Workshop VIII“ Explorando vocabulário”

Bruna Moreno

Because each new word has to be studied and learned on its own, the

larger your vocabulary becomes, the easier it will be to connect a new

word with words you already know, and thus remember its meaning. So your learning speed, or pace, should increase as your vocabulary grows.

Johnson O'Connor

I. Vocabulary

What should we observe when

teaching vocabulary?

When preparing classes and choosing what

vocabulary to focus on we should take into

account:

1. Frequency:

which words and expressions are frequent

and which are rare

2. Differences in speaking and writing:

which vocabulary is more frequently spoken

and which is more frequently written

3. Contexts of use:

the situations in which people use certain

vacabulary

4. Collocation:

which words are often used togheter

5. Strategic use of discourse

which words and expressions are used to

organize and manage discourse

6. Polysemydistinguishing between the various meaning of a single word form with several but closely related meanings (head: of a person, of a pin, of an organisation).

7. Homonymydistinguishing between the various meaning of a single word form which has several meanings which are NOT closely related ( e.g. a file: used to put papers in or a tool).

8. Homophynyunderstanding words that have the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings (e.g. flour, flower)

9. Synonymydistinguishing between the different shades of meaning that synonymous words have (e.g. extend, increase, expand).

10. Style, register and dialectBeing able to distinguish between different levels of formality, the effect of different contexts and topics, as well as differences in geographical variation.

11. Chunks of language multi-word verbs, idioms, collocations, lexical phrases.

12. Translationawareness of certain differences and similarities between the native and the foreign language (e.g. false cognates).

Reapeat and recycle

Learning vocabulary is related to memory, and usually students need do see, say and write new words many times before they

can say they learned it.Provide them chance do review vocabulary

Activities suggestion

Complete the chart with languages and countries. Compare your answers with a partner.

(From Touchstone)

Vocabulary organizing

I can speak... I can’t speak I want to go to...

PortugueseA little English

Korean Canada

When reviewing or working with lists of vocabulary:

Ask students to separate words into a chart:

Then ask them to write definitions (or my guess on meaning) for the words they know adn sort of know.

Guessing Meaning

Know it Sort of know it Don’t know it at all

BingoIt can be done in class. Ask your students to

choose 9 words from a list and write it in the order they want.

Shout the words and when a student has it he / she has to make a sentence.

The winner is the one who has all the words and is able to make correct sentences.

Games for reviewing vocabulary

Dictation

Auto-dictation

It can be assigned as homework. They listen to

the cd and write down the words.

After that they check the words on the book.

If you want, you can ask them to rewrite the

words they wrote wrong and hand it to you,

so you know what words they are having the

most difficulty with.

Cattegories dictationCreate charts with cattegories of vocabulary.As you dictate the words they are supposed

to put them in the write cattegory.

Furniture Parts of the House

Means of transportation

Parts of the body

Word map