Introduction chapter I. The ways of teaching vocabulary

Paragraph Writing : On an example topic about geography the teacher may ask

the students to write a paragraph in their own words on the major geographical

features of Turkey. They can do this from memory, or they can use the reading

passage in the lesson as a model.

Clearly the Direct Method is a shift away from the Grammar Translation Method.

One of its positive points is that it promises to teach the language and Not about

the language. More advantages can be listed as follows:

· It is a natural method which teaches language the same way the mother tongue is

acquired. Only the target language is used and the learning is contextulaized.

· Its emphasis on speech made it more attractive for those who have needs of real

communication in the target language.

· It was one of the first methods to introduce the teaching of vocabulary through realia

1.2 The techniques of teaching vocabulary in the classroom

Perhaps the most important factor in a successful vocabulary-building program is
motivation. It will be very difficult for you to study words month after month
without a strong feeling that it is worth doing, that a larger vocabulary will help
you in school and on the job, and that it can well lead to a more exciting and
fulfilling life.

For the first according to the topic of our research paper we identify four basic

steps to a better vocabulary:
1. Be Aware of Words
2. Read
3. Use a Dictionary
4. Study and Review Regularly

While there are not any magic shortcuts to learning words, the larger your

vocabulary becomes, the easier it will be to connect a new word with words you
already know, and thus remember its meaning.
1. Be Aware of Words
Many people are surprised when they are told they have small vocabularies. “But I
read all the time!” they protest. This shows that reading alone may not be enough
to make you learn new words. When we read a novel, for instance, there is usually
a strong urge to get on with the story and skip over unfamiliar or perhaps vaguely
known words. But while it is obvious when a word is totally unknown to you, you
have to be especially aware of words that seem familiar to you but whose precise
meanings you may not really know. Instead of avoiding these words, you will need
to take a closer look at them. First, try to guess at a word's meaning from its
context—that is, the sense of the passage in which it appears; second, if you have a
dictionary on hand, look up the word's meaning immediately. This may slow down
your reading somewhat, but your improved understanding of each new word will
eventually speed your learning of other words, making reading easier. Make a
daily practice of noting words of interest to you for further study whenever you are
reading, listening to the radio, talking to friends, or watching television.
2. Read

When you have become more aware of words, reading is the next important step to

increasing your knowledge of words, because that is how you will find most of the
words you should be learning. It is also the best way to check on words you have
already learned. When you come across a word you have recently studied, and you
understand it, that proves you have learned its meaning. What should you read?
Whatever interests you—whatever makes you want to read. If you like sports, read
the sports page of the newspapers; read magazines like Sports Illustrated; read
books about your favorite athletes. If you are interested in interior decorating, read
a magazine like House Beautiful—read it, don't just look at the photographs. Often
people with very low vocabularies don't enjoy reading at all. It's more of a chore
for them than a pleasure because they don't understand many of the words. If this is
the way you feel about reading, try reading easier things. Newspapers are usually
easier than magazines; a magazine like Reader's Digest is easier to read than The
Atlantic Monthly. There is no point in trying to read something you simply are not
able to understand or are not interested in. The important idea is to find things to
read you can enjoy, and to read as often and as much as possible with the idea of
learning new words always in mind.

3. Use a Dictionary

Most people know how to use a dictionary to look up a word's meaning. Here are
some pointers on how to do this as a part of a vocabulary-building program:
• Have your own dictionary

