Teaching and learning English lexis
Lexis, vocabulary and words
Teachers' attitude towards teaching vocabulary has changed during recent years. At present to know a new English word, does not only mean to define it. Expanding vocabulary knowledge is a process that constantly lasts. From methodological point of view teachers' approaches to words absorption have developed recently, which indicates that not only the attitude changes, but also understanding (Scrivener 2005). According to Scrivener (2005), using the word 'lexis' instead of 'vocabulary' underlines the shift. When we compare competent speakers of English language (or native English speakers) to those who acquire English as L2, Harmer (1991) stresses the importance of some lexical knowledge they are aware of. He claims that an English speaker knows already the lexis of the language that is dependent on a person's education and occupation. Foreign language learners miss this fundamental lexis wisdom: „Language students need to learn the lexis of the language. They need to learn what words mean and how they are used. (...) It also involves showing them how words are stretched and twisted” (1991 p. 24).
What is the difference between lexis, vocabulary and a word? Before some discussion is going to be conducted, Harmer (1991) underlines the important fact that words, which symbolise ‘flesh’ in a ‘skeleton’, are the instruments to pass the meaning. Without vocabulary it is not possible to communicate in a language, although the language includes grammar and fixed rules. “Grammatical knowledge allows us to generate sentences. At the same time, though, (…) we must have meanings that we wish to express, and we need to have store of words that we can select from (…)” (p. 153). Because the awareness of words importance in the process of teaching a foreign language has increased, nowadays it is assumed that “the acquisition of vocabulary is just as important as the acquisition of grammar” (p. 154). These two acquisitions fulfil each other in terms of language absorbance. Ur (1996) comments that vocabulary simply signifies words in a foreign language that a teacher passes to students. He suggests using the term of vocabulary ‘items’ rather than ‘words’, while Scrivener (2005) uses the term ‘lexis’. For present methodologists and linguists a word is no more associated only with its definition. The latter implies there is a strict co-relation between lexis and grammar. A native speaker does not perceive words as single items and does not build sentences word by word; the meaning is rather expressed with in advanceprepared fixed chunks. Moreover, according to Scrivener (2005), vocabulary often means single words, while “the concept of lexis is bigger” (p. 227). This concept assumes that a language speaker already possesses some knowledge about a particular word: they know in what common environment it exists or does not appear at all, with what other items it combines or does not combine.
Collocation, as a factor and another piece of useful information about a lexical item, speculates about the appropriate usage of the word in a given context. Some words are used only in particular social and stylistic context (Harmer 1991). Thus, in a particular usage the same word can sound ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ (Ur 1996). The change of words meaning (seen clearly in idioms or metaphors) results from the way these words are used and “this is something students need to know about” (Harmer 1991 p. 156). In addition, Hunt (http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59439&docid= 146468) points out that collocation plays important role at every level of learning English. According to him, it helps learners to understand and manage lexis as well as to communicate more effectively. What formulates collocation is the frequency of words usage in a particular context. Within types of collocation, he enumerates delexicalised verbs, nouns and strong or weak or frequent and infrequent collocations. Lexis includes also grammar. In order to express meaning, with the help of grammar, we are able to compose new sentences or phrases. Also grammar says how a word behaves in a sentence or what features it acquires in a particular context (Harmer 1991). “Knowing a word means far more than just understanding (one of) its meaning(s)” (p. 158). One of the aims to achieve (when getting to know an item) is to make a student able to “manipulate both the meanings and forms of the words” (p. 158). When teaching, one should be provided with the information how unpredictably word forms can be changed in sentences and how it can be manipulated in a particular context (e.g. by adding a preposition) (Ur 1996 p. 60). The co-relation between vocabulary, lexis and grammar is shown in the figure 1 below:
Lexis can be distinguished between productive and receptive (Scrivener 2005 p. 229). It is beyond question that a speaker understands and recognises more words (receptive) than they use themselves when speaking (productive). However, because of not knowing large amounts of words, the beginners’ receptive vocabulary is almost the same as the productive one.
