2. The content of teaching vocabulary. The aims of teaching
vocabulary.
For the purposes of teaching at school the words are divided into two groups
(parts):
1. Words, necessary for both oral communication and reading (active
vocabulary).
2. Words, necessary for reading only (recognition in reading) – passive
vocabulary.
The active and passive vocabulary are differentiated not only in their
function, but in methodology too: in the ways of presentation and their
usage in the teaching process and communication.
There is no strict distinction between active and passive vocabulary.
Some words can become active if they are often used in oral speech and
reading, at the same time other words if they are not often used in
speaking may become passive. At school students assimilate 2300 words of
passive vocabulary, 1000 active words among them.
These lexical units include notional words, numerals, form words
(pronouns, auxiliary and modal verbs, prepositions, conjunctions) forms of
words (plural of nouns, such as men , degrees of comparison of adjectives
and adverbs) some modal words, syntactic units. Lexical units for active
vocabulary are carefully selected according to special principles of selection:
- Statistical principles
- Methodological principles
- Linguistic principles
According to the first principles most frequently used words are
selected.
In accordance with methodological principles those words are selected
which belong to certain topics.
The third group includes the principles of combinability, word building
value, polysemy, stylistic principle. Those words are selected which easily
combine with many words, can form other words, belong to neutral style.
The main aim of teaching vocabulary is assimilation of the meaning,
form of the words and its usage in oral and written speech – that is
formation of lexical habits.
Пассов Е.И. gives the following definition of the lexical habit:
“Лексический навык есть синтезированное действие по выбору
лексической единицы адекватно замыслу и ее правильному сочетанию с
другими , совершаемое в навыковых параметрах и обеспечивающее
ситуативное использование данной лексической единицы в речи.”
Speaking and writing ( productive types of speaking activities) require
the following lexical habits : ability to combine words , ability to choose
form words and combine them with notional words, ability to choose the
necessary word among the synonyms, antonyms, ability to use words in
situations.
Reading and listening comprehension (reception) require the following
lexical habits: ability to correlate the visual (spelling) form of the word , the
sound form with its meaning ; ability not to pay attention to inner speech,
ability to differentiate the words that are similar in their sound form,
differentiate antonyms , synonyms, homonyms, the use word-building elements
and power of guessing.
The formation of lexical habits goes through three stages:
1.
presentation of new lexical units
2.
formation of lexical habits
3.
perfection of lexical habits
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