Word Power

Starting next week, students in my beginning-level composition class will take a rigorous, systematic approach to learning vocabulary, memorizing lists of twenty-five words each week, along with any random new words that come up in class. These words will come from a list I've compiled of the 500 most frequent words and the 100 most frequent verbs in English (such lists are easily available on the Internet). For each new word, students will make a flash card that includes the definition, part of speech, an example sentence, and a synonym. Including synonyms doubles the number of new words learned each week – what Colin Powell called a “force multiplier." In addition to writing assignments, each week there will be a quiz, allowing me to find out how much new word learning has occurred to date.  Vocabulary assessments will have these beginners writing complete sentences using target words accurately (verbs can take any tense). Here two assessments can take place -- how well does the student understand senetence structure and how well he or she understand the mneaning and definition of the target word.

I have successfully used this technique with three different intermediate classes, with the difference that they wrote cohesive paragraphs using ten out of fifteen target words. Students embraced these homework assignments with enthusiasm, many coming up with surprising and ingenious content (see one example below). I’ve found that real learning takes place when students are compelled to use target words -- they become more engaged with the language, parsing meaning and discovering relationships; they also (in my experience) find the activity to be both fun and intellectually challenging. As vocabulary expands, so does self-confidence – students are willing to take risks and experiment. In one of my high school English classes, we used a book called “Word Power.” Although the intent was to beef up vocabulary skills for the SATs, there was, of course, a larger outcome – new words opened up new worlds. As ESL students struggle to master a new language, they deserve robust instruction and exposure to new words at every opportunity; a systematic, aggressive approach to introducing new vocabulary should be part of any instructional plan for the four skills. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens with these beginners starting next week – I’ll be reporting on their progress as the session unfolds.

 In the meantime, here’s an example of a homework assignment I gave last year in which intermediate composition students were tasked with writing a coherent narrative using ten out of fifteen target words. The text below the word bank was written by a Korean student. Note how she uncovers logical relationships among the target words to create a coherent paragraph.    

   

Use ten of the fifteen words listed below to write a coherent paragraph. You can use the selected words in any form you choose as long as sentences are grammatically accurate.

Underline the selected words and write your paragraph in the space below.

 

ample                            arid                                avoid                  defy                               enact feign                              fertile                            freshly             function (n)           fundamental       indiscriminate             selective                        spacious            withstand              even (adj.)

 (Here's what the student wrote):

A musical actor who enacts a play for the first time came to a theater which had been built freshly and has a spacious place. When he appeared on the stage, he felt nervous and wished to avoid this moment.  Also, he could not remember ample words. However he did not want to do indiscriminate acting and decided to defy the situation. So, he started to feign that he was confident. As a result, his voice became even.  He could withstand the time well, and he succeeded in the musical field taking this opportunity.

 

English is a Stress-Timed Language

As opposed to syllable-timed languages like French, Spanish, Italian or Hindi, syllables in an English sentence are stressed at approximately equal intervals. In sentence stress, the accent, or stress, is on certain types of words within the sentence, giving English its unique rythym. A sentence in spoken English is composed of two types of words: content words and structure words. Look at the examples below:

 

Content Words                                      

Main Verbs: go, eat, sit, speak               

Nouns: restaurant, sofa                  

Adjectives: big, Italian                       

Adverbs: softly               

Negative AuxiliaryVerbs: can’t, don’t, aren’t          

Demonstratives: this, that, those                 

Question Words: who, which, where, what, when, why, how 

Structure Words

Pronouns: I, you, he, she, we, they         

Prepositions: on, under, with, near, in

Articles: the, a, some

Conjunctions: for, but, and, so, yet, nor, or

Auxiliary Verbs: can, should, must

Verb "to be" : is, was, am

 

 

Here are some examples:

 

I'm going to eat at the Italian restaurant.

 

You’re sitting on the sofa, but you aren’t listening to me.

 

She’s speaking softly, so it’s difficult for me to hear her.

 

Notice how, in the first sentence, only the content words (verbs, adjective, noun) are stressed. The same is true for the other examples (verbs, noun, adverb, adjective). When you say the unstressed words in between, they sound like they're almost swallowed, don't they?

 

As the key words in a sentence, content words provide the meaning, while structure words provide the form. If you spoke just the content words aloud, you could still derive some meaning, even if the sentence is incompletely formed. Check out this graphic:

 

 

 

Although only the nouns are stressed, this is a nice illustration of an English stress pattern. Because English is a stress-timed language, there is a beat, or rythym, to spoken English. Think of content words as beats and structure words as fillers between the beats. Unlike Chinese, English is a non-tonal language. In tone languages, the meaning of words is distinguished by pitch (an absolute frequency assigned to a specific note). A spoken word's meaning can change according to its pitch.  In English, on the other hand, changes in pitch may emphasize or express emotion, rather than impart meaning. (Thanks to Paul Shoebottom at the Frankfurt International School for that explanation).

 

Say this sentence out loud:

 

We're speaking English and watching the World Cup in the student lounge.

 

Spoken language and music have much in common. Listen to the music. Catch the rhythm. And try not to stress out.

Summer Solstice

Did anybody notice that today is the first day of summer? Today is the longest day of the year, with the sun at its zenith above the Tropic of Cancer. The farther north you go, the later the sun goes down. I'm not sure how many hours of daylight that translates into here in this southern college town. Four years ago on this date my wife and I were on a cruise in the Baltic Sea. The shipped docked at St. Petersburg (Russia) for the night, and the sun was visible until slightly after 11:00 pm --not quite far enough north to be a "midnight sun," but close. The word solstice , which has its root in the Latin sol (sun), has been celebrated all over the planet for thousands of years, from Stonehenge to Machu Pichu, and beyond. Check out these pictures of Summer Solstice 2010 at National Geographic.

