Teaching_vocabulary_through_communicative_activity

INTRODUCTION

A long period of time grammar was viewed as the main task in second language teaching. Mastery of grammatical structures was the main goal in second language acquisition. The Grammar--Translation Method dominated second language teaching. On the contrary, vocabulary teaching and acquisition were of relatively minor importance. Vocabulary development was approached as some kind of auxiliary activity and, often through memorizing decontextualised word lists. The relatively minor importance attached to lexical knowledge and context was visible in the scant attention paid to it by second language researchers and teachers in the last decade.

Vocabulary, which is the basic material of the language, is, of course, of crucial importance in expressing ideas and thoughts when communicating. The following statement about the relationship between grammar and vocabulary demonstrated by the British linguist Wilkins in 1976 argues that without grammar, there are few things we can express; while without vocabulary, there is nothing we can express.” Wilkins verifies the importance of vocabulary in communication. Insufficient vocabulary or vocabulary difficulties will result in communicational barriers or failures. Without the mediation of vocabulary, no amount of grammatical or other types of linguistic knowledge can be employed in second language communication or discourse [1, p.45].

Since the 1960s, many new ideas and approaches to the study of vocabulary acquisition in a second language have emerged through many English linguists’  efforts and research. Among them, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) pedagogy which originated from the changes in the British Situational Language Teaching approach dating from the late 1960s deserves to be mentioned.CLT evolved as a prominent language teaching method and gradually replaced the previous Grammar-Translation Method.

In the last twenty years practice has showed that CLT, which has many advantages compared with the Grammar--Translation Method, has been a remarkable success and made great contributions to English teaching and learning in eastern and southern areas. Nowadays CLT is very popular in English language fields in that area.

The actuality of the project  is focused on vocabulary because vocabulary is essential for building knowledge of a new language. It provides basis for learning structures and grammar. Without vocabulary it is not possible neither to communicate nor improve in language.

This project aims to investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching in vocabulary teaching and learning .

The tasks:

1) to study  the materials of literature and Internet resources on the given theme;

2) to investigate the effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching in vocabulary teaching and learning;

3)to improve on examples that Communicative Language can be effective in vocabulary teaching.

The object of investigation is vocabulary.

The subject of investigation is the influence of communicative activities on the teaching vocabulary.

In the given project the following methods were used:

1. Descriptive
2. Integrative

The given project consists of 2 parts, an introduction, the conclusion and  bibliography.

1 THE THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING. VOCABULARY TEACHING AND LEARNING

         1.1 A Brief Introduction of СLT

The origins of CLT are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s. With the founding of the European Community in 1957, research was encouraged and sponsored by the Council of Europe in the 1960s on the ways in which members of Europe could best learn to communicate with each other in common languages. It was an attempt to specify the most important communicative needs that are likely to arise in everyday situations and suitable language forms that could be learnt for coping with those needs. In the early 1970s, The Threshold Level edited by Van Ek came out. This brings people on to another aspect of language use that was being studied at the time: it was not just important to know the forms of the language, but it was also important to know which forms you use, when and with whom. Some materials and syllabuses appeared at that time, for example, John Munby’s Communicative Syllabus Design , D. Wilkins’ Notional Syllabus and L. Widdowson’s Teaching Language as Communication. It was not until 1979, when the Communicative Approach toLanguage Teaching by C.J. Brumfit and Johnson was published that the term “communicative approach” became popular formally as an independent approach.

            Many British applied linguists have made great contributions to CLT. For example, Berns, an expert in the field of CLT, writes in explaining Firth's view in 1984 [2, 104]:

"Language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use function of language in context, both its linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together to speak)” [3, 35].

According to CLT, the learners must develop skills and strategies for using language to communicate meanings as effectively as possible in concrete situations. The learner must become aware of the social meaning of language forms. For many learners, this may not entail the ability to vary their own speech to suit different social circumstances, but rather the ability to use generally acceptable forms and avoid potentially offensive ones.

CLT makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the audio lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Students' motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics.