Other factors that compose lexical items are meaning, frequency, coverage, choice and function. English words have frequently more than one meaning. It is related to the part of speech the word represents in a particular context. The fact remains that “words have meanings in relation to other words”, too (Harmer 1991 p. 156). If a student wants to describe an apple or an orange, they should know the general meaning of the word “fruit”. The meaning of a lexical item is strictly related with its function. According to Darn (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/analysing .shtml#three), comparing, inviting, asking for permission are some of the aspects of the function. It is suggested that the meaning can only be guessed from the context of a given situation. Curtis and Longo (http://www.readingonline.org/articles/curtis/) point out that “the initial goal for every vocabulary unit is the same: to promote word knowledge and skills with explicit instruction”. They are of the opinion that when teaching some attention should be paid to the context into which the meaning fits and with which this meaning is associated. Later on, when students begin to connect new information with knowledge they already have, it is suggested to conduct completion activities. By completing some sentences with lexical items placed in a particular context, learners try to stick to the same meaning. Such a making connections with what is already known enhances the meaning. When focusing on some components associated with teaching words meaning, to clarify the meaning of a word, Ur (1996) enlists denotation, connotation, appropriateness and meaning relationships. The first one simply signifies a definition of
a word that can be found in a dictionary, which is “what it refers to in the real world” (p. 61). Moreover, every lexical item can pass some negative or positive feelings it produces. This piece of information – connotation – cannot be easily found in dictionaries. These emotional associations differ significantly in different countries and very often the same word evokes opposite feelings. As it has already been suggested, appropriateness of words help us choose if a particular item is used either in speech or in written form, whether it belongs to formal or informal language. Meaning relationships indicate “how the meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others (…)” (Ur 1996 p. 62). Synonyms are lexical items that conduct the same or almost the same meaning, while those that have opposite meanings are called antonyms. “Items that serve as specific examples of a general concept” (Ur 1996 p. 62) are hyponyms. It is also possible to find mother equivalent of a specific word, which is regarded as translation. These all are factors that a learner should be aware of when acquiring new lexical items.
Using dictionaries in the process of learning vocabulary items
Using of dictionaries in the process of learning new vocabulary seems to be unavoidable. Most students tend to use bilingual dictionaries. Harmer (1991) claims that they do not provide a learner with enough information. Sometimes a word in one language has got many counterpoints in the other. Then, it is difficult to guess which exact meaning is being searched. Such ‘rough’ translation does not include any information about word’s register, grammar, etc. When the communicative approach was becoming more and more popular, according to Bowen (http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59439&docid=146458) some methodologists were of the opinion that it affected the learning process in a negative way because the learner then focuses on the mother tongue rather than on the L2. Monolingual dictionaries provide undoubtedly much more information. In the book a student can encounter more words than in the classroom; therefore it is advisable to use this type of dictionaries in the learning process. On the one hand, however; such a dictionary is restricted to those whose English is not at the beginner’s level. In such cases Harmer (1991) suggests translating a word into the mother tongue and then comparing it against the explanation in L2. On the other hand, “advanced students can (should) use their monolingual dictionaries as their chief source of information about meaning, pronunciation and grammar. There is no better resource for the learner” (p. 175). It is also mentioned that when reading for general understanding of a text, not every unknown word should be checked in the dictionary. In addition, when working with a dictionary, some learning strategies are improved: getting to know abbreviations, symbols, phonemic signs. “Using a monolingual dictionary requires more effort and commitment than using a bilingual one but, once the practice has become established, it offers substantial rewards” (Bowen http://www.nestopenglish.com/section.asp? catid=59439&docid =146458) . The more monolingual dictionary work is conducted, the more reading practice takes place and with the more authentic word occurrences a learner is provided. When it comes to teaching learners how to use dictionaries, Harmer (1991) explains that three major issues should be taken into consideration: first, to get rid of the fear connected with large amounts of information a dictionary includes, second, to improve the ability of understanding the information (material selection skills), and third, to make the usage of a dictionary part of the learning process and practice.
