Lexis Treatment in Language Teaching

Lexis Treatment in talking to Teaching discover 1. Examine the treatment of lexis in two line of products-books. How atomic number 18 the items introduced, practised and tried and true? Take into account the authors intentions and illustrate your account by close origin to sensation unit/chapter from each bookwe need to see side langu maturate direction as located in the domain of public culture as much as in the domain of employ linguistics.(Pennycock, 1998, p162 cited in Harmer, 2001, p94)For the purpose of this essay, lexis is defined simply as the dilates that describe up a verbiage. It includes either levels from morphemes to lexical phrases (Nattinger, 1988 cited in Harmer, 2001. It excessively includes the mood in which we recast and reframe language with those that be similar, alike or alternate(a) in order to fix, or negotiate (McCarthy, 1990), our under defending of the meaning.The two selected course schoolbooks, slickness contact (Cunningham Moor, 2004) and Matters (Bell, Gower Cunninham, 1998) any(prenominal)(prenominal) integrate elements of a lexical folk into their approach. In the following two sections Module 8 of Cutting brink and twist block 6 of Matters (see Appendix 1) lexis is introduced and expanded d cardinal a soma of methods. Whilst Cutting Edge expounds an engage- practise activate dash (Harmer, 2001) of discipline regular recurrence (see Walmsley, 1979 cited in Els et al for a exploration of unit ground teaching staves), both combine a discovery learning style with more traditional grammatical constructs.For example, Unit 6 of Matters is entitled Are You kB?. The subject ara is the natural world and the subheading is the environment. The language reduce of the unit issentence structure, in contingent defining relative cla make ingestion ofs ( some(prenominal) quantifys cognise as pointing or restrictive cla calls) clauses of purpose and clauses of result andreason. (Matters, Bell Gower, 1998, Unit 6)This unit introduces a range of style and contextualises both its language style and content initially through a magazine article. These are consequently expanded through an intentionally inflammatory inter realize. The engagements, although sometimes visual aspect initially divorced from the previous exercise, conform to a learning cycle approach. They relate to earlier learning as well as armed service to re-enforce the meaning of the vocabulary and its contexts. The counsel on relative clauses, as with lexical phrases, aims at acquiring a familiarity that enables the assimilators to art objecticular proposition forms more naturally and correctly. In both texts, the material is introduced through oral presentation, discussion, skiming and written pass. cerebrate serves t is similar to Greens (1993) vocalise wall in that it provides the vocabulary and offers the opportunity for visual and oral re-enforcement.Cutting Edge has a nomenclature Focus Sec tion. This follows the same practise of building language familiarity through building paritys and talking some similarities (Cunningham Moor, 2004). Both use individualist pictorial comparison followed by group discussion to re-enforce vocabulary and stumble connections to specific points. As with Matters the same language is used in several formats a auditory modality and a interpret activity.It is worth nothing that both texts recognise how age and culture affects the contexts of a lexicon. Matters warns that In multinational classes, be careful not all countries brook the same level of sympathy for and awareness of environmental issues and scientific jargon (Bell Gower, 1998, Introduction).They acknowledge that, as Bowerman (1978) states, lexical rules are language and culture specific. (cited in Larsen-Freeman Long, 1991). However, both programs aim to run into a student a panache from lexical over-generalisations (Backhouse, 1994) and increase depth of knowledge and breadth of vocabulary. Backhouse (1994) relates lexical development to intra and extra lingual processes ie the semantic traffic which harbour between lexical items in a given language. (p.19) and the paradigmatic relations or the specific fields that define meaning within that context. judicial decision of student understand looks at how individuals develop vocabulary most a subject area through discussion, class response and exercises.In essence, it appears that both texts use a field theory approach that allows for lexical sorting and a hyponomic (see McCarthy, 1990, p19) focus on developing associated meanings (Carter McCarthy, 1988). However, they do not trammel themselves to associating specific vocabularly within specific fields.Lexical phrases or language chunks are like prefrabricated building units. (Lewis, cited in Harmer, 2001, p.21)Part 2. How effective is the treatment of lexis in the two chosen units for a group of learners with whom you are familiar? Wh at changes would you make in using these units with the learners you have identified?Class ProfileThis class consists of seventeen males and five females, all L1 Arabic speakers. They come from six countries end-to-end the Middle East and North Africa. It is an intermediate level class. 