Words Alan Marsh MATEFL 2013 Todays agenda 1

Words! Alan Marsh MATEFL 2013

Today’s agenda 1 2 3 4 5 6 Numbers and words Three problems Absolutely perfect! Pre-teach? Pre-storm! Sorting and storing Er ……. ? Or Is this the most useful lesson I’ve ever taught? 7 Getting Engaged …. Marrying words!

English words and numbers • 50, 000 • 20, 000 • Half a million • 2, 000 • 7, 500

How many words …? • 1 How many words are there in English? • 2 How many words does an educated native speaker of • • English understand? 3 How many words does an educated native speaker of English have as part of their active vocabulary 4 How many words does a speaker of English need to be able to take part in everyday conversation? 5 How many words are defined in an Advanced Learner’s Dictionary? 6 How many words does a reader of English need to understand most texts?

• • • 1 How many words are there in English? Half a million? 2 How many words does an educated native speaker of English understand? 50, 000? 3 How many words does an educated native speaker of English have as part of their active vocabulary • 20, 000? • 4 How many words does a speaker of English need to be able to • • take part in everyday conversation? About 2000 5 How many words are defined in an Advanced Learner’s Dictionary? Macmillan’ Advanced Learner’s Dictionary: 7500 key words 6 How many words does a reader of English need to understand most texts?

How many words does a reader of English need to understand most texts? • Top 2, 000 words = 83% of most texts i. e. 1 out • • • of 5 will be unfamiliar Top 6, 000 words = 90%, which means 1 word out of 10 will be unfamiliar to you Top 10, 000 words = 95% i. e. only 1 word out of 20 will be unfamiliar to you - pretty good if you need to work words out from context. Macmillan Advanced Learner’s dictionary identifies 7500 key words that advanced learners should know

The top 2000 work the hardest! • Enable learners to speak, read, write and listen • • at Elementary (A 1) level about everyday subjects (+ some subject specific vocabulary) Since they’re so frequent, they can help learners to work out meanings, and to ask for help in real situations Learners’ dictionaries typically use 2000 -2500 words as their ‘defining vocabulary’

Mmmm …. . Is there a problem? • How many new words do you teach every • • lesson? How many times do learners need to recall and revise words before they’re permanently stored? How many lessons of English do learners have? How long do they need in order to permanently store (and be able to recall) 10, 000 words? Is there a problem here?

What does ‘knowing a word’ mean? pronunciation word building stresses synonyms translation part of speech suburbs core meaning connotation antonyms register colligates collocates

How can we help? • • • Help them to …. Notice Help them to …Record and Store Help them to …Retrieve and Use Help them to …Extend and Enrich Introduce them to learn…Words for getting around words

Write down the first word(s) that come to mind • Hot • Dog • Baby • Hair • Glass • Bath • Glue • Carpet • Train • Light

WORD LIST enlarge crawl female abandon car love warm van nappy affection baby vehicle hot trainees expand cool cot little increase cold remember relinquish male forget lorry trainer diminutive

A Xanudasian student’s exercise book • WORD TRANSLATION • • • • express opt out star interview shun kinsman foyer piss pottery o’er hotchpotch semi-conductor prosecuted atcito organo kotor nganinot Mgumba stron (ff skulo, Firmo) galactio tuo baire medjurma bacawao ina terusco megrobaro auditorio pri mecxt kchir oborosto tubea senico kotor emio ina Tulmulenco semikonductto epallis na magistrato • Jim Scrivener: Learning Teaching Macmillan (2011) •

Superordinates and hyponyms • vehicle car van lorry

Lexical set crawl baby nappy cot

synonomy • enlarge/increase/expand • love/affection • abandon/relinquish • little/diminutive

Does synonomy really exist? • Collocations • expand the economy or enlarge the economy • a diminutive old woman – what’s wrong? • a little old lady • Connotations: • The soldier abandoned his post • The soldier relinquished his post

Antonomy or words along a cline • hot/warm/cool/cold • male/female • remember/forget • trainer/trainees

Weather temperatures • cool • hot • chilly • boiling • freezing • cold • warm

• boiling • hot • warm • cool • chilly • cold • freezing

Words along a cline • laugh • smile • giggle • chortle • guffaw • grin

Words along a cline smile guffaw grin chortle giggle laugh

Words on a cline • irate • irritated • furious • annoyed • hopping mad • angry • livid

ous-livid ri u -f te ra -i d a m g in p p o -h irritated-annoyed-angry

Acknowledgement: Tim Bowen

Absolute (extreme) adjectives for …. • sad • good • drunk • cheap • easy • hungry • valuable • surprised • angry

• • • • • Sad? Heartbroken! Good? Perfect Drunk? Legless! Cheap? A give-away! Easy? A piece of cake! Hungry? Starving! Valuable? Priceless! Surprised? Flabbergasted! Angry? Furious!

