teaching sub-skills vocabulary - الرئيسية...linguistically without grammar little can be...

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The Professional Development Project for English Language Supervisors and Teachers

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Ministry of Education

Deputy of Education

The Professional Development Project for

English Language Supervisors and Teachers

Teaching Sub-Skills

Vocabulary

"The limits of my language are the limits of my world"

Prepared by:

Abdullah ALharthi

First Edition 1436 H.

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Teaching Vocabulary

Introduction

The importance of vocabulary

Word formation

The Vocabulary Knowledge

Sense Relations

Presenting Words

Collocations

The Hints In A Context

What Is Corpus?

Remembering words

games

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INTRODUCTION

The more words we have at our fingerprints, the more precise we can be

in communicating our ideas and expressions to others. Learning vocabulary is a

cumulative process and that it must be deliberately taught, learned, and recycled.

Possessing a good proficiency in the four main skills in order to communicate,

understand and perform well requires a strong repertoire of skills pertaining to

vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary size. Learners are in need to the lexical

words which represent the bricks of structure of good writing and speaking

performance. Moreover, the more vocabulary students know, the better they can

decode and understand what they read and hear. Milton claims that “growth in

vocabulary is a principal factor in the development of communication

skills(200,251).”

This training package comprises the importance of vocabulary, the process

of word formation, how words can be counted,, Function words and lexical ones,

The vocabulary knowledge, Why to teach sense relations, Collocations, How are

words presented, teaching words in a context, what is corpus, how are words

remembered, and we will conclude the presentation with teaching vocabulary

through games.

We hope having provided a variety of techniques and teaching

approaches to teaching vocabulary facilitated with the most recent

computerized tools for the sake of making use of them in classroom and

promoting students to refine their vocabulary learning skills.

"The limits of my language are the limits of my world"

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INDEX

Subject Page

Introduction 4

Index 5

Package Guide 6

Trainees Instructions 8

Training Tasks 9

1 The Importance Of Vocabulary 10

2 The Word ( The Root, Lemma And Word Family) 12

3 Word Formation 13

4 How many words ………………….? 14

5 Function Words And Lexical Ones 16

6 The Vocabulary Knowledge 24

7 Why To Teach Sense Relations? 26

8 Productive Language And The Common Errors 27

9 The top down strategy 28

10 How Are Words Presented? 30

11 The Hints In A Context 32

12 How To Teach Collocations 34

13 What Is Corpus? Why To Use Corpus? 37

14 15-How Are Words Remembered? 39

15 16-Techniques that help support remembering and

moving the content into the long-term memory. 42

16 Games 46

Appendixes ( 1 – 3 ) 47

References 56

Evaluation Form 57

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PACKAGE GUIDE

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General Aim:

The aim is to equip teachers with ways for teaching vocabulary.

Specific Aims:

The trainers will be able to:

1- Raise trainees‟ awareness of the importance of teaching and learning

vocabulary.

2- Enable them to review and recognize some processes of word formation

illustrated with relevant examples

3- Enrich their teaching ability by exploring a variety of ways that words can

be presented to EFL learners.

4- Enable them to recognize the good techniques of how words can be

remembered and that can be reinforced with relevant tasks from the

current taught syllabi.

5- Introduce them to a new method of how to deal with vocabulary (related

to corpus linguistics) and to familiarize them with useful ways of

presenting vocabulary inductively.

6- Enable them to make better use of contextual clues and hints in order to

elicit the right meaning to previously unknown words.

Who is this program for?

It is designed for:

Teachers who teach English to secondary and intermediate and

primary school students and want to consider their teaching in new

ways.

Time:

The program will be covered in one session of 2 hours.

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Training Materials

1. Colored markers

2. Ball point pens

3. Flip chart

4. Computer

5. Data show

6. Miscellaneous handouts

7. Surveys

8. CD

9. Cards

10. Charts

11. Text books

12. Templates

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TRAINEES' INSTRUCTIONS

It is the trainees' responsibility to:

1. Attend the sessions on time. The session begins at 8.00 and ends at 12.00.

2. Bring in the training material as requested.

3. Act in accordance with the guidelines stated at the beginning of the

training package.

4. Behave in courteous, responsible and professional manner at all times.

5. Participate actively on the training and over all activities.

6. Be proactive in seeking opportunities for experience and advancement.

7. Be willing to ask questions and seek information / help from the trainer

and other professionals.

8. Maintain open communication with trainer and other trainees regarding

your profession.

9. Make appropriate use of training and take full advantage of the learning

opportunities as well as maintain openness to learning and be able to

accept and use constructive feedback effectively.

10. Provide appropriate support and encouragement through out the training

period.

11. Nominate individuals to perform certain functions within the group.

12. Collaborate with other group members.

13. Respect differences.

14. Maintain credibility in filling in the evaluation form at the end of the

training programme. Comments and future suggestions can be handed to

the trainer or the coordinator.

15. Keep mobiles on the silent mode.

16. Have a strong commitment to training and applying what is learned in

their classes.

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TRAINING TASKS

No.

Task Type

Title

Time

1 Agree / Disagree the importance of vocabulary 10 min.

2 Table completion Word formation 10 min.

3 Word frequency Functional words 10 min.

4 brainstorming Word knowledge 10 min.

