The process of acquiring vocabulary

Students need to be encouraged to use the dictionary to decide on the spelling for the particular homonym that they wish to use. Activities in which the students replace incorrect homonyms in passages may encourage them to be aware of the need to check their own writing.

8. Multiple-Meaning Words.

Words that have more than one meaning can cause difficulties in understanding to both listeners and readers.

Very common words are often the ones that have the most different meanings associated them. For example, the word “run” has a different meaning in each of the following sentences:

1. I will run around the track for 15 minutes every day.

2. Let the water run until it gets hot.

3. There was a run on the bank when people heard about the arrest of the employee.

4. Mark had a run of bad luck.

5. They sold out the entire print run of the booklet.

There are only a few of the possibilities for using this word “run” in different context.

Young children and even older children have difficulty using the context when less familiar meanings of multiple-meanings words are found in sentences. This could either be because the don't know the particular meanings involved or because they fail to attend the important context clues. Students need to be exposed to different meanings associated with the same word, and they need to be helped to use context clues effectively.

Brainstorming about multiple-meaning words can be a worthwhile activity, especially among gifted learners, who tens to have more meanings collected for the words in their vocabularies. The teacher can put a word on the blackboard and have children give as many different meanings as they can for it. The teacher can then write the different meanings on the board, surrounding the word, as in shown below. The children can discuss each meaning given and make sentences fitting each meaning.

Another good technique to use when brainstorming about multiple-meaning words is to have the children come to the blackboard and illustrate the different meanings of the chosen word. They could even illustrate the meanings on large sheets of paper that could become murals in the classroom.

Students need to learn to use dictionary to decide on the meanings for multiple-meaning words that fit the particular situations in which the word are found. In order to do this, the children must look up the word, read each definition, and decide if that meaning fit to context in which the word was found. They need help in seeing that some of the definitions will not make sense in the given context and that a search for an appropriate definition, not just any definitions, is necessary. They can take a list of dictionary definitions for a given word and a number of occurrences of that word in context and match each context example to a definition that makes sense.

9. Abbreviations.

Abbreviations are shortened forms of words, generally ending with a period. Teachers need to lead children to see that some of the original letters are left out of words to form abbreviations. The children can discuss with the teacher why it is often convenient to abbreviate a word instead of writing it out completely. Common abbreviations, such as Mr., Mrs., Dr., am and pm, can be introduced and discussed. The children can practice using these abbreviations in writing assignments requiring the use of such specific terms. The teacher may also conduct activities in which the students are asked to match the words with their abbreviations.

10. Acronyms.

Acronyms are words that are formed from the first letters or initial syllables of a series of words in a term. For example, NATO stands for “North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, TOEFL stands for “Test of English as a Foreign Language” and radar stands for “radio detecting and ranging”. Radar has been in use for so long that most people think of it as just a regular word and don't realize its origin. Students may understand acronyms better if they construct pronounceable acronyms for fictitious organizations in which the acronyms say something about the organization, just as is true of many actual organizations, for example, there is a MADD organization in United States of America that stands for “Mothers Against Drunk Driving”. This activity is a good one to stimulate creative thinking.

11. Words borrowed form other languages.

English language has borrowed many terms from other languages. Because many of these words are not pronounced the way that they look, they often cause reading difficulties for students. In these case teacher can just show how they are read and from what language these words came from. Even in Russian language there are many borrowed words from other languages, like we don't say “электронная почта” we just say “e-mail”.

Conclusion

Vocabulary development is a main key to being successful at languages. Whatever language it is, vocabulary is still the most important thing to do first. What I like the most in vocabulary development that you can find and apply different ways of learning and teaching! To learn vocabulary demands the desire and creativity. If you have just one of these wishes above-you are on the right way to become a good learner!

The main task for teachers is to inspire their students to expand their vocabulary. I'm sure there are so many students who want to enlarge their vocabulary but they don't know effective and productive ways of it. Most of students think that there is only the one way of expanding vocabulary- it is swotting. How wrong they are! There are so many ways to learn and they are interesting, exciting and lovely! Students and teachers should remember only one thing-revising. Revising is the first rule you should follow. If you really want to be proud of your flawless vocabulary then don't forget about revising!

language learning dictionary

List of literature

1. Anitchkov I., SaakyantsV. Methods of teaching English. Moscow, 1966.- 248p.

2. Harner Jeremy. The practice of English language teaching. L. - New York, 1991.-296p.

3. Potter Mike. International issues. Teacher's book. L., 1991.- 125p.

4. Rogova G. Methods of teaching English. Leningrad, 1975.- 312p.

5. Бугаев Н.И. Обучение - это общение.// Народное образование Якутии- 1992 №2 с.37-49

6. Загвязинский В.И. Методология и методика дидактических исследований.- М: Педагогика, 1982.

7. Зимняя И.А. Психологическая характеристика слушания и говорения как видов речевой деятельности. - «Иностранные языки в школе», 1973.

8. Маслыко Е.А. Настольная книга преподавателя иностранного языка: Справочное пособие.- Мн.: Высшая школа, 1999.

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