How to be a good language learner dq may 2013
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David Quartermain discusses how to help students become better language learners in a May 2013 document. He outlines several key points, including that English has over 500,000 words but native speakers typically use 15,000-20,000, and one word can have up to 14,000 meanings. He also notes some common misconceptions about English words. Quartermain suggests appealing to visual learners and using realia to make words more memorable. Finally, he emphasizes that good language learners think about what and how they are learning and are not afraid to make mistakes.
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How to be a good language learner dq may 2013
- 1. David Quartermain Bell Thailand May 2013 How to help students become better language learners
- 3. 500,000 words in OED Average native-speaker uses 15-20,000 500 words – 14,000 meanings
- 4. set
- 6. CRAZY English • There is no “ham” in “hamburger.” • There’s no pine (or apple) in “pineapple” • A boxing ring is square • Writers ‘write’, fingers ‘fing’
- 12. Are your students good language learners?
- 13. Are YOU a good language learner ?
- 14. Think of words or phrases that you remember learning in a foreign language Why do you think you remember them? Hasta la vista! りがとう (Arigatō) Mamma Mia! je t'aime!
- 15. Poland
- 17. turkey indyk like lubie 8 osiem volcano vulkan ambulance erka onion cebula noise huk how many? ile no nie car auto
- 19. ?How can we improve the learning process
- 20. Do you teach every word in the same way? Tiger handbag
- 23. Canoe Problem There are 19 people. 18 are children, 1 is an adult. They need to cross a river. None of them can swim. There are no bridges. There is only one canoe. Only 3 people can fit in the canoe at one time. 1 of the 3 must be the adult. How many trips across the river will be needed to get everyone to the other side of the river ?
- 24. 17
- 25. • Re-read the problem several times • Visualised the problem in your head • Drew a picture or diagram of the problem • Used a mathematical formula • Came up with a wrong answer first • Talked with someone else while working • Thought about it before writing something down • Asked someone else for help • Decided not to do it !
- 26. Appeal to visual learners
- 27. turkey I ndyk love L ubie 8 O siem volcano V ulkan ambulance E rka onion C ebula noise H uk how many? I le no N ie turkey indyk love lubie 8 osiem volcano vulkan ambulance erka onion cebula noise huk how many? ile no nie car auto
- 28. turkey indyk love lubie 8 osiem volcano vulkan ambulance erka onion cebula noise huk how many? ile no nie car auto
- 29. turkey indyk love lubie 8 osiem vulkan ambulance erka onion cebula noise huk how many? ile no nie auto
- 31. Osiem days ago I was driving my auto and eating an indyk and cebula sandwich at the same time. I lubie indyk and cebula sandwiches! But as I was driving, I heard a loud huk. It was a vulkan exploding! I crashed the auto and an erka took me to hospital. The doctor said; “Ile times must I tell you – nie eating while you’re driving!’
- 32. days ago I was driving my and eating a and sandwich at the same time. I and sandwiches! But as I was driving, I heard a loud . It was a exploding! I crashed the and an took me to hospital. The doctor said; “ times must I tell you – eating while you’re driving!’
- 33. Realia Makes words ‘real’ Creates a direct connection Is interesting Engages the senses
- 34. What does a good language learner do?
