2. There are several aspects of lexis that need to be taken into account
when teaching vocabulary:
Boundaries between conceptual meaning: knowing not only what lexis
refers to, but also where the boundaries are that separate it from words of
related meaning (e.g. cup, mug, bowl).
Polysemy: distinguishing between the various meaning of a single word
form with several but closely related meanings (head: of a person, of a pin,
of an organisation).
Homonymy: distinguishing between the various meaning of a single
word form which has several meanings which are NOT closely related ( e.g.
a file: used to put papers in or a tool).
Homophyny: understanding words that have the same pronunciation but
different spellings and meanings (e.g. flour, flower).
Synonymy: distinguishing between the different shades of meaning that
synonymous words have (e.g. extend, increase, expand).
3. Affective meaning: distinguishing between the attitudinal and
emotional factors, which depend on the speakers attitude or the
situation. Sociocultural associations of lexical items is another
important factor.
Style, register, dialect: Being able to distinguish between different
levels of formality, the effect of different contexts and topics, as
well as differences in geographical variation.
Translation: awareness of certain differences and similarities
between the native and the foreign language (e.g. false cognates).
Chunks of language: multi-word verbs, idioms, strong and weak
collocations, lexical phrases.
Grammar of vocabulary: learning the rules that enable students to
build up different forms of the word or even different words from
that word (e.g. sleep, slept, sleeping; able, unable; disability).
Pronunciation: ability to recognize and reproduce items in
speech.
4. Lewis says that chunks include collocations, fixed
and semi-fixed expressions and idioms, and
according to him, occupy a crucial role in
facilitating language production, being the key to
fluency.
It is essential to make students aware of chunks,
giving them opportunities to identify, organise and
record these. Identifying chunks is not always easy,
and at least in the beginning, students need a lot of
guidance.
5. Students will have problems trying to understand most of the collocation,
because they may not know the vocabulary. It believed that students know
individual words but but lack of collocational competence.
students should be aware of the collocations they are focusing on, and
hopefully this will enable students to find other collocations. Regular awareness
raising activities should help students improve their collocational competence,
and even fluency.
For the few words that students may not understand the meaning of, or are
not sure how they are pronounced, we should ask them to look these up in
dictionaries.
Dictionaries are a vital tool for Advanced learners, it should be encourage
contextual guesswork before they look the words up.
Ask students to notice examples given in the dictionary, observing and
recording other possible collocations of the words.
Student should do lists of the collocation they find, so they can have the
vocabulary on sight.
6. Group work helps fostering learning
independence; learners can exchange
knowledge, asking others to explain unknown
items.
It is hoped that group work be a motivating
factor, exchanging impressions and even good
memories.
7. It is vital that students use the language they are learning in a realistic context.
Writing a leaflet is a possible task in the Cambridge Certificate of Advanced
English, which these students can prepare. Real life task it is expected that will
interest students.
The writing should also enable students to use the vocabulary they have studied in
a realistic context.
The completion of the final task for homework will help to reinforce and revise the
vocabulary learnt, giving students a better chance to store the items in their long-
term memory.
They should notice what kind of text the extracts come from. By doing this we
want to motivate students to do the enabling tasks, mainly to show them the need to
learn new vocabulary.
As this is a borrowed group, it might be the case the students are not yet familiar
with the leaflet format, in which case more input would be necessary before the
conclusion of the final task.
If students are really interested in the task, this could be transformed into a
project, involving research and the production of a leaflet or web page in the multi-
media centre.
