Some years ago a soft-skills trainer of children gave an advice to the audience to routinize the learning of five new words each day from the dictionary. The audience considered the advice as an inspiring one on the belief that the trainer had such an exercise in his life.
With much enthusiasm, for a week several children would open the dictionary daily to learn any five words as a routine. Those who learned the vocabulary as a machine couldn’t use all those words due to their inability to communicate them in the right place with the appropriate form of the words. Within a short duration, the learners identified that the advice of the trainer was not viable in their circumstances and they gradually withdrew themselves from that method of vocabulary expansion.
Though many may think that the above story is the issue of a few, there are chances for certain generalization on this attempt of vocabulary expansion in following terms;
a) Learning of five words each without any reason is mechanical. The organism has no real need to learn those five words other than it was co-operating with the advice of the trainer or the teacher. These new words do not become active in the communication as they have no recurrence.
b) Semantics is something greater and above than the visual of the print of a word and usually, the meaning of a word is inexplicable with other words. The semantics of a word is to be experienced with its nuances. The little comprehension of the meaning of a word in isolation do not formulate the full sense and sometimes the inner-meanings couldn't be caught by the learner, at all.
c) Though the meaning of the root of the word could be comprehended from the machine learning of the dictionary, different forms of the same word would not be acquired with this attempt in segments.
d) Leaning of words in isolation is a conscious attempt of learning the language that makes the organism to repel inputs, resulting in hatred and to keeping away from learning the language.
Efforts of teachers or efforts from the part textbooks in the form of pre-teaching of vocabulary are also to be evaluated on the same count. No need to explain further demerits, the conclusion that conscious attempt of vocabulary expansion is less effective and its result is not long lasting, is not difficult to understand. It is against this context need-based vocabulary expansion is suggested as an alternative.
Who’s need?
a) Need-based vocabulary expansion stands for developing one’s range of known words through the urgency created in use in written or spoken form. For example, the teacher has a view in her mind to teach the specific words of chirp, twitter, and caw. If she gives the meaning of these words in English or in regional language, it is direct as a well as teacher’s need to be taught, which would be easily identified by the learner. If the teacher liked to make the situation as the need for the children to learn the new words, she would have asked the children to write a poem or a story where the children might use the specific words showing the cry of birds and animals. Tell them there are doves, hens, ducks, parrots, cats and calves as characters in the poem or story. While writing the lines of the poem or story they want specific words denoting the cry of birds or animals. Naturally, they have to approach the teacher or any other source like dictionaries, thesaurus or sites like; http://www.english-for-students.com/Cries-of-Animals-and-Birds.html and http://english-u.blogspot.in/2011/02/animal-sounds-or-cries-of-animals-birds.html
b) Guessing the spelling of words is another method of need-based vocabulary expansion. There is a game known as ‘last first’. Let the teacher say a word, fan. What is the last letter of the word? It is ‘n’. Then say a word with the beginning letter ‘n’, nut. Let the next child say ‘table’. The turn continues like a chain. It is the requirement of the child to be in the game by contributing any word with the appropriate one required in the chain. Moreover, the child will be non-conscious and spontaneous in the utterance or writing of the word considering the beginning sound and end sound of each word.
The urgency of the children to use the specific words in the poem or story or game depends on the anxiety deliberately made by the teacher. As there is anxiety to use the word appropriately they would make their own effort to seek the word, its pronunciation and the way in which it can be used in written or spoken form. This exercise is creative, constructive and inquisitive, above all, it is a problem-solving method where the child would be non-conscious towards the nuances of the use of the particular word as the child’s attention might be focused on finding the correct spelling, pronunciation and the form of the word to be used.
The goal for need-based vocabulary expansion could be realized only through the planned classroom process implemented by the teacher or a skilled mentor strategies for it. Following are certain strategies that the teachers can implement;
Strategies for need-based vocabulary expansion
a) Suppose the teacher is making the children to read a story in the textbook. As the beginning, she interacts with the children about the theme or message of the story. The teacher presents orally the beginning of the story and interrupts the story and asks the children whether they can guess the next immediate events in continuation of what they have heard. Let them write or say the remaining part of the story as they guess. After the presentation of two or three children, the teacher asks them “who would be right in guessing the events?” for which they would read the portion to confirm their guess. During this reading they have to encounter certain keywords, the meaning of them are essential in proceeding reading. In an urgency they would ask the teacher, read the glossary in the textbook or refer the entry in a dictionary or read the internet. Getting the meaning of the word becomes the real need of the child.
b) While writing the discourses like; conversation, description, diary, news report of their own, children need new words to express their real thoughts and ideas. Suppose the teacher is taking the children to a location outside the school campus with a plan to give direct experience to describe the hill and valley. With a view to writing certain new words in the description, the teacher asks the children some questions to channel their thoughts; what are all things you see from the top of the hill? How is the weather? What all sound you hear around? What smell you feel around? What similar sight do you remember at present? Such triggers may inspire the children to write the description with specific words, for which they will ask the teacher. The teacher can provide the word which would be their urgency.
c) Suppose the teacher demands a short speech from the child on any topic to be presented in the class, like, the merits of the mobile phone. Let the children write the speech. While they begin to write, the teacher presents certain triggers before them to channelize their thoughts to the speech; what merit will you speak first? Which is more expensive, is it the mobile phone or landline? What are other conveniences with the mobile phone? With every question, they have responses to be sequenced in the speech. To be faithful to their expression of ideas they ask for the specific terms for the preparation of the speech. After they write the speech on a sheet of paper or sequencing it in mind, let them present the speech to the audience in the class.
d) Language games are golden opportunities to make the situation natural and non-conscious for need-based vocabulary expansion. There are several games, one is presented here. Teacher says a clue “I am saying names of 10 vegetables from my shopping list. But when I say, sound won’t come out of my mouth. You identify those words from the lip movements.” After making such preparations teacher says the words in mute, such as onion, carrot, beans … and the children attentively look at the lip movements of the teacher to write teacher’s list. They may fail with some words, but when the correct list is stated they would be more attentive to listen to the list of the teacher and to the pronunciation of each word. It is the urgency of the children to learn those words, though the words were unheard.
Let teachers take this pedagogical concept of need-based vocabulary expansion as a challenge against pre-teaching of vocabulary, on an experimental basis for one year in a treatment group. Let the control group be given the older way of teaching words in advance of reading a passage. If any vocabulary test is given to both groups after one year, the teacher could convince herself the effectiveness of the need-based vocabulary development.
