HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
INTRODUCCIÓN
In order to learn and being able to communicate in English, there are two fundamental aspects to be considered: vocabulary and grammar through which the four skills are developed. Therefore, you should study the specific meaning of each unknown word, so that the context can be evident for an overall point of view to understand the whole message. The next explanations will be of help for you to know how to learn vocabulary, according to each learning style and individual preferences; since this knowledge depends on your personal characteristics, context, past experiences and contact with the language. Although there are many ways in which vocabulary can be learned, some main considerations will be taking into account in this material, to facilitate the beginners´ acquisition of elements as well as intermediate to develop the proposed tasks in each activity. There have been presented different examples about each characteristic and topic taught that let you know the best and easiest way to get the meaning of a word or phrases applying it in the required context.
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
ESTRUCTURA DE CONTENIDOS Introducci贸n ................................................................................ 2 Mapa Conceptual .......................................................................... 4 1.
WAYS TO LEARN AND GUESS THE MEANING OF A WORD OR PHRASE IN CONTEXT ......................................................... 5
1.1
Lexical Relations .................................................................. 6
1.2
Word formation .................................................................... 9
1.3
Knowing a word from its categories of meaning ....................... 10
1.4
Selective level of words ....................................................... 11
1.5
Words in contexts ............................................................... 12
1.5
Idioms .............................................................................. 13
1.5
Direct translation ................................................................ 14
Bibliograf铆a ................................................................................ 15 Glosario ..................................................................................... 16 Control de Documentos ................................................................ 18 Creative Commons y Marca Registrada ........................................... 18
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
MAPA CONCEPTUAL
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
1. WAYS TO LEARN AND GUESS THE MEANING OF A WORD OR PHRASE IN CONTEXT The learning of any language starts with the vocabulary, which plays a fundamental role in getting not only the meaning but also the form, and their relationship with the whole message. According to Thornbury (2002), to produce and use an intended word in a context, the learner needs to:
Acquire a critical mass of w ords for u se i n both understanding and producing language.
Remember words over time, and be able to recall them readily.
Develop strategies for coping w ith gaps i n word knowledge, including coping with unknown words, or unfamiliar uses of known words.
To get these challenges it must be defined and understood what a word is. Through the next explanations you will be familiar with the terms, definitions, lexical relations, and in general, grammar implications of a word itself as well as specific use in different contexts.
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
1.1. Lexical Relations To learn vocabulary, you can use one of the following strategies to skim or scan the meaning of a word in specific texts or contexts. •
Same Word class: Classifying them grammatically, like:
- - -
Adjectives: They qualify the noun. Verbs: Indicate the action in the sentence. Nouns: They are a part of speech typically denoting a person, place, thing, animal or idea.
Examples:
•
Same word family and its derivate: In general they have the same root, and its derivate which differentiates the meaning.
Examples:
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
Feminine
Feminity
Feminism
Feminist
• Synonym/Antonym: When there are words or have the same meaning or the opposite one.
phrases which
Examples:
Good/bad
•
Light/dark
Tall/short
Co-hyponym: Identifying the way in which words are related. It is a kind of relationship among them, and share the same ranking in a hierarchy.
For example: The goldfish, the trout and the shark are all Fish, they are related because they are aquatic.
Goldfish
Shark
Trout
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
•
Homonyms: Same sound, different meaning.
Examples:
Sun / Son
/
/
• Co-Hyponym and superordinate term: Words used to designate a member of a superordinate term. For example: apple and banana are hyponyms of fruits. Example: In this example, material, metal and art are superordinate terms and wood, bronze and sculpture are hyponyms.
Wood/material
Bronze/metal
Sculpture/Art
Another example:
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• Same lexical field: In the next example there are some words connected to the idea or topic about Systems: PC´s, software, hardware, monitor, download, security. It means all the words related with that field. Examples:
PC´s
Security
Software SYSTEMS
Download
Hardware Monitor
1.2. Word formation In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word. • Two words derived from the same root. this is useful when you want to get the meaning without using the dictionary, of course, If you know the root´s meaning. Example:
Sculpt: Sculpture, Sculptor.
Hard: Harden, hardener.
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โ ข
Blending: When two words are being concise getting just one as a result.
Example:
Internaut: Habitual user of the Internet- a blend of Internet and astronaut. Canyoning: Sport that involves descending mountain streams athigh speed. Formed by canyon + ing. Twigloo: A tree-house made of branches- a blend of twig and igloo.
Shareware: Freely distributed computer software. Formed by share and ware (by analogy with hardware, software).
Trainspotter: A collector of information about train movements-formed by compounding of train + splotter.
1.3. Knowing a word from its categories of meaning (dictionary meaning) The use of dictionary is a very valuable source of words, and of information about words. It must be handling whenever you want to go deeper in the meaning to find out the best translation of the word, according to the studied text or context. The dictionary, most of the times, has the following descriptions to help the learner skim and scan the meaning.
