Vocabulary building activities in english for specific purposes classes

Microsoft Word 85 Nguyen Thi Hong Anh doc Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN 978 604 82 2981 8 640 VOCABULARY BUILDING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CLASSES Nguyen Thi[.]

Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN: 978-604-82-2981-8 VOCABULARY BUILDING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CLASSES Nguyen Thi Hong Anh Thuyloi University, email: anhnth@tlu.edu.vn INTRODUCTION Vocabulary is a crucial part of learning a new language It is more important in learning ESP classes, in which vocabulary acquisition can help learners understand better their area of study then surely can broaden their knowledge (Mohan and van Naerssen, 1997) Students also need to adopt the specialist language in order to make meaning and engage with disciplinary knowledge (Woodward-Kron, 2008:246) While teaching in ESP classes, a teacher also deals with a variety of vocabulary types Therefore, it is essential to distinguish between different types of vocabulary, then he will decide the most appropriate method of teaching each type There are three lexical kinds which should be provided with ESP students namely academic (Hutchinson and Waters,1987), semi technical and technical words With its importance, both academic vocabulary and semi - technical vocabulary should be given priority in teaching by ESP teachers because according to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 83), this type of vocabulary is used in general life contexts but also has a higher frequency of occurrence in scientific and technical descriptions and discussions An ESP teacher also has a duty to teach technical words so that he can assist his students in the process of discipline acquisition In order to build up students’ lexicon, ESP teaching should be supported by activities that actively involve learners in certain technical contexts Therefore, this research will focus on introducing several teaching vocabulary activities which can be conducted effectively in ESP classes RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This research is inspired by Advanced Program students in Thuyloi University who have to deal with overloaded vocabulary in ESP class It is difficult for learners to memorize and use new technical terms to fulfill their learning Consequently, the researcher studied various materials and resources then found out the most appropriate activities of teaching and learning new words for ESP students After that, the researcher conducted vocabulary activities in her own class, made some adaptations and adjustments when necessary then observed students’ responses and attitudes However, this is more likely a secondary research so the research doer only describes in her article the activities which seem to work well with her class She also tries to make the description in detail so that other teachers can take advantage of these activities in their own classes RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Some familiar vocabulary exercises often used in class such as matching, gap-filling and multiple choice are useful but not enough for ESP subject Teachers can conduct activities mentioned below to get learners widely exposed to new words including academic, semi technical and technical ones in meaningful and contextualized ways 640 Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN: 978-604-82-2981-8 3.1 Word wall This activity can be done during or at the end of each lesson To carry out this task, the teacher has to prepare some A4 sheets of paper Then he asks students to highlight all key terms and then stick them on board or on the walls of class in the alphabetical order This word list certainly becomes longer after each lesson And a certain word can be changed in a different form or can be moved to some different themes in different lessons "Word cloud" by Gina Asalon is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Fortunately, ESP teachers now can use various websites below to create word clouds for their class with just several steps: https://www.wordclouds.com/ http://www.wordle.net/ https://worditout.com/word-cloud/create https://wordart.com/ 3.3 Adopt a word Nicole Yeary via Flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0 These words and phrases will be kept on the walls till the end of the course and they will serve as an effective tool to display an important glossary to remember and students can visit them anytime they want Adopt a word can be performed throughout the course and across different topics The teacher introduces the new words, and then asks students to work in group and give the word definition and pronunciation, draw the picture demonstrating the word, and make a sentence with the word The teacher should emphasize that learners can use monolingual dictionary to check word meaning 3.2 Word cloud Word cloud is a good way to warm up students before teaching a new technical topic The teacher raises the topic, gives students a cloud made from many words, and tells them to underline or circle the words that belong to the topic This activity can be more interesting when learners work in groups and compete to find as many words as possible After that, the teacher will read the correct ones which are also the key terms of the lesson This task is meaningful and effective when students face a completely new technical topic and they not have vocabulary and background about it "Frayer model" by Thrush, Dalle, & Thevenot (2018) is licensed under CC0 This activity can be considered as a multitask which helps students to practice with meaning, pronunciation and sentence making at the same time 641 Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN: 978-604-82-2981-8 If time allowed, the instructor can ask his learners to present the new word in front of the class so that each group can expose their products and students can learn from each other 3.4 Concept map Concept map is a kind of graphic organizer which shows the relationship between ideas and concepts of a certain topic It is advisable for the teacher to conduct this activity to review vocabulary of a learnt topic With words and phrases at average level of difficulty, students should be asked to make a map themselves so that they will be clear about the connection among words With more complicated vocabulary, the teacher can show the map to the students and students have to report the relationship between terms In this way, students will produce sentences with the words which needed memorizing and using in technical context "concept_map_lrg" (Links to an external site.) by jean-louis Zimmermann via Flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0 ESP teachers not have to worry about drawing or creating this map because they have the support from several websites such as: https://www.canva.com/graphs/concept-maps/ https://creately.com/concept-map-maker https://www.mindmup.com/ CONCLUSION Learning vocabulary needs time, patience and efforts of both learners and teachers And it only happens efficiently when learners are given opportunities to participate and experience in meaningful situations These activities mentioned here have shown achievements in some ESP classes However, this research just describes the way to conduct the tasks and some available websites to support ESP teachers if they want to apply in their classes More data and information about learners’ reaction and improvement may be discussed in a further research REFERENCES [1] Dudley-Evans, T &St John, M, J (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purposes Cambridge: CUP [2] Mohan, B and M van Naerssen (1997) Understanding Cause–Effect: Learning Through Language in Forum, vol 35, no 4, pp 22–29 http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/usia/EUSIA/forum/ vols/vol35/no4/p22.htm, accessed on May 27th, 2018 [3] Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters (1987) English for Specific Purposes: A Learningcentered Approach, Cambridge University Press: CUP [4] Woodward–Kron, R.( 2008) More than Just Jargon - The Nature and Role of Specialist Language in Learning Disciplinary Knowledge, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7, pp 234–249 [5] https://learn.canvas.net/courses/2399/ 642 ... J (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purposes Cambridge: CUP [2] Mohan, B and M van Naerssen (1997) Understanding Cause–Effect: Learning Through Language in Forum, vol 35, no 4, pp 22–29... http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/usia/EUSIA/forum/ vols/vol35/no4/p22.htm, accessed on May 27th, 2018 [3] Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters (1987) English for Specific Purposes: A Learningcentered Approach, Cambridge... class in the alphabetical order This word list certainly becomes longer after each lesson And a certain word can be changed in a different form or can be moved to some different themes in different