Absolutely …. . • • • • Hungry? I’m absolutely _____________! I was more than angry when I found out. I was absolutely _____! This painting isn’t just valuable – it’s absolutely _________! Was the exam easy? It was an absolute _________! The meal was really tasty – absolutely _________! This exercise is very difficult. In fact. It’s absolutely _______! I wasn’t just sad when I heard the news; I was absolutely _____! This item is extremely important. In fact, it’s absolutely ________ for your survival. The dog isn’t just ugly; it’s absolutely _________! He drank 4 litres of wine last night and was absolutely ______! This device doesn’t work – it’s absolutely _________! These shirts are really cheap – they’re an absolute ________! The weather isn’t just cold today – it’s absolutely ________! There is only one painting like this in the whole world. It’s absolutely _____! I was absolutely ________ when I heard the news! I never expected him to pass the exam. And he got an A grade too!

Absolutely …. . • • • • Hungry? I’m absolutely ravenous! I was more than angry when I found out. I was absolutely furious! This painting isn’t just valuable – it’s absolutely priceless! Was the exam easy? It was an absolute doddle! The meal was really tasty – absolutely delicious! This exercise is very difficult. In fact. It’s absolutely impossible! I wasn’t just sad when I heard the news; I was absolutely heartbroken! This item is extremely important. In fact, it’s absolutely essential for your survival. The dog isn’t just ugly; it’s absolutely hideous! He drank 4 litres of wine last night and was absolutely legless! This device doesn’t work – it’s absolutely useless! These shirts are really cheap – they’re an absolute give-away! The weather isn’t just cold today – it’s absolutely freezing! There is only one painting like this in the whole world. It’s absolutely unique! I was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard the news! I never expected him to pass the exam. And he got an A grade too!

Personalisation • Have you ever been absolutely • • legless/furious/flabbergasted? What was your last absolutely delicious meal? Have you ever bought anything that was absolutely useless? Or that was an absolute give-away? Is there an absolutely hideous building in your town or city or country?

Dictogloss Although it was her first visit to America, something about the atmosphere in the old house – the carpet, the antique furniture in the lounge, the colour of the wallpaper in the hall, the dank atmosphere, the strange musty smell on the steps – convinced her that somewhere in the deep, distant past she had been there before.

Dictogloss intermediate 1 • The rain was beating relentlessly against the window pane and the wind was howling menacingly around the lonely wooden cabin on the snow-covered mountainside. Tom was scared. Then he heard a strange, muffled noise outside. Someone was trying to open the door!

• • the dormitories the corridors the porridge the water in the communal bath the towels the basins the socks the lavatories

Whoever writes of his schooldays must beware of exaggeration and self-pity. I do not claim that St. Cyprian’s was a sort of Dotheboys Hall. But I should be falsifying my own memories if I did not record that they are largely memories of disgust. The overcrowded, underfed, underwashed life we led was disgusting, as I recall it. If I shut my eyes today and say “school”, it is, of course, the physical surroundings that first come back to me: the flat playing field with its cricket pavilion and the little shed by the rifle range, the draughty dormitories, the dusty, splintery passages, the square of asphalt in front of the gymnasium, the raw- looking pinewood chapel at the back.

