INNOVATIVE WAYS OF TEACHING THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

INNOVATIVE WAYS OF TEACHING THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Professionals, who speak several languages, are highly demanded nowadays. That’s why every second person sign up for language teaching centers or apply for the universities with bilingual education. Some learners suppose that knowing grammar equals to mastering the language, since that is what they are taught to from the very first day. And they are right… in some cases, but it’s undoubtable, the vocabulary has bigger significance than grammar does. Grammar includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences, i.e. this is the system of a language. By mastering grammar perfectly you can be sure you know the structure of the language; however it doesn’t mean you’ve possessed the language. The reason is- structure is nothing without “the material”, i.e. the vocabulary. Grammar and vocabulary complete each other. Nevertheless, the word-stock should be given greater emphasis. Vocabulary is central to language teaching, because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand others or express their own ideas. David Wilkins wrote that “. . . while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” [1; p. 111–112].

A top linguist researcher Paul Nation writes: “Vocabulary is not an end in itself. A rich vocabulary makes the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing easier to perform” [2]. Every time we try to express our opinion correctly, our brain works so hard to remember the right spelling, pronunciation and contextual use of the words; but if the vocabulary is learnt thoroughly, you can concentrate fully on higher level aspects of language such as using accurate sentence structures and more appropriate expressions for the type of conversation that is going on.

The process of mastering the vocabulary can be incidental. That’s when you memorize the meaning of unfamiliar words according to the context of the text. However, this kind of learning is only possible if the amount of unknown words remains low. That is, you must have a significant vocabulary to be able to learn new words from the context in which they appear. This definitely constitutes a clear disadvantage for learners with less vocabulary, but also means that “learners who know more words are able to use those known words to learn even more” [3] .

A lot of research works were done according to the ways of vocabulary teaching, and truth to tell there are amount of methods and techniques, which are practiced by teachers of foreign languages all over the world. And this work aims to summarize the most effective ways of acquiring the vocabulary of foreign language.

In order to achieve the pointed aim the raw of objectives, such as studying the previous research works, reasoning the sources of the given problem, figuring out the possible solutions and making some predictions on cutting out the issue’s root, were carried out.

Presented methods of teaching the vocabulary may seem too simple to be considered as “effective”, but they are expected to help young teachers to succeed on their hard way of training new bilingual generation.

Today scientists highlight three main types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory and long- term memory. And we are interested in the last one. Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman point out, that “as language teachers, our main concern is to ensure that what is taught will be permanently retained in long- term memory, so it is clearly a matter of some importance that classroom activities take account of various theories, and strive to combat decay and interference while developing and facilating efficient retrieval systems” [4; p.90]. That is to say, only by developing students’ long- term memory, we may achieve efficient foreign language learning. What hinders human memory to last for a long time? And how can it be prevented?

One of the old memorization techniques is rote learning that involves repetition of target language items either silently or aloud and may involve writing down the items [4; p.93]. The linguists have different points of view on advantage of the given technique.

In recent years it has become popular to criticize the use of rote learning methods, partly because the learner may commit to memory information which is not understood and is therefore of no functional value. Material that is forced into memory be drill-type repetition without understanding tends to remain isolated within the learner’s long- term memory, rather than being connected with prior knowledge (Rosenshine, 1995). For this reason, information stored by rote is not easily retrieved when needed. Rote- memorized material is also easily forgotten unless rehearsed frequently, and is unlikely to generalize to new contexts. Students who lack effective learning strategies frequently resort to rote learning, even when its use is not appropriate [5; p.10].

Numerous results of experiments show the effectiveness of organized memorizing. Organization is the key to memory. Because it’s easier to find information, when everything is on the “right” place, than looking for it, when everything is head over heels. It has been already noted, it requires an organization that would allow not only to classify, but also to retrieve the information fast for long-term memory. There are several ways to "stacking" of information in the memory; they depend on the complexity and other features of the memorized material. Alphabetized or unrelated lists of words do not facilitate discovery of the organizational pattern which relates the items. Linking items in a semantic framework can be encouraged through the technique of webbing or semantic mapping.

There are also forms of organization of the material, more or less arbitrarily formed from the "inside." First, we can assume the existence of an associative organization in which we group together elements from any common features: of the same grammatical category (nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, etc.) or with similar functions (for eg., clothing, food, musical instruments, etc.). Diagrams and word trees are used in this type of organization. They are extremely useful frameworks for storage of lexis, and they can be used to highlight the relationships between items.

Vocabulary grids involve building a grid in which essential word-stock is listed on one axis of the grid and major features, characteristics, or important ideas are listed on the other axis. Students fill in the grid, indicating the extent to which the key words possess the stated features or are related to important ideas. Once the grid is completed, students are led to discover both the shared and unique characteristics of the vocabulary words.

Rote learning is one of the most traditional methods when it comes to language learning. It goes without saying, that it has a lot of advantages, but in order to achieve our goals faster and more effective, I think, we should adapt to the way in which our brain works. There are a lot of innovative ways of teaching a language. Of course, each teacher chooses the method, he is comfortable with. But there is something that unites us. We are responsible to educate worthy progeny. Younger generation has to be able to distinguish the line between “memorizing” and “understanding”, as well as the differences between “learning” and “thinking”. It will help them not only in their study, but also in creating better world.

Bibliography:

1. David Wilkins (1972 .Linguistics in language teaching. Edward Arnold, London.)

2. Nation, Paul (1994). New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary. TESOL.

3. Nation, Paul (1990). Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. Newbury House, New York.)

4. Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman. Working with words. A guide to teaching and learning vocabulary., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge-2010, 200p.

5. Learning and learning difficulties. A handbook for teachers. Peter Westwood; ACER Press, Australia. 2004-p. 181