CLT lays emphasis on developing the communicative competence. This view of second language acquisition has influenced language pedagogy in encouraging learner-centered teaching. Learner centeredness, combined with the shift to a focus on communicative competence, has helped to transform the language-teaching field dramatically in the past twenty years. Instead of an explicit focus on language itself, there has been an emphasis on learners’ expressing their own meanings through language. The learner must distinguish between the forms which he has mastered as part of his linguistic competence, and the communicative functions that they perform.

Communicative Approach is most widely used today. It is a way of teaching

that puts the impact on usage of the target language. Jeremy Harmer offers the

following characteristics:

“Because of the focus of communicative activities and the concentration on language as a means of communication such an approach has been called the communicative

approach.”

   [4, 67]

Not only structures and vocabulary are stressed but also the ability to be

communicatively competent. Generally speaking this approach uses graded series of communicative tasks and activities working with various situations (greetings, advising, dis/agreeing...) communicative activities have three main features: information gap (a person knows something that other person does not), choice (students have a choice of what they will say and how – open-ended activities) and feedback (as true communication is purposeful, students should have the chance to evaluate whether or not the purpose has been achieved or not). Through these activities students are taught when and how to use the language. A wide range of authentic language in real context is introduced to students, who should be able to work with it and use it. Grammar and structures are acquired naturally, fluency is stressed.

Finocchiaro and Brumfit present clear and detailed explanations of the features of CLT. According to them, in the communicative approach, language learning is seen primarily as ‘learning to communicate’, and the goal of the approach is the acquisition of communicative competence, which enables second language learners to use the target language for communication effectively and appropriately. This approach also argues that ‘the target linguistic system will be learned best through the process of struggling to communicate’ and learners are expected to learn the target language through interaction with other people [5, 96].

CLT stresses the need to allow students opportunities for authentic and creative use of the language. It focuses on meaning rather than form; it suggests that learning should be relevant to the needs of the students; it advocates task-based language teaching. Students should be given tasks to perform or problems to solve in the classroom. What’s more, CLT emphasizes a functional approach to language learning (i.e. what people do with language, such as inviting, apologizing, greeting and introducing, etc.). Also, to be competent in the target language, learners should acquire not only linguistic knowledge, but also the cultural background of that language.

Richards and Rogers address the issue, saying that in practice there are some elements to be taken into account: the communicational principle (i.e. activities that involve real communication promote learning), the task principle (i.e. activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning) and the meaningfulness principle (i.e. language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process). Finocchario& Brumfit summarize the principles as follows:

- Teaching is learner-centered and responsive to the students’ need and interests.

- The target language is acquired through interactive communicative use that encourages the negotiations of meaning.

- Genuinely meaningful language use is emphasized, along with unpredictability, risk-taking, and choice-making.

   - The formal properties of language are never treated in isolation from use.

     language forms are always addressed within a communicative context.

- There is exposure to examples of authentic language from the target language community.

- The students are encouraged to discover the forms and structures of language for themselves.

- There is a whole-language approach in which the four traditional language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) are integrated [6, 90].

1.2  Vocabulary Knowledge. The Importance of Vocabulary Teaching.

Vocabulary is of great significance in expressing thoughts and ideas in interaction activities. Vocabulary acquisition is the main task of second language acquisition.

There are various theoretical studies on exploring the types of vocabulary knowledge related to the familiarity with a word (Richards); Nation; Carter , etc.) Richards made the first attempt to list the different types of knowledge that are necessary to fully know a word. He was more concerned with applicability to pedagogical practice than attempting to provide a systematic framework for describing or accounting the word knowledge. In the word knowledge list, there is no attempt to distinguish productive vocabulary from receptive vocabulary. Elaborating on Richards’ list, Nation developed a list of various types of vocabulary knowledge that one must possess both receptively and productively in order to have complete command of a word:

- the spoken form of a word (receptive): What does the word sound like?    (productive): How is the word pronounced?

- the written form of a word (What does the word look like?  How is the word written and spelled?)

- the grammatical patterns of the word (In what patterns does the word occur? In what patterns must we use the word?)

- the collocational behavior of the word (what words or types of words can be expected before or after the word? What words or types of words must we use with this word?)

- how frequent the word is (How common is the word? How often should the word be used?)

- the appropriateness of a word ( Where should we expect to meet this word.  Where can this word be used?)

- the conceptual meaning of a word ( What does the word mean? what word should be used to express this meaning?)