5 Discuss and elicit Top down strategy 10 min.

6 Matching & creating How words are remembered 10 min.

7 Table completion /

Think-Pair-Share

Techniques that help support

remembering words 10 min.

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Instructional Material 1 The Importance of Vocabulary

Read the following items and decide which items show the importance

of vocabulary and defend your choice.

Opinion The statement

Agree

Vocabulary has been widely overlooked

recently on the expense of grammar in the

EFL classrooms.

1

Disagree Vocabulary items require less effort and

time compared to learning grammar. 2

Agree

The gate of success in undergraduate and

graduate studies is through building

vocabulary.

3

Agree

Vocabulary acquisition is a very learner-

centered activity. It needs more strategies

learners should acquire

4

Agree

Vocabulary size has been directly linked to

reading comprehension as well as writing

proficiency.

5

Agree

Vocabulary is the power of expression to

be judged by others e.g. while speech.

6

Agree

Teachers struggle too much if their

students lack a lot of vocabulary and their

teaching does not go smoothly.

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Disagree

Linguistically without grammar little can

be conveyed, but with vocabulary nothing

can be.

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By the end of the drill we can conclude by considering the significance of

Ludwig von Wittgenstein‟s famous claim: "The limits of my language are the

limits of my world"

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Instructional Material 2 The Word

The definition of a word

This big question is difficult to answer, although it has been tackled by

many linguists, including Nation, Laufer, Schmitt, and Milton, among others.

We may not yet have agreed upon a standard definition, and yet we can

explore what we mean when we say “a word”. If we say that a dictionary

includes half a million words, that usually means entry words, or “lemmas”,

as linguists of lexicon prefer to say. Lemmas function as follows:

Lemma: (the inflectional forms) e.g. Play, plays, played, playing

On the other hand, in corpus linguistics we use the term “word” to mean a

family word which includes lemmas and other derivations (inflectional +

derivational forms = the word family)

Word family: the derivational forms including inflectional ones, e.g. Drink,

drinkable , undrinkable.

This can be illustrated with a circle of inclusion as follows :

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Instructional Material 3 Word Formation

Word formation

This part might already be familiar to many teachers, and we can raise

learners‟ awareness of how words are formed using derivation processes.

This can help learners to deduce meanings, once they have understood how a

new or difficult word is formed from more familiar ones. For example, the

term “netizen” is produced by combining the words “net” and “citizens” in a

process known as blending.

This is followed by the completed table as a model answer to the preceding

task.

To help inform the task, the following are included and supported with

examples:

1- Derivation: Making new words by affixation (adding prefixes and

suffixes)

2- Inflection: Different grammatical forms of the same word e.g. work,

works, working, worked.

3- Blending: Two words have merged together to form one new word and

some letters or sounds have been lost in the process. e.g. Brunch, motel,

blog, smog.

4- Acronyms Long words or technical ones which are reduced to the initial

letters e.g. Laser, Aids.

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5- Stress: forming new words by changing the stress from the first syllable

to the last e.g.

(a) Can you record some of those records?

(b) I will present you with a present.

(c) He deserted me in the desert.

6- Clipping: a word is reduced or shortened without changing the meaning.

This process is called clipping e.g. Gas, gym, flu, math, email, Interpol.

7-Compounding: This involves putting words together to build a new one,

e.g. paperback, second-hand, dishwasher laptop p5

8-Conversion: this is the process of forming words without changing the

form( zero conversion) from one part of speech to another. E.g. must, like,

9-Borrowing is taking a word from another language. E.g. (alcohol, mirror-

Arabic) ( jacket, yoghurt – Turkish)

10-Multi-word units – This includes phrasal verbs and idioms such as

“Editor –in chief” or “carry out”.

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Instructional Material 4 How Many Words?

How many words…..?

Dictionaries consist of hundreds of thousands of words, of which native

speakers may understand tens of thousands of words.

There remains a question about how many words (and which words) an EFL

learner should know.

1- How many words are there in English?

There is no definitive answer to this question. Webster includes some

470,000 entries. The Online Oxford English Dictionary includes around 600,000

word entries(lemmas).

2- How many words does an educated native speaker understand?

15000-20,000 words (accurately word families) (p.20, 2007 Thornberry)

4-How many words should EFL teachers know?

50 % of the native speakers’ vocabulary size.

Every thousand word band forms a percentage of any typical text coverage.

Therefore the following diagram shows the percentage with the text coverage.

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5. How many words should we primarily focus on for teaching purposes?

Given that the English language contains hundreds of thousands of words,

there remains a question about which words we should teach, and how long

would it take to teach these words effectively.

Around2500- 3000 word families.

These words can be extracted from the internet according to the most

frequent words or one of the good sources to provide these lists in corpus by

using the word frequency icon in corpora programs such as WordSmith.

Why are these 2500 word families the most frequently used ones?

Because:

1- EFL learners need to use them in order to take part in everyday

conversation.

2-This band is the pivotal frame of many more vocabulary items.

3-They can motivate learners to use them to express other words.

4-Dictionaries use them to define other low frequency words.

5- They should be taught as soon as possible.

The previous 2500 word families can be classified into lexical and

functional items.