And at almost every point some filthy detail intrudes itself. For example, there were the pewter bowls out of which we had our porridge. They had overhanging rims, and under the rims were accumulations of sour porridge, which could be flaked off in long strips. The porridge itself, too, contained more lumps, hairs and unexplained black things than one would have thought possible, unless someone were putting them there on purpose. It was never safe to start on that porridge without investigating it first. And then there was the slimy water of the plunge bath – it was twelve or fifteen feet long. The whole school was supposed to go into it every morning and I doubt whether the water was changed at all frequently – and the always damp towels with their cheesy smell. And the sweaty smell of the changing-room with its greasy basins and, giving on this, the row of filthy dilapidated lavatories, which had no fastenings of any kind on the doors, so whenever you were sitting there someone was sure to come crashing in. It is not easy for me to think of my schooldays without seeming to breathe in a whiff of something cold and evil-smelling – a sort of compound of sweaty socks, dirty towels, faecal smells blowing along corridors, forks with old food between the prongs, neck of mutton stew, and the banging doors of the lavatories and the echoing chamber pots in the dormitories. George Orwell, Such Were the Joys

Learner Training 1 Circumlocution and paraphrasing strategies 2 Storing lexis: keeping records 3 Really knowing a word

CROSSWORD RACE

The answers! • • 3 A stale 9 D improbable 16 D toothpaste 7 D delete 15 A look it up 12 D unemployed 1 D vehicle 13 D delicatessen 10 A fall asleep 8 A engine 11 A rise 14 A exhausted 2 D catch up 17 A coach 10 D fuel 6 D broken up 4 D lose 5 D tears 20 A error 19 A shark 18 A vet

• • • a. b. c. d. • e. • • f. • • • g. • • It’s the _____ … fresh/wake up/win/probable It’s ______… go up/mistake It _______ as cancel It’s a _____ means of transport/fish It’s _____. . coal, oil, gas etc. / car, bus, van, etc. It’s the person _____ …. (vet) It’s the place _____ … (delicatessen) It’s _____ you … (engine) It’s _____ you _____ for _____ … (toothpaste) It’s _____ … (tears) It’s _____ you … (unemployed) It’s _____ you … (look it up / catch up) It’s _____ you … (exhausted)

Paraphrasing and circumlocution • • It’s a synonym/another word for …. It’s the opposite of …. . It’s a kind/type/sort of. . It’s the general word for …, …. , and … • • • It’s the thing/stuff you use when you/to … It’s the place where …. It’s a/the person who … It’s how you (feel) when …. It’s what you (do) when you/to …… An example sentence with a context

Useful phrases in Italian • Come se dice. . ? • E un’altra parola che vuol dire …. . • E un sinonomo di. . . • Se dice cosi quando si. . • E il contrario di …. • E un tipo di. . . E una specie di. . . • E una cosa che se usa quando /per

• admire exciting killer professor • attendance experience • attractive factor leader record • bad fair-haired lovely rugged • beautiful fair-skinned lover scenic • boring fantastic magnificent sick • cute fascinating • flight attendant moving • gang newscaster suntanned good-looking • dramatic handsome law protection dangerous stunning sunburnt elegant pig encounter die doctor murder rescue

Words we like …. • mellifluous • serendipity • flabbergasted • helter-skelter • wishy-washy • And in Maltese …. • sahansitra

Engagement … and marry the words • Choose two you like… and say why • Connect three in a sentence • Write a newspaper headline • Make up a story • Make up a long sentence • And now …. . • How many can you remember?

Some websites for starters … • • www. teachingenglish. org British Council www. onestopenglish. com Macmillan www. ELTCommunity. com Pearson Longman www. matefl. org many more links www. mes-english. com flashcards www. learningenglish. com for your learners www. etprofessional. com practical magazine ? ? ? ? ?

Books I’ve found very useful • • • Vocabulary In Use, CUP: the whole series (including Collocations In Use, Phrasal Verbs In Use, etc. ) S. Thornbury How To Teach Vocabulary (Longman) S. Redman and R. Ellis A Way With Words (1 -3) M. Mc. Carthy, A. O’Keefe, S. Walsh Vocabulary Matrix, Heinle Cengage J. Scrivener Learning Teaching, Macmillan S. Thornbury, An A-Z of ELT, Macmillan J. Richards, J. Platt, H. Platt Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics, Longman All the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Cambridge, Macmillan, Oxford, and Collins Cobuild

• A last couple of thoughts …. .

Bricks and mortar …. .

Inspirational dictation • conveyed • very • grammar • without • can without little vocabulary be nothing can conveyed be

A famous quote …… “Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. (Wilkins 1972)

• alanmarshinmalta@gmail. com • 9942 8447 • And ………. • Thank you!