The process of acquiring vocabulary

One active method of learning word meanings is through conversations with the teacher and other students about a topic to which the words are related.

Some specific techniques for teaching vocabulary are described below. They are not meant to be used in isolation, but in combinations that allow the students to manipulate the words being studied in a variety ways. These techniques may be used in conjunction with development of basal reader vocabulary, general vocabulary knowledge, or content area vocabulary.

 

2.2 Categorization

 

 

One of the most effective ways to work with words and word meanings is to place the words into categories. By seeing the relationships among many familiar words and the new words, children are able to build connections between new information and prior knowledge. Arranging words in categories is also one way to develop the thinking skill of classifying.

Teachers can use a children’s game like “Animals” or “Vegetables”, in which one person thinks of an item and the others try to identify it by first determining the general category and then asking questions about it that can be answering by “YES” or “NO”. If the item is not identified in a specified number of questions, the questioner had lost, the other player identifies the item and then thinks of another item, and the game begins again. This game might be played in the classroom with new vocabulary terms being interspersed with familiar words.

Plastic miniatures of people, animals, vehicles and buildings can also be used for the children as the basis for classification activities. The teacher may place the items on a table in an arrangement such that all of the items except one could fit into a common category, such as “people”. The children are asked to find and remove the item that does not fit and to tell why the chose that item in Russian or Kazakh language. The items may also be grouped into classifications such as living and nonliving, movable and stationary and so on. The teacher should lead the children to discuss reasons for grouping that they develop, pointing out common characteristics.

At first the teacher may designate the categories into which items must be placed, but eventually the children need to come up with the categories independently. This same sequence could be used with word lists in reading.

The teacher may also provide a category, without providing items to place within the category, and let the children suggest appropriate items. For example, teacher asks children to suggest things that grow from the list given below: hair, animal, street, today, child, window, cat, etc.

Also teacher can use this kind of game that can be enjoyable for children and can promote vocabulary development at the same time. In the activity a word is written vertically on the left side of the paper as shown in the table below. Categories are placed in a row across the top of the page. The children are challenged to use reference books or dictionaries to help them fill in the resulting grid with words for each category that start with each letter on the left.

 

Letter	Name	Animal	Food	Color
B	Bob	bird	beef	Brown
R	Rose	rabbit	rice	red
O	Olga	octopus	orange	orange

 

 

2.3 Semantic Feature Analysis

 

 

This semantic feature analysis is another good way to conduct word study. In it a number of words are categorized in relationship to several characteristics. For instance, musical instruments might be located under such classifications as string, woodwind, brass, percussion, mouthpiece, bow and others, as shown below. The more features that are considered, the more knowledge the children have to display about the target words in order to complete the chart. If enough features are included along the top of the chart, no two items will have exactly the same pattern of pluses and minuses. In the charter below, for example, timpani and snare drum have the same pattern, but the addition of snares to the list of features would differentiate the two items. Similarly, trumpet and trombone have the same pattern, but the addition of slide to the list of features would change the pattern.

Instrumental	String	Woodwind	Brass	Percussion	Mouthpiece	Bow
Trumpet	-	-	+	-	+	-
Clarinet	-	+	-	-	+	-
Trombone	-	-	+	-	+	-
Timpani	-	-	-	+	-	-
Guitar	+	-	-	-	-	-
Violin	+	-	-	-	-	+
Snare drum	-	-	-	+	-	-
Cymbal	-	-	+	+	-	-
Oboe	-	+	-	-	+	-

 

Ranking words on one feature is one activity related to semantic feature analysis. For example, words such as none, some, many and all could be ranked on the basis of amount. Synonyms are words that mean close to the same thing, rather than exactly the same thing. Ranking the synonyms on one feature is a helpful activity. For example, the words smell, odor and stench might be rated according to intensity.

 

 

2.4 Making Analogies

 

 

Making analogies is a good way to learn about the words, as well as to develop thinking skills related to classifying, comparing and contrasting. Young children will start learning the skill necessary for making analogies when they engage in categorization activities, for successful analogy construction requires the recognition of the relationships among words. With young children the teacher may say “A sock goes on your foot like what goes on your hand?” The children are led to see that both relationships are the same type. Gradually the analogies come to be stated as “Sock is to foot as ________ is to hand.” Analogies can be developed on the basis of a multitude of possible relationships: synonym, antonym, homonym, member-organization, etc. Older students can be introduced to the symbols related to analogies, as the analogies become “Sock-foot, ____ - hand” Children enjoy competing to complete such analogies and also creating analogies of their own. Such activities require the use of higher-order thinking skills.

 

 

2.5 Structural Analysis

 

 

Structural analysis involves learning to recognize common word parts, such as prefixes, suffixes, endings, parts of compound words and parts of contractions, and associating meaning with these word parts. Knowledge of structural analysis gives students a powerful tool in learning the meanings of new words that they encounter. It also enables them to develop skill in analytical thinking as they learn how to understand and use parts of words.

Prefixes and suffixes are common word parts that influence the meanings of the words of which they are a part. Prefixes are group of letters attached to the beginnings of words that modify the meanings of the words (e.g. tie-untie). Suffixes are groups of letters added to the endings of words that may change their meanings or parts of speech (e.g. act-action).

Endings are letters or groups of letters added to the endings of words that may change the tense (e.g. look - looked) or person (e.g. go - goes) of the verb, the number (e.g. girl - girls), case (e.g. Jack – Jack’s), gender of the noun (e.g. host-hostess), or degree of the adjective (e.g. big - bigger).

Compound words are words made up of two or more smaller words that combine to produce a new meaning (e.g. houseboat). Sometimes compound nouns consist of two separate nouns, like in word “police officer” (полицейский).