The following table shows the distinction between the two types:

Lexical words Function words

Open-set words Close-set words

Content words (They give information

or meaning)

Grammar words

e.g. Adjectives, verbs, nouns, adverbs

except frequency adverbs

e.g. Prepositions, pronouns, articles ,

determiners …….

Relatively low frequency High frequency

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Instructional Material 5 Function Words and Lexical Ones

Function words include:

Pronouns ( who , which , that ,whose; anybody anyone anything; nobody no

one nothing; everybody everyone everything; myself - yourself - himself - herself

– itself; who , which where, why; I , he, she, we, you, they,/ my , his , her, / me,

him, them,( here, there) They are 30-40 in number

Numbers ( one … , first … ) 20 in number

Prepositions: These include words such as aboard about above across after

against along among around as at before behind below beneath beside besides

between beyond but by down during except for from in inside into near of off

onto opposite outside over past per plus since than through towards underneath

unlike until up upon versus with within without (50 in number)

Auxiliaries / modals(be .am, are, is, was, were, can, could, do did, does, doing,

Have, had, has, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) 20 in number

Determiners/ Articles( a , an, the, some, any, a few, a little, much, many, a lot

of, most, enough )

Conjunctions, (or, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, however, though , then, 10

Frequency adverbs( always, usually, sometimes, occasionally, rarely , never,

seldom ) 7

Cognates + proper nouns ( fax, telephone, Ali tom, Saturday , January … )+20

Roughly these are 250- 300 words

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Instructional Material 5 Functional Words

After highlighting the function words, the new highlighted text will be like

this

The running words of the text above are 103( the total tokens of the text) and

the function words are around 60. The ratio of the function words compared to

the lexical ones in this text is around 58%

That means about (250-300) words( function words) form over 50 % of a

typical text.

The following text includes only the function words omitting the lexical ones

in order to show how much the function words form the text coverage. Although

they are lessthan300 words, if the learner knows these words, he or she will be

familiar with over half of any typical text exposed to him or her. Therefore, the

concentration will be on the other half of the text which would form less than

50%.

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After a couple of weeks teaching, acquiring the small number of the function

words will guarantee learners a close familiarity with the text. This applies

toEFL learners with all texts, regardless of the familiarity of lexical words or

the use of repeated words.

The importance here is to express the grammatical relationship among the

chunks of the text. These words are the glue that pieces the sentences together.

The teacher‟s role is to facilitate this process by limiting the number of

unfamiliar words and strengthening learner‟ knowledge of high frequency

words, such as function words. These strategies help reduce the novelty of a

newly encountered text.

Christopher and colleagues (1997, in press) found that function words help

listeners quickly recognize a word and infer its syntactic category. Infants use

this predictive nature of function words to segment and categorize novel words.

It also affects the speed of word identification.

"knowing the function words of their language could give infants an

advantage both in recognizing the content words that co-occur with them, and

in construing a grammatical category to assign to a particular content word"

(Braine 1987, Christophe and Dupoux 1996).

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Instructional Material 5 (B) Functional Words

The result of highlighting shows that the function words exceed 80 words

out of 117 words, representing 68% of this text coverage.

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Instructional Material 6 Vocabulary Knowledge

Moving from the vocabulary size to the vocabulary knowledge.

This addresses the question of what we should know about words. There

are many dimensions a word knowledge can explore, but this presentation

tackles only the most significant ones, such as sense relations, the

connotations and denotation of meaning,The written form, the spoken form,

sentence patterns, collocations, derivational forms, inflectional forms ,

registers, and so on.

Some of the above dimensions or domains are sometimes overlooked

because they will be discussed by other colleagues in teaching spelling or

pronunciation, and others because they are seen as too advanced such as the

register of the word.

Some will be simply administered, such as sense relations and

collocations. In addition, a teacher should judge which words will be most

useful for the learners; every teacher needs to be selective in this regard.

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Instructional Material 7 Sense Relations

Sense relations explain the meaning in terms of the relationship with other

words.

These include synonymy, antinomy, hyponymy, meronomy,

polysemy..and so on.

The first three will be discussed in detail, since they are the most familiar

and most useful to learners.

Why to teach these terms?

There are several reasons for teaching synonymy, antinomy and

hyponymy. These include:

1. Their effects on vocabulary retention.

2. They are part of wider vocabulary knowledge.

3. To show the meaning (more accuracy)

4. They occur in certain collocations. E.g. …

5. Learning groups of hyponyms is easier for students than learning

words separately.

“The mind seems to store words neither randomly nor in the form of a list,

but in a highly organized and interconnected fashion” (p16 Thornbury,2007)

For example, it is difficult to explain rough without reference to smooth

and vice versa,

Unfamiliar words can be explained by using more commonly known

words. E.g.

1. Amnesia : you lose the ability to remember. (Flying High5 p70)

2. Drought: little or no rain (Left Off 3 p61)

3. Commute: to make the same journey regularly .(traveller 5 p.61)

Then once we remember the word or phrase ( no rain ) and we already

know the word drought , we are able quickly to recall it. One of the

techniques our brains use to store words is through their sense relations.

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Instructional Material 8 Productive language and the common errors

Productive language and the common errors

Another domain of word knowledge is called collocations which refer to

words that usually go together. Learners may know the meaning of the word but

they may commit mistakes when they attempt to join that word to its correct

collocate. Therefore, EFL learners may sometimes commit a lot of mistakes in

their speech and writing( the productive skills).