- the associations a word has with other related words ( What other words does this word make us think of? What other words could we use instead of this one?) [7, 106]

Nation also states that knowledge of a word can be divided into knowledge concerning its form (spoken/written), its position (grammatical patterns/collocations), its function (frequency/appropriateness), and its meaning (concept/associations). Thus it is not the case that a word is either known or unknown. A word can be known in all sorts of degrees: from knowing that given form of an existing word to knowledge including all four aspects mentioned above. These degrees of word knowledge apply to native speakers as well as to second language acquisition learners.

In addition to Richards and Nation, researchers have put forward their own way of categorizing word knowledge. Carter has defined the similar vocabulary knowledge categories such as pronunciation, spelling, grammatical properties, syntactical features, collocations, associations and senses, etc. Laufer categorizes word knowledge as the form, the word structure, the syntactic pattern of the word in a phrase or a sentence, meaning, common collocations, and the lexical relations of the word with other words, such as synonym, antonym, and hyponym, and finally common collocations.

Although many researchers have classified vocabulary knowledge in different ways, there is a consensus among them that vocabulary knowledge is a complex system which consists of several types of vocabulary knowledge besides meaning and form. Any research that tends to explore vocabulary acquisition should regard it as its task to study the different types of word knowledge, and most importantly, to explore the links and interrelationships between the different types of word knowledge [8, 32]

To build a good stock of vocabulary is the first and most important

step when starting to learn a new language. Well mastered ability of using the right

expressions, phrases, grammatical structures and functions ensure students to be

successful in their communication. Monolingual dictionary specifies it more properly. It says that vocabulary means:

“1) all the words that a person knows or uses,

  2) all the words in a particular language,

  3) all the words that people use when they are talking about a particular subject,

  4) a list of words with their meanings, especially in a book for learning a

foreign language.[9, 200]

Chambers Dictionary offers other explanations:

“1) words in general,

  2) words known and used by one person, or within a particular trade or profession,

  3) a list of words in alphabetical order with meanings added as a supplement to

a book dealing with a particular subject.”

All the definitions are right with no doubts. But vocabulary is not as simple as that. It does not only mean to understand the definition of single words or collocations but it also requires the knowledge of how words fit into context. Therefore it is very difficult to be fully mastered by students. Vocabulary learning does not officially count among the language skills (which are listening, speaking, reading and writing) but it might be included there as there is no way of making progress in language without building vocabulary that can be then applied into grammar and create meaningful utterances through which people communicate among themselves. It is difficult for students to communicate without developing their own lexicon.

Vocabulary plays an essential role in expressing ideas and thoughts. The well-known British linguist, Wilkins (1976) says people could describe few things without grammar, but they could express nothing without vocabulary. Widdowson thinks that native English speakers can understand language material with correct vocabulary but not so proper in grammar rules rather than those with correct grammar rules but not so proper in vocabulary use. Lord mentions that ‘vocabulary is by far the most sizable and unmanageable component in the learning of any language, whether for a foreign or one’s mother tongue because of thousands of different meanings’ [10, 126]. Lewis holds the idea that vocabulary acquisition is the main task of second language acquisition and the language skills as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating all can not go without vocabulary.

Vocabulary teaching has been developing greatly since 1980s. Several experts and linguists began to pay attention to vocabulary teaching during that period. For example, in the 1980s Terrel proposed the Natural Approach which emphasizes comprehensible and meaning input rather than grammatically correct production. In 1983, Allen mentions the presentation and exemplification of practical techniques in the teaching of vocabulary. Later, in 1985, Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman state the principles of vocabulary teaching. In 1997 Sokmen discusses the current trends in teaching second language vocabulary. He points out that current research would suggest that it is worthwhile to add explicit vocabulary to the usual inferring activities in the for language classroom.

There are a growing number of studies researching what second language teachers do about vocabulary in second language classrooms. Among them, some strategies relevant to the study are listed as follows:

a)Basic Skills

Repetition is essential for vocabulary learning because there is so much to know about each word that one meeting with it is not sufficient to gain this information, and because vocabulary items must not only be known, they must be known well so that they can be fluently accessed [11, 77].

