Teaching English WordsPatti Trussler

Pretest:a. Why do we say "photograph, photography,

photographic" the way we do?b. How do native English speakers know where to

put the stress in words such as recreation, education, solution and suggestion?

c. What do compartmentalize, computerize and modernize all have in common? …and Cincinnati, Hiroshima and Coca Cola?

d. Why is it that an adult Spanish ESL learner says that he/she can read academic texts but not understand English newspapers?

e. What effects have William the Conqueror and William Caxton had on the English language?

Answers

a. stress shifts according to its suffixb. Native speakers follow the generalizable pattern

that they've heardc. These words are all verbs, share the same suffix

and are stressed in the same way …. (all proper nouns with the same stress pattern)

d. academic texts use many borrowed words, mostly from Latin and French origins. Newspapers use many more common Native words of English

e. William the Conqueror and the occupation of England introduced thousands of French words into English; William Caxton through the printing press increased language accessibility and literacy rates

How do these relate to our teaching of English vocabulary?

What do ESL students need? What do teachers need to do to

address these needs of our students?

How is this presentation going to help?

What do students need? Learn words as a package

(not only meaning, but part of speech, pieces of the word: prefixes, suffixes, root, pronunciation, spelling)

Develop a sense of the patterns of English (meanings, pronunciation, spellings), develop tools so they can be independent learners and confidence to enable them to guess as 1st language learners do

Learn words in context ( many pieces cannot be appreciated and therefore learned when words are learned in isolation )

Learn a 'metalanguage' for vocabulary development, as they do in grammar

What do teachers need to do to best address these needs of our students?

Have a systematic and habitual method for approaching vocabulary

Become familiar with the English system to enable one’s students

We need to give our students tools for guessing (meaning, pronunciation, part of speech)

Keep vocabulary studies to contextual situations Develop a method for maintaining visual

reminders in the classroom to reinforce new concepts (word lists, terminology for parts of speech, pronunciation patterns, common prefixes and suffixes)

How is this presentation going to help?

Give an overview of the history of English and its relevance to learning English vocabulary

Connect the structure of words to the pronunciation rules for word stress

Present activities to learn and practice word stress

Show examples of how students can log vocabulary

Facts to Consider

80% of English words are borrowed one third of the first 10,000 words we learn are

native English words our Core 1000 words , over 800 are common

prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, common verbs having to do with perception (feel think touch hear see), body parts , members of family

The Core words can be traced back as far as 8000 years ago to Indo-European roots

80% of vocabulary used 1000 years ago has been replaced since 1066, the Norman Conquest

Reference: Stockwell. English Words: History & Structure 2001

English Usage (core) compared to total English

Vocabulary

Woods, Syllable Stress and Unstress, 1979

Origins of Vocabulary

Third Thousand: English 29%; French/Latin 62%

Second thousand: English 34%; French/Latin 57%

CORE VOCABULARY:1000 most frequently used wordsEnglish 83%; French/Latin 13%

Reference: Stockwell. English Words: History & Structure 2001

Fourth Thousand: English 27%; French/Latin 62%

What does this mean for language learners?

Young learners (not only 2nd language) need to develop academic abstract language (loan words) to achieve success in schools

Young Adults benefit from analyzing the majority of words for prefixes, suffixes, stress, pronunciation patterns, meaning of roots, and parts of speech

How many words are we talking about?

Native Speakers 5 yr olds - 5000 words each year, increase of 1000 wordsGraduates from Secondary School<15,000 words

Second Language Speakers1st year~ 500- 750 words2nd year~ up to 1500 words3rd year~ 2500 words4th year ~ 5000 wordsBy 7th year, most learners can be Vocabulary development is the single most important predictor of academic successVocabulary is the expression of ideas, so without the words, they cannot fully understand the ideas

Why is the history so important?