Some of these mistakes are stated below:

1- In one of the days , I saw my friend waiting to get a bus but it left before

he arrived and he became crazy. ( one day – catch a bus – got crazy)

2- Before I sleep ,I should arrange my bed. ( make my bed)

3-I asked the waiter to bring a heavy coffee with some biscuits.( strong

coffee)

4- Some of them go to outside the country.(go abroad)

5-The man pushed all his money to save his child life. ( pay money)

6- In the Spring, the flower begin to open.(in spring- bloom)

7-The children went to special schools. (private schools)

6-He is now ashamed from of his conduct. ( ashamed of )

7-A group of sheep , a group of trucks, a group of flowers

( overgeneralization)( aflockof sheep- a fleet of trucks- a bunch of flowers)

Why are collocations important?

1- They allow learners to process and produce language at a much faster rate.

2- They can recognize multi-word units rather than process everything word

by word.

3- Using collocations will also enable them to think more quickly and

communicate more efficiently.

4- Vocabulary should be learnt as chunks rather than individual words.

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Instructional Material 9 The Top Down Strategy

This text shows the importance of context represented in collocations as a

primary stage. Fluency is prior to accuracy and that is why our brains jumps

into the conclusions and overlooks the details in order to get the message or

the meaning.

The last paragraph includes some numbers. And yet our brains are smart

enough to translate the digital figures into letters in order to elicit the

meaning.

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Instructional Material 10 How Are Words Presented?

How are words presented?

There are different ways words can be presented, for example through:

1- translation “ no pain no gain”

2- illustration ,pics, realia, flash cards, wall charts, transparencies projected

on the wall or the board and board drawings.

3-demostration ,actions ,TPR .

If the above methods are not sufficient to help explain the meaning, then

alternative ways include:

1- synonyms- antonyms, hyponyms 2- examples

3- description& definition 4- real situation

5-one of the above with gestures, posters, facial expressions.

Synonyms and antonyms are usually much more familiar terms than

hyponyms which may need further elaboration:

Hyponymy explains the meaning in terms of the relationship with other

words.

E.g.

A monkey or a cat….. is a type of animal in other words a monkey is a

hyponym of an animal and so on so forth.

A villa , or a bungalow … is a type of house

A banana or an orange…. Is a type of fruit

We can provide students with examples from the textbooks they study

e.g.

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Lake is a type of a natural environment. Namely it is a hyponym of

natural environment. Hyponyms help learners to recognize the important

words in the target text. It also helps students to define: what is a lake? It is a

natural environment ….

2- Description &definition: definitions are one of the ways to show the

meaning verbally but descriptions may be an easier way for students to

grasp the meaning. E.g.

3- Real situations are another strategy for presenting the meaning e.g.

Catherine saw a man at the bus stop. His back was turned but she was sure

it was her brother, so she tapped him on the shoulder with her umbrella

and shouted look out! The man turned around. He was a complete

stranger.

SHE WAS TERRIBLY EMBARRASSED .IT WAS A VERY

EMBARRASSING EXPERIENCE. ( from O'Neil R in situations ,

OUP)

Natural environment

Lake shore Game reservelife

sanctuaries

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Instructional Material 11 The Context Hints

Concerning the context , the following pictures are designed to cast light on the

importance of the context: what is the verb? A- the boy runs b- the boy attempts

to catch the girl c- both escape from the lion. The context determines the

meaning .

Teaching how to figure out the meaning through the context. It is better to

teach them gradually starting from only one unfamiliar word e.g.

linkara is usually found at grocery stores and restaurants. People like to eat

linkara on their hamburgers ,besides, linkara is tasty with a variety of dishes

. Since linkara is a vegetable , it is nutritious as well.

One disadvantage of linkara is the strong odor which has been known to

produce a cry and tears among those who slide it. Thereforelinkara

means(onion)

The better they progress, the more novel words are inserted. e.g. here 2

unfamiliar words are inserted. E.g.

Our tangi is near the river Ganges and Barna have always lived close by

without disturbing anyone. But climate change means they have to find new

sources of food . As a result, a barna killed a man from our tangi last year

while he was collecting honey in the forest however, barna very rarely come

close to our tangi but one day I heard it scratching at my door, I was

terrified, fortunately a group of our tangi men managed to scare the beast

away. From the text book FullBlastp 5 P.52

This would lead students' attention to the importance of the context and to

show them that translation can be overlooked as long as the context clues and

hints play the role instead.

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The hints or clues that help understand the words in a context.

1- using typographical clues ( Capital letters. Punctuation marks, italics ,

pictures, diagrams, symbols, etc..)

Verbal ones :

1- definition, that is , means, 2- synonyms , or , ,

3- antonyms but however, even though, 4- example context clues, for

example , including…

5- cause and effect so , therefore, as a result of that. 6- Perceiving sequence

first, then , ... finally

The key words within the context are very informative.

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Instructional Material 12 How to Teach Collocations?

How to teach collocations

First, highlight them through the course book.

Teach them by using: 1- diagrams 2- matching 3- corpus

4- free writing 5- correcting intended mistakes

Collocations can show the contrast of using the opposites (such as “the

opposite of dark is light”, but the opposite of dark hair is not light hair it is

fair or blond hair) .

