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Second Language Learning and Language Teaching Website |
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Summaries Chapter Three |
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Frequency
of words -
Frequency is usually
established nowadays from a large corpus of a language,
such as the
BNC for English. - Words vary extremely in how often they are used. - Frequency is only one factor in the choice of words |
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Knowing
a word ·
Knowing a word means its spoken and written forms, its
grammatical and lexical properties and its meaning. ·
Vocabulary
impinges on all areas of language
acquisition and is not just learning
sets of words and meanings. |
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Words in the L2
user’s mind ·
The L1 and the L2 sets of vocabulary
in the L2 user’s mind may be related in various ways, ranging from
completely separate to completely integrated. · Research suggests that in many cases the two vocabulary stores are closely linked. |
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Ways
of meaning ·
Words have
many different kinds of meaning,
whether sharing general components, linked in lexical relations or
related to prototypes and levels. ·
While
some aspects of meaning are universal,
there are differences between languages in how they express concepts of
colour etc, which may affect the thinking of L2 users. |
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Vocabulary
Strategies - To understand an unfamiliar L2 word, people make use of a variety of strategies such as guessing, using dictionaries, deducing meaning from the word’s form and relating it to cognates. - To acquire new L2 words, people use strategies such as repetition, organising them in the mind, and linking them to existing knowledge |
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Vocabulary
and Teaching –
teach the complexity of words |