Linguistic competence and Vocabulary (Part 1) (9/11)

Linguistic competence

• Linguistic competence is the ability to understand and express messages accurately.
• It implies: correct use of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling.

Vocabulary

• Mastery of vocabulary is a basic ingredient for communication.
• No matter how much we know about language, if words fail to come, no message is conveyed.
• “Knowledge of a language demands mastery of its vocabulary as much as of its grammar” (Wilkins).

1. Active and passive vocabulary

• Active: vocabulary you can understand and recall and it is ready to use for communication.
• Passive: vocabulary that when heard or encountered cannot be used automatically, but it can be understood.
• When teaching active vocabulary a greater amount of practice must be given.

2.  Types of words and vocabulary items

• Content words: vocabulary items that refer to specific meanings:

            - Single words

            - Compound words

            - Words with a prefix or a suffix added

            - Phrasal verbs

            - Collocation (phrases composed of words that co-occur for lexical rather than semantic reasons: fast train and not quick train)

            - Idioms

3. Steps in teaching vocabulary

• Linguistic input is absolutely necessary for language acquisition and it is the teacher’s role to provide his students with it in the most accessible way.
• The first step should be to help learners understand the meaning of new words.
• The second to facilitate the learning of the pronunciation.
• Third step: reading and writing of words.
• Finally, to make it easy for students memorize them.

4. Resources to teach meaning:

• Linguistic resources:

            - Definition: teenager: a young boy or girl between 13 and 19 years old.

            - Synonyms: clever = intelligent, large = big

            - Antonyms/opposites: old/young, bad/good

            - Hyponyms: examples of a general concept for “super ordinates: animal = a dog, a cat, a lion

            - Translation: as a last resource.

• Strategies:

            - Visual, aural, kinaesthetic and tactile aids.

            - Realia, mime, facial expressions and gestures.

            - Flashcards, wall charts, photographs or simple drawings.

Wall chart

5. When to teach words

• Words connected with a particular function.
• When teaching how to perform the function: nice to meet you.
• Lexical sets. They can be pre-taught before dealing with the topic they are related to.
• But once isolated words have been presented whey should be repeated in meaningful contexts.