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Post by Ricardo de Souza on Sept 8, 2015 14:32:11 GMT
Dear all,
The following is a video containing a short class about the psycholinguistic notion of "mental lexicon". The class is taught by Prof. Jürgen Handken, from the University of Marburg, in Germany.
What implications could these psycholinguistic concepts have for the way you teach English L2 vocabulary?
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Post by isabellemarine on Sept 11, 2015 19:27:28 GMT
Hi everyone!  These psycholinguistic concepts encounter my teaching beliefs. In my opinion, a word must be read,written, heard or spoken many times in order to be really produced by the student of the target language, to be retained in the brain, acquired, used in real life needs..so... REPETITION seems to be very important to the mnemonic process of learning,to help the information be "morphologically" possible too. I should help my students inductively repeat new vocabulary recently learned more often,time after time,in different types of activities. I also understand that I should always try to appeal to my students' SENSES, so whenever I can,if it is possible, depending on the word/expression, it is advisable to use objects to touch, share smells, sounds and tastes to meet the L2 vocabulary being produced. I could bring images or food to the classroom to depict some adjectives,for example. A teacher of mine told me some stories about her time in India using some personal photos and I really learned a few words in English, some juicy ones, from her experience and speech. It's relevant to cater to different learning styles/multiple intelligences. Cheers, Isabelle |
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Post by andrea araujo on Sept 11, 2015 22:30:42 GMT
In the video we can see how complex is the process of understanding, identifying, reproducing the words is in order to be used in communication, as Isabelle mentioned, learners need to internalize the words and use them when need, sometimes they know the words but do not know how to say them, problems with pronunciation are faced, in this case repetition is crucial, but the way teachers provide activities focus on repetition makes the difference. We can not believe that if we teach our students today next week they will remember everything, teachers need to bring to classroom environment resources such as: video, images, objects and why not food and, so on, in a attempt to make the internalize what was taught relating to the sense as Isabelle said.
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Post by thales on Sept 12, 2015 20:47:52 GMT
Vocabulary is seen as something you can just pick up by observation, as it's presented in many EFL textbooks. However, it must be manipulated in many different ways to be truly stored in our brain, and that's the very important part the teacher plays in the classroom. He/she's responsible for giving oportunities for students to practice vocabulary through reading, writing, speaking and listening. It's also important to contextualize new lexical items so to make them part of the student's world. That would come in the form of a less controlled activity, where students could use the vocabulary to talk about themselves, for instance. Games are also important so that students can physically respond to the learning process and the acquisition of lexicon. Nonetheless, there's no secret formula to storing new items in the brain, but there's practice and use of the language. Schools sometimes have a very strict schedule leaving little room for extensive vocabulary practice, and there's even little the teacher can do to avoid such an issue. That's why it's important that students also take responsibility in their own learning process. Yet, this could be only possible with the learning of study strategies, which must be scaffolded by the teacher in the classroom as well. In conclusion, it's crucial that we use different strategies to teaching and practicing vocabulary so to achieve both formal and lemma parts of the mental lexicon effectively, be that as it may, we must also acknowledge the fact that EFL teaching in Brazil must be taken more seriously by shools, teachers and students, so that we can all meet our expectations and goals.
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Post by Vanessa Oliveira Pereira on Sept 13, 2015 15:08:29 GMT
Hello everyone!
In my opinion, vocabulary can be acquired according our use, as languague. We can read on a dictionary a variety of words and synonyms, but learn vocabulary and apply what we learned is different. And as teachers we need to teach and make our students learn and reproduce the words, but as Isabelle said, I think that repetition can help our students, but not like a machine, but in a context. They need to learn using the four abilities - listen, speak, read and write.
Using repetition in their contexts our students can memorize the vocabulary, and after, in a conversation, for example, apply what they learned.
As teachers we need to explore the senses, as Isabelle said to, make our students to experience the language, in an effective way, instead they just learned and write dialogues using the words, for example. It's necessary help our students to see tha ways that can learn, and make it funny!
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Post by fabiocei on Sept 13, 2015 18:01:42 GMT
Hello guys.
As an English teacher working with EJA students many times I have regarded the fact explained by Jurgen’s video maybe for considering that people have different processing ways about language and more specifically vocabulary, probably due to the multiple intelligences.