30% are students, 40% are supervisory/managerial levels of employees in Government departments or from private businesses. 20% are self-employed private businessmen and the rest 10% are homemakers. The age range is 20-58 years. They are currently ab let out half way through a twenty week slope course.Whilst the treatment of lexis in the two chosen units is efficient and effective, it does bene blend in from some individual tailoring towards the above class. For example with some of the students I would perchance instigate a move towards a more self order learning plan (Pemberton et al, 2001). Others need more scaffolding. I have also tried to cater for learning styles so that a variety of exerc ises are supported by a variety of materials and presented in more than one way. I have not simply repeated specifics, entirely changed the way they are communicated. Clearly, cognitive tools vary according to each individual and the situation so no assumptions should be made (see Papademetre Scarino, 2000 for an exploration of class and culture) based on ones own parameters. However, the attached are two lesson plans that I have adapted to suit this class.These are adapted to work on this classes particular understanding of certain collocations. Common patters are re-iteratedverb + noun (fly a kite) adjective + noun (a wild snowfall) adverb + verb (to boldly go) adverb + adjective (totally different) adjective + preposition (similar to) noun + noun (a collocation dictionary)(adapted from http//www.eli.ubc.ca/teachers/lexicon.html)However, as Schmitt 2000) and Thornbury (1999) both speech pattern, idioms, idiomatical phrases and expressions especially those with different mean ings are make headway developed. The aim is to provide the students with an all round lexical confidence supported by a legal knowledge of vocabulary as well as lexical phrases. Where specific lexical approaches have been used, they are mentioned in the lesson plans and sequences.Class of 22. Level arbitrate 02TITLE ARE YOU GREEN?Adapted from Matters- average (Bell Gower, 1998) Unit 6Date31st January 2006Lesson duration60 minutesResources handouts, cassettes, audio-player, clean-board, OHP and transparenciesCourse text booksLesson AimsReading skills magazine article on the ungreen Moore familyComprehension check.Vocabulary and pronounciation skills prove familiarity with colloquial and free spoken and written side of meat. set up language for use both in and out of classroom.Develop language around a major current turn overic environmentalism that is widely relevantAwareness of word fields set in to discussionContribute to brainstorming sessionsWork severally with confid enceWork confidently with lexical variations eg the schwa /?/Familiarisation with colloquial slope publications ( parvenuspaper, magazines, journal excerpts etc)Contact with everyday positionTeacher manakin hiking student awareness eg of pronounciation and meaning changes through stress syllabuls.Phrasal spoken language terminology chunking.Awareness of expression and collocations, their usefulness and frequencyDevelop OHP transparencies or posters of mind maps and word fields judge Problems jobs with practice new vocabularytechnical problems eg OHP, audio-playertimetable fithave a hit itemization of potential problem haggle and definitions readyelicit and drill (time allowing) problem language where possible gain students to develop a power word list (Cary, 2000) of their own.Have English/Arabic dictionaries ready but use to note and refer to subsequentStand-by handouts if OHP failsStand-by audio playerEnsure tidy time keeping19.0019.0519.0519.1519.2519.3019.3519.4519.502 0.00Introduction and prompt up. Small talk, humour or anecdotes etcElicit the word green and discuss culturally specific influence associations eg in the UK blue disregard mean sad, yellow cowardice, red risk and green innocence, jealousy or environmental issues. Discuss and support with modelling and writing on white board.Lexically this exploration of meanings associated with colour depart help students understand language extension, engage through subject matter, encourage higher order gaugeing and build vocabulary necessary for the lesson.Pairwork. apparel the theme two environmental problems facing the world presently ie world-wide warming, loss of wildlife and habitiat etc. Elicit spoken language and write on board. Set students to work together on this.The connotations associated with environmental issues eg wildlife, habitat loss, global warming are real and relevant to most students. This exercise requires students to develop a lexical framework to support both fac ts and opinions and know which areas they deprivation to find more language to fill.Ask students if in their countries they have an equivalent of the Green/Environmental Party? Explain what the Greens are and stand for. Set a discussion of this again in pairs.This has the same lexical aim as the