Contractions are formed by joining two words together, leaving out one or more letters and replacing them with the apostrophe (e.g. he would – he’d). Some children have trouble differentiating between contractions and possessives, which are also formed with apostrophes. They should be told to substitute the two words from which the contractions would have been formed for the word in the sentences. The result is nonsense when the word was actually possessive.

Teaching prefixes and suffixes by presenting lists of the word parts and their meanings is not a good practice. The word parts will be learned best if they are taught in the context of words for which the children can see some in their school activities.

In working with endings, emphasizing the effects that the endings have on words is important also. First graders may benefit from a practice activity such as shown in this exercise. Teacher asks children to put each word under the correct heading.

Words: tree, toys, birds, hat, bees, book.

 

One thing	More than one thing

 

After the children have completed the written activity, the teacher should lead a discussion about the endings of the words in the second column. Children can be asked to produce the singular forms of these words for comparison.

Another ending practice activity is shown in the following exercise. Teacher asks children place the words “big, bigger, biggest” under the correct pictures.

 

 

__________ ______________ ______________

 

 

2.6 Use of the Dictionary

 

 

Use of the dictionary is another approach to vocabulary development that should be overlooked. Dictionary skills need to be deliberately taught, so that students can use them independently when the need arises. It is very important to learn how to use the dictionary, because when students look up words in the dictionary, they often do not fully use the information that is found. If they need only on pronunciation of the word, the phonetic respelling and the pronunciation key hold the information sought. If they are seeking info about meaning, however, they need to be led to use some info that they may have been ignoring. For example, in addition to the lists of translation and meanings that the students expect to find in the dictionary, they are part-of-speech labels, sometimes represented by abbreviations that have to be looked up in the list of abbreviations located elsewhere in the dictionary. There may also be special forms of words with varying endings; indications of language of origin, along with the meanings of the words in those languages; a picture that represents the word; or a sentence that shows the word meaning in the context. All of these features can be helpful in the exploration of word meaning. Pictures that show the word’s meaning are very helpful to children who have difficulty visualizing the meanings of printed terms, and sample sentences with the word in context often help them to apply the definition more accurately.

The teacher should discuss the definitions with the children, making sure that they realize that a word may have many different meanings, only one of which will make sense in the context in which they have heard or seen it. Each definition, or at least each definition of the word that is listed under the appropriate part of speech, must be read carefully and tested to see if it would make sense in the context under consideration. Children too often try to force the first definition listed to fit any context that they find, ignoring others that would fit more exactly.

Some activities that can involve students in vocabulary building through use of the dictionary are shown below:

1. Write a list of questions that must be answered by looking the key word up in the dictionary. Some examples follow:
1. Can you drink out of a bluebottle? Why or why not?
2. Can you eat a damson? Why or why not?
3. Is excelsior good for a stomachache? Why or why not?
2. Have the students look up a word in the dictionary and write the meaning that fits each of several contexts provided. As example of some contexts that could be used for the word “act” follows:
1. They left the theater before the first act was over.
2. Don’t act like you have never been taught any manners.
3. I wish I could act that part the way Jane did.
4. Taking them in was an act of mercy.
3. Let students search their dictionaries for words that they don’t know, but would like to learn. Let each one read definition of a chosen word to the class, and let the class members guess the word from the meaning. If the word if not guessed on the basis of the first meaning read, let the student continue to read meanings until the word is guessed or the definitions are exhausted. Then hold a class discussion of the word, its various definitions, and possible uses of the word in context. A variation of this activity can be carried out with the teacher choosing all of the words to be discussed and the students competing to see who can guess each one first.

 

1. Construction Word Webs

 

 

The construction of word webs is a good way to examine many characteristics of words and their meanings and relationships with other words. Suppose the students were preparing to read a story about a circus. Exploring the term “circus” before the reading begins will bring out the things the children already know about the circus and will meaningfully relate things that they know with things that other children know. The discussion that accompanies building the web is good preparation for reading the story. After reading a web can be expanded based on added information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Words related to the circus will probably be suggested in rather random order, but the teacher can write them on the board with related ideas close together and later ask the students for a category name for each group of ideas. For example, the teacher developing a web above had to ask “What is a word that describes popcorn, soft drinks and chocolate?”

This way of leaning new words is more effective than just write them on the blackboard with translation. Also teacher can give this task to read a new story and make a web of new words at home.

 

2. Work Bank Building

 

 

Word bank building is a good individual vocabulary development activity. With this activity students write words that they want to add to their meaning vocabularies on the small cards. These word cards will have the word, its phonetic respelling if pronunciation is difficult, translation or definition, a synonym, possibly a picture illustrating the word or a sentence using it in context, and a personal example related to the word.

After a number of word cards have been accumulated in a student’s word bank, the teacher may use the word bank cards in classroom activities that he or she plans. For example, the teacher may ask each student to locate in his or her word bank all of the words that describe things, all of the words that name things, all of the words that show the action and so on.

3. Word Play

 

 

Word play is an enjoyable way to promote vocabulary growth. Word play may include use of different games, like crossword puzzles, hidden-word puzzles, scrambled-word puzzles, games based on traditional games.

Crossword puzzles are enjoyable activities, and teacher can construct crossword puzzles to fit any set of words that is being studied.

To make the hidden-word puzzle emphasize meaning, give only definitions of or synonyms for the words that the children are seeking, rather than telling them the words themselves. When they find a word, they circle the word and put the number of the definition or synonym in the circle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Meanings of the hidden words:

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1. Way out

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2. Pleasure

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3. To do something

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4. Seek

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5. Smell

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