Criteria of choosing lexis to teach
When dealing with the aspect of teaching new English words each teacher faces the problem of what words should be chosen. Harmer (1991) stresses the fact that it is clearly known what grammar should be taught at specific level, but this is not so obvious when it comes to teaching words. The fact is that there are many syllabuses but none of them include the same list of lexical items. According to Harmer (1991), there was a tendency in the past to teach concrete words (physically reachable) at basic levels and then introduce the abstract ones at higher levels.
Frequency and coverage are other criteria when selecting words to be taught. The more frequently a word is used in a particular language the better it is for a learner to absorb it. “The words which are most commonly used are the ones we should teach first” (Harmer 1991 p. 154). Moreover, the usefulness of a word increases if it conducts more then one meaning (covers more than one thing). Contrary to the fact that we can estimate frequency of words, “it does not necessarily give us the only information we need when selecting vocabulary” (Harmer 1991 p. 156) and the question what words to introduce still remains open. The decision if a proper word should be taught also depends on a particular student and their needs.
Another aspect strongly connected with teaching lexical items is word formation. Following Ur’s thought (1996), it deals with how a word can be split up into smaller bits of information in order to compose different piece of information. “Vocabulary can change their shape and their grammatical value (…)” (Harmer p. 157). A competent language speaker knows how to twist a word to fit it into a new context. This knowledge involves the usage of prefixes and suffixes. It is also important to get the pronunciation, spelling and stress patterns of a word, especially that some changes in stress affect the part of speech the word represents. Moreover, some lexis is built by joining two other words so that a new neologism is coined. These new items are often created to apply to completely new concepts, “to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary” (http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Neologism). Coinage also takes place when giving completely new meaning to a particular word. In other words, word formation means being familiar with both written and spoken form of a word, as well as being able to modify its form.
When selecting new words to be taught, basing on his experience, Alexander (http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4505) divides vocabulary into five groups. Type A words convey the main meaning and are of the most importance. If one does not know these words, it is impossible to get the meaning of a text. Type B words are the Basics. This is vocabulary that appears very often and is encountered by students in books when reading. Type C words are single words that serve as connectors. They help to organise text in a more logical form. Type D words are those that represent many meanings and are difficult to remember. Eventually, type X words are extra words. This vocabulary does not appear as often as type B words do. As it has been also noticed, vocabulary passes meaning - and that is why its improvement should be considered systematically (Scrivener 2005 ) In general, lexis appears in so called cotext, which is (“(…) text that immediately surrounds a lexical item”) (p. 229).
When tackling new words, some attention can be paid before, while or after the text is read or listened. We can distinguish different kinds of activities for words practice, teaching and revision. Pre-teaching occurs when students deal with vocabulary that is most required to commence any listening or reading task. Cranmer (http://www.pt.britishcouncil.org/journal/j0958dc.htm) formulates an important question: “Why items might be taught before rather than after, or after rather than before presentation of the text (…)”. He also inclines that pre-teaching plays important role because if a student does not understand vocabulary that passes the main meaning of a text, then it will not be possible to understand this text and create new associations of words in mind. The following question also remains: how many words to teach at once? Cranmer suggests that the maximum efficiency is gained with “7 plus or minus 2 items or groups of items” (http://www.pt.britishcouncil.org/journal/j0958dc.htm).