- 35. A good language learner • thinks about what he/she is learning • thinks about how he/she is learning • is willing to experiment and take risks • is not afraid to make mistakes • has a strong desire to communicate • Seeks opportunities to practice • Notices language & pays attention to patterns
- 36. How can I help my students achieve this? • think about what he/she is learning Encourage questions and personalise topics • think about how he/she is learning Each lesson, review what you did, and why you did it • is willing to experiment and take risks Notice over-generalisation errors and delay correction • is not afraid to make mistakes Praise effort. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn • has a strong desire to communicate Pair/Group work. Inter-personal activities • Seek opportunities to practice Diaries. English Club. Conversation pre/post lesson • Notice language & pay attention to patterns Highlight patterns in boardwork. Inductive approach
- 37. Think about how students record new vocabulary
- 40. Recording new vocabulary 15th May 2013 tiger เสือ handbag กระเป๋าถือ wondreful ยอดเยี่ยม disappear หายไป escalator บันไดเลื่อน delighted สำาราญใจ ✘
- 41. a) light alarm telephone bulb clock b) Luck 幸運 Gamble 賭博 Bet 打賭；賭注 Casino 娛樂場；賭場 c) LUCK Noun = luck Adjective = lucky Antonym = unlucky Adverb = luckily d) Dice = / daIs / Luck = / lʌk / Gamble = /’gæmbl / Dealer = / ‘di:lə / e) aback abandon abashed abattoir abbey abbreviate ability accountant accustom ace f) football roulette tennis blackjack sport swimming casino craps basketball games baccarat judo slots g) Gamble. Ex. ‘She gambled all her money away on the last race.’ Bet. Ex. “I bet him $100 that he couldn’t stop smoking. h) casino = a place where people play games in which you can win or lose money. dealer = a person who gives cards to players in a game. ace = The card with the lowest or highest value.
- 42. Recording new vocabulary Word / phrase pron translation grammar use example memory idea motorbike /’m t ba k/əʊ ə ɪ รถมอเตอร์ไซค์ noun Ride a ~ Get on my~ ~ Maintenance ~ race ~ courier I’ve just bought a 750cc Honda motorcycle
- 43. Memorizing ≠ Knowing words words A good language learner knows that …
- 44. Short-term memory • No connection with existing knowledge • Little opportunity to use new words • Easily forgotten
- 45. Long-term memory • New words connected to existing knowledge • New words are ‘put to work’ • New words regularly recycled
- 46. Form a relationship with the words
- 48. Get to know a word’s friends
- 51. Can I help you?
- 52. boing /bɔIŋ /
- 53. yummy /'jʌmi:/
- 54. What are your favourite English words?
- 55. So, are you really a good language learner ?
- 58. Any Questions?
Editor's Notes
- You are. You already speak Cantonese. How many of you can also speak Mandarin? How about Portuguese? And presumably you understand English, otherwise you wouldn’t understand what I’m talking about now. So you ARE good language learners.
- There are many reasons why teaching English vocabulary isn’t easy. Not least because there’s so much of it! The English Language is the largest in the world. The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than half a million words and is constantly growing. But don’t worry, you don’t need to know them all! An average educated native speaker such as myself only makes encounters 15-20,000 words in their normal day-to-day life. Even a child at 4 years old knows some 4000 words which are more than enough to communicate (although to be honest, my own 4 year old daughter seems to have only mastered the words ‘chocolate’ and ‘ice cream’!) Only about 0.3% or 2000 words are needed for daily use. These are the basis of most of our communication. The most common 500 words have 14,000 different meanings!
- To take a simple case, think about a simple word like ‘set’. Could you each just write down a sentence using this word, and a definition for that word as it appears in your sentence. My guess is that no two sentences are the same, and that the person sitting next to you has defined it in a different way to yourself. Why do I know this? Because the entry for set in the Oxford English Dictionary runs to 60,000 words. The noun alone has 47 separate senses listed. Are all these distinct words? When my daughter saw me preparing this slide she came up with the phrase ‘Get, Set, Go!’ to add to her repertoire of ‘chocolate’ and ‘ice cream’.
- Form – part of speech (verb, noun, adj) Usage – formal / informal. Written / spoken.
- Sometimes, these mistakes are due to creative use of English grammar. Kind – Kindness Happy – Happiness Forgetful – Forgetfulness So why not… Enterness - The art of entering!
- No wonder it can all get a little bit confusing!!