There are several ways to show the meanings of an English word, through such aids as : (1) objects that can easily be brought to class(umbrellas, scissors, tools, buttons of many colors and sizes, etc); (2) drawings by the teacher and drawings by the students; (3) demonstrations to show actions. Allen recommends teachers using the real object whenever possible when showing the meaning of an English noun. Real objects are better than pictures.

Body language is another useful way in vocabulary teaching. It is easy to demonstrate in class. The meanings of words can be shown through simple dramatic presentations. Even teachers can mime certain actions and gestures well enough to know the meanings of words.

Defining words by means of other words is a technique needed by the teacher. The students’  dictionary is a good source helper. An example sentence for drown might be, “the dead boy’s mother was very sad after her son drowned in the river.” .Often an example sentence can help the student more than a definition. Well-known dictionaries, such as the Oxford Student’s Dictionary of American English, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, give helpful example sentences in addition to definitions [12, 156].

b) Contextualization

Every word has its own usage context. It is ineffective for students to master words from the concrete situation if the teacher explains them monotonously and abstractly. Lack of context makes vocabulary learning difficult. Words taught in isolation are generally not remembered. Therefore the background knowledge of words is very important in vocabulary teaching. Coady(1987) suggests that background knowledge may serve as compensation for certain syntactic deficiencies. Students pay attention to the content and show much interest in background knowledge. Some related words are remembered effectively and firmly. While reading, the communicative approach needs to inform and guide classroom practice. As for the communicative tasks, David Nunan describes it as “ a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on standing alone as a communicative act in its own right” [13, 89].

c) Role-Play

There are varieties of activities in a classroom to help students learn target language effectively, such as games, music, dramatic stories, amusing anecdotes etc. Role-play is one of them. Role-play helps students learn effectively and use target language as freely and communicatively as they can. Role-play aims at fostering the ability of students and is characterized as mutual teaching and learning. It can realize the teaching model of “students play a principle role and the teacher plays a leading role” .

According to De Neve and Heppner, the main steps of designing role-play are summarized as follows: (1) Firstly, teachers should choose a situation for a role play, keeping in mind students' needs and interests. Teachers should select role-plays that will give the students an opportunity to practice what they have learned. (2) The next step is to come up with ideas on how this situation may develop. Students' level of language proficiency should be taken into consideration. (3) After finishing selecting a suitable role play, teachers should predict the language needed for it. It is recommended to introduce any new vocabulary before the role play. (4) This step implies providing students with concrete information and clear role descriptions so that they could play their roles with confidence. Teachers should describe each role in a manner that will let the students identify with the characters. (5) Teachers ask for some volunteers to act out role-play in front of the class in this step. It is recommended that teachers avoid intervening in a role play with error corrections not to discourage the students. (6) Once the role play is finished, teachers should give feedback to students [14, 57]. This means pointing out students’ advantages and disadvantages.

Vocabulary teaching and acquisition has assumed an important role since 1980s in second language teaching. Communicative Language Teaching, as an eminent second language teaching approach, lays emphasis on learning target language through communicative activities [15, 93].

Communicative Language Teaching based on many modern humanistic and communicative theories is effective in English vocabulary teaching and learning in many aspects:

1) In the CLT classroom much vocabulary is not taught in the form of wordlist of isolated words any more, but taught in authentic contexts. Vocabulary teaching focuses on developing communicative proficiency rather than commanding the forms of the target language.

2) CLT makes learners acquire vocabulary knowledge naturally, rather than learning intentionally. Apart from it, the modified target language input which is gotten from conversational interactions between the teacher and learners enables them to get better understanding of vocabulary knowledge.

3) CLT promotes learners’ communicative competence and stimulates their inner motivation since the communicative activities are close and relevant to their daily life.

4) CLT makes learners adopt the responsibility to their own learning and encourages them to discover the forms and structures of target language for themselves.

5) CLT prompts the development of learners’ spirit of team cooperation by means of the communicative activities and cultivates learners’ individuality by expressing their different views and ideas freely in the conversational interactions between them.

Additionally, through the observation of the English lesson CLT makes great demands upon the professional skills and competence of teachers. CLT teachers need to have other abilities as well as the proficiency of target language, such as organizing ability, insight into learners. Therefore, it is recommended that second language teachers should enhance their standard in order to improve the effects in practical teaching.

