Go down a list from the first to the last, trying to
memorize each one. Two problems:
 The words at the top of the list tend to be remembered
better than the words further down.
 Time is wasted on the words that have been learned.
daily
weekly
rewarding
frustrating
junior
positive
senior
opportunity
online
technology
participate
virtual
Richard Pemberton, 2000, version 2
monthly
daily
weekly
rewarding
frustrating
junior
positive
senior
opportunity
online
technology
participate
virtual
monthly
daily
weekly
monthly
rewarding
frustrating
junior
positive
senior
opportunity
online
technology
participate
virtual
Do you want to know your
productive vocabulary size?
Test A/ 2000 level
1. It is the de( )that counts, not the thought.
2. Plants receive water from the soil through
their ro( ).
3. The nu( )was helping the doctor in the operating
room.
4. Since he is unskilled, he earns low wa( ).
5. This year long sk( ) are fashionable again.
6. Laws are based on the principle of jus(
)
7. He is walking on the ti( ) of his toes.
8. The mechanic had to replace the mo( ) of the car.
9. There is a co( ) of the original report in the file.
10. They had to cl( ) a steep mountain to reach the
cabin.
11. The doctor ex( ) the patient thoroughly.
12. The house was su( ) by a big garden.
13. The railway con(
) London with its suburbs.
14. She wan(
) aimlessly in the streets.
15. The organisers li(
) the number of participants
to fifty.
16. This work is not up to your usu( ) standard.
17. They sat down to eat even though they were not hu
(
).
18. You must have been very br( ) to participate in
such a dangerous operation.
Test A/ 3000 level
1. He has a successful car( ) as a lawyer.
2. The thieves threw ac( ) in his face and made him
blind.
3. To improve the country's economy, the
government decided on economic ref( ).
4. She wore a beautiful green go( ) to the ball.
5. The government tried to protect the country's
industry by reducing the imp( ) of cheap goods.
6. The children's games were amusing at first, but
finally got on the parents' ner( ).
7. The lawyer gave some wise coun( ) to his client.
8. Many people in England mow the la( ) of their
houses on Sunday morning.
9. The farmer sells the eggs that his he( ) lays.
10. Sudden noises at night sca( ) me a lot.
11. France was proc( ) a republic in the 18th
century.
12. Many people are inj( ) in road accidents every
year.
13. Suddenly he was thru( ) into the dark room.
14. He perc( ) a light at the end of the tunnel.
15. Children are not independent. They are att( )
to their parents.
16. She showed off her sle( ) figure in a long
narrow dress.
17. She has been changing partners often because
she cannot have a sta( ) relationship with one
person.
18. You must wear a bathing suit on a public beach.
You're not allowed to bath na( ).
Do you want to know the depth
of your vocabulary knowledge?
WORD ASSOCIATES TEST
•This is a test of how well you know the
meaning of adjectives that are commonly
used in English.
Each item looks like this:
sudden
beautiful
surprising
quick
thirsty
change doctor
noise
school
• The words here on the left side may help to
explain the meaning of "sudden".
• The words here on the right side are nouns
that may come after "sudden" in a phrase or
a sentence.
• There are eight words in the box, but only
four of them are correct. You have to choose
which are the four correct words.
• "Sudden" means "happening quickly and
unexpectedly", so the correct answers on the left side
are "quick" and "surprising".
• We do not normally say "a sudden doctor" or "a
sudden school", but we often say "a sudden change"
and "a sudden noise", so "change" and "noise" are
the correct answers on this side.
e:
Note: In this example, there are two correct
answers on the left and two on the right, but in some
items there will be either one on the left and three on
the right or three on the left and one on the right.
1. beautiful
enjoyable
education
expensive
face music
free
weather
loud
2. bright
clever
famous
happy
shining
colour
hand
poem
taste
3. correct
easy free answer
right true dream
enemy
time
4. hard
difficult
low solid
unkind
gas
hospital
moon
work
5. human
cold green beings
person
body life
snowy
season
6. calm
open
quiet
smooth
tired
cloth
day
light
person
The Compleat Lexical Tutor
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