1. Teaching Vocabulary to Advanced Students: A Lexical Approach
Gary Torres
Teaching English is not as simple as it looks. If you want to succeed and make
your students progress, preparation is extremely needed. This text deals with a very
important issue in terms of teaching in a way that your students really get the content, in
other words, they do not forget what they learn. In the case of teaching vocabulary
teachers have to take some facts into account.
For a start, it is well know that English students learn a lot of vocabulary during a
course, they can express their ideas and identify structures of language, however, they
are rarely able to use it in context. This problem is common and it can happen even to
us as future teachers. This text is good help for sorting this kind of problems out.
As Vocabulary is one of the fundamental parts of English, a teacher must be
aware of the kind of items chosen to be taught and how authentic and contextualized
they are, in order to make them meaningful for the students, that is to say, if the
vocabulary cannot be used in real context, then the students are not going to be able to
maintain that new information in their minds. In addition to this, dealing with meaning
is a concept which stands out in the text, basically because that is a good opportunity for
students to have independent work. Although, working in groups is also a good way of
exchanging ideas and knowledge, and obviously to make students use the information
that they have just learned.
I could not avoid noticing the importance given to the EFL dictionary, which is
needed since intermediate level and upwards. This issue connects directly with the
course, where we are required to bring it and use it class by class, and which I consider
a quite effective way of making the content understandable for using it. Another thing
I noticed is that the motivation of the students at moment of using the language lies on
the teacher himself, that means, if the teacher does not promote the usage of language,
students are never going to be capable of producing correct language.
As a conclusion I can say that we as future teachers have a hard labour to do in
order to improve our way of teaching any kind of content. I believe that if teachers do
not consider students' thoughts and skills at the moment of teaching, we are definitely
not doing well, because teaching implies taking all the student's environment and use it
in favour of his/her apprenticeship.