Keep it where you usually do your reading at home. You are more likely to use it if

you do not have to get it from another room. At work, there may be a good
dictionary available for your use. At home, most people do not have a big,
unabridged dictionary; however, one of the smaller collegiate dictionaries would
be fine to start with.
• Circle the words you look up
After you have done this for a while, your eye will naturally move to the words
you have circled whenever you flip through the dictionary. This will give you a
quick form of review.
• Read the a deciphering. He is reader in the true sense when he ‘ sees through a
window to the view outside without consciousness of the glass. It was difficult to
arrive at this stage under the old translation method which concentrated on the
single word and made the pupil conscious of its association with the corresponding
word in the mother-tongue. Reading by word-concentration is a pernicious method
corresponding to typing with one finger; it can by practice lead to a certain
proficiency, but not to the required skills. Training technique. There appear to be
two schools of opinion on the technique to be adopted for the training of the pupil.
One favours silent reading from the outset, the other oral reading. Silent reading.
The case for silent reading as both an end and a means might


be stated as follows: This is modern reaction from the traditional form of language


lesson in which oral reading predominated. Oral reading on traditional lines


virtually converted a collective lesson into a series of short individual lessons.


Silent reading is claimed to be eye- as opposed to lip-reading. The eye movements


are rapid and can skip across the written pages by concentrating on key words.


Silent reading keeps the whole class active and enables the teacher to assist the


weaker pupils. It enables the pupils to work at their respective paces and thus


solves the difficulties of extreme types. The practice of silent reading in class


prepares the pupils for library on their own. In introduces the pupils to the art of


skimming. Oral reading is a specific skill which it is


not essential for all the pupils to acquire. Oral reading. The arguments in favour of


oral reading are: Reading aloud is a form of speech prompted by written symbols;


it is an aid to speech fluency, correct pronunciation and intonation. If correct silent


reading implies the application of a particular technique (eye movements over


word-groups) the children must first be shown how achieve it by example. The


words on the printed page are inert symbols which come to life when read out by a


good reader. The teacher’s rending of a text is too valuable to be dispensed with.


As vocabulary is an important consideration, it ought to be presented to the ear as


well as to the eye. Concert reading (in the early stage) is an alternative means of


achieving general activity. Silent reading


may be carried on at home, but the classroom is the only place for controlled oral


reading. Oral reading provides a means of testing comprehension and checks


superficial study resulting from attention to content and not to details. Intensive


reading is more important than extensive reading in the early stages and for the


greater part of the course, indeed. ‘Skimming’ is not a desirable habit, particularly


for school-children. Progressive stages. As reading is a skill for which the pupil


must be trained, it is advisable to proceed in series of progressive stages with each


serving as preparation for the next. The ultimate aim is free reading by pupil


unaided by the teacher but with the occasional aid of the dictionary. The end,


however, need not also be the means; the early


stages may have objectives of their own differing from that of the ultimate aim.


There is a tendency to regard writing as synonymous with written composition, and


proficiency in this skills as ability to discuss any topic in writing. In the foreign-


language course, however, the writing skill must be interpreted more broadly as the


ability to represent words by means of written symbols. Translating children’s


everyday uses of print into classroom practice. In the early 1970s, a generally


accepted definition of reading seemed to be that it was the meaningful


interpretation of written or printed symbols. At that time, researchers in reading


moved away from curriculum research which compared methods in the teaching of


reading to theory-based research which focused upon the process


of reading (Gibson and Levin 1975). The emphasis in the field was upon the


discovery of the underlying cognitive process of reading behavior as researchers


struggled for recognition of their work as a legitimate scientific endeavor. Reading


had become a complicated psycholinguistic process, a solitary effort which took


place somewhere between the reader and text. In turn, learning to read in schools


became a series of diagnostic events as the finding of theory-based research were


