Strategy for studying vocabulary

Simple group methods: For the beginner grouping methods is the easiest way to learn basic words I personally define basic words by giving some examples: table, chair, car, cat, dog, app

Vocabulary strategy

It goes without saying, vocabulary is the most important ingredient for those who want to study English However, “how to study vocabulary efficiently and effectively” is still a hard difficult question for many students who begin to study English This short paper provides my own experience in studying vocabulary as well as some other useful methods concluded from experts

For you to easy to follow, I classify the content into 3 questions below:

1) How to learn?

2) Which should to be learned?

3) How to remember?

Now, let ‘s starts with the first question:

1) How to learn?

For almost all of the students in Vietnam, studying vocabulary by rewriting hundreds times for one word is the most popular method in schools In my opinion, this kind of technique is the worse method

to learn vocabulary Why?

Most of my students said to me that they almost forget all the words after one month or even one week or sometimes one day If you are using this method, please stop and try to follow my suggested ones at least once time

First, vocabularies have the relations, and it is always easier for you to understand a lot of words

by understand the relations of the words For example, when your friend mention someone else they usually mention the relation of them for you to easier to recognize: “Do you know Tuan? He is my cousin,

he studies in class 10A4, …” or something like that When you study words, you should follow this rule, and of course, studying English is not exactly the same with knowing about people

1a Simple group methods:

For the beginner grouping methods is the easiest way to learn basic words (I personally define basic words by giving some examples: table, chair, car, cat, dog, apple, ruler, …

Using the simple group methods:

You can classify the basic words into:

Animals: cat, dog, …

Furniture: table, chair, …

Fruits: apple, pear, …

School things: ruler, pen, …

By doing this, the words can have the family themselves, and when you remember “ruler”, you might be familiar with “pen” or the others

This method can be more useful when you apply mind-map method as well as basic drawing technique:

Figure 1: Mind-map and basic drawing methods (Le Tiet An, 2016)

As you can see from the pictures, clothes have the family, animals have other complex family, when the words have relations, it would be easier for you to remember Drawing also helps you to remember the meaning of the words, it is the better than defining the long sentence In addition, according to scientists, pictures are easier to remember and stay in your mind longer than texts are

1b Family words method:

When it comes to longer words and more complex words, the simple group methods are not suitable any more Therefore, family words methods take the place to help you Have you ever considered about some words: “complete, completion, completely” belong to one family? If you know about the family, you just learn one word, you can remember the others by understanding the relations Now I will show you how to use family word methods:

First we learn prefix and suffix: all of them mean something:

Prefix

un- : không unhappy, unchanged, unlimited, unknown, unlike, unclean

im-: không, impossible, immeasurable,

in- : không inactive, invisible, incalculable

non- : không : nonessential, non-toxi

pre- : trước preview, predict, precaution

mis- : sai misunderstand, misuse, misbehave

re- : lại, nữa react, regain, reread, rewrite

dis- : tách khỏi, không disconnect, disable, disadvantaged

over- : trên, quá overactive, overambition, overweight,

op- : ngược lại opposite, oppose

in- : vào trong inside, in-box, in-car, in-group, include, internal

ex- : vượt quá, vượt khỏi,ngoài: outside, exceed, extend, exchange, exclude, external

inter- : giữa, trong số(liên kết) interact, international, interbank

de- : tách khỏi, xuống deduct, dehydrate, debase

mono- : một mình, một monologue >< dialogue, monocle

com- : cùng nhau, với combat, combination,

sub- : dưới subtopic

ad- : về, về phía advance,

pro- : về phía trước, dành cho progress, pro

trans- : ngang qua, vượt khỏi transit, transport, transparence,

epi- : dựa trên

You need to update by yourself from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix

Suffix:

 -s third person singular present

 -ed past tense

 -t past tense

 -ing progressive/continuous

 -en past participle

 -s plural

 -en plural (irregular)

 -er comparative

 -est superlative

 -n't negative

Derivational suffixes can be divided into two categories, namely changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation.[5] Derivational suffixes in modern English include:

 -ise / -ize (usually changes nouns into verbs)

 -fy (usually changes nouns into verbs)

 -ly (usually changes adjectives into adverbs)

 -ful (usually changes nouns into adjectives)

 -able/-ible (usually changes verbs into adjectives)

 -hood (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)

 -ess (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)

 -ness (usually changes adjectives into nouns)

 -less (usually changes nouns into adjectives)

 -ism (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)

 -ment (usually changes verbs into nouns)

 -ist (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)

 -al (usually changes nouns into adjectives)

 -ish (usually changes nouns into adjectives/ class-maintaining, with the word class remaining an adjective)

