how to learn vocabulary - tiet an le

8/15/2019 How to Learn Vocabulary - Tiet an Le

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Le Tiet An email: [email protected]

Vocabulary strategy

It goes without saying, vocabulary is the most important ingredient for those who want to studyEnglish. However, “how to study vocabulary efficiently and effectively” is still a hard difficult question formany students who begin to study English. This short paper provides my own experience in studyingvocabulary as well as some other useful methods concluded from experts.

For you to easy to follow, I classify the content into 3 questions below:

1) How to learn?2) Which should to be learned?3) How to remember?

Now, let ‘s starts with the first question:

1) How to learn?

For almost all of the students in Vietnam, studying vocabulary by rewriting hundreds times forone word is the most popular method in schools. In my opinion, this kind of technique is the worse methodto learn vocabulary. Why?

Most of my students said to me that they almost forget all the words after one month or evenone week or sometimes one day. If you are using this method, please stop and try to follow my suggestedones at least once time.

First, vocabularies have the relations, and it is always easier for you to understand a lot of wordsby understand the relations of the words. For example, when your friend mention someone else theyusually mention the relation of them for you to easier to recognize : “Do you know Tuan? He is my cousin,he studies in class 10A4, …” or something like that. When you study words, you should follow this rule,and of course, studying English is not exactly the same with knowing about people.

1a. Simple group methods:

For the beginner grouping methods is the easiest way to learn basic words (I personally definebasic words by giving some examples: table, chair, car, cat, dog, apple, ruler, …

Using the simple group methods:

You can classify the basic words into:

Animals: cat, dog, …

Furniture: table, chair, …

Fruits: apple, pear, …




School things: ruler, pen, …

By doing this, the words can have the family themselves, and when you remember “ruler ”, youmight be familiar with “pen ” or the others.

This method can be more useful when you apply mind-map method as well as basic drawing technique:

Figure 1: Mind-map and basic drawing methods (Le Tiet An, 2016)




As you can see from the pictures, clothes have the family, animals have other complex family,when the words have relations, it would be easier for you to remember. Drawing also helps you toremember the meaning of the words, it is the better than defining the long sentence. In addition,according to scientists, pictures are easier to remember and stay in your mind longer than texts are.

1b. Family words method:When it comes to longer words and more complex words, the simple group methods are not

suitable any more. Therefore, family words methods take the place to help you. Have you ever consideredabout some w ords: “complete, completion, completely” belong to one family? If you know about thefamily, you just learn one word, you can remember the others by understanding the relations. Now I willshow you how to use family word methods:

First we learn prefix and suffix: all of them mean something:

Prefix

un- : không unhappy, unchanged, unlimited, unknown, unlike, unclean

im-: không, impossible, immeasurable,

in- : không inactive, invisible, incalculable

non- : không : nonessential, non-toxi

pre- : trước preview, predict, precaution

mis- : sai misunderstand, misuse, misbehave

re- : lại, nữ a react, regain, reread, rewrite

dis- : tách kh ỏi, không disconnect, disable, disadvantaged

over- : trên, quá overactive, overambition, overweight,

op- : ngược lại opposite, oppose

in- : vào trong inside, in-box, in-car, in-group, include, internal

ex- : vượt quá, vượt khỏi,ngoài: outside, exceed, extend, exchange, exclude, external

inter- : gi ữ a, trong s ố(liên kế t) interact, international, interbank

de- : tách kh ỏi, xuống deduct, dehydrate, debasemono- : m ột mình, m ột monologue >< dialogue, monocle

com- : cùng nhau, v ới combat, combination,

sub- : dưới subtopic

ad- : v ề, về phía advance,




-ish (usually changes nouns into adjectives/ class-maintaining, with the word class remaining an

adjective)

-tion (usually changes verbs into noun)

-logy /-ology (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffix Suffix with people:

-ist

art – artist

chemistry – chemist

dentistry – dentist

guitar – guitarist

journal – journalist

linguistics – linguist

lobby – lobbyist

novel – novelist

nutrition – nutritionist

orthodontia – orthodontist

optometry – optometrist

pharmacy – pharmacist

philanthropy – philanthropist

piano – pianist

psychiatry – psychiatrist

psychology – psychologist

racism – racist

reception – receptionist

science – scientist

therapy – therapist

-ian

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ish


https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-tion


https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-logy

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ology



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffix





https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-logy






beauty – beautician

comedy – comedian

electricity – electrician

grammar – grammarianguard – guardian

history – historian

library – librarian

magic – magician

mathematics – mathematician

music – musician

obstetrics – obstetrician

pediatrics – pediatrician

physic – physician

politics – politician

rhetoric – rhetorician

statistics – statistician

surgery – surgeon*

technical – technician

vegetable – vegetarian

veterinary – veterinarian

*The suffix for surgeon is spelled -eon but pronounced the same as the -ian suffix.