2  GENERAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY

2.1 Vocabulary notebooks. Presenting Vocabulary.

First of all, the most essential for teaching vocabulary is the presence of a vocabulary notebook. I strictly disagree with the opinion that there is no need for students to keep vocabulary notebooks. Such a notebook is a valuable reference tool for listing words, phrases, meanings etc. Although I assume this fact as a generally known and widely used I mention it because I have lately met a few students who asked me for help with preparing them for exams either for their school or an evening course. They were not able to present their vocabulary notebooks and even worse they supplied an explanation that according to their original teachers there is no need for keeping their vocabulary notebooks as all they need is to be found in their textbooks. As I was not their teacher and knew nothing about their previous studies it was quite difficult for me to choose the

right expressions and to select or create adequate sentences and examples for practising and testing these students. If they had had their notes it would have been much easier  for all of us. I would know what expressions to use and which areas / topics to focus on. They would be able to practice expressions they had studied and possible stress could have been avoided from an early beginning.

There are many reasons for keeping a private vocabulary notebook. At this point we are not talking only about a neat list of words that is used by teacher for examining students’ knowledge. Notebooks should be tools for students in the first place. It is simple. If the teacher leaves it to students themselves to decide which expressions they will note into their notebooks (except the given ones) students feel responsibility for choosing the right expressions and pay more attention to what they actually decide to write down into their notebooks. This is a very important point. Thanks to this they even feel responsible for learning the chosen expressions as they noted them on purpose, of their own will. If a word seems to be important to them and they think it would be good to know it, they note it. From my own experience it is possible to say that this strategy usually works well with most of the students.

If the responsibility for choosing vocabulary should be shifted to students then they must be familiar with basic rules. Here are some of them:

- note a word that you do not know

- note a word that you have already met and noted before but you are not sure

about it yet

- note a word that is of a different word category than a word that you have noted

or met before (possibly note its variations next to each other)

- note an expression or collocation which seems to be unusual and can cause

potential troubles

- note phrasal verb and its variations

- note prepositional phrase

- note different meanings of the same word (possibly add a model sentence to

make sure the right meaning is clear)

Michael Lewis has expressed his suggestion about how to record new language into two points:

1. try to learn whole expressions containing useful words, rather than just the

words, even though that seems much more difficult

2. when you record a new lexical pattern in your notebook, consciously try to think of other similar examples to those of the pattern [16, 149 ].

All mentioned above is of course just an example of some rules. They can and theyshould vary according to many different aspects and definitely according to individual students and purposes. It should be always teacher’s responsibility to set adequate and the most useful rules for their students because without a systematically kept vocabulary notebook it is quite difficult for students to learn up and therefore build their vocabulary properly.

There is just one more thing students should be explained. It is very useful to arrange the selected expressions into blocks according to certain principles (units, topics, word categories…). Such an ordering can help them with learning adequate groups of words somehow connected together and possibly strengthen the inside connection between them. Individual grouping of words should make sense and encourage the need of students to learn each of the noted words.).

There are various aspects to think about when presenting new vocabulary. Considering a lesson and its parts vocabulary may be introduced at the beginning or at the end of the lesson or it can be presented at any point of the lesson. It depends on a method, approach, circumstances or simply an activity for choosing the appropriate moment.

The most usual situation is that students ask for a meaning of a word just when they need to know it. Beside that, there is a number of ways how to present vocabulary to the class. Some of them are shortly introduced below.

1. “Vocabulary box”

A small box, such as a shoe box, is a very useful tool in the classroom - it can become a vocabulary box. You also need some small blank cards or pieces of paper.

At the end of each vocabulary lesson - for example 'Houses and Homes' - either you or the students should write words from the lesson on different cards. So, you may end up with ten words on ten cards - bedroom, kitchen, roof, window…- and these cards are then placed in the vocabulary box. If you have time, and with better classes, you, or the students, may write a definition of the word on the reverse of each card.

This vocabulary box can then be used at any time to review the vocabulary studied over the weeks.

