UNIT 11. THE ENGLISH LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC STRUCTURE: NECESSARY LEXIS FOR SOCIALIZATION, INFORMATION AND EXPRESSION OF ATTITUDES; TYPOLOGY OF ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF LEXIS IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS
INTRODUCTION
THE ENGLISH LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC STRUCTURE
NECESSARY LEXIS FOR SOCIALIZATION, INFORMATION AND EXPRESSION OF ATTITUDES
TYPOLOGY OF ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF LEXIS IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS
Nowadays, the acquisition of vocabulary is as important as the acquisition of grammar.
The students need to learn what words mean and how they are used.
For many years, the main purpose of language teaching was the knowledge of grammar.
Semantic investigation operates at two grammatical levels: word level and sentence level.
Semantics is the study of meaning in language.
Word level:
Sentence level:
We have to look at the context in which it is used and it meaning in relation to other words.
Linguists prefer to talk about lexemes, which consists of one word or more.
We have to distinguish:
Words are the traditional use for semantic units.
Semantic fields: it is an area of meaning containing words with related sense.
Semantic components: a further way to study lexical meaning is by analyzing lexemes as a series of components.
Sense relationships:
Associate meaning:
He argued that words consisted of two elements: a sound image (signifier) and a meanind or sense, named signified.
Following Saussure, the word represents the world in a symbolic way.
The sense relationships between signifieds can be:
It is related to the concept of word as signs
Antonymy: the relationship between words which are opposite in meaning or sense.
Incompatibility: this is a set of lexemes that are mutually exclusive members of the same superordinate category.
Hyponymy: This is a hierarchical relationship that exist between two terms in which the sense of one is included in the other. Hyponymy is fundamental to the way in which we classify items.
Polisemy: a word has acquired more than one meaning
Synonymy: this is a relationship that exist between words that have a similar meaning.
Homonymy: this is a relationship between words that have the same phonological form. Ex: write/right (homophones); lead (of a dog), lead (of a pencil) are homographics.
The meaning of words can be changed by how they are used.
This can happen in four different ways:
Collocation refers to the tendency for particular words to occur together. The distribution of a word within a language is called collocational range.
Stylistic meaning words have more or less, of a degree of formality within the language.
Connotation: it has to do with social attitude. In spoken language, the presence of connotation is often signaled by intonation.
Metaphor: refers to a process which one semantic field is transformed to another.
The way a sentence is used can vary its meaning:
Contemporary semantics are concerned with the analysis of sentence meaning.
Traditional semantics focused on studying vocabulary
Pragmatic meaning: the function performed by the sentence within a discourse needs to be considered. The sentence will be interpreted differently depending on the situation.
Social meaning: the choice of a sentence may affect the social relationship between the participants. A sentence may convey politeness, rudeness or distance.
Prosodic meaning: the way a sentence is said can alter its meaning: MY CAR is red (not my bicycle), or my car is RED (not yellow)
Propositional meaning: a proposition is the unit of meaning that identifies the subject matter of a statement .Propositions are more abstract than sentences.
Knowing a word means more than knowing its meaning, since meaning includes sense relations and context.
The vocabulary will depend on the context we are going to teach. It must focus on students' interests and experiences.
Active and passive vocabulary:
The vocabulary is formed by the topics, functions, structures and notions that the learner has to know.
Necessary vocabulary in the foreign language class.
These specifications constitute the First Level Communicative Language Syllabus.
One of the problems of vocabulary teaching is to select the words we are going to teach. The selection of vocabulary in FLT has been influenced by the thresold level specifications designed by the Council of Europe.
Active refers to vocabulary that students are expected to be able to use.
Passive refers to words which students understand when they occur in a context, buth which they probably won't be able to produce.
A passive word may become active if a situation provokes its use; similarly, an active word may slip back into the passive store if it is not used.
Information vocabulary: understanding and giving information is a basic communicative element in everyday human relationships: identificacion, places, prices, weather and time.
Socialization: it includes the vocabulary nneded to maintain social relationships: greetings, saying goodbye, congratulations, attracting attention, seasonal greetings...
Vocabulary related to expressions of attitudes. We also use language to express feelings, wishes and opinions: likes and dislikes, expressing gratitude, apologizing, requesting or expressing appreciation.
The lexical to be taught will depend on the communicative situation we present. The three main basic communicative functions are socialization, information and expression of attitudes.
At the practice stage:
In the presentation stage:
When teaching vocabulary, we have to bear in mind some points:
At the consolidating stage:
Teaching vocabulary is more than presenting new words. Learning a word is not a simple process; it means much more than recognizing its meaning
Developing communicative activities:
Present new words in a context that is familiar to the learner. Visual support is very important to help them memorize the words.
Check your students have understood the new words.
Teach the words in spoken form first.
Revision is esential.
The number of words that we can introduce in a lesson will depend on several factors: the context, the age...
vocabulary is often presented in semantic fields because it is easier to learn.
Techniques to introduce vocabulary:
Opposites: for example, we can explain the meaning of big by contrasting with small.
Mime, action and gestures.
Guessing from contexts
Pictures: bringing a pen to the classroom is easy, however, bringing a cat is not.
Eliciting: the teacher can ask the students for the words.
Realia: it's an attractive and motivating way of presenting new words by showing the real object.
Translation: if none of the techniques work, the teacher can translate the word.
The teacher should use a variety of practice activities:
Pupils need a lot of practice with new vocabulary
Oral activities:
Written activities:
Guessing games
Picture dictations
Memory games
Afterwards, they will practice the writing form of those words
Matching words and pictures, labelling pictures, bingo, dominoes, classifying words in different categories, spelling games, dictations...
First, the children will do activities in which they read the words
After oral practice, the teacher can introduce the written form
The teacher must provide the students with:
Use of dictionaries
Vocabulary cards
Class dictionary
Researching
Making personal dictionaries
The communicative approach believes that the practice of communicative activities will produce unconscious learning of the structures of the language
A communicative activity should be:
These activities focus more on the message than on the linguistic features of the language.
Oral communicative activities
Communicative activities refer to tasks ans exercises that a student carries out for real communication.
Within a context
Authentic
Unpredictable
Developes within a relaxed atmosphere
Interactive
Written communicative activities:
Problem-solving
Following instructions
Role-play
Describing personal experiences
Information gap activities
Communicative games
Reaching consensus activities
Questionnaires
Imaginary diaries
Short letters to penfriends
Filling in forms
Short messages
Communicative games
Writing instructions
Project work