#3 HOW VOCABULARY IMPROVES
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A. Organization
It has been proved that it is easier to remember words when they are associated with other words in groups. This is why your notebook is divided into different vocabulary sections. Always identify a new word with it's part of speech (verb, noun, adjective, adverb or preposition) separated by a margin. This will help you locate the word in the future. Always put a definition, either in English or in Portuguese, and if necessary, put the pronunciation of the word using a different colour to differentiate it from the spelling. When appropriate, draw pictures or diagrams to illustrate new words. Make special note of the words which you have problems pronouncing, and keep another list of the words you spell incorrectly. You will need to revise both these lists frequently.
B. Revision
Everyone forgets words which have been learnt. The only way to learn new vocabulary effectively is by regular revision. Imagine that during your English class you learn ten words. During the next three days, you will gradually forget most of the words until on the third day you will only be able to remember two of the words. These two words you will probably never forget, but the other eight words will be lost. However, if on the third day you revise the same words, you will briefly go back to knowing ten words. Over the next three days, you will start forgetting the words again, BUT by day seven you will be able to remember four of the ten words, and these four you will never forget. If you repeat the process three more times, you will know all ten words.
Some techniques for learning vocabulary
§ When you revise your vocabulary, don't just read the words and their definitions. First cover the word and try to remember it using the definition. Then, cover the definition and try to remember what the word means. If you can, ask a friend or member of your family to test you (that way they may learn some English too!).
§ Cut out small squares of card. Write the word on one side and its definition on the other. Keep the cards near you, either in your pocket or in a small bag or box. When you have time, take out a card. If you can remember the word or definition, put it somewhere else. If not, look at it and put it back in your pocket again. When there are no more words left in your pocket, you have learnt them all.
§ Make the same small cards as in 2. Instead of putting them in your pocket, fix them with glue-tape to things around your apartment or bedroom e.g. on a mirror in the bathroom, beside the tv etc. Every time you see the word you will be reminded what it means. When you can remember, take the word off and put another one in its place.
§ The computer can be very useful in learning new words. Put the words into a table. This way you can sort them alphabetically, and temporarily delete a column to test yourself.
§ Record words, definitions & context sentences on tape. Play the tape in your car driving to work.
§ Draw pictures to illustrate what words mean and use different colours to write them.
C. Build Up Your Vocabulary While You Read
One of the best ways to build your vocabulary is to read, and read some more. You will want to read everything you can get your hands on. If you come across a word that you're not familiar with, you will want to take the time to look it up. While this may be tedious at first, you will want to make it into a habit. Once you've done it a few times, you will become used to it, and this will help you increase your vocabulary. In addition to this, reading also improves the way you speak. You will learn how to properly structure your sentences, and you can say them in a way that makes a lot of sense.
You will also want to be patient. Nothing great was ever accomplished over night. It will take time for you to build up a powerful vocabulary, and the more you read, the better your vocabulary will become. It is also essential to develop a love of reading. It is not enough to see reading as a chore. If you do, you will not be successful.
The people who have the most impressive vocabulary skill are those who look at reading as being fun or recreational, not a chore that needs to be done. When it comes to building up your vocabulary, all the methods available can be broken down into two basic categories. These are reading, and learning formally.
Read Voraciously
It’s undeniable that reading is the most effective way to get new vocabulary. When you read, you see words being used in context — and that’s what makes it much more effective than, for example, merely memorizing word lists.
With context information surrounding each new word, there’s a good chance you can guess its meaning just by understanding the overall text. Finding out the meaning of words in such a way is the natural way of learning language – and reading provides the best opportunity to get exposed to this natural way of learning.
If you’re not able to infer the meaning of new words when reading, it’s probably because there are too many unknown words in the text. In that case, try reading easier materials. The key to good reading is making it a pleasurable activity; so don’t be afraid of coming across unknown words, but make sure the text is appropriate for your reading level.
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Make Friends with the Dictionary
A dictionary is the first indispensible resource to improve your vocabulary. It’s only by looking up a word in a dictionary that you will learn its precise meaning, spelling, alternate definitions, and find much more useful information about it. A thesaurus is also a valuable resource for learning by finding connections between words, such as their synonyms and antonyms.
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Use It or Lose It
Don’t settle after you learn a new word by reading it or looking it up in the dictionary: these are good starts, but it’s by using the new words that you truly commit them to your long-term memory.
Be creative and try to use your newly learned words in as many ways as possible:
Write them down;
Say them aloud;
Create sentences with them, mentally or in writing;
Try to use them in a conversation;
Discuss them with friends.
It’s also important to be aware of your own language style: every time you catch yourself saying common or nonspecific words such as “nice”, try coming up with richer and more precise expressions instead.
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Learn One New Word a Day
If you learn just one new word every day, you’ll soon notice they add up pretty quickly. I like to think of it as the “kaizen way of growing your vocabulary" and what makes this strategy stand out is that it can be used by anyone, no matter how busy one’s schedule is. In the same way I grow my collection of favorite quotes in baby steps by receiving a new famous quote every day, I also learned to enjoy growing my vocabulary by committing myself to learning at least one new word each day.
There are many websites that provide free word-of-the-day services, delivering them in many formats – such as e-mail, RSS feeds, podcasts and even text messages sent to your cell phone.
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Understand the True Meaning of Words
By deeply understanding words, you can make your vocabulary grow exponentially. Instead of just memorizing words, try to really understand them by looking at their etymology, word roots,prefixes and suffixes. At least half of English words are derived from Greek and Latin roots, so there are enormous benefits in being familiar with them.