More examples are listed in the table below:

opposite Collocation

Light colours but Dark colours

blond hair Dark hair

Unhappy… Happy marriage

Sad… Happy song

Heavy…. light rain

Strong…. Light winds

Powerful engine Strong/ powerful engine

How to teach collocation and how to be assessed

Which words from the list can you put into the word-fork?

An effort a mistake your homework a meal your duty

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Make –-Another way: Bubble –diagrams are a good visual way of

presenting

Collocations can be taught inductively by using corpus

The teacher can ask them what collocates go with the word lady and learners

can read the concordances provided by the teacher to prove that the word

lady is a collocate to the adj. beautiful. E.g.

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Instructional Material 13 What Is Corpus And Why To Use It?

What is corpus?

• A corpus is a collection of machine-readable, authentic texts, chosen to

characterize or represent a state or variety of a language.

• Corpus v. Text archive :A collection of texts . A substantial body of texts.

It is a body of written or spoken material upon which a linguistic analysis

is based.

A linguistic Corpus is a wide set of real examples of use of a language

may be in texts or audio form. However, if that is not electronically recorded

and processed, it will be useless.

Why to use corpus?

• Using corpora in the classroom changes the student‟s role.

• How do we know the highly frequent words?

• E.g. the top 2500 words.

• How do I know how many words do I understand?

• What is the reliable source of collocations?

• How new words in dictionaries are comprised?

• Excerpts of authentic texts, where can they be extracted?

• Where can we find a reliable representation of sentence patterns?

• Which word to teach first e.g. tells, say or inform?

• Is the text richly lexical or not?

• And many other points …. Mr. Corpus can solve such enquiries?

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• What applies to beautiful and lady by using corpus can apply to

the following :corpus can show the distinction

• Assume, presume / Avenge, revenge /Between, among / Born,

borne

• Effective, efficient/ Custom , habit / to conserve ,to preserve

• Fewer, less / Convince, persuade / Each other, one another

There are different corpora worldwide .The most famous ones are:

• The Collins corpus: The Collins corpus is a 2.5-billion words.

MICASE - Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English

• British National Corpus (BNC) home: http://info.ox.ac.uk/bnc

• BNC is also available at: http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc

• Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA):

http://www.americancorpus.org

• Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) -

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/index.htm)

http://www.hit.uib.no/icame/brown/bcm.html




http://info.ox.ac.uk/bnc

http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc

http://www.americancorpus.org/

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/index.htm

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Instructional Material 14 How are Words Remembered?

1. Aloof 7 having a lot of money

2. archipelago 5 done in order to avoid something or someone

3. quarantine 8 not experienced in a job or situation

4. impregnable 10 any animal that has four legs

5. Evasive 9 describes an object, condition or remark that causes

great physical or emotional pain

6. procrastinate 4 Not easy to break

7. affluent 1

describes an unfriendly person who refuses to take

part in things

8. Novice 3

a period of time during which a person or animal

that have a disease kept away from other people or

animals

9. vicious

6 to keep delaying something that must be done

10. quadrupeds 2 a group of small islands or an area of sea

11. inexplicable 11 unable to be understood

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How are words remembered?

We do not need only to learn new more words but also to remember them.

How can we retain that accumulated or piling up of successive vocabulary

items? This is a question of memory.

The traditional rote-learning techniques make it hard to retain words such

as those written above in red. To address this problem, how can such

words be retained smoothly?

e.g. inexplicable can be simplified by showing the derivational forms and

the root is " explain " from which we can derive "explicable " and "

inexplicable"

quarantine is already known especially for people living in Jeddah

because it is has been familiar of a place called "Karantinah" used to

isolate infectious people .

affluent can be referred to the flow of money . they say if companies are

financially strong that means they have a good cash flow. Therefore , an

affluent person is a rich person. Think of other ways or techniques for

the rest.

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Instructional Material 15 Techniques That Help Support Remembering

Techniques that help support remembering and moving the

content into the long-term memory.

1- Repetition: (the traditional way ) is through repeated rehearsal of the

material .

2- Spacing: or distributed practice across a period of time.

It is better to present the first 2 or 3 items and go back and test

those, and then to present some more, and so on. For instance, to present

skirt, trousers, then the word shirt, and then to go back to repeating one of

the previous words (e.g. trousers) and adding another, such as “jacket”.

3- Pacing refers to the different learning styles learners have. They

process data at different rates. So teachers can give them an opportunity to

pace their activities, and can allow the students to take their time in

learning a new vocabulary.

4-Cognitive depth anduse: it's part of speech. Its derivation, it rhymes with

so and so, the more demanding on cognitive depth, the better the word is

remembered. Use it or lose it.

4- Mnemonics : Mnemonics are memory tricks, or techniques which are

used to help us remember something like the following:

A - Imaging : easily visualized words are more memorable than others

which might not evoke a picture. (Tell me, I will forget; show me and I

may remember; involve me and I will understand)

Eg. sharp with shark : one word would help the learners to

remember the other by remembering the sharp teeth of the

shark.

The second picture is on a group of Ostriches one of them standing apart

from the group. To “ostracize” someone is

to avoid them intentionally. Just by

remembering that neglected ostrich, our

brains can remember the word "ostracize".