We need to be able to recognize and understand the influences it has had on our present vocabulary (for meaning, grammar as well as pronunciation)

Historical Influences on EnglishTimeline

Approximately -Early Germanic 2200 years ago branch of Indo European

( earth, make, drink, house, meat, wife,winter, bird, woman) 43 - 400 A.D. -Celtic tribes ruled by Romans

400 A.D. -Angles and Saxons left Denmark to settle in southern and eastern England

Historical Influences on English

Old English -Celts driven west by AngloSaxons ~450-1066 (cross, curse, cradle, London, Kent,

Thames,York)

-Latin *Christianity ( candle, devil, discipline, offer,

mass)*Scholarship (alphabet, describe, history,

paper, school, translate)

-Scandinavian (Vikings, Old Norse) ruled England 787-1042

*Names (Jackson, Carnaby)*Household (bag, die, knife, skin, they, skirt,

dike, till)

Historical Influences on English

Middle English -Norman invasion of England1066-1476 -French 10,000 new words, 75%

still used today

*government (army, mayor, state, tax parliament,)

*Scholarship (art, science, literature, medicine, music, poet, surgeon, tragedy, grammar)

*Common words (very, city, mountain, close)

*Mixed compounds (gentleman, talkative, cheerful)

Historical Influences on English

EarlyModern English Printing Press, Caxton 1476 and 1476-1776 Discovery of New World

more people had access to words, literacy rose from 2% to 60% in 3 generations4,500 new words a decade

*New intellectual activitiesClassical Latin (curriculum, investigate, radius, calculus,virus, evaporate)Greek (atmosphere, drama, irony, syllable, rhythm,criterion)Italian (balcony, bazaar, opera, duet, soprano, etc.)

*Business activitiesDutch (pickle, yacht, knapsack, cookie, bully, kid)Spanish/Portuguese (banjo, cocoa, jerk, lasso)

Historical Influences on English

Modern English - Continue to borrow as

1776-present well as create new words

-for words in new unfamiliar areas, customs, etc. we borrow from modern languages

Examples of how we have created new words before and

today New creations: Kodak, Kleenex, nylon Blending: smog, brunch, medicare, urinalysis Acronym: NASA, radar, modem Initialisms: CBC, UFO Shortening: phone, plane, flu, zoo, edit Derivation by affix: sweat – sweater, hard – hardly, graceful-

disgraceful (meaning not transparent) Derivation without affix: major ( adj/n/v), account ( n/v),

anchor (n/v) chair (n/v) Compounding: largest source of new words outside of

borrowing; good bye ( God be with you), woman ( wife-man), ice-cream, sweetheart, highlight

Eponyms: based on names, guy, watt, boycott, sandwich, cheddar, china, denim, spartan, atlas, platonic, morphine, xerox, band-aid

Echoic: oh, flap, thump, sizzle, wheeze etc.

What is the relationship between how our vocabulary has developed and how we say words?

PronunciationWord Stress Rules

Native English Patterns (rules & examples)

Foreign Borrowed Words (rules & examples)

NATIVE ENGLISH STRESS PATTERNS (Anglo-Saxon)

One Syllable Words:Examples: bed, chair, clothes, wall

Rule: stress monosyllable Two Syllable Words: stress base syllable

a. Examples: answer, apple, daughter, carry, after, early, yellow, travel

Rule #1: stress first syllableb. Examples: about, afraid, because, invite, today, until

Rule #2: Two Syllables with prefixes, stress the base syllable (2nd syllable), not the prefix

NATIVE ENGLISH STRESS PATTERNS (Anglo-Saxon) cont’d

Three & Four Syllable Words:Examples: history, interest, popular, article, honourable, personallyRule: stress base (first syllable)

Unstressed Words: Examples: function words ( am at, her, than, that, were, your, etc)Rule: only content words are stressed, all others are reduced partially or to a schwa [ə]

STRESS PATTERNS for words of foreign background (Latin, French, Greek)

Predictable rules Word patterns Words with suffixes

Word Stress Exercise: Read over the following list of words and

determine where the stress is.

sixty associate invitation CIBCorganize democratic originate fifty activity sympathetic incredible magicinsult (n) Canadian festivity insult (v) sixteen bookstore take away

recognize present (n) volunteer fireman VCR optimistic capability preservation musicianCNN get along present (v) separate turn over engineer hairbrush fifteen

convertible politician specialization telepathic

We can put these words into groups.

