Developing Academic Vocabulary Academic Vocabulary For example Words
Developing Academic Vocabulary
Academic Vocabulary
For example Words for Different Purpose ◦ Academic : often used at university and in academic books and journals ◦ Formal : polite and official ◦ Informal / Colloquial : everyday, ordinary language ◦ Slang: very informal, used by specific groups
Vocabulary at University ◦ For many students, academic vocabulary can seem like learning a new language ◦ But you may already know and use academic words/phrases ◦ General academic words: ◦ Used in a range of subjects e. g. “the aim is to. . ”. “…this has been deteriorating…” ◦ Technical words: ◦ Language specific to your subject e. g. externalities, moraines
Do you know these words: abandon, abstract, academy, access, accommodate, accompany, accumulate, accurate, achieve, acknowledge, acquire, adapt, adequate, adjacent, adjust, administrate, adult, advocate, affect, aggregate… Academic Vocabulary They are the first 570 word families of the Academic Word List Developed to find out the most common words in academic writing
Learning new vocabulary Things you can do : ◦ Write a new word down and find out how it is used ◦ What does the word mean? Does it have different meanings? ◦ Write the different word families (noun, verb, adjective) ◦ Write it in an example sentence for your subject ◦ Organise your notebook A-Z or by date or topic ◦ Translate if you need to but remember the English use
Deeper Levels of Meaning Find out a new word’s……. ◦ Prefixes (beginnings) and suffixes (endings) ◦ Synonyms (words with similar meaning) ◦ Antonyms (words with an opposite meaning) ◦ Associated words : words that belong to a specific subject area ◦ Collocations : words that are combined together e. g. “competitive market”, “take offence”
Test Your Vocabulary Regularly If we don’t practice, we don’t remember ◦ Test yourself daily ◦ Look at a word – remember its spelling, meaning, use ◦ Cover the word and write it in a new sentence ◦ Can you remember any synonyms? Collocations? ◦ Check – repeat ◦ Easy? Do it for all the word families for that word ◦ Try and use the word in your assignments
You Want to Improve Your Vocabulary? Get Reading! ◦ New words ◦ Words that are relevant to your subject ◦ See the words used in context so they make sense ◦ If they are related to your subject, there is more chance you will use them
https: //www. eapfoundation. com www. uefap. com Search “Academic Word List” for other practice exercises
Next Watch the video on Academic Language and Style
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