previous section.Display a picture or poster of the Green Party on the white board. In pairs of threes read Are these people criminals? When finished reading, complete the exercise matching the separate number with the figure or object on the right of the foliate (see appendix 1) Read through the answers with the students.Matters, p42/43. Set exercise 2 p.43. to do individually or in pairs.Lexical rationale aim for students to use and apply new language.Go through answers a to e with the students, plentiful a verbal explanation of each and support on the white board.Ask students to work in pairs and make a list of verbs on handouts eg save, recycle, buy, ban, use, prevent. Show the stu dents how these can be used in collocations and phrasal words from the text.Lexical rationale starting to extend vocabulary into actions associated with environmentalism and using a discursive exercise to encourage their recognition and usage.Handouts Set exercise 3, a practise in relative clauses, and give out handouts. Students read through the test and complete it. Go through the answers with students answering one by one.Lexical rationale aims towards students developing referencing skills by looking up words either individually or in pairs. auditory modality and speaking skills pronounciation focus on the schwa. Students listen to the recording and take notes. Go through the exercise marking the syllables and stress in word pronounciation. Go through the answers on the white board.Lexical rationale as part 1 explored, pronounciation and stress hightens student awareness of how intonation affects meaning.Second tape recording. Listen to the split second recording and go thr ough the rubric with the students. Students give answers back around the class and thusly practice in pairs the sentences in exercise 2. Matters p.45.Lexical rationale extension of pronounciation focus.Wordspot focus. A lexical exercise to recap, re-iterate and re-enforce.FINISH. Issue handouts of steer text. Put a transparency of the Something word-field flow chart on the OHP. divorce the students into As and Bs. A reads the instructions on p.135 and B on p138. (answering each others questions.) Issue handouts f the word-field for homeword and ask students to add at 4-5 new phrases with something in them. Follow up first thing conterminous lesson.Develops autonomous lexical growth at students own rate of learning ie with no time pressureClass of 22. LevelIntermediate 02TITLEAdapted from Cutting Edge Intermediate (Cunningham Moor, 2004) Module 8Date04th February 2006Lesson duration60 minutesResources handouts, cassettes, audio-player, white-board, OHP and transparencies, Co urse text booksLesson AimsTo fortify reading and listening skillsTo reward comprehension.Vocabulary and pronounciation skillsDevelop familiarity with colloquial and informal spoken and written English.Develop language for use both in and out of classroom.Awareness of word fieldsContribute to discussionContribute to brainstorming sessionsWork independently with confidenceEstablish preparation for coterminous classReading and listening exercisesVocabulary building exercisesExcerpts taken from Cutting Edge follow on from previous reading and listening exercises but focusing on how to use words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) in phrases and collocations used in everyday EnglishTeacher modellingPhrasal wordsLanguage chunking.Awareness of expression and collocations, their usefulness and frequencyDevelop OHP transparencies or posters of mind maps and word fieldsSet grammar/language points, p44 (Matters), for home work reading (using scanning and familiarisation) in readiness for the next cl assAnticipated ProblemsSome problems with reading and pronounciationproblems with reading new vocabularytechnical problems eg OHP, audio-playertimetable fithave a hit list of potential problem words and definitions readyelicit and drill (time allowing) problem words where possibleencourage students to develop a power word list (Cary, 2000) of their own.Have English/Arabic dictionaries ready but use to note and refer to laterStand-by handouts if OHP failsStand-by audio playerEnsure good time keepingrationale for lesson focusStudents need to practice their reading, listening and speaking skills more.They need to further their informal vocabularyIn the previouse lesson (Are you Green?) issues were featured and discussed at some length. This lesson aims to restore a balance and put into perspective the alternative view featuring some of the benefits of the modern world so it is not always comprehend as a wholly negative experience as can be construed by Green/Environmentalist action gr oups. This could be strategic to avoid confusion in some students minds. (The fact that alternative opinions dwell regarding the controversy surrounding this subject across the world.Timing19.0019.0519.1019.1519.2019.2519.3019.4019.5520.00Introduction and warm up. Go over points from previous lesson. Small talk, humour or anecdotes etc (if time permits) Review homework exercises concerning phrases