Their stress patterns are always the same and follow predictable rules.

What groups do you see?

Stress Patterns - Rules and Patterns

A) Compound Words hairbrush, bookstore

Rule: B) Numbers fifty, fifteen

Rule: C) Verb Phrases turn over, take away

Rule: D) Abbreviations VCR, CIBC

Rule: E) Noun-Verb insult, present

Rule:

Words with Suffixes

i) Suffix “ion”: preservation, specialization Rule:

ii) Suffix “ity”: festivity, capability Rule:

iii) Suffix “ic”: optimistic, democratic Rule:

iv) Suffix “ible”: convertible, incredible Rule:

v) Suffix “ian”: Canadian, musicianRule:

Words with suffixes - continued

vi) Suffix “ize”: recognize, organizeRule:

vii) Suffix “ate”: associate, originate Rule:

viii) Suffix “eer”: engineer, volunteerRule:

Teaching Pronunciation of Word Stress: the holistic approach

What is stress? Practice listening, discriminating,

saying stressed syllables Discuss Basic English Stress Rules Discover Rules with Suffixes and

other patterns Revisit, remind and review as

vocabulary studies evolve

Classroom Management of Vocabulary Have a systematic and habitual method for approaching

vocabulary (vocabulary ‘books’, organized by theme or part of speech, include ‘family of words’ )

Identify words whole class will learn (including family of words, all parts of speech); independent study is ideal but difficult to manage and unrealistic for most learners

Keep vocabulary studies to contextual situations

Maintain visual reminders in the classroom to reinforce new concepts (word lists, terminology for parts of speech, pronunciation patterns, common prefixes and suffixes)

Evaluate correct use, part of speech, ability to manipulate usage rather than merely meanings of words

Organizing Words Vocabulary CalendarsMonday Tuesday Wednesda

yThursday Friday

3

aboriginaltreatiesharsh

4

reservesConstitutionMetis

5

Inuit6 7

10 11 12 13 14

17 18 19 20 21

Examples of Vocabulary Logs Level 3-4 Canadian Studies

Word Part of

Speech

Family of Words Meaning

1.Liberal Adj/n liberally (adv), liberty (n), liberalize (v)liberation (n)

supporting political and social changes to make people more equal, willing to accept different ideas about people

2.Conservative

Adj/n conserve (v), conservatively(adv)

conservation (n)

Supporting a free market, low taxes and traditional ideas about family life

Level 1 Vocabulary Log

photo Word Part of Speech

Sentence/meaning

1. Secretary

Noun The secretary works in the main office.

2. Custodian

Noun The custodian cleans the school.

3. Library Noun We read and use the computers in the library.

Assessing VocabularyLevel 4/5

Choose six words from the vocabulary list.Identify two words from each word’s family.

Write two sentences, using one of the words in each sentence. Show how the different part of speech is used.

Example: There are many strategies we can use to learn vocabulary.

We need to be strategic when we are

trying to learn vocabulary.

More Assessment Examples

Level 4-5

Quiz Fill in the chart below for 6 of the words we’ve

studied. Choose 6 from the list below. Include at least 3 more members of each family. Remember to state the part of speech for each member of the family.

critical valuable necessary vital

Word Part of Speech

Words in family Synonym

Examplecritical

Adj criticism (n), critic (n), critically (adv), criticize (v)

Disapproving, serious

Assessing Vocabulary Logs Level 3-4

00-49%

150-59%

260-69&

370-79%

480-100%

Correct part of speechword families

spelling

Completed all entries

Meanings clear, own words

Neat, easy to read

Overall Mark

Final Thoughts

Useful dictionary for ESL students?

Oxford’s ESL Dictionary and CD “ESL Genie”, accessible meanings, usage, pronunciation, electronic, helps with reading webpages, Word documents

Learning Words……

Takes Time and Effort from both Teachers and Students

We owe it to them