Before moving to ways of presenting lexical items, it is worth focusing on how to remember new vocabulary. Ur (1996) notices that some vocabulary is learnt easier than other. According to him, it results from words nature, ways of learning, and learning conditions. Emotional or personal identification with lexis helps remember it incomparably. Remembering vocabulary is the main aim and final result of their studying (Scrivener 2005). He also suggests that many learners simply create a random, with no co-relation list of words to be remembered, and, after having studied them, they do not return to the list. Remembering vocabulary is a useful skill to bring language improvements and that should be taught, as well. Scrivener (2005) implies there are much more disadvantages in composing a random list of words than one can imagine oneself. On the one hand, Ur (p. 67) notices that when having a word list the lexis taking place at the beginning of the list is remembered more effective than the following words, but on the other hand, next to a proper word enlisted there are no other ones useful in a similar situation, there are no sample sentences. There is also often no information about the lexis aspects which have already been mentioned above, e.g. a word register, connotation, collocation, and meanings. Ur (1996) speculates that better teaching results are gained when much more clear meaning is presented. Additionally, words linkage also brings better scores. Moreover, if there is much vocabulary to be introduced, it is advisable to divide it into manageable sessions rather than focusing on it at once. Scrivener (2005) provides four aspects when remembering is taken into consideration: “putting into storage”, “keeping into storage”, “retrieving”, and “using” (p. 241). It is shown in the figure 2 below:
Instead of having a simple list of words, he encourages to compose a much more sophisticated table with such headers as pronunciation, translation, collocation, and example. It is suggested that keeping lexis in groups pays more than studying unrelated ones. In such a case, it is possible to support oneself with a picture the new words are related to. Ur (1991) adds that people often try to use lexical items in units that include sense or are reasonable. Then “the students (…) have a copy of the picture and write the words on it as they learn them” (p. 67). The same methodologist also suggests using a word web (by drawing a diagram structure), placing a new word in collocations and
chunks (so that whole structures are absorbed), and topic webs. The latter means writing down the topic word in the middle of a page and adding some sub-topics around it. Such a graphical representation of new lexis is useful for those who need visualisation in the process of learning. Such a diagram includes “connecting” information which a simple word list misses. In the course of time, every learner should find out their own best ways of getting new words but that requires taking risk and experimenting with lexis.
1.2.5 How lexis should be presented and practised in the classroom?
As it has been already noticed by Harmer (1991) lexical items teaching is as important as dealing with structure. There are many activities designed for vocabulary work. According to Scrivener (2005) words are usually taught in groups. Such sets of words are combined together according to a specific common feature. This connection makes it easier to present and remember vocabulary. He also says that such a common feature can be as follows: “words that have the same location or event (…), the same grammar or similar use (…), words that can be used to achieve success in a specific task (…)” (p. 234). The technique the most used for passing the meaning of a word is
commonly known as presentation-practice.
britishcouncil.org/journal/j0958dc.htm) mentions: definition (somebody who knows the word can define it to others, or it can be searched in a monolingual dictionary), translation, concept through situation (by providing a specific situation), demonstration (by performing an action), miming (by including movement), using realia (by bringing in things to the classroom), explanation, formulating synonyms and antonyms, discrimination (by contrasting words of similar meaning, however; it can be difficult later on to distinguish the differences between these words), coordinates grid (words often can be grouped logically when looking at various aspects of their meaning) and word building (by changing the part of speech of these words). According to Scrivener (2005), such an activity should combine both introducing new lexical items as well as repeating ords already familiar to students. It builds self-belief in completing the given task. To the activities that are often used in course books, he adds: matching the words with the pictures, matching the words with the definitions, brainstorm words on a set topic (i.e. collect as many as you can), dividing these words into two groups (e.g. food words and hobby words), completing gapped sentences with words from a list, discussing a topic (that will feature in the text) and saying which words (from a list) a learner expects to be in a text. Harmer (1991) enriches this list with the concept of enumeration. When brainstorming, any mentioned lexical item can be written on the blackboard with line connecting it with the original word. Ur (1996) says that this exercise can be used for both revision and introduction of new words. Such a circle provides a meaningful picture. Also, students can identify known words in a text before they go on to the unknown ones. Ur (1996) suggests getting into pairs, so that students exchange between each other knowledge about the words. Eventually, they can focus on guessing the meaning of the remaining unknown vocabulary. In this activity, a teacher works as monitor and corrector. Apart from that, it is also advisable to compose a story including new vocabulary especially that, at this stage, teaching random selection of words to students can be difficult to organise. Since such a story has been prepared, a teacher can for example tell it aloud (miming or showing flashcards), force pauses and thus elicit the missing words or their meaning from students, or ask comprehension questions while or after saying the story.
