Exploratory task 1.1

Teaching Vocabulary

The aim of this unit

To take a view on the “vocabulary-in-mind” phenomenon

To make you think about the process of vocabulary learning

To reflect upon the activities for teaching vocabulary

What do you have to do in this unit?

Warming-up discussion

Input reading

Exploratory tasks

Self-assessment questions (SAQ)

Observation tasks

Micro-teaching task

Integrated task

Input reading 1

Warming up discussion 1.1

Mark the following statements as “true” T “false” F or “debatable” D. You will get input reading on these and other issues later in this module.

Statements	T F D
Vocabulary is more important in communication than grammar
Vocabulary is stored in our memory as separate units
Vocabulary is stored in our memory as collocations
Vocabulary is stored in our memory as networks
Recalling a word always means activating many words in memory
One word of the same language means the same for different people
Any meaning can be expressed by a word in any language

Mental lexicon

Mental lexicon is “vocabulary in mind". It consists of the smallest independent meaningful units of speech.These units of speech are called words. The words have word-forms and meanings assigned to them. Words in mental lexicon create lexical networks. Once activated a lexical item stimulates other associated lexical items and this causes activation of a bigger network. To access mental lexicon an idea has to be mapped onto meaning and form that are stored in our memory (Aitchison, J. 1994. Words in the Mind. Blackwell. Garman, M. 1990. Psycholinguistics. CUP).

Exploratory task 1.1

Explore your own mental lexicon associated with the word “money”. Share the results in the group.

Money

Mental lexicon performs the functions of word storage, retrieval, comprehension and use (After Carter, R., and M.McCarthy. 1988. Vocabulary and Language Teaching. Longman). Storage of words in mental lexicon is the result of a person’s cognitive processes in real world situations. As a result of cognitive processes, the words form up the situation sets (associated with a particular situation, objects, phenomena or processes), semantic sets (associated with a concept) and collocation sets (associated with other words by habitual everyday use).

Дата добавления: 2015-07-10