You could simply pick words from the box at random, give the definition and ask for the word. This can be done as a simple team game.Or you may try something more active. For example, when you've had this vocabulary box for a month or two months and there are quite a lot of cards in there, you might say to the students 'OK, collectively I want all these cards divided into nouns, adjectives and verbs … Go! You have three minutes'. Or, you might say 'OK I want all these cards divided into lexical sets … Go!'. Or, you might say 'Each corner of the room is a different lexical set - that one's furniture, that one's medicine, that one is food and that one is sport. Put the cards in the right corner, you have one minute to do this…Go!'. Then they're all running around trying to get their words in the right corner. This could also be done in teams, giving each team a handful of words to sort.

This box just becomes so flexible in how you can use it. It could be at the end of the lesson. For example 'You can't leave the classroom until you've defined two words that are in the box'. Vocabulary boxes are fantastic and they take so little time but provide so many activities.

2. “Vocabulary self-study activities”

Here are some tips you can give your students to help them with their vocabulary acquisition and self study.

- Make your own word box

- Use one card per word, with the English on one side and a translation on the    other.

- Test yourself with the cards, sort them into categories, play games with them.

- Find a good basic vocabulary word list, say of about 1 - 2000 words which are sorted according to subject areas.

- Revise 8 words per day regularly. In your mind, try to lock the particular word onto the image of an object (e.g. 'influenza' - think of a person sneezing).

- To practise, randomly pick a number of words and make up a simple, but probably crazy, story using the words. You can do the same with the words in your vocabulary box.

- Have a good general attitude towards words

- Note down all new words.

- 'Fish for language' by going through life with an open eye and attentive ear.

- 'Soliloquize', i.e. translate along in your mind silently as you are doing things (as if you were speaking to an imaginary friend by your side), as you are listening to the news, as you watch people doing something, as you see any object around.

- Read aloud to yourself from printed text.

- Increase your exposure to words

-Television

- BBC Radio (shortwave world receiver)

- Books

- Magazines Newspapers (from UK/USA)

- English-language films on video

- Pop songs (wonderful for vocabulary and grammar!)

- Correspondence with an English native speaker pen-friend

c)Self-Explanatory Approach

There are practically two ways of presenting new vocabulary. In the first one a student receives a list of English words with their meanings explained in their native language to learn. The list may or may not be related to the current topic. This way of presenting new vocabulary is self-explanatory. It does not need much explanation. It is an easy way for both students and a teacher.

 d)Present Vocabulary with a Dictionary

In a variation of the above-mentioned approach students receive a list of English words without their explanation. They are supposed to translate the particular words themselves - in most cases with the use of dictionaries. Using dictionaries is undoubtedly very contributory for students but unfortunately quite unpopular as it can be a time consuming procedure taking into account the fact that every unit requires to learn and therefore look up quite a number of new words. Some help to that could be a use of PC Translator tool which works fast and offers various possible translations / meanings of a word [17, 185]. This can also later lead to further short but very useful discussions about the accuracy of choosing the right expression for the concrete situation.

 e)Contextual Approach

On the other hand there has emerged a new teaching approach lately – so called contextual approach, which has become very poplar nowadays. It requires an active cooperation from students, which is very positive for their learning. Students do not work with any list of words. They are encouraged to use vocabulary they are familiar with and in case they need to use an expression they do not know or when they come across a word they do not understand then they should add it into their vocabulary. They are supposed to find out the meaning of such words themselves or with assistance of their teacher. This seems to be and probably is a very useful tool for teachers and their students but unfortunately not for everyone. Students are different and have different needs and learning habits. It is very important to take into consideration individual students and their personalities. Generally speaking young students are open to new teaching strategies, new approaches. But there are older students, adults, who are in most cases used to certain ways of teaching and more or less strictly insist on keeping on them. It usually is possible to make them realise that it is more interesting and effective to do things new ways but this “effort” can sometimes make them feel uneasy, nervous and uncomfortable [18, 52]. These feelings then affect their attitude to learning and can be very disruptive as students may build sort of mental blocks that can lead to frustration and restriction to use the target language. Some of them are even willing to leave the course and most probably loose their faith in any other courses. This model can seem to be too catastrophic but it unfortunately happens. Teachers’ responsibility is to avoid such a situation and on the contrary create students’ friendly environment, which would inspire them rather than suppress. Teachers should carefully choose right and suitable activities for such students.

  f) Pre-Teaching Unknown Words

There is another possible way of presenting new vocabulary, which seems to be very reasonable and appropriate. Students are pre-taught unknown words before each activity. It requires a short preparation from a teacher so that they are aware of the text and vocabulary used there and can decide which words are new, difficult or key words and present them before the activity [20, 39]. It is also very positive that through this technique students are able to manage to go through various levels of texts, which can be very motivating for them. Every step raising students’ self-confidence is important in learning language and has positive effect on the whole learning process. It is good to create situations where students see their success and this is a very useful option for that.

