Communicating Vocabulary

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Communicating Vocabulary

• Inha TESOL 2008

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What do these words mean?

• squire irate
• abhor be in hot water
• herpetologist hazardous
• a steal

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The police had a suspect in custody and were
interrogating him. But he denied killing anybody.

Teacher, whats a suspect?
How do you respond when a student asks you what
a word or a phrase means?
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• What do you do?
• Do you . . . ?

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• (1) Try to define the word or expression in
  English?
• A suspect is somebody that the police
  think
• may have committed a crime, but they are
• not sure.

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• (2) Try to use it in a context that illustrates
  the meaning in English?
• When the police found Jacks fingerprints on the
  door he became a suspect in the murder of his
  boss, so the police took Jack to the police
  station and asked him questions.

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• (3) Translate the word into Korean?
• In Korean, you say, ???.

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• (4) Tell them to go look it up in a dictionary.

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• Do you use other strategies to encourage
  learner independence such as . . . ?
• (1) encouraging the students to guess the word
  based on the context of the surrounding sentence.
• Why do police interrogate people?
• The suspect denies killing his boss. Does that
  give you a clue.

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• (2) encouraging students to read ahead to see if
  they can guess from the wider context of the
  story.
• What happens later? The police ask him some more
  questions. They find his fingerprints on the
  murder weapon. They arrest him. They put him in
  jail. He goes on trial.

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Pair Work

• Take a moment to discuss the advantages and
  disadvantages of each way of communicating
  vocabulary to your students. Also discuss how you
  would deal with this situation.

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• We will look at this problem for the next two
  weeks.
• This week we will discuss ways to define
  vocabulary items and phrases using English only
  definitions.
• Next week we will look at ways to build
  vocabulary presentations that puts vocabulary in
  context.

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Defining Vocabulary For Your Students

• There are many ways to define vocabulary for
  your students. Here are a few of the easiest ways
  to define vocabulary
• (1) synonyms
• (2) antonyms
• (3) relative clauses
• (4) noun clauses

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Synonyms

• Synonyms are words that have the same (or nearly
  the same) in the context given.
• Quick and fast are synonyms.

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Language for Synonyms.

• Here are some useful patterns for describing
  synonyms
• . . . is another word for . . .
• . . . mean the same thing as . . .
• . . . means . . .
• . . . is similar to . . .
• . . . is another way of saying . . .

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Language for Synonyms

• Clever is another word for smart.
• Irate means the same thing as angry.
• Ideal means the best you can imagine.
• Abhor is similar to despise or hate.
• You are in hot water is another way of saying you
  are in trouble.

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Antonyms

• Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings.
• Large and small are antonyms.

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Language for Antonyms

• The most common way to discuss antonyms is to use
  the following phrase
• . . . Is the opposite of . . .
• Hazardous is the opposite of safe.

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Relative Clauses (Adjective Clauses)

• Another good way to define a noun is to use a
  relative clause.
• . . . is a person who . . .
• . . . .is a place where . . .
• . . . is a time when . . .
• . . . a thing that . . .

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• A squire is a young boy who helps a knight with
  weapons and armor.
• A herpetologist is a scientist who studies
  reptiles.
• A prison is a place where criminals are kept.
• Halloween is a time when children wear costumes
  and go trick-or-treating.
• A herbivore is an animal that eats only plants.

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Using Nouns Clauses to Define Words

• Smuggling is when you bring something into a
  country illegally.
• A strainer is what you use to get rid of water
  from spaghetti noodles.
• A factory is where things are made such as
  computers and cars.
• The jury is who decides if somebody is guilty of
  a crime or not.

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Conditionals

• Conditionals are useful for defining idioms,
  phrases and phrasal verbs.
• If you are fed up with something then you cant
  stand doing it anymore.
• If you are on cloud nine, then you are very
  happy.
• If something is a steal, then it is a bargain or
  it costs less than it is really worth.

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Task 1

• You will be given a list of vocabulary to teach
  your class. In pairs come up with definitions for
  each of the vocabulary items using the strategies
  presented in class (or any other strategies that
  you can think of).

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Task 2

• Working in pairs, make a Dictionary of Korean
  Culture. Define some interesting aspects of
  Korean culture to somebody who has never visited
  Korea before.