36


The following pictures are not easy to remember them all because they are

too many to remember. Hence, we need a certain technique to enable us to

remember the majority, if not all.

Therefore the suggested technique is as follows : (B-)by telling a story e.g. ( the

3rd

row) imagine a lion sits on a wooden chair sipping a cup of tea wearing a

female shoe and a wasp is scratching around. The trainees can think of the 1st

and the 2nd

rows to group them into simple meaningful sentences.

C –Rhyme which is one of the techniques of mnemonics e.g.

a nap on a passenger ship ( cr… sn…) ( cruise snooze)

an oversized cargo boat ( a l….ge b….) ( a large barge)

high temperature cookware ( h..t p..) ( a hot pot)

an extended musical piece ( l…g s…..) ( a long song)

a mud container that is not nearby (f .. r j …) ( far jar )

quoted from “Hig Pig Word Game”

D – Acronyms e.g. SABIC UNESCO, NASA

E - Sentence acrostics the first letters of a list of words that need to be

remembered are taken out to form a silly sentence or another word that is easy to

remember.

e.g. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto

Take the letters M, V, E, M, J, S, U, N and P and form a sentence:

“My very extravagant mother just sent us nine pizzas”

37


The group

The technique

1

Hoody/ carry

/leggings/earnings/Astronaut /news

hoody …… head

leggings,……. Leg

2 Lonely / tent / curly

L one Ly

3 Font , stamp, reverse,, pocket

Cognates

4

Buzz, hick up, bang, howl, clock ,flush,

whisper

Onomatopoeia

5 Earth / magazine / banana

Borrowed from

Arabic

hoody …… head / leggings,……………. Leg

earnings,………… ear / Popular , …………… people

carry , ……………. Car / News…. north , east, west, south (p.33

FullBlast)

lonely, tent, curly ( imaging) eg )

( …Font , stamp, reverse, earth, pocket (cognates)

Buzz, hick up, bang, howl, clock ,flush, whisper (onomatopoeia)-Words

that sound like what they mean)

Astronaut (p.39-Supergoal 3)

38


Games:

1- Stand in line :Students arrange themselves in a line based on the set of

vocabulary intended to be tackled. E.g. write each month on a separate card,

then cards can be passed out randomly to students. Have them arrange

themselves in a line chronologically to form the months or the days of the

week or their birth dates e.g. who was born in January 2002 or so according

to their age to that class.

2- Letter game: Say I am thinking of a vegetable that starts with O..you can

divide the class into groups and the first one who raises his or her hand and

guesses correctly will win a point. Then continue with another letter.

3- Drawing a game: make identical sets of cards with the names of ( jobs,

clothes, …) and have each team sits together. One member of the team comes

to the board and picks a card from a pile and tries to draw the object and the

rest of the team guesses what has been drawn. And another team member can

do the second then the team who guesses correctly the whole objects in the

pile in the shortest time wins the game.

4- Picture this: students draw what the teacher describes .In the living room

there is a table under the table there is ….. or do the same task in pairs.

5- Grab bag: students try to guess items in the bags. One variation is : what

is in the bag? Have each student insert his or her hand and attempt to feel the

objects inside the bag and try to guess what this that?

Another variation is to put one thing or object in a bag and asking one student

to come and see what is hidden inside and the rest of his team or class will

ask eg yes no questions in order to name what is that thing.

6- Mime: let a student choose from a pile a word or a phrase and have him or

her mime the object written on the card , and the rest of the team guesses

what it is.

