Unit 3. Vocabulary

[MNEBOT]

2. When did you last travel to a country where you didn't speak the language? What were the first words you learned? Why did you learn these ones? Do you still remember any of them?
I was in Portugal in July and I don’t speak Portuguese, so I really experienced what it is to really need vocabulary and I really noticed which was the vocabulary I needed: good morning, goodbye, white coffee, bread, car, I’m hungry, thank you, beer… Luckily, Portuguese is quite similar to Spanish, although when speaking you would not say they are as similar as they seem when written, so I survived. Even so, I definitely remember those words and their pronunciation: Bom dia, Adeus, Pingado, pao, carro, Tenho fome, Obrigada, cerveja... They were all very useful!

3. Which of these words would you choose to teach to an intermediate group of learners? How did you make your choice?

carefree, easy-going, optimistic, cheerful, nosy, sociable, stubborn, insecure, calm, outgoing, hardworking, intelligent, brainy, reliable, gregarious, obstinate, bossy, assertive, even-tempered

I would teach: carefree, easy-going, optimistic, cheerful, nosy, stubborn, insecure, calm, outgoing, hardworking, sociable, intelligent, reliable, bossy. Carefree is the name of a famous trade name for sanitary towels in Spain, which would help me explain the meaning; Optimistic, calm, sociable, insecure and intelligent are adjectives which are very similar in Spanish, so the students would learn 5 English words without too much effort; easy-going, cheerful, stubborn, out-going, hard-working, reliable, bossy because these are adjectives which are very common when describing anyone, they can fit almost everybody and will give the students the possibility of making a good description of any person; nosy because it is a funny adjective, in the sense that you can help the students remember it by touching your nose, and also because I tend to use it in class a lot (when they ask “do you have a boyfriend?” or “who were you with when we saw you last weekend?”...); bossy because of “The Boss”, which can also help them remember the word. The adjectives I think I would teach afterwards, mainly because they are synonymous with other adjectives in the list, are: brainy (intelligent), gregarious (sociable), obstinate (stubborn), assertive (bossy), even-tempered (calm).

[Jonathan Moody]

1. When did you last travel to a country where you didn't speak the language? What were the first words you learned? Why did you learn these ones? Do you still remember any of them?

In the past year I have visited Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, all for the first time with no former knowledge of the respective languages. The first words I learned were greetings and thank you, along with relevant vocabulary, for food for example, to enable me to order in say, a restaurant. Having spent more time in Berlin, the German vocabulary I learnt was heavily influenced by my surroundings. As I worked in a school, it was important to learn useful words and phrases that enabled me to communicate with students and teachers. Being able to ask simple questions was a real benefit. It is important to learn words and phrases that will prove beneficial to the surroundings, while at the same time aiming to grasp grammar and structure to allow natural progression in a language.

5. Which of the two statements below do you agree with most? Why?
a. Students can decide for themselves which words they would like to learn.
b. It’s the teacher’s job to decide which words students need to learn.

It is the responsibility of both the student and the teacher to ensure that learned vocabulary is relevant. The student’s aims should be clearly defined, so that goals and targets are mutually understood and strived towards. So to an extent, students above a certain age can decide for themselves which words they learn, but this should still be influenced by the teacher.

Younger learners generally should not decide their target vocabulary, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to provide students with the necessary skills to survive in an English speaking environment, equipped with sufficient reading, writing, listening and speaking proficiency to be able to communicate.

[Admin]

Hi Jonathan, thanks for posting. I don't know if teachers can actually decide what vocab students learn. Seems to me they can set up a vocab activity, but which items get learned in the end depends on the individuals. They will remember the things that interest them or that for one reason or another seem relevant. Encouraging students to investigate a vocab area that interests them seems to me a good strategy, even for kids, really. Or asking sts to choose which new items that came up in a text they want to memorise - anything to make the students engage with the new words on a personal level will make them more memorable.