Communicating Vocabulary

Inha TESOL 2008

What do these words mean?

squire irate

abhor be in hot water

herpetologist hazardous

‘a steal’

The police had a suspect in custody and were interrogating him. But he denied killing

anybody.

How do you respond when a student asks you what a word or a phrase means?

Teacher, what’s a suspect?

What do you do?

Do you . . . ?

• (1) Try to define the word or expression in English?

“A suspect is somebody that the police think may have committed a crime, but they are not sure.”

• (2) Try to use it in a context that illustrates the meaning in English?

• When the police found Jack’s fingerprints on the door he became a suspect in the murder of his boss, so the police took Jack to the police station and asked him questions.

(3) Translate the word into Korean?

In Korean, you say, “ 용의자 .”

(4) Tell them to go look it up in a dictionary.

Do you use other strategies to encourage learner independence such as . . . ?

• (1) encouraging the students to guess the word based on the context of the surrounding sentence.

“Why do police interrogate people?”“The ‘suspect’ denies killing his boss. Does that

give you a clue.”

• (2) encouraging students to read ahead to see if they can guess from the wider context of the story.

• “What happens later? The police ask him some more questions. They find his fingerprints on the murder weapon. They arrest him. They put him in jail. He goes on trial.

Pair Work:

• Take a moment to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each way of communicating vocabulary to your students. Also discuss how you would deal with this situation.

We will look at this problem for the next two weeks.

• This week we will discuss ways to define vocabulary items and phrases using English only definitions.

• Next week we will look at ways to build vocabulary presentations that puts vocabulary in context.

Defining Vocabulary For Your Students

There are many ways to define vocabulary for your students. Here are a few of the easiest ways to define vocabulary:

(1) synonyms (2) antonyms (3) relative clauses (4) noun clauses

Synonyms

• Synonyms are words that have the same (or nearly the same) in the context given.

Quick and fast are synonyms.

Language for Synonyms.

• Here are some useful patterns for describing synonyms:

. . . is another word for . . .. . . mean the same thing as . . .

. . . means . . . . . . is similar to . . .

. . . is another way of saying . . .

Language for Synonyms

Clever is another word for smart.Irate means the same thing as angry.

Ideal means the best you can imagine.Abhor is similar to despise or hate.

You are in hot water is another way of saying you are in trouble.

Antonyms

• Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings.

Large and small are antonyms.

Language for Antonyms

• The most common way to discuss antonyms is to use the following phrase:

. . . Is the opposite of . . .

• Hazardous is the opposite of safe.

Relative Clauses (Adjective Clauses)

• Another good way to define a noun is to use a relative clause.

. . . is a person who . . . . . . .is a place where . . . . . . is a time when . . .

. . . a thing that . . .

• A squire is a young boy who helps a knight with weapons and armor.

• A herpetologist is a scientist who studies reptiles.

• A prison is a place where criminals are kept.

• Halloween is a time when children wear costumes and go trick-or-treating.

• A herbivore is an animal that eats only plants.

Using Nouns Clauses to Define Words

• Smuggling is when you bring something into a country illegally.

• A strainer is what you use to get rid of water from spaghetti noodles.

• A factory is where things are made such as computers and cars.

• The jury is who decides if somebody is guilty of a crime or not.

Conditionals

Conditionals are useful for defining idioms, phrases and phrasal verbs.

• If you are fed up with something then you can’t stand doing it anymore.

• If you are on cloud nine, then you are very happy.

• If something is a steal, then it is a bargain or it costs less than it is really worth.

Task 1

• You will be given a list of vocabulary to teach your class. In pairs come up with definitions for each of the vocabulary items using the strategies presented in class (or any other strategies that you can think of).

Task 2

• Working in pairs, make a Dictionary of Korean Culture. Define some interesting aspects of Korean culture to somebody who has never visited Korea before.