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[.]

VOCABULARY BUILDING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH

FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CLASSES

Nguyen Thi Hong Anh

Thuyloi University, email: anhnth@tlu.edu.vn

1 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

2 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

3 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

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

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

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 do not have vocabulary and

background about it

"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

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

"Frayer model" by Thrush, Dalle, & Thevenot (2018) is licensed under CC0

This activity can be considered as a multi-task which helps students to practice with meaning, pronunciation and sentence making

at the same time

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 do 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/

4 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

5 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 Learning-centered 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/