linked with the criterion referenced testing movement of the 1970s and decade’s


strong desire for accountability. A Writing Approach to – Reading Comprehension


– Schema Theory in Action In the elementary schools, many lessons designed to


develop children’s reading skills have their origins in

1.3 LANGUAGE, LEARNING, AND TEACHING

Learning A second language is a long and complex undertaking. Your whole
person is affected as you struggle to reach beyond the confines of your first
language and into a new language, a new culture, a new way of thinking, feeling,
and acting. Total commitment, total involvement, a total physical, intellectual, and
emotional responses are necessary to successfully send and receive messages in a
second language. Many variables are involved in the acquisition process. Language
learning is not a set of easy steps that can be programmed in a quick do-it-yourself
kit. So much is at stake that courses in foreign languages are often inadequate
training grounds, in and of themselves, for the successful learning of a second
language. Few if any people achieve fluency in a foreign language solely within
the confines of the classroom.
It may appear contradictory, then, that this book is about both learning and
teaching. But some of the contradiction is removed if you look at the teaching
process as the facilitation of learning, in which you can teach a for¬eign language
successfully if, among other things, you know something about that intricate web
of variables that are spun together to affect how and why one learns or fails to
learn a second language. Where does a teacher begin the quest for an
understanding of the principles of language learning and teaching? By first
considering some of the issues.
LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY
One of the major foci of applied linguistic scholarship for the last half a century
has been the foreign or second language classroom. A glance through the past
century or so of language teaching gives us an interesting picture of varied
interpretations of the best way to teach a foreign lan¬guage. As schools of thought
have come and gone, so have language teaching trends waxed and waned in
popularity. Pedagogical innovation both contributes to and benefits from the kind
of theory-building described in the previous section.
Albert Marckwardt (1972: 5) saw these "changing winds and shifting sands" as a
cyclical pattern in which a new paradigm (to use Kuhn's term) of teaching
methodology emerged about every quarter of a century, with each new method
breaking from the old but at the same time taking with it some of the positive
aspects of the previous paradigm. One of the best examples of the cyclical nature
of methods is seen in the revolutionary Audiolingual Method (ALM) of the late
1940s and 1950s. The ALM bor¬rowed tenets from its predecessor by almost half
a century, the Direct Method, while breaking away entirely from the Grammar-
Translation para¬digm. (See "In the Classroom" vignettes to follow, for a
definition of these methods.) Within a short time, however, ALM critics were
advocating more attention to rules and to the "cognitive code" of language, which,
to some, smacked of a return to Grammar Translation! Shifting sands indeed.
Since the early 1970s, the relationship of theoretical disciplines to teaching
methodology has been especially evident. The field of psy¬chology has witnessed
a growing interest in interpersonal relationships, in the value of group work, and in
the use of numerous self-help strategies for attaining desired goals. The same era
has seen linguists searching ever more deeply for answers to the nature of
communication and communicative competence and for explanations of the
interactive process of lan¬guage. The language teaching profession responded to
these theoretical trends with approaches and techniques that have stressed the
importance of self-esteem, of students cooperatively learning together, of
developing individual strategies for success, and above all of focusing on the
commu¬nicative process in language learning. Today the term "communicative
language teaching" is a byword for language teachers. Indeed, the single greatest
challenge in the profession is to move significantly beyond the teaching of rules,
patterns, definitions, and other knowledge "about" lan¬guage to the point that we
are teaching our students to communicate gen¬uinely, spontaneously, and
meaningfully in the second language.
This book is intended to give you a comprehensive picture of the the¬oretical
foundations of language learning and teaching. But that theory remains abstract
and relatively powerless without its application to the practical concerns of
pedagogy in the classroom. In an attempt to help to build bridges between theory
and practice, I have provided at the end of each of the chapters of this book a brief
"vignette "on classroom consider¬ations. These vignettes are designed to acquaint
you progressively with some of the major methodological trends and issues in the
profession. The vignettes are obviously not intended to be exhaustive (refer to such
books as Brown 2000; Richard-Amato 1996; Nunan 1991b; Richards and Rodgers
1986 for more specific treatments), but they should begin to give you a bit of
history and a picture of the practical consequences of developing the theoretical
principles of language learning and teaching.
Today, language teaching is not easily categorized into methods and trends.
Instead, each teacher is called on to develop a sound overall approach to various
language classrooms. This approach is a principled basis upon which the teacher
can choose particular designs and tech-niques for teaching a foreign language in a