Many times when we teach whatever at schools we disregard that despite of science works with ideal subjects, in the reality that is not true, every person has different levels of acquirement, some of them will learn more through the listening others by the writing and so on.
Perhaps the partitioning phenomenon highlight to this way showing us the importance to handle with different kinds of approaches trying to achieve more people as possible not only in respect to the vocabulary but in other aspects of learning language process as well.
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Post by liviawolp on Sept 13, 2015 18:37:21 GMT
Hi everyone
What I can notice about my students when they are learning vocabulary is that they have a hard time learning and memorizing all those new words. Vocabulary can be a tough part of the learning process if the students and teachers don’t do their roles properly. It is important to practice the new words many and many times, repeat them, put them in a context, link them with something to get easier to remember and so on. It is crucial to have some strategies to store the vocabulary in the brain, and when we teachers and students are aware about it, this process can get easier and less suffering.
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Post by michel on Sept 13, 2015 21:40:54 GMT
Hello everyone
According to the model explained by Prof. Handken, we access our lexicon by a “set of conceptual properties”, a picture, or in the case of speech representation, the connection is made by the acoustic or orthographic representation of a given word. That explanation made me think of the common practice of using cognate words to communicate with basic learners of English. After some thought, the following questions popped up in my mind:
How many lexicons do bilinguals have?
Do they have two independent lexicons?
Are the cognate words stored in different places or are they all variations of a unique entry?
Some words clearly shared properties with each other. For instance, the lexical item “intelligence” and its Portuguese equivalent “inteligência” share if not all most of their properties. What about words that are not cognates? Are they connected in any way? For example, the words “see” and “ver” share some conceptual properties, but is this enough to assume that they are stored in the some lexicon or that they are connected?
I think these questions may help us evaluate the effectivenes of using cognates in language pedagogy, but more thant that, it may help us shed a light on the influence of students's L1 in their L2.
Moreover, the model demonstrated by professor Handken reinforce, in my viewpoint, the idea that vocabulary teaching should be contextualized, since we access and process words in many different ways.
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Post by nandoca on Sept 13, 2015 23:08:39 GMT
Hello guys , I totally agree with Isabelle.
I believe that teaching vocabulary only by repetition it´s a waste of time. Students have to understand what they are saying, reading writing or listening. It´s a complex process that come textbooks and teachers don´t give much attention.
As I mentioned before, I teach children in a bilingual school, in completely immersion of English, and they learn vocabulary and commands by using them in an appropriate way. Hardly ever they ask me what that word in Portuguese is. And although some people don´t believe in this concept, they understand the importance of using it when they need to speak, listen, read or write in English, so for some ex adult students of mine, I used to teach the vocabulary by the context, putting them to think about the word. It was hard but rewarding.
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Post by mariaclaranunes on Sept 14, 2015 0:17:21 GMT
Hello y'all.
I agree with you with the fact that a word must be seen, used and repeated many times in order to be stored in mental lexicon. I have seen in our previous subject "Second Language Acquisition" that meaning emerges from use, so there is little chance a learner grasps the meaning, use, form and pronunciation of a word if (s)he does not use it. Thus, it is advisable to consider all these factors when teaching new vocabulary. It is also essential to consider different learning styles so that teachers do not stick to one strategy only. Teachers must be resourceful.
Therefore, when teaching vocabulary we must consider the strategy for presentation that would be more suitable to this lexical item and that would make it easier to our students to learn. We can use realia, pictures, gestures, tranlation, definitions... Regardless the presentation technique, we must make students repeat it (but not intensively just for the sake of memorising it) and use it. And, as you mentioned, it is important to use new words within a context, so that students really understand the meaning and know when it is appropriate to use it. So teachers must aslo plan what types of practices will be used.
Cheers,
Maria Clara
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Post by amandamicroni on Sept 14, 2015 0:43:36 GMT
Hi folks.
I like Michel's considerations. I'd say setting a context should be the first step when teaching vocabulary. When teaching "Where are you from", for example, you can bring a world map to class or using an interactive board you can google world map and show some countries on it. That would be an example on how to contextualize what you're about to teach. It's also an interesting way of accessing students' previous knowledge (lexicon ideas according to Prof. Jürgen Handken) concerning the subject taught bringing their attention to class.