39


Appendix 1 Functional Words

The complete alphabetical list of 321 items

A ABOUT ABOVE AFTER AGAIN AGO ALL ALMOST ALONG

ALREADY ALSO ALTHOUGH ALWAYS AM AMONG AN AND

ANOTHER ANY ANYBODY ANYTHING ANYWHERE ARE

AREN'T AROUND AS AT BACK ELSE BE BEEN BEFORE BEING

BELOW BENEATH BESIDE BETWEEN BEYOND BILLION

BILLIONTH BOTH EACH BUT BY CAN CAN'T COULD COULDN'T

DID DIDN'T DO DOES DOESN'T DOING DONE DON'T DOWN

DURING EIGHT EIGHTEEN EIGHTEENTH EIGHTH EIGHTIETH

EIGHTY EITHER ELEVEN ELEVENTH ENOUGH EVEN EVER

EVERY EVERYBODY EVERYONE EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE

EXCEPT FAR FEW FEWER FIFTEEN FIFTEENTH FIFTH FIFTIETH

FIFTY FIRST FIVE FOR FORTIETH FORTY FOUR FOURTEEN

FOURTEENTH FOURTH HUNDRED FROM GET GETS GETTING

GOT HAD HADN'T HAS HASN'T HAVE HAVEN'T HAVING HE

HE'D HE'LL HENCE HER HERE HERS HERSELF HE'S HIM

HIMSELF HIS HITHER HOW HOWEVER NEAR HUNDREDTH I I'D

IF I'LL I'M IN INTO IS I'VE ISN'T IT ITS IT'S ITSELF JUST LAST

LESS MANY ME MAY MIGHT MILLION MILLIONTH MINE MORE

MOST MUCH MUST MUSTN'T MY MYSELF NEAR NEARBY

NEARLY NEITHER NEVER NEXT NINE NINETEEN NINETEENTH

NINETIETH NINETY NINTH NO NOBODY NONE NOONE

NOTHING NOR NOT NOW NOWHERE OF OFF OFTEN ON OR

ONCE ONE ONLY OTHER OTHERS OUGHT OUGHTN'T OUR

OURS OURSELVES OUT OVER QUITE RATHER ROUND SECOND

SEVEN SEVENTEEN SEVENTEENTH SEVENTH SEVENTIETH

SEVENTY SHALL SHAN'T SHE'D SHE SHE'LL SHE'S SHOULD

SHOULDN'T SINCE SIX SIXTEEN SIXTEENTH SIXTH SIXTIETH

SIXTY SO SOME SOMEBODY SOMEONE SOMETHING

SOMETIMES SOMEWHERE SOON STILL SUCH TEN TENTH

THAN THAT THAT THAT'S THE THEIR THEIRS THEM

THEMSELVES THESE THEN THENCE THERE THEREFORE THEY

THEY'D THEY'LL THEY'RE THIRD THIRTEEN THIRTEENTH

40


THIRTIETH THIRTY THIS THITHER THOSE THOUGH THOUSAND

THOUSANDTH THREE THRICE THROUGH THUS TILL TO

TOWARDS TODAY TOMORROW TOO TWELFTH TWELVE

TWENTIETH TWENTY TWICE TWO UNDER UNDERNEATH

UNLESS UNTIL UP US VERY WHEN WAS WASN'T WE WE'D

WE'LL WERE WE'RE WEREN'T WE'VE WHAT WHENCE WHERE

WHEREAS WHICH WHILE WHITHER WHO WHOM WHOSE WHY

WILL WITH WITHIN WITHOUT WON'T WOULD WOULDN'T YES

YESTERDAY YET YOU YOUR YOU'D YOU'LL YOU'RE YOURS

YOURSELF YOURSELVES YOU'VE

41


Appendix 2 How To Measure Your Vocabulary Size

The Productive Vocabulary Levels Test

(Version C)

Complete the underlined words. The example has been done for you.

He was riding a bicycle.

The 2,000-word level

1. I‟m glad we had this opp________ to talk.

2. There are a doz________ eggs in the basket.

3. Every working person must pay income t________.

4. The pirates buried the trea________ on a desert island.

5. Her beauty and cha________ had a powerful effect on men.

6. La________ of rain led to a shortage of water in the city.

7. He takes cr________ and sugar in his coffee.

8. The rich man died and left all his we________to his son.

9. Pup________ must hand in their papers by the end of the week.

10. This sweater is too tight. It needs to be stret________.

11. Ann intro________ her boyfriend to her mother.

12. Teenagers often adm________ and worship pop singers.

13. If you blow up that balloon any more it will bur________.

14. In order to be accepted into the university, he had to impr________ his

grades.

15. The telegram was deli________ two hours after it had been sent.

16. The differences were so sl________ that they went unnoticed.

17. The dress you‟re wearing is lov________.

42


18. He wasn‟t very popu________ when he was a teenager, but he has many

friends now.

The 3,000-world 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 funny 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________ lay.

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.

43


18. You must wear a bathing suit on a public beach. You‟re not allowed to

be na________ .


1. Soldiers usually swear an oa________ of loyalty to their country.

2. The voter placed the ball________ in the box.

3. They keep their valuables in a vau________ at the bank.

4. A bird perched at the window led________ .

5. The kitten is playing with a ball of ya________ .

6. The thieves have forced an ent________ into the building.

7. The small hill was really a burial mou________ .

8. We decided to celebrate New Year‟s E________ together.

9. The soldier was asked to choose between infantry and cav________ .

10. This is a complex problem which is difficult to compr________ .

11. The angry crowd sho________ the prisoner as he was leaving the court.

12. Don‟t pay attention to this rude remark. Just ign________ it.

13. The management held a secret meeting. The issues discussed were not

disc________ to the workers.

14. We could hear the sergeant bel________ commands to the troops.

15. The boss got angry with the secretary and it took a lot of tact to

soo________ him.

16. We do not have adeq________ information to make a decision.

17. She is not a child, but a mat________ woman. She can make her own

decisions.

18. The prisoner was put in soli________ confinement.

44


The University Word List level

1. There has been a recent tr________ among prosperous families towards a

smaller number of children.

2. The ar________ of his office is 25 square meters.

3. Phil________ examines the meaning of life.

4. According to the communist doc________, workers should rule the world.

5. Spending many years together deepened their inti________.

6. He usually reads the sport sec________ of the newspaper first.

7. Because of the doctors‟ strike the cli________ is closed today.

8. There are several misprints on each page of this te________.

9. The suspect had both opportunity and mot________ to commit the murder.

10. They insp________ all products before sending them out to stores.

11. A considerable amount of evidence was accum________ during the

investigation.

12. The victim‟s shirt was satu________ with blood.

13. He is irresponsible. You cannot re________ on him for help.

14. It‟s impossible to eva________ these results without knowing about the

research methods that were used.