Learning is based on repetition, and that is why vocabulary should be provided systematically and followed by practice and revision. Scrivener (2005) says many words can be shown, illustrated or demonstrated. The problem appears when we take into consideration more complex or abstract items. Harmer (1991) mentions some 20 useful forms of lexis presentation. If it is possible, or if a new word physically exists, it can be shown by using realia. The teacher points to a thing, says it aloud and shows to all the students who repeat after him. However, it is impossible to bring all the things to the classroom; these ones can be simply drawn. Flashcards, charts, drawings are examples of pictures and are a very useful way of presenting lexis. What is moreimportant with the help of pictures a teacher can present abstract vocabulary. In some cases there is no choice but to mime, perform action or make gestures. Other time, it is easier to explain the meaning of a word by combining action with miming. As an alternative form, a teacher can also use contrast to present lexis. Explanation technique can be used when working with students at intermediate or upper levels. “It is worth remembering that explaining the meaning of a word must include explaining any facts of word use which are relevant” (Harmer p. 162). Translation seems to be the easiest way to present vocabulary but involves many disadvantages. First, in many cases there are no exact equivalents in the mother tongue (especially for abstract words). Second, translation may discourage students from searching real contexts for the specific item. To the list mentioned above, Ur (1996) adds such techniques as providing hyponyms, context - “story or sentence in which the item occurs” (p. 63) - and associated ideas or collocations. It is said that definitions, synonyms and descriptions are the most commonly used.
Pronunciation also plays important role in lexis presentation. Harmer (1991) enlists three ways of presenting how to utter words: through modelling, through visual representation and through phonetic symbols. In the first case the teacher says the word aloud and gets students to repeat chorally and individually. “When the teacher is modelling the word, he or she can use gesture (…) to indicate the main stress in the word” (p. 162). The second ways means noting down the word on the blackboard and distinguishing graphically the stress of the word (with an apostrophe or a line). Stress squares can also be used here. The square that represents the main syllable stress is the biggest one. Finally, more advanced learners can be taught phonemic signs. Such ability allows them to read pronunciation from dictionaries. Stibbard (http://iteslj.org
/Articles/Stibbard-Intonation/) says that “good pronunciation skills are now increasingly being seen as important in a communicative approach to teaching English as a Foreign/Second Language”. When dealing with learners’ getting right pronunciation of new words, it is suggested to use speech analysis programmes. Students’ pronunciation can be examined according to pitch, intonation and prominence. Pitch can be heard as 21 “high” or “low” and represents the height of speech sounds. Changing the pitch results in “falling” or “rising” intonation when speaking. Prominence appears when a word is stressed or is distinguished from the others in a sentence. Utterances of those how learn English can be recorded and discriminated against a model pronunciation in order to get differences.
How to practise the newly introduced vocabulary? The aim of lexis practice is to provoke its using. Scrivener (2005) provides us with some ideas around which vocabulary practice is formulated, while Harmer (1991) introduces some discovery techniques. The former suggests using of lots of discussions and communicative activities, role-plays, as well as writing tasks that include the practice of newly absorbed words. The exercises that deal with lexical items are also: filling in gaps in sentences, crosswords, grids and diagrams (Scrivener 2005). The latter begins with a simple matching task. This can mean matching adjectives or nouns with their pictures representations. Students can already know some of these words, however; it is advised to use dictionaries when completing the exercise. At this stage visualisation plays also important role. Harmer (1991) is of the opinion that this procedure conducted when introducing new words can be boring. The second step in advancing this kind of procedures can be matching words to a picture provided that these words are not enlisted. Learners need to find themselves this vocabulary. It requires more dictionary work and activating schemata than in the previous task. Harmer (1991) stresses that this exercise is suitable for pair or group work so that students can support each other.
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