The peculiarities of
teaching new vocabulary at secondary schools in the Republic of Kazakhstan
As Kazakhstan is on a
way of active integration to the world community a special value is given to
English language, the language of the international cooperation. President of the
Republic of Kazakhstan pays a great attention to education and especially to
vital importance for the acquisition of English language in his annual messages
to the people of Kazakhstan. Teaching English in Kazakhstan requires
high-quality instruction, culturally appropriate lessons and creative
imagination.
The main function of
every language is communication. In simple words, communication is the process
of exchanging information. British linguist David Wilkins (1972) depicted the
role of vocabulary in this way: "While without grammar little can be
conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed". [1]
Firstly, it is
necessary to identify the definition of the word “vocabulary”. Many authors
have similar definitions about vocabulary. According to Hubbard (1983)
vocabulary can be defined as a powerful carrier of meaning.[2] Additionally,
Diamond & Gutlohn (2006) suggest that vocabulary is the knowledge of words
and their meanings.[3] This means that without establishing a strong vocabulary
base first, comprehension and use of a language will not be achieved.
As we have explicated the word
“vocabulary”, it would be advisable to define the word “word”. A word is a unit
of a language that carries a meaning and consists typically of a root and zero
or more affixes. Words can be combined to create phrases, clauses and
sentences. (Wikipedia)
At the most basic level, knowing of a
word means knowing of its meaning and its form (Thornbury, 2002).[4] Many words
have several different meanings and it is important to know them because they
can be expressed differently in another language.
The passive
vocabulary is naturally bigger than the active one. The more often we meet a
particular word and the more often we use it the sooner it becomes an item in
our active vocabulary.
There are some
factors that influence learning vocabulary strongly, for instance personality
and memorization. Those two factors are described below.
An important factor
of foreign language teaching-learning process is the personal type of a pupil
that is reflected into the strategy and style of learning. Knowledge of pupil’s
personality is a prerequisite of teacher’s individual attitude to him or her. Òhe
most favourable for language learning seems to be the characteristics
“extrovert-stable-sanguine” and the least the “introvert-unstable-melancholic”
one. (Chodera and Ries,1999) [5]
Learning of vocabulary
is undoubtedly the issue of collecting items. To learn something means in fact to
remember it, which is an issue of memory. The memory is a quality and a set of
processes that enable the information acquisition, its storage and recall
(Cáp, Mareš, 2001).[6] Understanding how our memory works, how the
words are remembered can help to find more effective way of vocabulary
teaching. Researchers distinguish two main types of memory: the short-term and
the long-term memory. The short-term one serves for remembering only for a few
seconds, which suffices, for example, for repeating of a word that has been
just heard but not for the purpose of learning. The main condition of the
information transfer to the long-term memory is its repetition. According to
the researches up to now, the repetition of information, together with its
using, helps to transfer it to the permanent long-term memory. (Cáp,
Mareš, 2001)[6]
A new project called
”Trinity of Languages”, with an ultimate view to making the country trilingual
in the state language of Kazakh, in Russian, "the language of inter-ethnic
communication," and in English, "the language of successful
integration into the global economy" was proposed by Nursultan Nazarbayev.
As the role of the English language is significant in Kazakh society,
techniques and methods of teaching new vocabulary are an issue. There are
numerous vocabulary learning strategies that learners can master. Below is the
description of three of them, namely flashcards, suggestopedia and thesaurus.
As Hill (1990)
pointed out, “the standard classroom” is usually not a very suitable
environment for learning languages. That is why teachers search for various
aids and stimuli to improve this situation. Pictures are one of these valuable
aids. They bring “images of reality into the unnatural world of the language
classroom.” (Hill 1990: 1)[7] The card can present an
image or word with or without additional information behind the card. There are many reasons for using pictures in
language teaching. As Wright (1990: 2) pointed out, they are motivating and
draw learners’ attention.
Suggestopedia is a
teaching method, which focuses on how to deal with the relationship between
mental potential and learning ability. This method was introduced by a Bulgarian
psychologist and educator, George Lazanov in 1975. In order to create relaxed
state in the learner and to promote positive suggestion, suggestopedia makes
use of music, a comfortable and relaxing environment, and a relationship
between the teacher and the student that is akin to the parent-child
relationship.
Thesaurus is a full
set of explanations of the word. It includes the definition and some of
semantically related words (antonyms, synonyms and so on). There are several
benefits of using thesaurus as vocabulary learning technique:
·
Useful to develop understanding of a word.
·
It helps students build new upon prior
knowledge.
·
It helps to remember words by using
associations.
Flashcards and
thesaurus are techniques that are widely used in Kazakhstan. However,
suggestopedia is less popular. Despite that fact, all three methods are
effective and, therefore, we will scrutinize it further. We are planning to
create a scheme where benefits, drawbacks and peculiarities of usage will be
illustrated. It will help students to find the most productive method for
themselves.
For instance, almost
every syllabus at school contains a topic “Travelling”. This topic has a lot of
new words, that need to be learned. Above mentioned techniques can be used to
help students to master vocabulary items. Teachers can prepare flashcards with the
words concerning airport (boarding pass, book a ticket). As for suggestopedia,
turning on relaxing music or sound of sea or birds can stimulate pupils to
perceive information. Thesaurus, in this case, will be helpful for more
advanced students because they already have basic vocabulary.
In conclusion, it
should be said that vocabulary plays a pivotal role in learning any language.
There are some peculiarities of personality and memorization that need to be
taken into consideration. It will influence what learning strategies and
techniques teachers should select.
References
1.
Wilkins, David A. (1972). Linguistics in
Language Teaching. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
2.
Hubbard, P. and al. (1983) A training Course for
TEFL. Oxford: OUP
3.
Diamond, Linda & Gutlohn Linda (2006)
Teaching vocabulary Retrieved from Internet
http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/50/1/52 on December 9, 2006
4.
Thornbury, Scott: How to Teach Vocabulary.
Harlow: Longman, 2002
5.
Chodera, Radomír, and Lumír Ries.
Výuka cizích jazyku na prahu nového století.
Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita – Pedagogická fakulta, 1999
6.
Cáp, Jan, and Jirí Mareš:
Psychologie pro ucitele. Praha: Portál, 2001
7.
Hill, David A. Visual Impact: Creative language
learning through pictures. Essex:Longman Group UK Limited, 1990.