Teaching English Words

1
Teaching English Words
Patti Trussler
2
Pretest

• Why do we say "photograph, photography,
  photographic" the way we do?
• How do native English speakers know where to put
  the stress in words such as recreation,
  education, solution and suggestion?
• What do compartmentalize, computerize and
  modernize all have in common? and Cincinnati,
  Hiroshima and Coca Cola?
• Why is it that an adult Spanish ESL learner says
  that he/she can read academic texts but not
  understand English newspapers?
• What effects have William the Conqueror and
  William Caxton had on the English language?

3
Answers

• stress shifts according to its suffix
• Native speakers follow the generalizable pattern
  that they've heard
• These words are all verbs, share the same suffix
  and are stressed in the same way . (all proper
  nouns with the same stress pattern)
• academic texts use many borrowed words, mostly
  from Latin and French origins. Newspapers use
  many more common Native words of English
• William the Conqueror and the occupation of
  England introduced thousands of French words into
  English William Caxton through the printing
  press increased language accessibility and
  literacy rates

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How do these relate to our teaching of English
vocabulary?

• What do ESL students need?
• What do teachers need to do to address these
  needs of our students?
• How is this presentation going to help?

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What do students need?

• Learn words as a package
• (not only meaning, but part of speech, pieces of
  the word prefixes, suffixes, root,
  pronunciation, spelling)
• Develop a sense of the patterns of English
  (meanings, pronunciation, spellings), develop
  tools so they can be independent learners and
  confidence to enable them to guess as 1st
  language learners do
• Learn words in context
• ( many pieces cannot be appreciated and
  therefore learned when words are learned in
  isolation )
• Learn a 'metalanguage' for vocabulary
  development, as they do in grammar

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What do teachers need to do to best address these
needs of our students?

• Have a systematic and habitual method for
  approaching vocabulary
• Become familiar with the English system to enable
  ones students
• We need to give our students tools for guessing
  (meaning, pronunciation, part of speech)
• Keep vocabulary studies to contextual situations
• Develop a method for maintaining visual reminders
  in the classroom to reinforce new concepts (word
  lists, terminology for parts of speech,
  pronunciation patterns, common prefixes and
  suffixes)

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How is this presentation going to help?

• Give an overview of the history of English and
  its relevance to learning English vocabulary
• Connect the structure of words to the
  pronunciation rules for word stress
• Present activities to learn and practice word
  stress
• Show examples of how students can log vocabulary

8
Facts to Consider

• 80 of English words are borrowed
• one third of the first 10,000 words we learn are
  native English words
• our Core 1000 words , over 800 are common
  prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs,
  common verbs having to do with perception (feel
  think touch hear see), body parts , members of
  family
• The Core words can be traced back as far as 8000
  years ago to Indo-European roots
• 80 of vocabulary used 1000 years ago has been
  replaced since 1066, the Norman Conquest

Reference Stockwell. English Words History
Structure 2001
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English Usage (core) compared to total English
Vocabulary
Woods, Syllable Stress and Unstress, 1979
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Origins of Vocabulary

Third Thousand English 29
French/Latin 62
Second thousand English 34 French/Latin
57
CORE VOCABULARY 1000 most frequently used
words English 83 French/Latin 13
Fourth Thousand English 27 French/Latin 62
Reference Stockwell. English Words History
Structure 2001
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What does this mean for language learners?

• Young learners (not only 2nd language) need to
  develop academic abstract language (loan words)
  to achieve success in schools
• Adults (young and old) benefit from analyzing the
  majority of words for prefixes, suffixes, stress,
  pronunciation patterns, meaning of roots, and
  parts of speech

12
Why is the history so important?

• We need to be able to recognize and understand
  the influences it has had on our present
  vocabulary (for meaning, grammar as well as
  pronunciation)

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Historical Influences on English

• Timeline
• Approximately -Early Germanic
• 2200 years ago branch of Indo European
• ( earth, make, drink, house, meat, wife,
  winter, bird, woman)
• 43 - 400 A.D. -Celtic tribes ruled by Romans
• 400 A.D. -Angles and Saxons left Denmark to
  settle in southern and eastern England

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Historical Influences on English

• Old English -Celts driven west by AngloSaxons
  
• 450-1066 (cross, curse, cradle, London, Kent,
  Thames,York)
• -Latin
• Christianity ( candle, devil, discipline,
  offer, mass)
• Scholarship (alphabet, describe, history,
  paper, school, translate)
• -Scandinavian (Vikings, Old Norse) ruled
  England 787-1042
• Names (Jackson, Carnaby)
• Household (bag, die, knife, skin, they,
  skirt, dike, till)

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Historical Influences on English

• Middle English -Norman invasion of England
• 1066-1476 -French 10,000 new words, 75 still
  used today
• government (army, mayor, parliament,
  state, tax)
• Scholarship (art, science, literature,
  medicine, music, poet, surgeon, tragedy,
  grammar)
• Common words (very, city, mountain,
  close)
• Mixed compounds (gentleman, talkative,
  cheerful)

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Historical Influences on English