15. He finally att________ a position of power in the company.

16. The story tells us about a crime and subs________ punishment.

17. In a hom________ class all students are of a similar proficiency.

18. The urge to survive is inh________ in all creatures.


45


1. The baby is wet. Her dia________ needs changing.

2. The prisoner was released on par________ .

3. Second year University students in the US are called soph________.

4. Her favorite flowers were or________.

5. The insect causes damage to plants by its toxic sec________.

6. The evac________ of the building saved many lives.

7. For many people, wealth is a prospect of unimaginable felic________.

8. She found herself in a pred________ without any hope for a solution.

9. The deac________ helped with the care of the poor of the parish.

10. The hurricane whi________ along the coast.

11. Some coal was still smol________ among the ashes.

12. The dead bodies were muti________ beyond recognition.

13. She was sitting on a balcony and bas________ in the sun.

14. For years waves of invaders pill________ towns along the coast.

15. The rescue attempt could not proceed quickly. It was imp________ by bad

weather.

16. I wouldn‟t hire him. He is unmotivated and indo________.

17. Computers have made typewriters old-fashioned and obs________.

18. Watch out for his wil________ tricks.

Answer Key of the Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (Version C)

46


The 2,000 word level

1. opportunity 2. dozen

3. tax 4. treasure

5. charm 6. lack

7. cream 8. wealth

9. pupils 10. stretched

11. introduced 12. admire

13. burst 14. improve

15. delivered 16. slight

17. lovely 18. popular


1. career 2.acid

3. reforms 4.gown

5. importation 6. nerves

7. counsel 8. lawn

9. hens 10. scare

11. proclaimed 12. injured

13. thrust 14. perceived

15. attached 15. slender

17. stable 18. naked


1. Oath 2. ballot

3. vault 4. ledge

47


5. yarn 6. entry

7. mound 8. Eve

9. Cavalry 10. comprehend

11. Shoved 12. ignore

13. Disclosed 14. bellowing

15. Soothe 16. adequate

17. Mature 18. solitary

The university word list level

1. Trend 2. area

3. philosophy 4. doctrine

5. intimacy 6. section

7. clinic 8. test/text

9. motive 10. inspected

11. accumulated 12. saturated

13. Rely 14. evaluate

15. Attained 16. subsequent

17. homogeneous 18. inherent


1. Diaper 2. parole

3. sophomores 4. orchids

5. secretions 6. evacuation

7. felicity 8. predicament

9. deacon 10. whirled/whipped

11. smoldering/smouldering 12. mutilated

13. Basking 14. pillaged

15. Impeded 16. indolent

17. obsolete 17. wily

48


1. Hunston, Susan 2011Corpus Approaches to Evaluation: UK Rotlage

2. Laufer, Batia 2004 Vocabulary in a Second Language: John Binamines

press Amsterdam

3. Laufer, Batia and Nation, Paul 1999. „A vocabulary-size test of controlled

productive ability‟. Language Testing. Vol. 16, pp. 33-51.

4. Lewis, Michael 2000 Further Development in Lexical Approaches :

Language teaching publications

5. McCarthy ,Michael 2010 Vocabulary Matrix: Understanding, Learning

and Teaching:Cambridge University Press

6. Milton, James 2005. Measuring Second Language VocabularyAcquisition.

Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

7. Nation , Paul 2001 Learning Vocabulary in Another Language:

Cambridge University Press

8. Nesselhaunf Najda 2005 Collocations in Learner Corpus: John Binyamin's

press

9. Read, John 1988. „Measuring the Vocabulary Knowledge of Second

Language Learners‟. RELC Journal. Vol. 19, pp. 12-25.

10. Read, John 2000. Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

11. sChmitt, Norbart 2000 Vocabulary in Language Teaching : Cambridge

University Press

12. Sinclair, John 2004. How to Use Corpus in Language Teaching: studies in

corpus linguistics. Amsterdam : John Benjamin‟s Publishing Co.

13. Sinclair, John 2004. Trust the Text: Language, Corpus and Discourse.

Oxon: Routledge Group.

14. Nation,I.S.P. 2001. Leaning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge:

Cambridge University

15. Nation, Paul and Laufer, Batia 1999. „A vocabulary-size test of controlled

Productive Ability‟. Language testing. Vol. 15/1, pp. 33-51.

49


Evaluation Form

Overall Evaluation Disagree Neutral Agree

Strongly

Agree

Objectives for the workshop were clearly stated.

I have learned new ideas and / or skills

There was adequate time for hands-on practice

I would recommend this workshop to others

Overall, I was favorably impressed by this workshop

The Instructors Disagree Neutral Agree

Strongly

Agree

Were well prepared and organized

Explained the material clearly

Stimulated interest in subject matter

Encouraged and responded to questions

Were knowledgeable about the subject matter

Identified resources for future help

Treated participants with respect

Seemed interested in teaching the workshop

Facilities and Equipment Disagree Neutral Agree

Strongly

Agree

The arrangement was appropriate

I could see the instructors clearly

I could hear the instructors clearly

I could see the visual aids

The lighting was adequate

50


Did the workshop meet your expectations ? [ ] Yes [ ] No

If No, please

explain___________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

Do you have suggestions for future workshops ?

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

Your feedback will be used for developmental and improvement purposes.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this form.

Name ( Optional ) ___________________

School ___________________________

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