Checking A Dictionary Is Not Always Enough
Most upper-intermediate and advanced students of a foreign language find it difficult to choose the right vocabulary in their speaking, but especially in their writing, when they want to use to use more ‘difficult’, abstract or academic language or when they want to be more creative with the language. They end up checking a dictionary and using words that do not work together or which make the language sound unnatural. But there is an easy way for language learners to solve this problem and it does not cost anything. Make Use Of Corpora What is a corpus? A corpus is a collection of samples of spoken and written language from a variety of sources that have been feed into a computer to create a database of words. There are different corpora that you as a learner of English as a foreign language can access. Find a summary here. There are corpora for other languages, too. What Is A Collocation? Without wanting to go into too much detail about vocabulary learning, I am sure you are all aware that words cannot be put together completely randomly in a language. Just to give you an example, you cannot say a ‘handsome’ woman in English as the adjective ‘handsome’ goes together with the characteristic ‘male’. So ‘handsome’ man is correct to say and if you want to express the same idea for a woman, you need to use the adjective ‘beautiful’. This is an example of a collocation. A collocation refers to how words are put together or form fixed relationships and any language is full of these including your native language. The Benefits Of A Corpus And How to Use It A corpus can help you to find the right collocations. Here is how. Once you have accessed a corpus, you can type in any word or a number of connected words. For example, if you want to find out if you can say a ‘big’ burden or if ‘heavy’ or ‘great’ are better alternatives, you would check how many entries each adjective produces in the corpus. In the BYU Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), there are 53 entries for ‘big’ burden, ‘great’ burden has 65 entries and ‘heavy’ burden has 292 entries. So what do you think? Which adjective is the best match for burden? Exactly, the adjective ‘heavy’ because of its much higher frequency. You can say that heavy and burden form a strong collocation. Or you can just see if the collocation you are thinking of actually is a collocation. Type it in and if there are less than 30 entries, chances are that it is not a collocation or not a strong one anyway and you should not use it. But there is more, you can go to the individual entries in the corpus and read the contexts in which the collocation is used to make absolutely sure that this is exactly the context for which you wanted to use the word. Job done! Practice Makes Perfect! This method might not work for beginners or intermediate students as they are lacking the necessary proficiency in the language to use it effectively. But you can still give it a try. After doing this a couple of times you will get the hang of it and you will always choose the right words for what you want to say. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you are looking to increase your vocabulary, have a look at the new section of my website with helpful resources for learning vocabulary here. FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK: DNK TUITION
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Mental health and well-being - Make it a focus at schools! There is one area in all educational systems that has received little attention until very recently, but which should probably be developed further and become a priority at schools and at universities. It is the area of mental health and well-being. Immunising our students against mental health issues If we look at the data, we can observe that the number of children, teenagers and young adults with mental health issues around the world is on the rise. Primary and secondary schools, as well as universities, could play a vital role. They could even be a key to preventing this trend from getting worse. And help is already available, i.e. in the form of the science of positive psychology. This science presents us with evidence-based answers and solutions to this problem. It originates from the research on how to treat human suffering but has taken on a different approach. Instead of focusing on what is wrong, positive psychology focuses on the development of human strengths and informs us how we can live our lives well. As it turns out, it can protect us from mental health problems now and in the future. What really makes us happy? The longest study on happiness, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, summarised in a must-see TED talk by its current director, Dr. Robert Waldinger, has shown that there is only one factor that matters most if we want to have a long, happy, mentally and physically healthy and fulfilled life. It is not money or fame, contrary to what we are led to believe, what matters most is the quality of the human relationships we have. The case for character education at schools If that is so, why is character education, the development of human strengths and the knowledge on how to live life well not as important as maths, English or sciences? Why can this not be a focus in our educational systems? Where else do we want children, teenagers and young adults to learn and acquire these skills? Especially since there is strong evidence that positive psychology can help to reduce mental health issues by preventing them from occurring in the first place. But, there is more, the research in positive psychology has led to the birth of another scientific field, i.e. Positive Education. Thanks to the efforts of Geelong Grammar School in Australia and their cooperation with the father of positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman, and the University of Pennsylvania, Positive Education became a reality. Positive Education is positive psychology applied to the context of education, at schools and universities, and this approach has already been implemented at numerous educational institutions around the world. The most courageous and visionary schools have adopted Positive Education as a whole-school approach and undertaken major changes in the school’s organisational structures and its approach towards teaching and learning. The most recent example is the University of Buckingham, which became the first positive university in Europe in 2017. Positive Education and its effect on standardized test scores If you are a parent, would you not agree that besides academic achievement, you would also want your children to learn how to live their lives well? How to be happy? How to have strong and healthy relationships? And, wouldn’t you agree that school might be a great place for your children to learn just that? A place where they spend countless hours of their daily lives. And implementing Positive Education has another great advantage: focusing on life skills and character education, as the studies by Dr. Alejandro Adler have found, also leads to a significant increase in standardized test scores amongst students. Positive Education - Enabling students to achieve their full potential If we want to prepare our students for their future, it is important to understand and accept that their mental health and well-being is as important as their academic achievement. In fact, it is necessary in order for them to achieve their full potential. Positive Education has already proved that it is a visionary approach that can change the educational landscape for the better. FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK: DNK TUITION Quizlet.com is a free mobile and web-based study application that can support you with vocabulary learning and teaching.
You need to create a list of words in your native language and the equivalent in the target language and then you can use a wide variety of functions that will help you to expose yourself or your students frequently to the vocabulary. You can also do this with grammatical structures if you memorize them as a lexical item. The great thing about this program is that its free, you just have to register, and then you can take advantage of its functions. Another big plus of the program is that it will pronounce the words in both languages for you. Increase your or your students' vocabulary today by using quizlet.com. FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK: DNK TUITION An interesting TED Talk by Benny Lewis that could give some inspiration to teachers and learners of foreign languages. The most important point that he raises, which is supported by the research in language acquisition, is the fact that learning a language has a strong social component. Our need as human beings to communicate, and the experiences we make when we try and eventually succeed, is the most powerful driving force in language learning. Make use of it and connect with others ... by speaking the foreign language! No matter if you are language learner or language teacher, this will help you to understand why some learners are better than others. As I always say: Anyone can learn a language! Maybe you want to rethink your approach to learning and teaching a language after that. All of Matthew’s statements are backed up by the research in Second Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics. Watch and learn! FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK: DNK TUITION Although learning a foreign language does not make you any smarter, it does give you a number of advantages that are worth knowing about. It has been shown that it keeps your brain healthy, complex and more engaged and can even delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by up to 5 years. Watch the video below to find out more ... and then start to learn a foreign language today. FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK: DNK TUITION |
AuthorDavid Koch- Language Teaching Expert Follow Me
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