VOCABULARY

=Dealing with Unknown Vocabulary=

One of the most common problems when reading is that comprehension is limited or blocked due to unknown vocabulary. Try this quiz to see how effectively you deal with this difficulty when reading:

Now look at this article by Sharon Hartle:
"From the heart of the expanding circle" (published in IATEFL Voices January-February 2008 issue 2000) Before you read this article, which deals with the problems teachers face when considering English as an International Language, Write for yourself three questions that you would like to see answered about this topic.

Then read the article to see if you can find the answers.

Now look at these lexical items which occur in the article and from the context decide which is the best definition for each one. In each case, whether you have already met this item or not, decide what factors in the article help you to understand the appropriate meaning in context:


 * ITEM || DEFINITION A || DEFINITION B ||
 * warts and all || with physical problems || with all its defects ||
 * glee || impudent happiness || a sticky substance ||
 * loosely translated || translated with a lot of help || translated freely ||
 * the crux of the matter || the central point || a choice ||
 * an acceptable variant form || something unusual but acceptable || a strange physical mutation ||
 * to hinder || to develop || to block ||
 * a lingua franca || a language used by non natives || a language used in business ||
 * a disservice || a discontinued service || something which is damaging ||
 * in the long run || over a long period of time || when you run a great distance ||

Now have a look at discussion 1, above to explore ways of learning new vocanulary effectively.

Developing and extending your knowledge of vocabulary you meet when reading and listening
If you have been in class you will already have looked at the vocabulary in the Risk taking text on the reading page. When reading, as we have already discussed, it is important to recognise the meaning of words and phrases, but not necessarily to be able to produce them. Later, however, you may want to devlop this knowledge of vocabulary to be able to use them yourself in different contexts.

//What do you need to know about these lexical items if you want to use them?//

The three main areas you need to know are:

form pronunciation**
 * meaning and use

Meaning, Use and Form
If we look at the first item in the list "quest", for example. It is not enough to know what it means in the context of that specific article. You need to know whether it can mean other things, what part of speech it is, and what its lexical grammar is. You need to know what register it is commonly used in and what other words are collocated with it regularly. The easiest way to do this is by using a good monolingual dictionary such as the LDOCE (Longman's Dictionary Of Contemporary English) which bases its findings on corpus examples which are contained in the dictionary itself.

If we look up "**quest**" in this dictionary we will find this basic information: 1 a long search for something that is difficult to find quest for his long quest for truth the quest for human happiness World leaders are now united in their quest for peace. 2 in quest of something trying to find or get something They journeyed to the distant Molucca islands in quest of spices. || By looking at the examples we can notice patterns, which the dictionary has already listed for us. This gives us a lot of useful information about the word.
 * [countable] literary

1) It is "literary" in register, for example, which helps us to see how the writer of the article on risks was using it to create a certain effect. (The register of the article was not literary so that adding these words creates a "shock" or "ironic" effect on the reader)

2) It as a countable noun which is collocated with "for" something. 3) It is connected with "difficulty" so adjectives such as "long" are commonly to be found collocated with it. 4) there is a specific "lexical chunk" 'in quest of something. (We need to look at more examples to see which verbs are commonly collocated with this noun. The dictionary has, however, already done this analysis for us and has found these verbs:

//become, begin, continue, embark on/upon/ find//

**Noticing Activity**
//Now look at the other items in the list under the// //article////. Look at the way they are used in context. What do you notice? Discuss your ideas in pairs.//


 * Now look at this text:**

Finally use the items you have looked at to create your own "gap filler" paragraph. The exchange books with your partner to see if you can do each other's activities.

Now let's look in more detail at matters of register.