lexis = all the words that belong to a particular subject or language; vocabulary = words known, learnt, used. (The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English )

Lexis and vocabulary are often used interchangeably.

the study of the structure of words and how it affects meaning, for example, faith/faithful/unfaithful

Work in pairs. Make other words from book and

happy. For example, know knowing, knowledge, unknown, well- known, knowingly,

acknowledge, acknowledgement etc.

What is a morpheme? A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a word. (Carter, R. 1998) Vocabulary. London: Routledge.)

How many morphemes are there in each of these words?

impolitely dustbin comb acting overworked pathfinder irresponsible stressed bedrooms

Free-standing (unbound) morphemes: individual elements that can stand alone within a sentence e.g. dog; book; man;happy

Bound morphemes: meaning-bearing units of language, such as affixes, which are attached to free-standing morphemes. They cannot stand alone. Inflectional morphemes: show grammatical relationships e.g. walk

walked; book books

Derivational morphemes: create new words and change meanings

Studying regular patterns can aid word recognition and increase vocabulary, for example, icity in publicity, audacity, authenticity, electricity etc. By learning and applying one pattern, learners can greatly extend their vocabulary.

It is one way of classifying vocabulary, for example, presenting words that are alike in structure (but not necessarily in meaning): adjectives ending in al, such as brutal, frontal, horizontal.

It can help learners to memorise and spell words with morphemic similarities, for instance, irregular verbs: sing-sang-sung and ring-rang- rung.

Work with a partner. How many ways are there of building words in English? Make a list!

Compounding Gatekeeper

Affixes (prefixes and

suffixes) Unhappy

happiness

Clipping

refrigerator fridge

Conversion A text to text (e.g.

SMS)

Abbreviations

AIDS Mr

Blending

Breakfast + lunch = brunch

Using affixes (prefixes and suffixes) is one common way of constructing words, e.g. return, helpful.

Look at the task provided.

1. How effective do you think this exercise would be with a group of Intermediate learners? 2. What kind of difficulties could arise? 3. How could you extend this kind of activity?

Using affixation enables learners to increase their vocabulary fairly quickly and they can learn some of the common ones (for example, ful, ness, pre). It can also promote dictionary use.

Overgeneralisation of rules and use of non-existent forms (for example, explainer, discusser).

Use/usage and the grammar associated with the word if taught in isolation. Stress the importance of context.

Pronunciation stress pattern changes. What happens when the word changes from one word class to another? For example, verbs nouns, such as record, import, increase.

Spelling changes can be confusing.

Learners can use dictionaries to check associated prepositions and collocations, and the pronunciation and stress patterns.

Learners can write their own example sentences.

The meaning of a word is understood in terms of its relationship with other words in the language. The words antonym, synonym, hyponym and superordinate can be used to describe these relationships. Complete each sentence with one of the words above. Shallow can be a ___________________for superficial

in certain contexts. Achieve is the ___________________ for fail in certain

contexts. Beef, pork and lamb are all ____________________of

meat. Meat is a _____________________.

Worksheet 1

Synonyms and Antonyms

Look at the tree diagram for FRUIT. What is the advantage of presenting information in this way?

Hungarian days of the week htf kedd szerda cstrtk pntek szombat Vasrnap

Auditory methods: saying the word aloud to yourself, repeating it silently, exaggerating certain syllables.

Visual methods: picturing the word, seeing the word as a whole, picturing it in a certain way, writing it down to see if it looks right.

Kinaesthetic methods: tapping out the syllables with your foot or a finger, tracing the word with your finger, walking up and down while saying the word.

Mnemonics: using a rhyme, a poem or another trick way to help remember; word association.

Looking for patterns in the word, especially when you can relate them to your own language.

The easiest words to remember will probably be ones which look similar to English words, are short, or contain patterns which are similar to English words.

Lexis is usually best learned in context. Possible methods include lists, pairs of words, semantic networks and translation.

Some words are more difficult to learn than

others, particularly abstract concepts, words with shades of meaning, phrasal verbs and idioms. Concrete words are generally learned first and are easier to retain and recall.