WEEK 8: HOW TO USE DICTIONARIES TO LEARN VOCABULARY IN A BETTER WAY
Tuesday, March 9th, 2017
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This week I read the articles “Online English-English Learner Dictionaries Boost Word Learning and
Using
Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension”
in order to analyze the importance of integrating online dictionaries in the classroom to make students
to create their own vocabulary.
Something I want to remember from this article are some the
suggestions this article offer teachers to help students to learn English.
1). Corpus-based dictionaries which means the content is
based on real-world spoken and written discourse when words, definitions, and
examples are selected and organized. In other words, it helps learners of
English to focus first on frequent words and meanings by comparing the meaning
from different resources to proceed to memorize more words and their meanings. 2). Word frequency. This refers to know how frequently words
are used in overall written and spoken discourse. It is very helpful
information to English learners so that their can verify what words should be
learned first. 3). Collocations refers to words combinations that typically
go together with the words. Students
easily can look for a word on whether online dictionaries or printed version to
identify if that word can be together with others to make other meaning or
going deeper and find colocation mistakes of that word.
4). Authentic examples. Students can discover the meaning of
words but it is essential to have a dictionary that provides how to use words
in real context. With this extra effort students fully acquire those words, the
meaning and its use in real context to be applied later. 5). Topical vocabulary indicates how the words relate
semantically to different categories. Also students can have synonyms and
semantic webs to indicate different word usages and to illustrate how a single
word relates to different concepts.
My favorite quote from this article was “good readers have a
rich vocabulary, and similarly, a rich vocabulary is one of the key elements
that ensure reading proficiency” with the suggestions before, teachers can
enhance students reading skills and at the same time teaching a useful
technique to enrich their vocabulary in an efficiently way.
I agree with you Wilfredo the articles for this week were very useful because explain the importance vocabulary. For the acquisition of a new language vocabulary is essential and with the better definition of a word the use of it its easier. The dictionaries mentioned on the articles are very good resources that as teachers can be used to help students get new words, with the right collocation, the word frequency which explained how frequency the word is used and providing examples of the use of the words.
ReplyDeleteDictionaries are essential for the better acquisition of a word, as teachers we most encourage students not just to look for the definition of a word if not how can be used in context, how often can be used, in which context is more used, etc. these articles pointed that importance in knowing these features of a word at the time of look for a definition.
I consider that the readings for this week were very helpful. They provided essential information as the one you mentioned for the five features that dictionaries should have in order to acquire more vocabulary. I think that is important that these dictionaries present authentic examples so that students can associate them and easily recognize the words. I've always said that is important to read to acquire knowledge and have a critical thinking; however that is something our country lacks of. Therefore we as teacher should motivate and create that habit in our students to read more.
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