- In pairs / small groups, they try to think of some words they know in foreign languages other than English & Chinese. They’ll probably come up with a list of words, inc.. Ways of saying hello, goodbye, please & thank you. Even if they claim to only know English, the language is a great borrower of words. Much of our language derives from German, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Many foreign words are still in constant use, including… French: connoisseur, déjà vu, vis a vis. Greek: Eureka, nemesis. Italian: Fiasco, graffiti, lingua franca, prima dona. Japanese: Karate, Latin: Ad lib, etc., Spanish: guerilla But why do we remember some words and not others? (Don’t answer this question yet!). I’m going to find out by giving you a little test. Now, how many of you
- More often than not, a unit contains a large number of unconnected words and the tendency is to try to teach every single one. (insert picture from their textbook of glossary)
- Brainstorm – how could I as the teacher have made it easier for you to learn those words? I’d like you to discuss your ideas and to divide them into 2 categories: What we can do to teach the words for the 1 st time. Techniques for helping students remember the words after we’ve first introduced them – ways of recycling.
- The first thing to remember is that we won’t explain every word in the same way. For example, how might you explain the word ‘tiger’? How would this compare to the word ‘handbag’? So, the way in which you explain a word depends partly upon the word. But it also depends on the student. We all le
- The first thing that most of you talked about is that the way I presented the vocabulary wasn’t very attractive. This is important because we all learn in different ways. To illustrate this, I’d like you to draw the following in your notebooks…..
- But here’s the big question. When we’re teaching vocabulary, when we’re learning new words, how do we decide which words to focus on? How do we know which words to learn, and which words to leave behind? Well here’s a very typical answer to that question – just check the meaning of EVERY new word, translate it, and write it in the margin.
- USE FLASHCARDS
- Here I’m putting the new words in a context of familiar words, enabling students to make an educated guess as to their meaning. This is far easier than giving them the Chinese, or a picture, and asking them to remember the word.
- Brainstorm characteristics of a good language learner.
- has a strong drive to communicate or to learn from conversations. If he does not know the exact way to express himself, he will borrow rules, make up new words, or invent ways to get his meaning across. pays attention to patterns and forms in the language monitors his own and others' speeches. Which means, he examines the effects of his own speech and the standard he achieves. attends to meaning. Meaning transmits not just through words and sentences, but also through the interaction of speakers, and the relationships among those conversing, the situation and the context. is willing to appear foolish. learns from mistakes Seeks opportunities to practice
- Here’s a typical text which a student may be required to read…….and here’s how they approach it.
- Well here’s a very typical answer to that question – just check the meaning of EVERY new word, translate it, and write it in the margin. Now, be honest with me, how many of you have adopted exactly this approach to learning new vocabulary? And how many of you have now forgotten every single one of those words you now looked up. My guess is that the vast majority were never used again, am I right? So, what do you need to do. Well, why not start not by looking at individual word items, but by focusing on all the common phrases, collocations, and fixed expressions. For example:
- Here’s the essence of the problem. What my teacher was asking me to do was ‘memorise’ words. But this didn’t help me to ‘know’ the words.
- We have a relationship with words. Some words are panda words – they’re soft and cuddly and they just seem to roll off our tongue like treacle pudding. Other are ugly bug words – they trip us up and given the choice, we’d really rather avoid them. Don’t believe me, well try a few of these. You tell me, are these panda words, or ugly bug words? Giggle Thwart Oops-a-daisy blurb
- Pron Spelling Meaning Opportunity to use them!
- This is far more interesting than a conventional drill. Try saying the words or phrases in different voices. How would each of these people say them? Or, why have all the class saying them at once? Why not do boys vs girls? Those on the left vs. those on the right? Those at the front vs. those at the back?
- How would a fat man say it? How would Mickey Mouse say it? How would a crying person say it? How would a person in a hurry say it? How would a confused person say it? Say it quickly Say it slowly Say it loudly Say it quietly
- Where does the word yummy comes from? Is it connected to a Yum Cha breakfast at a Chinese restaurant? We do get a general food word from Chinese - chow . However, yum may derive from yam , an English word meaning "to eat" which is thought to come from a West African language (compare Senegalese nyami "to eat" and Shona nyama "meat"). Yam dates in English from the early 18th century, and yum from the mid-19th century. Yummy arose a little bit later, at the end of the 19th century. It's also possible that yum is related to mmm (as in mmm good ), a sound of general satisfaction made when one's mouth is full. This formation would be similar to the conversion of brrr , a sound made when one is cold, to the exclamation "burr!".
- Thank you for listening – I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s workshop. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.