Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener

Chapter 7 - Vocabulary (pg. 73)

INTRODUCTION
Vocabulary is a powerful carrier of meaning. Beginners often manage to communicate in English by using the accumulative effect of individual words. A student who says Yesterday. Go disco. and friends. Dancing will almost certainly get much of his message over despite completely avoiding grammar- the meaning is conveyed by the vocabulary alone. A good knowledge of grammar, on the other hand, is not such a powerful tool. I wonder if you could lend me your... means little without a word to fill the gap, whereas the gapped word -calculator - on its own could possibly communicate the desired message: Calculator?

A learner, recognizing the communicative power of vocabulary, might reasonably aim to acquire working knowledge of a large number of words -The more words I have, the more precisely I can express the exact meaning I want to. But (as many of us will recall from our own studies of other languages) getting to be on familiar terms with vocabulary is quite difficult. The long list of words and their translations in our exercise books somehow always seem to defy memory, and even when we can recall the words we want, it doesn´t always seem to fit comfortably into our own sentences.

Perhaps the translation approach is part of the problem. Words live within their own languages and though a dictionary translation can give an introduction to the meaning of a word, it can never really let us into the secrets of how that word exists within its language. Instead, we are left with questions:

+ What words have a similar meaning to this word? How do they differ in meaning?
+ Is this word part of a family or group of related words? What are the other members? How do they relate to each other?
+ What other words typically keep company with this word (often coming before or after it in a sentence)?
+ What other words can be formed by adding to or taking away bits of this word?
+ What are the situations and contexts where this word is typically found or not found?

Many teachers find that a useful first step towards answering such questions is to encourage (and train students in) the use of English-English dictionaries rather than translation dictionaries. Such dictionaries usually offer sentences exemplifying typical usage, notes on common sentence patterns, pronunciation, relationship with other valuable skill that they can use in and out of the classroom.

A language teacher needs to find other systematic ways of helping learners with vocabulary. Random explanations and examples off the top of my head in the middle of a lesson may solve unexpected problems on the spot, but the words dealt with in this way are unlikely to become a long-term part of the learner´s own store of English.

In contrast, a systematic approach might devote lesson time to helping learners at each of the following stages of learning vocabulary -when the learners:

+ Meet new words and understand their meaning(s) and the way they are used
+ practice using the words
+ find ways that help them memorize the words
+ recall and use the words appropriately

An important consideration for teachers planning vocabulary work is the distinction between productive and receptive vocabulary. We all understand many more words than we actually use in everyday situations -for example, in this section you have seen the words defy, conveyed, acquire and systematic, yet it is unlikely that you have actually used any of these words in the past few weeks. Our receptive vocabulary is the set of words that we recognize and understand, but tend not to use ourselves.