Just to pick an example, when you understand that the prefix “ortho” means straight or right, you start to find connections between seemingly unrelated words, such as orthodontist (a specialist who straightens teeth) and orthography (the correct, or straight way of writing).
Understanding the logic behind words always pays off in terms of learning and recalling. Consider the examples: “breakfast” meaning “interrupt the night’s fast”; or “rainbow” meaning “bow or arch caused by rain”: while these meanings may be trivial to native English speakers, having such insights about words, foreign or otherwise, never fails to delight me.
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Maintain a Personal Lexicon
By keeping a personalized list of learned words, you’ll have a handy reference you can use to review these words later. It’s very likely you’ll want to go back and refresh your memory on recent words, so keeping them in your own list is much more efficient than going back to the dictionary every time.
Even if you never refer back to your lexicon again, writing words down at least once will greatly enhance your ability to commit them to your permanent memory. Another excellent learning aid is to write an original sentence containing the word — and using your lexicon to do that is a great way of enforcing this habit. You can also add many other details as you see fit, such as the date you first came across the word or maybe a sequential number to help you reach some word quota you define.
There are many ways you can keep your personal word list; each one has its own advantages and disadvantages – so make sure to pick the format that works best for you. You may prefer to keep it as a simple text file in the computer, or in a regular paper notebook; or maybe as flash cards in a shoe.
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Follow a Process
To make vocabulary improvement a permanent habit in your everyday life, you should make it as habitual, automatic and tightly integrated in your daily workflow as possible – otherwise you won’t do it when your days get too busy.
If you already adopt some kind of structured workflow for your life – such as David Allen’s Getting Things Done – you’re probably familiar with the idea of organizing all input that comes to your life in “buckets”: virtual inboxes that get processed in a similar way to your e-mail inbox.
In that regard, one particularly useful concept is the one of maintaining a “Word Inbox”. By having a predefined place you use to capture the words you come across, you can process them much more efficiently. For example, my word inboxes, which I try to empty once a day, consist of my word-of-the-day feed and of notes on my PDA – which I use to capture any new words I discover during the day.
Your process can be as simple as you wish – the key is to define it beforehand and then follow it. By knowing exactly how and how often to process your inbox, you stay on top of your vocabulary improvement process, even when there are other pressing matters crying out for your attention.
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Play and Have Fun
Playing games and engaging in group activities are useful in any kind of learning, but particularly effective for language-related learning. Gather your family and friends and play word games together. Some interesting options are Quiddler, as well as the classics Scrabble and Boggle.
If you don’t want to spend money on boxed games, it’s easy to come up with your own word activities. You may, for example, try your own variation of “Word Evening”: at a specific day of each week, a different person brings a new word to the meal. The person reads the word, defines it, and the others must come up with a sentence using the word.
If you don’t have time or don’t want to engage in group activities, there are numerous options of word games in the Internet. You can either play them when you’re bored, or integrate them in your daily routine, such as playing a quick game after lunch, for example.
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Leverage Every Resource You Can
The Internet is a gold mine of resources for vocabulary building. The links I collected here are just my personal recommendations and don’t even scratch the surface of what’s available online.
There are plenty of vocabulary applications you can try. There are many vocabulary-related books you can explore. There is a wealth of free literature on sites such as Project Gutenberg. If you use the Firefox browser, there are many ways to integrate dictionary lookup functions, such as the plug-ins Answers.com and DictionarySearch. You can find specialized vocabulary lists, such as these feeling words or descriptive words. Damn, you can even learn some classy, Shakespearian insults!
The point is that you’re only limited by your willingness to learn: let curiosity be your guide and you will never run out of resources to learn from.
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Diversify
Do something different from your daily routine: hunting, fishing or blogging – any activity that is not a part of your normal life can become a great way to learn new words, as every niche has its own jargon and unique ways of communicating. Read different books and magazines than the ones you’re used to. Watch foreign-language movies. Take up new hobbies, hang out with different people.
By doing things out of the ordinary you will not only improve your vocabulary but also make your life much more interesting.
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#4 HOW’S VOCABULARY’S CONCLUSION
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4.A. Vocabulary growth
During its infancy, a child builds a vocabulary by instinct, with zero effort. Infants imitate words that they hear and then associate those words with objects and actions. This is the listening vocabulary. The speaking vocabulary follows, as a child's thoughts become more reliant on his/her ability to self-express in a gesture-free and babble-free manner. Once the reading and writing vocabularies are attained – through questions and education – the anomalies and irregularities of language can be discovered.
In first grade, an advantaged student (i.e. a literate student) learns about twice as many words as a disadvantaged student. Generally, this gap does not tighten. This translates into a wide range of vocabulary size by age five or six, at which time an English-speaking child will have learned about 1500 words.
After leaving school, vocabulary growth reaches a plateau. People usually then expand their vocabularies by engaging in activities such as reading, playing word games, and by participating in vocabulary-related programs. Exposure to traditional print media increases people's acceptability of words, while exposure to text messaging contributes to more rigid word acceptability constraints.
4.B. The Importance of A Vocabulary[i]
· An extensive vocabulary aids expressions and communication.
· Vocabulary size has been directly linked to reading comprehension.
· Linguistic vocabulary is synonymous with thinking vocabulary.
· A person may be judged by others based on his or her vocabulary.
___Then, what you get? :)