 -tion (usually changes verbs into noun)

 -logy / -ology (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffix

Suffix with people:

-ist

art – artist

chemistry – chemist

dentistry – dentist

guitar – guitarist

journal – journalist

linguistics – linguist

lobby – lobbyist

novel – novelist

nutrition – nutritionist

orthodontia – orthodontist

optometry – optometrist

pharmacy – pharmacist

philanthropy – philanthropist

piano – pianist

psychiatry – psychiatrist

psychology – psychologist

racism – racist

reception – receptionist

science – scientist

therapy – therapist

-ian

beauty – beautician

comedy – comedian

electricity – electrician

grammar – grammarian

guard – guardian

history – historian

library – librarian

magic – magician

mathematics – mathematician

music – musician

obstetrics – obstetrician

pediatrics – pediatrician

physic – physician

politics – politician

rhetoric – rhetorician

statistics – statistician

surgery – surgeon*

technical – technician

vegetable – vegetarian

veterinary – veterinarian

*The suffix for surgeon is spelled -eon but pronounced the same as the -ian suffix

-ess

actor – actress

adulterer – adulteress

author – authoress

duke – duchess

god – goddess

launderer – laundress

lion – lioness

master – mistress

poet – poetess

priest – priestess

prince – princess

seam – seamstress

steward – stewardess

-ar/-er/-eur/-ier/-or/-ur

Ø – ambassador*

astronomy – astronomer

Ø – author

bar – barrister

cash – cashier

contract – contractor

Ø – doctor

fight fire – firefighter

dig grave – gravedigger

grocery – grocer

keep house – housekeeper

jewelry – jeweler

law – lawyer

radiography – radiographer

restaurant – restaurateur

retail – retailer

senate – senator

translate – translator

treasure – treasurer

Ø – tutor

Source: http://www.brighthubeducation.com/esl-lesson-plans/59221-teaching-noun-suffixes-names-for-people/

Now take the look how to use prefix and suffix in learning family words:

Example: Begin with the basic word: “Act” using the rule, you can easily recognize other members

of its family

Act (basic words)

Action (noun- hành động)

Active (active- năng động)

Actively (adverb- một cách năng động)

Activity (noun – hoạt động)

Actor (noun people- diễn viên nam)

Actress (noun poeple-diễn viên nữ)

React (verb – phản ứng, làm lại)

Inactive (adjective – ngưng hoạt động)

Activate (verb- kích hoạt)

Activist (noun people – nhà hoạt động)

Activator (noun things – máy kích hoạt)

Educate (verb- giáo dục)

Uneducated (adjective- mất dạy)

Education (noun- giáo dục)

Educationally (adverb- một cách giáo dục)

Educational (adjective- thuộc giáo dục)

Compete (verb- cạnh tranh)

Competition (noun- sự cạnh tranh, cuộc thi)

Competence (noun- tính cạnh tranh)

Competitive (adjective – thuộc cạnh tranh)

Now, I confidently state that: I can make the sentence: “learn one understand ten” become true! ^^

When you read, listen, you can use this technique to guess the words you don’t know This method saves your time Your productivity in studying will be double, triple If you have now 1000 words, after one month practice this method, your vocabulary might be 3000 words, 5000 words

2 Which should to be learned?

Vocabulary is almost unlimited; you need to understand that you cannot learn all or remember all the words Therefore, choosing the words suitable to your English level is very important

- The easiest way to learn suitable words might be from books, which classified beginners, intermediate, advanced words for IELTS, for example

- My experience, you should also learn basic words first by following the rule:

“Learn the words you don’t know, which appear many times when you do the test, first!!!” Tiet An For example, when you read the test: you don’t know the words: education, diploma, technique, tsunami, teacher, urban, ram

Words How many times you see Classification Affection your understanding

Figure 3: Classification basic words

Based on the number of times you see the words; you can easily choose what words should be learned If you are the beginner you should not learn “Ram”, “tsunami” Please, save your time to learn

“teacher, education, …” first They are basic words for you, help you to improve your English most at your level

- Another good way is from the good dictionary From my experience, Longman dictionary

is one of the best that I have ever had You should discover it yourself Here, I just show you how to use this dictionary to classify words:

Figure 4: Classification by Longman Dictionary

You can see that, behind the word “complete”, there is two symbols: S2, W1 “S” mean speaking and “W” mean writing 1, 2 is the level of frequent the word is used 1 is most frequent So, W1 means: it

is very often used in writing (basic words for writing) Therefore, you should learn this word

Keywords technique (From: ielts-simon.com)