-ess

actor – actress

adulterer – adulteress

author – authoress

duke – duchess

god – goddess




launderer – laundress

lion – lioness

master – mistress

poet – poetesspriest – priestess

prince – princess

seam – seamstress

steward – stewardess

-ar/-er/-eur/-ier/-or/-ur

Ø – ambassador*

astronomy – astronomer

Ø – author

bar – barrister

cash – cashier

contract – contractor

Ø – doctor

fight fire – firefighter

dig grave – gravedigger

grocery – grocer

keep house – housekeeper

jewelry – jeweler

law – lawyer

radiography – radiographer

restaurant – restaurateur

retail – retailer

senate – senator

translate – translator




treasure – treasurer

Ø – tutor

Source: http://www.brighthubeducation.com/esl-lesson-plans/59221-teaching-noun-suffixes-names-for-people/

Now take the look how to use prefix and suffix in learning family words:

Example: Begin with the basic word: “Act” using the rule, you can easily recognize other membersof its family.

Act (basic words)

Action (noun- hành động)

Active (active- năng động)

Actively (adverb- m ột cách năng động)Activity (noun – hoạt động)

Actor (noun people- di ễn viên nam)

Actress (noun poeple-di ễn viên n ữ )

React (verb – phản ứ ng, làm l ại)

Inactive (adjective – ngưng hoạt động)

Activate (verb- kích ho ạt)

Activist (noun people – nhà ho ạt động)

Activator (noun things – máy kích ho ạt)

Educate (verb- giáo d ục)

Uneducated (adjective- m ấ t dạy)

Education (noun- giáo d ục)

Educationally (adverb- m ột cách giáo d ục)

Educational (adjective- thu ộc giáo d ục)

Compete (verb- c ạnh tranh)

Competition (noun- s ự cạnh tranh, cu ộc thi)




Competence (noun- tính c ạnh tranh)

Competitive (adjective – thu ộc cạnh tranh)

Now, I confidently state that: I can make the sentence: “learn one understandten ” become true! ^^

When you read, listen, you can use this technique to guess the words you don ’t know. Thismethod saves your time. Your productivity in studying will be double, triple. If you have now 1000 words,after one month practice this method, your vocabulary might be 3000 words, 5000 words.

2. Which should to be learned?

Vocabulary is almost unlimited; you need to understand that you cannot learn all or rememberall the words. Therefore, choosing the words suitable to your English level is very important.

- The easiest way to learn suitable words might be from books, which classified beginners,intermediate, advanced words for IELTS, for example.

- My experience, you should also learn basic words first by following the rule:

“Learn the words you don’t know, which appear many times when you do the test, first!!!” Tiet An

For example, when you read the test: you don’t know the words: education, diploma, tech nique, tsunami,teacher, urban, ram

Words How many times you see Classification Affection your understandingEducation 5 Basic HighDiploma 4 Basic HighTechnique 2 Rare LowTsunami 1 Rare Very LowTeacher 10 Basic Very highUrban 2 Rare LowRam 1 Rare Very Low

Based on the number of times you see the words; you can easily choose what words should belearned. If you are the beginner you should not learn “Ram”, “tsunami”. Please, save your time to learn“teacher, education, …” first. They are basic words for you, help y ou to improve your English most at yourlevel.

- Another good way is from the good dictionary. From my experience, Longman dictionary

is one of the best that I have ever had. You should discover it yourself. Here, I just show you how to usethis dictionary to classify words:




You can see that, behind the word “complete”, there is t wo symbols : S2, W1. “S” mean speakingand “W” mean writing. 1, 2 is the level of frequent the word is used. 1 is most frequent. So, W1 means: itis very often used in writing (basic words for writing). Therefore, you should learn this word.

Keywords technique (From: ielts-simon.com)

Why I put keywords technique here, because it is the most important thing if you want to improveyour score quickly in IELTS test, and it will help you to find the most necessary advanced words easily.