and collocations from Something.Appoint one student to write the answers on to the chart of white board.Go around the class an dget their answers and their explanations from each student. discriminate students to note down answers. Brief review of work then move on.Flip chart of somethings word-filed attached to white board.Focus and elicit upon the words inventor and successful. Get associated words too invent, invention, succeed from the students. Ask students to prophesy/guess what kind of advice/information will be found in the text from comparing pictures on the left to those on the right.Handouts. Issue reading excerpts How to be a successful inventor. Tell students to scan through the reading in 2-3 minutes. Read text individually. (Cutting Edge Teaching notes and coursebook.)Check for understanding especially words and phrases like light bulb, to be patient, purpose, to understand the porential of something, a dot, a s screen, a button, a know.Lexical rationale re-enforcement of vocabulary plus the added re-pronounciation of read words, explanation of phrases indicates a development allowing for lexical phrases as well and comparative meanings.Put the answers on the OHP and go through these one by one.Handouts and transparency.Group work. Set students to discuss this task in groups of quaternity or five. Apoint one from each group and get their feedback in turns.Listening and vocabulary skills (Cutting Edge, p.81) Handouts.Pronounciation and pair work. Emphasise with the students beforehand that they only have to identify which machines are being dis cussed in the tape. Do one example for the students in A. shorten tehbutton down then play cassette 1 stopping after(prenominal) each phrase is used to check answers. Discuss the answers to B in pairs.Pair work. Set task 3, p81. Give students a few moments to think it over, preferably ones their partner is unfamiliar with students can draw it to explain it to the, role examples each student is familiar with personally. Go around the class assist and prompting as needed. Explain using examples what a compound noun is. Go through the two rules noun + gerund and gerund/noun + asdjective on the whiteboard. Repeat a couple of examples cover where the stress is to be found in both words ie laptop computer. EtcLexical rationale as covered in part 1, stress is extremely important for realisation of language variability and meaning. In this case the lexicon is integrated with a grammatical function. Pair work and individual response help to focus students on the task in reinforce the lanaguage learning.Give the students a little time to work this out then play cassette 2.Listen and practise pronouncing the words before giving out the answers to the pronounciation task.Set home work task (reading to familiarise only) Cutting Edge p81 handout.FINISH read ahead of time p44, Unit 6, Matters Intermediate Unit 6. Go over again also the reading and pronounciation work taught in class today in preparations for the next lessons review of this. Check students again for clarification and understanding of these.ReferencesBackhouse, A.E. (1994) The Lexical subject area of Taste a semantic study of Japanese taste terms. Cambridge, UK Cambridge University PressBell, J., Gower, R. Cunningham, G. (1998) Intermediate Matters. Harlow, Essex Longman.Carter, R., McCarthy, M. (1988) Vocabulary and Language Teaching. Harlow, Essex Longman.Cary, S. (2000) Working with Second Language prentices answers to teachers top ten questions. Portsmouth, USA HeinemannCunningham , S. Moor , P. (2005) Cutting Edge Intermediate (14th Impression) Harlow, Essex Pearson English Language Teaching, Longman.Green, J. (1993) The Word Wall teaching vocabulary through immersion. Ontario, Canada Pippin publishing Ltd.Harmer, J. (2001). The Practise of English Language Teaching. Harlow, Essex LongmanKrause, K., Bochner, S., Duchesne, S. (2003) Educational Psychology for learning and teaching. Southbank, capital of Seychelles Thomson.Lewis, M. (1993) Implementing the Lexical Approach. UK Language Teaching PublictionsLarsen-Freeman. D., Long, M (1991) An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. Harlow, Essex LongmanMcCarthy, M. (1990). Vocabulary. Oxford, UK Oxford University Press.Papademetre, L. Scarino, A. (2000) Integrating Culture Learning in the Languages Classroom a Multi-perspecitive Conceptual Journey for Teachers. Melbourne, Australia Language AustraliaPemberton, R., Toogood, S., Ho, S. Lam, J. (2001) Approaches to advising for self-directed language lea rning. In Learner Autonomy (Leni Dam, Editor) The AILA Review 15, pp. 16-26Schmitt,N (2000) Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge, UK Cambridge University PressThornbury, S (1999). How to Teach Vocabulary Harlow, UK LongmanWebsitesParallel Processing. JamesL.McClelland TimothyT.Rogers. Accessed 7 February 2006. http//www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v4/n4/abs/nrn1076_fs.htmljsessionid=98854A4BE16819AEB3B2C4220B9A470DLexicon http//www.eli.ubc.ca/teachers/lexicon.html accessed 9 February 2006