Why I put keywords technique here, because it is the most important thing if you want to improve your score quickly in IELTS test, and it will help you to find the most necessary advanced words easily

In every reading test, listening test, writing test The test-maker try to find out the interesting things from the paper, the dialogue or monologue… After that, they use synonyms (đồng nghĩa), antonyms (trái nghĩa) double negative (phủ định kép), phrase related to the interesting things to make the questions (almost all kinds of questions)

If you learn the frequent words that the test-maker use to do the questions, it will help you to do the test easier (easier to find position in the text, familiar with the answer, have ability to understand the questions, have ability to paraphrase, …) The tables below show how the learners can create the table of keywords technique from the test

Figure 5: Keywords technique from Simon

So, the most important of these tables are

Synonyms: extended = longer Antonyms and negatives: no longer When you do reading, listening or even writing, you should try to create the table like these and learn

by your heart Try and I can sure that, you can quickly see how it change your score

3) How to remember

For meanings: As I showed you the simple drawing methods, mind-map, it is a good way to remember

the meanings In addition, color is also very important That is the reason why you like using highlight pens

Another suggestion method is: funny definition Like for example, “tomato” is your new word I define by drawing the girl I used to lo…e Her face like a tomato Drawing simple pictures of her is also

possible You know, that kind of methods make me never forget the meaning of the word at the end of

my life “ as long as I love you”

For spelling: One of the simplest way to remember words that I learned many years ago from the book

“Tôi Tài giỏi bạn cũng thế” Adam Khoo

The words like “orange, house, mouse, language, etc.” seem to be difficult words for my students

to remember

When I apply the technique of Adam Khoo, they become easier You spell the words into your mother tongue:

O/ran/ge ho/u/se mo/u/se lan/gua/ge …

Almost all of my students can remember the words easily, and they appear to never forget the words However, the problem with this method is that: it might affect the pronunciation of the child because of they don’t realize about pronunciation But for you, the older students, if you use the method

in the right way, the problem does not matter

From my experience, I develop the method of Adam Khoo into the advanced technique Of course,

it cannot use for all of the words, but at many times, it helps me to remember the spelling in the perfect way For example, I also easily forget the spelling of “firefighter, remember” I use prefix, suffix and divide

the words into smaller words By this I mean, we add more rule into the technique, such as prefix suffix, and pronunciation

Fire: lửa fight: chiến đấu er: suffix chỉ người: lính chửa lửa = fire/figh/er

Re: prefix lại member: thành phần, gọi lại thành phần  nhớ lại = re/member

Sometimes it looks good, sometimes it looks stupid However, with me, it doesn’t matter because

I can address the problem with the spelling easily You know, your brain seems to remember the small things better than the larger things

Finally, I use pronunciation rule to remember spelling: When you learn how to spell the words in the good ways, you can easily remember the words by some rules the words have:

You should learn carefully “International Phonetic” (phiên âm quốc tế) Because when you hear

or you speak the words correctly, you will have the letters in your minds

For example: /u:/ in English usually presented by “oo” , “food”

Understanding all kind of pronunciation rules, you will be the experts in remembering words

Figure 7: International Phonetic

Source: http://kenh14.vn/kham-pha/bang-chu-cai-bi-an-giup-ban-phat-am-tieng-anh-sieu-chuan-2015102512184225.chn

You should learn how to pronoun: “s”: https://www.facebook.com/notes/tieng-anh-

123/m%E1%BA%B9o-c%E1%BB%B1c-d%E1%BB%85-nh%E1%BB%9B-c%C3%A1ch-ph%C3%A1t-%C3%A2m-s-es-ed-trong-ti%E1%BA%BFng-anh/582769095145929/

You should learn how to pronoun: “ed”: https://www.facebook.com/notes/tieng-anh-

123/m%E1%BA%B9o-c%E1%BB%B1c-d%E1%BB%85-nh%E1%BB%9B-c%C3%A1ch-ph%C3%A1t-%C3%A2m-s-es-ed-trong-ti%E1%BA%BFng-anh/582769095145929/

You should learn how to pronoun silent letter: http://ppsvietnam.edu.vn/thu-vien/17-chu-cai-cam-trong-tieng-anh-hay-gap-nhat

You should learn how to pronoun long and short vowel: http://vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/giao-duc/hoc-tieng-anh/7-nguyen-tac-phat-am-co-the-ban-chua-biet-3315850.html

In Conclusion:

- Group the words + mind map+ drawing

- Family words: prefix + suffix

- Basic words (comment words), advanced words (synonyms, antonyms) keywords technique

- Funny definition, separating the words, pronunciation

LE TIET AN email: sud2014_an.lt@student.vgu.edu.vn

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