In every reading test, listening test, writing test. The test-maker try to find out the interestingthings from the paper, the dialogue or monologue… After that, they use synonyms (đồ ng nghĩa), antonyms(trái nghĩa ) double negative (ph ủ định kép), phrase related to the interesting things to make the questions(almost all kinds of questions)

If you learn the frequent words that the test-maker use to do the questions, it will help you to dothe test easier (easier to find position in the text, familiar with the answer, have ability to understand thequestions, have ability to paraphrase, …) The tables below show how the learners can create the table of

keywords technique from the test.




So, the most important of these tables are

Synonyms: extended = longer

Antonyms and negatives: no longer

When you do reading, listening or even writing, you should try to create the table like these and learnby your heart. Try and I can sure that, you can quickly see how it change your score.

3) How to remember

For meanings: As I showed you the simple drawing methods, mind-map, it is a good way to rememberthe meanings. In addition, color is also very important. That is the reason why you like using highlightpens.

Another suggestion method is: funny definition. Like for example, “tomato” is your new word. Idefine by drawing the girl I used to lo…e. Her face like a tomato. Drawing simple pictures of her is alsopossible. You know, that kind of methods make me never forget the meaning of the word at the end ofmy life. “ as long as I love you ”




For spelling: One of the simplest way to remember words that I learned many years ago from the book“Tôi Tài giỏi bạn cũng thế” Adam Khoo.

The words like “orange, house, mouse, language, etc.” seem to be difficult words for my studentsto remember.

When I apply the technique of Adam Khoo, they become easier. You spell the words into yourmother tongue:

O/ran/ge ho/u/se mo/u/se lan/gua/ge …

Almost all of my students can remember the words easily, and they appear to never forget thewords. However, the problem with this method is that: it might affect the pronunciation of the childbecause of they don’t realize about pronunciation. But for you, the older students, if you use the methodin the right way, the problem does not matter.

From my experience, I develop the method of Adam Khoo into the advanced technique. Of course,it cannot use for all of the words, but at many times, it helps me to remember the spelling in the perfect

way. For example, I also easily forget the spelling of “firefighter, remember”. I use prefix, suffix and dividethe words into smaller words. By this I mean, we add more rule into the technique, such as prefix suffix,and pronunciation.

Fire: l ử a fight: chi ến đấ u er: suffix ch ỉ ngườ i: lính ch ử a l ử a = fire/figh/er

Re: prefix l ại member: thành ph ần, gọi l ại thành ph ần nhớ l ại = re/member

Sometimes it looks good, sometimes it looks stupid. However, with me, it doesn’t matter becauseI can address the problem with the spelling easily. You know, your brain seems to remember the smallthings better than the larger things.

Finally, I use pronunciation rule to remember spelling: When you learn how to spell the words inthe good ways, you can easily remember the words by some rules the words have:

You should learn carefully “International Phonetic” (phiên âm quố c t ế ). Because when you hearor you speak the words correctly, you will have the letters in your minds.

For example: /u:/ in English usually presented by “oo ” , “food ”.

Understanding all kind of pronunciation rules, you will be the experts in remembering words.




Source: http://kenh14.vn/kham-pha/bang-chu-cai-bi-an-giup-ban-phat-am-tieng-anh-sieu-chuan-2015102512184225.chn

You should learn how to pronoun: “s”: https://www.facebook.com/notes/tieng-anh-123/m%E1%BA%B9o-c%E1%BB%B1c-d%E1%BB%85-nh%E1%BB%9B-c%C3%A1ch-ph%C3%A1t-%C3%A2m-s-es-ed-trong-ti%E1%BA%BFng-anh/582769095145929/

You should learn how to pronoun: “ed”: https://www.facebook.com/notes/tieng-anh-123/m%E1%BA%B9o-c%E1%BB%B1c-d%E1%BB%85-nh%E1%BB%9B-c%C3%A1ch-ph%C3%A1t-%C3%A2m-s-es-ed-trong-ti%E1%BA%BFng-anh/582769095145929/

You should learn how to pronoun silent letter: http://ppsvietnam.edu.vn/thu-vien/17-chu-cai-cam-trong-tieng-anh-hay-gap-nhat

You should learn how to pronoun long and short vowel: http://vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/giao-duc/hoc-tieng-anh/7-nguyen-tac-phat-am-co-the-ban-chua-biet-3315850.html

In Conclusion:- Group the words + mind map+ drawing- Family words: prefix + suffix- Basic words (comment words), advanced words (synonyms, antonyms) keywords

technique - Funny definition, separating the words, pronunciation.

LE TIET AN email: [email protected]

“ Share to be shared ”

http://ppsvietnam.edu.vn/thu-vien/17-chu-cai-cam-trong-tieng-anh-hay-gap-nhat




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