• Early
• Modern English Printing Press, Caxton 1476 and
• 1476-1776 Discovery of New World
• more people had access to words, literacy
  rose from 2 to 60 in 3 generations
• 4,500 new words a decade
• New intellectual activities
• Classical Latin (curriculum, investigate,
  radius, calculus, virus, evaporate)
• Greek (atmosphere, drama, irony, syllable,
  rhythm, criterion)
• Italian (balcony, bazaar, opera, duet,
  soprano, etc.)
• Business activities
• Dutch (pickle, yacht, knapsack, cookie,
  bully, kid)
• Spanish/Portuguese (banjo, cocoa, jerk, lasso)

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Historical Influences on English

• Modern English
• 1776-present -Continue to borrow as well as
  create new words
• -for words in new unfamiliar areas,
  customs, etc. we borrow from modern
  languages

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Examples of how we have created new words before
and today

• New creations Kodak, Kleenex, nylon
• Blending smog, brunch, medicare, urinalysis
• Acronym NASA, radar, modem
• Initialisms CBC, UFO
• Shortening phone, plane, flu, zoo, edit
• Derivation by affix sweat sweater, hard
  hardly, graceful-disgraceful (meaning not
  transparent)
• Derivation without affix major ( adj/n/v),
  account ( n/v), anchor (n/v) chair (n/v)
• Compounding largest source of new words outside
  of borrowing good bye ( God be with you), woman
  ( wife-man), ice-cream, sweetheart, highlight
• Eponyms based on names, guy, watt, boycott,
  sandwich, cheddar, china, denim, spartan, atlas,
  platonic, morphine, xerox, band-aid
• Echoic oh, flap, thump, sizzle, wheeze etc.

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What is the relationship between how our
vocabulary has developed and how we say words?
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PronunciationWord Stress Rules

• Native English Patterns (rules examples)
• Foreign Borrowed Words (rules examples)

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NATIVE ENGLISH STRESS PATTERNS (Anglo-Saxon)

• One Syllable Words
• Examples bed, chair, clothes, wall
• Rule stress monosyllable
• Two Syllable Words stress base syllable
• a. Examples answer, apple, daughter, carry,
  after, early, yellow, travel
• Rule 1 stress first syllable
• b. Examples about, afraid, because, invite,
  today, until
• Rule 2 Two Syllables with prefixes, stress
  the base syllable (2nd syllable), not the prefix

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NATIVE ENGLISH STRESS PATTERNS (Anglo-Saxon)
contd

• Three Four Syllable Words
• Examples history, interest, popular, article,
  honourable, personally
• Rule stress base (first syllable)
• Unstressed Words
• Examples function words ( am at, her, than,
  that, were, your, etc)
• Rule only content words are stressed, all
  others are reduced partially or to a schwa ?

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STRESS PATTERNS for words of foreign background
(Latin, French, Greek)

• Predictable rules
• Word patterns
• Words with suffixes

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Word Stress Exercise Read over the following
list of words and determine where the stress is.

• sixty associate invitation CIBC
• organize democratic originate fifty
• activity sympathetic incredible magic
• insult (n) Canadian festivity insult (v)
• sixteen bookstore take away recognize
• present (n) volunteer fireman VCR
• optimistic capability preservation musician
• CNN get along present (v) separate
• turn over engineer hairbrush convertible
• fifteen politician specialization telepathic

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We can put these words into groups.

• Their stress patterns are always the same and
  follow predictable rules.
• What groups do you see?

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Stress Patterns - Rules and Patterns

• A) Compound Words hairbrush, bookstore
• Rule
• B) Numbers fifty, fifteen
• Rule
• C) Verb Phrases turn over, take away
• Rule
• D) Abbreviations VCR, CIBC
• Rule
• E) Noun-Verb insult, present
• Rule

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Words with Suffixes

• i) Suffix ion preservation, specialization
• Rule
• ii) Suffix ity festivity, capability
• Rule
• iii) Suffix ic optimistic, democratic
• Rule
• iv) Suffix ible convertible, incredible
• Rule
• v) Suffix ian Canadian, musician
• Rule

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Words with suffixes - continued

• vi) Suffix ize recognize, organize
• Rule
• vii) Suffix ate associate, originate
• Rule
• viii) Suffix eer engineer, volunteer
• Rule

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Classroom Management of Vocabulary

• Have a systematic and habitual method for
  approaching vocabulary (vocabulary books,
  organized by theme or part of speech, include
  family of words )
• Identify words whole class will learn (including
  family of words, all parts of speech)
  independent study is ideal but difficult to
  manage and unrealistic for most learners
• Keep vocabulary studies to contextual situations
• Maintain visual reminders in the classroom to
  reinforce new concepts (word lists, terminology
  for parts of speech, pronunciation patterns,
  common prefixes and suffixes)
• Evaluate correct use, part of speech, ability to
  manipulate usage rather than merely meanings of
  words

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Teaching Pronunciation of Word Stress the
holistic approach

• What is stress?
• Practice listening, discriminating, saying
  stressed syllables
• Discuss Basic English Stress Rules
• Discover Rules with Suffixes and other patterns
• Revisit, remind and review as vocabulary studies
  evolve

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Resources??

• From classroom work (readings, writing, etc)
  identify vocabulary to learn
• Build family of words (students often know/use
  one member but not all parts of speech)
• Test using familiar words and context but vary
  parts of speech
• Have students read aloud, focusing on word stress
• Record students as often as possible
• Teach stress concepts and always include when
  learning vocabulary
• Scan Vocabulary/Pronunciation teaching texts for
  new methods for presenting and practising