After teaching the vocabulary wanted the teacher can also ask for examples and synonyms in a way of again accessing students' word storage.
Someone has mentioned before and I'd like to say I agree when it comes to using different materials and techniques to teach vocabulary. We have four different senses and some students learn better listening rather than seeing. Some people need to touch (realia would be advisable) and some other demand repeating to learn what is being taught. If I can say my opinion I' d risk saying the ideal is varying the way you're teaching vocabulary in class. Whenever possible, bring authentic material, as clothes, food, objects. Pictures, sounds, videos, mimics, drawing are all welcome and I like using all of them. Teachers must play a role of actors/actress sometimes in order to make our student understand and LEARN. Get to know well your students, learn about them and their backgrounds. Use examples related to their personal lives and their likes. There isn't an only way of teaching vocabulary. That would definitely depend on the student you have. What is important to bear in mind is how I'm going to access my students' lexicon.
Regards,
Amanda
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Post by gabriellegsouza on Sept 14, 2015 10:48:17 GMT
Hello, everyone!
Watching Professor Handkin talking about our brain access to the language and studying more about what lexicon is, I could remind a movie that can help us to illustrate this process. The film is "Limitless". The story is about a man that takes a special medicine who allows him to have access to his brain and use it limitless. I could compare this capacity he has in the movie with the lexicon. When acquiring a second language, our brain have access to the lexicon, to all the words of that specific language. It makes me reflect that the lexicon could make the acquisition of a language limitless. Unfortunatly our brain does not have the limitless access to all the information we have available. Even though, we could say that our brain has an incredible storage system, as the professor explains better in the video, and this system can be used amazingly to get, sotrage and use information to produce communication in a language.
Professor Ricardo, have you seen this movie am I talking about? Am I going to the right line of thought?
Regards to everyone,
Gabrielle.
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Post by alansantos on Sept 14, 2015 15:02:27 GMT
Reading all comments over here I agree that mnemonics and repetition are the keys for the student to internalize something new on their brains. My experience in teaching tells that the tools for association and willing of the student of learn something helps when is time to speak a second language. When I talk about willing I am talking about motivation, this makes the difference when you want to make somebody do something you want them to do. As you motivate them, the willing of learning increase and their brains "have fun" acquiring a new language being taught.
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Post by sylmara on Sept 14, 2015 19:26:20 GMT
Hello, everybody.
The video exposes many interesting aspects about the Mental lexicon. Before talking about the implications these concepts may have for the way I teach, I'd like to share with you something that caught my attention. There are two moments in which Pr. Jurgen explains about language production. One is when he says that when we are about to produce language, to communicate, we retrieve information from the lexicon in a pre generated conceptual structure. This conceptual structure is what has to be filled with actual words (7:41). The other interesting topic is when Professor elucidates about how Mental lexicon permits its structure to be changed, differently from other sources of word stores. Those changes can be examplified as addiction, rearrangements, modification of process, keeping the mental lexicon constantly at work. These aspects, related to explanation about partitioning, helped me to understand better the process of learning that happens during our English classes.
Learners are not conscious about this all, but they really do it. L2 students use to say that they feel more comfortable listening then speaking, while others prefer to read instead of writing and so on. Of course we have to prepare L2 students to be able to communicate in all skills, but for sure they will use more those abilities they are more confident. On the other hand, we are responsible to help them to activate their lexicon stores.
Once we identify those abilites, we can use them in our favour to teach new concepts and new vocabulary. Repetition may be present but in different ways. For example, we have new vocabulary about self-environment, so we can watch a video, read a text, write a paragraph, share opinions orally... that's it. We will perceive that students will identify more with some of their abilities then others, but they will be practicing all of them.
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Post by tamiris on Sept 14, 2015 23:08:53 GMT
Hello everyone!!
The video had a very good demonstration on how we store information and how we probably access it.
I agree with you in several aspects. I also think that repetition is not the only way we can make our students learn new vocabulary or we can use repetition but in different forms, one important factor to be taken into consideration is that vocabulary has to make sense for our students and this is one of the reasons why we should put the words into a context for them to associate with their own experiences.
People store and access information in different ways and they also learn in different ways, therefore we have to be aware of their needs and adequate our practice to their different cognitive abilities.
Cheers
Tamiris
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