By Ingrid Bello Acuña

“Advanced students and their needs”

Maybe, the problem is not the communication in advanced students because they can do it very well, they have learnt all the basic structures of the language; the main issue is the vocabulary which is not enough to express clearly and appropiately in a range wide situation.

According to the text, Students have a receptive knowledge of a wider range of vocabulary which is they can recognise both the item and its meaning; nonetheless, their productive use of a extensive range of vocabulary is limited. Hence, Students should able not only to understand the meaning of the words but also to use them appropiately.

“The teaching of vocabulary” Reality: The teaching of vocabulary about elementary levels is mostly

incidental limited to presenting new items

Issue: In common or real readings and listenings texts appear new items which is an indirected teaching of vocabulary assumes that vocabulary expansion will happen through the practice of other language skills; nonetheless, it has been proved not enough to ensure vocabulary expansion

Possible solution: Lewis proposes that “vocabulary should be at the centre of language teaching”, because “language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar”.

We have to consider some several aspects of lexis that

need to be taken into account when teaching vocabulary.

The following work was written by Gairns and Redman ( 1986)

Aspect of the lexis meaning

Boundaries between conceptual meaning know what lexis refers and also where the boundaries are that separate it from words related meaning e.g cup, mug, bowl

Polysemy Distinguish the various meaning of a single word form e. g: head- of a person, an organisation, a pin (closely related meanings)

Homonymy Distinguish the various meaning of a single word e.g: a file- used to put papers in or a tool ( not closely related)

Homophyny Understand words that have the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings e.g : flour, flower

Synomymy Distinguish between the different shades of meaning that synonymous words have e.g extend, increase, expand

Aspect of lexis meaning

Style, register, dialect Distinguish between different levels of formality, the effect of different contexts and topics, as well as differences in geographical variation

Translation Concious of certain differences and similarities between teh native and the foreign language e.g false cognates

Chunks of language Multi- word verbs, idioms, strong and weak collocations, lexical phrases.

Grammar of vocabulary Learn the rules in order to build up different forms of the word e.g sleep, slept, sleeping; able, unable, disability

Pronunciation Ability to recognise and reproduce items in speech

Affective meaning Distinguish between the attiitudinal and emotional factors (denotation and connotation) it depends on spearkers´attitude, situations, socio- cultural associations of lexical items

“The aim to teach vocabulary must be

more than simply covering a certain

number of words on a word list, for that

reason we must use teaching technniques and also we have to give to the learners the opportunities to use the items learnt and help them to use

effective written storage systems”

Gairns (1986) If we understand how our memory works more effective ways to teach vocabulary will be.

Learning new items involve storing them first in our short- term memory, and afterwards in long- term memory

We do not have control in this process but there are some clues to consider.

First, retention in short- memory is effective if it is less seven

Our long- term memory can hold any amount of information

Understanding… Our mental lexicon is

highly organised and efficient and that semantic related items are stored together.

Word frequency could affect storage as the most frequently used are easier to retrieve

To group items of vocabulary in semantic fields, such as topics

Oxford suggests memory strategies:- Creating mental linkages: grouping, associating,

placing new words into a context- Applying images and sounds: using imagery, using

key words and represent sounds- Reviewing well, in a structured way- Employing action: physical or sensation response,

using mechanical techniques

Suggestions

Suggestions Diagnose learning style preferences such as visual,

aural, kinaesthetic, tactile and make students aware of different memory strategies

Meaningful tasks. It is related to students´ experiences and reality to facilitate learning (it requires that learners have to analyse and process language deeply which help them retain information in long- term memory).

Do or create diagrams, word trees, topics, categories organisation, vocabulary box with cards among others.

Dealing with meaning

According to the author´s point of view the most important aspect of vocabulary teaching for advance learners is that students accomplish independence. Students could deal this by guided discovery, contextual guesswork and using dictionaries in order to discover meaning.

Techniques Application

Guided discovery Asking questions, offering examplesIt helps learning and retention

Contextual guesswork Making use of the context, guess from the word itself, word formation e.g prefixes and suffixes

EFL dictionaries It provokes independence from the teacher, and also understanding meaning, checking pronunciation, grammar of the word, different spelling, style and register as illustrate usage.

Lewis (1993) claims that lexical approach is not simply a shift of emphasis from grammar to vocabulary teaching, as “language consists not of traditional grammar and vocabulary” but often of multi-word prefabricated chunks” (1997)

Chunks include collocations, fixed and semi-fixed expressions and idioms and Lewis says that this occupies a crucial role in faciliting language productions which foster fluency.

The lexical approach

According to Hill (1999) affirms that good vocabularies have problems with fluency because their “collocational competence” is very limited

Lewis(1993) express that “being able to use a word involves mastering its collocational range and restrictions on that range” and also he extends the use of dictionaries to focus on word grammar and collocation range, although most dictionaries are rather limited in these.

Lewis defends the use of real or authentic material from the early stages of learning because “acquisition is facilitated by material which is only partly understood” (1993, pag 186)

1. Choice of material: authentic material is better because our students are exposed to rich, contextualised, naturally-occurring language.

2. Noticing collocations and dealing with meaning 3. Group work: it promotes learning

independence. 4. Choice of task: students need the opportunity

to use the language they are learning in realistic context.

Rationale of the lesson