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
• • • • • • •
Meaning: According to the text or context. Spoken form: Pronunciation. Grammar: Word class, verb, adverb, noun, article, etc. Derived forms: Present, past, future. Collocations: The place where the word goes in a sentence. Register: Formal, informal, colloquial. Frequency: It is ranked according to the times the term is used when writing or speaking the language. For example, the words: sick, unwell and ill, are ordinarily more used in the following order: sick, ill, unwell.
phonetic transcriptions
example sentences
prepositions
useful expressions
1.4. Selective level of words You can choose and create a three level vocabulary list, according to your understanding of each word. Develop an efficient means of storing vocabulary which you can easily refer to later. Experiment with the following: •
Alphabetical card indexes with definitions or translations of words.
•
A special note-book which you can keep with you at all times.
•
An alphabetical list on your home computer.
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Upper I ntermediate: Available, g room, thunder, carving Intermediate: p.e. I nformation, detail, past, determiner Elementary: P.e. House, Architecture, beauty room, cell phone 1.5. Words in contexts This strategy of learning vocabulary helps a lot to students when they discover the meaning in practical ways. โ ข Short texts: The best way to understand and guess the meaning of a word or word is following the next step. -
First, write the general topic of the reading.
-
Second, make a list of the unknown vocabulary.
-
Third, look for the meaning in your own language, pay attention to pronunciation too.
-
Next, try to get the whole meaning of the text without translating word by word.
- Then, make the reading comprehension or answers the questions indicated, if there are some.
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
• Literary texts: Remember that the main idea most of the times goes at the very beginning of the reading, in the middle or at the end. When the reading is too long, make the analysis of the vocabulary by sections, titles, subtitles or paragraphs. Remember to have available a good dictionary, bilingual but also monolingual if you want to improve your knowledge and lexical meaning. • Corpora (Corpus data): This means a collection of texts that has been assembled for the purpose of language study. Modern corpora are stored electronically and consist of many millions of words of text, both spoken and written. The benefit for learners is that it provides them with easily accessible information about real language use, frequency and collocation. It includes American, British, and Australian English.
1.6 Idioms
Many phrasal verbs are idiomatic and their meaning is not easily detected, since most of them are used in certain contexts or situations. Therefore to study and understand them, it is better to do it as soon as they arise in the text, according to the topic. To get their specific meaning you can use the www, to be sure about what of its equivalent can be applied for that theme. They are expressions of the language that do not follow the rules of the grammar, which summarize an idea briefly and they her transmit to all those persons who have the same language. Examples:
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
1.7 Direct Translation This resource to learn vocabulary should be the last but not the least to be used. It is very useful when the learner cannot guess, nor discover the meaning according to the context, topic or theme. To be efficient, the skills to manage the use of monolingual and bilingual dictionary, is compulsory. •
It is impossible to obtain a good translation without considering in what scene we move, the one who is directed, objectives, etc.
•
It is not the same thing to translate a patent or a manual, a web page, a scientific article or an informed assent.
•
It is key to have knowledge on the subject matter to translate, using already published material or other documents of reference
•
There must be had dictionaries and glossaries (printed, on-line in Internet) on the topics to treating.
•
To realize a previous glossary with the most important terms will be of great help.
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
BIBLIOGRAFÍA Nation ISP. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in another Language. Cambridge University Press. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (3rd Edition). Longman. Schmitt N. (2000). Unversity Press.
Vocabulary in Language Teaching.
(1995).
Cambridge
Schmitt N and McCarthy M. (1997). Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge University Press. Thornbury, S. (2002). Limited.
How to teach vocabulary.
Pearson Education
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GLOSARIO
Antonym: Antónimo Applied: Aplicar Bad: Malo Blending: Mezcla Bronze: Bronce Canyoning: Descender por barrancos Compulsory: Obligatorio Connotation: Connotación Contemporary: Actual Context: Contexto Corpora: Información official en internet Dear: Querido Deer: Ciervo Elementary: Sencillo Eye: Ojo Feminine: Femenina Feminism: Feminismo Feminist: Feminista Feminity: Feminidad Field: Campo Further: Además Grammar: Gramática Golfish: Pez dorado Good: Bueno Guess: Descubrir Hard: Duro Harden: Endurecido Hardener: Endureced Hyponym: Hipónimo Index: Indice Intermediate: Intermedio Internaut: Navegador en la web Later: Más tarde Learned: Aprendido Lexical: Léxico Meaning: Significado Paragraph: Párrafo
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Punctuation: Puntuación Refer: Referirse Remind: Recordar Resource: Recurso Sculpt: Esculpir Sculptor: Escultor Sculpture: Escultura Shareware: Programa compartido Shark: Tiburón Short: Bajo Should: Debería Son: Hijo Sun: Sol Spelling: Deletrear Stomach ache: Dolor de estómago Store: Almacenar Style: Estilo Synonym: Sinónimo Tall: Alto Trainspotter: Información de movimiento del tren Translation: Traducción Trout: Trucha Twigloo: Iglú en árbol Wood: Madera
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HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH
Control de documento Construcción Objeto de Aprendizaje HOW TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH Desarrollador de contenido Experto temático
Alba Nury Cardona Yepez
Asesor pedagógico
Claudia Milena Hernandez Naranjo
Producción Multimedia
Julio Cesar Orduz Tarazona Martha Lucia Chaves Niño
Programador
Daniel Eduardo Martínez Díaz
Líder expertos temáticos
Ana Yaqueline Chavarro Parra
Líder línea de producción
Santiago Lozada Garcés
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, son marcas registradas propiedades de Microsoft Office. Copyright
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