2.2 Presenting Vocabulary through Activities

The previous way is closely connected with presenting new vocabulary through activities. It practically does not matter if it is reading, speaking, listening or writing. Students work with single expressions, phrases or model sentences. They are supposed to get familiar with them, to find out the right context for their usage and use them finally in a variety of new sentences. It prevents possible future occurrence of difficulties with using the newly learned words in the right context. It is in a way inventory learning and is very effective. Whatever students discover themselves it engraves on their minds and remains there better than things learned mindlessly and with no connections by heart. It eventually does not matter which of the ways of presenting new vocabulary is used as long as it is not still the same one and as it meets the needs of particular students. Teachers should always keep in mind that they must respond to their class, concrete situation and atmosphere. They should be able to react flexibly and change their approach if necessary or appropriate.

           a)Mnemonic Strategies

Mnemonic strategies are systematic procedures that help to increase memory. They are very useful when students are faced with a lot of difficult instructional materials. E.g. it is a convenient method for remembering the meanings of vocabulary words. It is veryeffective with learning difficult words and it also has a great effect on students with learning difficulties. The name comes from Greek mythology where Mnemosyne was a goddess of memory. Mnemonics use the principle of an association between a cue and the memory, which was made during the original experience. When the cue appears again the memory returns. Mnemonic can be a word, rhyme, sentence, poem, acronym etc.

Although there exists many interesting web pages on the Internet offering ideas and examples of mnemonic help I do not use it often because it usually works better if a specific ‘mnemo’ is discovered for a concrete situation and even better if students are the ones who actually work on discovering the mnemo themselves.

Eg.:   “The memory game”

This is an adaptation of the popular game we all played as children when we had to pick up matching pictures, but in this activity we use the two parts of collocations.

Preparation 
During regular classes, note down the word combinations that come up. Then put each part of the collocation on 2 separates pieces of paper. Here is an example I had when we were talking about the environment. The word combinations were:

The first part of each phrase should be written on one coloured sheet of paper or, if you haven't got coloured paper, in a different coloured pen. Then with a different coloured pen, or paper, write the second part of the phrase, for example, 'ozone' on the first and 'layer' on the second.  

Procedure

• Put all of the first parts of each phrase together, face down on the floor. Then mix up the second group of words / phrases face down in a separate group to the first.
• In groups students work together to pick up one piece of paper from each group so as to make a phrase from the previous class.
• As the students match them up incorrectly students start to recall the correct collocation or phrase.
• The activity is fun which also aids efficient memorising of the target language. The more opportunities we allow our students to see the words the more likely they are to actually have them 'stuck in their heads' for easy access at a later stage.

3. Repetition

Learning of language items is primary but exercise and activities focused on repetition are very important too. It is supposed to be the third and last stage of so called PPP principle (Present –  Practice – Produce). Repetition is a very useful way of not only bringing to mind and revising vocabulary items, which students has already learned, but it is also a great chance to find out what has already been well mastered by students and what needs more practice or possibly more explanation to be fixed. When we do exercises we concentrate on the parts that are not clear or make any kind of trouble (pronunciation, linking, tenses, collocations, meaning…). The problematic parts are marked to be easily found for later checking. My students were asked not to write answers into their students’ books for being able to work on the same exercise more times. Is it not a problem because the key for the exercises is available and if not we note the right answers into their exercise books [22, 70]. This way they can work and practice with the exercise at home. Doing the same exercise twice might seem to be boring but it is not and it is very effective indeed. Repetition of a certain exercise can help to improve the language enormously. Every time a problematic word or phrase is repeated either in the same or in different context is becomes more clear and familiar. The types of exercise we usually do are matching parts of collocations, expressions, lines of dialogues; gap-filling with supplied words/expressions; finishing sentences (I would like to……); true/false (correct/incorrect) exercises for reading comprehension or checking grammar used in supplied sentences.