The World Cup has gripped us here at the school for ten days now. Today a student dutifully informed me that he would be late tomorrow, or possibly even absent, because his team match and our class had a scheduling conflict.Now, I'm not a soccer (futbol) fanatic the way my students are, but, hey, I get it! (see Sox, Red). Nevertheless, attendance at class should be your top priority. Although the rules may vary, my World Cup attendance policy is that if you choose to watch a match instead of attending class, and you miss a speaking assignment or quiz, you will receive a zero. As long as students understand the possible consequences of being absent, they have my blessing. After all, the World Cup happens only once every four years, right? Go Team USA!

Taking Note of Note Taking

This week during Listening, by way of practicing for the pratice TOEFL, we examined a note-taking technique that involves assigning a column for each speaker (or, in the case of a lecturer, using the entire page). However, as one student observed after today's practice test, there wasn't any time to look at the notes before answering the questions. So why bother taking notes? Because the act of note taking reinforces the knowledge you acquire while listening. That is why active listening requires taking notes. You see, it's not really about the notes, it's about the process. Taking notes requires that you think about what you're writing, as you're writing it. That's where the reinforcement part comes in. Here's a PowerPoint presentation from Virgina Western Community College on effective note taking that includes a  summary of the Cornell Method.    

Presentations

Here is an excellent resource on how to give an effective presentation that completely covers every aspect of this very important skill, which you can master even if your vocabulary is limited. Having a large vocabulary is ideal, of course, but good pace, presence, and pronunciation are equally important. By pace, I mean the speed and rhythm --  words spoken not too fast, not too slow, with stressses in the right places.  Presence means your personality and how you  connect with your audience, and how they respond to you. And, of course, clear pronunciation is critical if you want to be understood. Your grammar may be first-rate, but it's ultimately meaningless if there are pronunciation issues. Developing a large vocabulary is easy by comparison. The ability to deliver an effective presentation is a highly-prized  skill, and speaking competently and confidently takes practice. But the results are well worth the effort. People with excellent public speaking skills are a valuable asset to any organization, whether in business, science, government, technology, or academia.

I'm Sorry For Bothering You, But Would You Mind Reading This Post?

This week we've been focused on two important speech acts: apologies and requests. As with all other forms of social speech, how you apologize or request depends on several variables: social context, the relative status of the speaker and hearer, the closeness of the relationship, the sex and age of both persons, and the seriousness of the situation. Whatever the language or culture, speakers modify their speech according to these social and contextual factors.  As social animals we learn to develop an awareness of our environment, to size up the listener, and to modify our speech accordingly. Making a proper apology requires these six steps:

1. An expression of regret (I'm sorry, I apologize, Forgive me, Excuse me)

2. An acknowledgement of responsibility (It was my fault, I'm so stupid!)

3. An explanation (I was careless, I wasn't paying attention, I missed the bus, The dog ate my homework)

4. An offer of repair (I'll pay for the drycleaning, I'll buy you another one)

5. A promise of non-recurrence (It will never happen again, I promise!) 

6. Asking for forgiveness (Will you forgive me?)

The sixth step, asking for forgiveness, can effectively be combined with any of the other five steps. For example: I'm so sorry for forgetting to mail the check. I promise it won't happen again. Please forgive me for being so careless.

When you take responsibility for your action, you also acknowledge the hurt that was caused to the other person. By asking for forgiveness at the end of the apology and submitting yourself to the other person's mercy, you have demonstrated your remorse and sincerity. Now it's up to the other person to make the next move. The ball is in their court.

We also learned that applying an intensifier in front of sorry (I'm so sorry, really sorry, very sorry) is most appropriate when the speaker has a close or important relationship with the hearer. Thus friends, family, teachers, and employers should hear an intensifier. The seriousness of the situation will also dictate the need for an intensifier. For example, bumping into someone on a crowded train merits a simple "I'm sorry" or "Excuse me." However, if you bumped a stranger and caused him to spill his drink, an intensifier would be appropriate. Other intensifiers include terribly (I'm terribly sorry to bother you), which is more common to British English than to American, and frightfully, another Britishism. I'm frightfully sorry for dragging you to that awful faculty party last night.


A simple way of acknowledging responsibility for your careless or thoughtless behavior is to apologize by using the word for along with an explanation. I'm sorry for eating the last slice of pizza. If it's something for which you are not directly responsible, use about. For example: I'm sorry about last night -- I didn't know that my parents would behave so badly. 

Making requests is another form of speech dictated by social context. Using the conditional tense (would, could) is more polite than using can. For example, Would you pass me the salt is more polite than Could you pass me the salt, which is more polite than Can you pass me the salt. Sometimes a request is preceded by the phrase Do you mind or Would you mind. For example, Do you mind is always followed by if, and the verb is always expressed in the present tense.  Do you mind if I borrow your car? When would you mind is followed by if, the verb is expressed in the past tense. Would you mind if I borrowed the car?  But when if is removed, the verb that follows would you mind is always in the progressive form (-ing ending). Would you mind moving your chair? Of course, always add please to these requests. You can never go wrong saying please. To fail to say please when making a request is to risk being perceived as arrogant or  uncouth.  Politeness, after all, is the mark of a civilized person.  However, social discourse is also culturally-driven.  Here in the South, children are taught to say, "yes sir" and "no ma'am." Northerners, often in a hurry to get to the point, are often perceived by southerners as rude or brusque, while to a New Englander like me, some southerners can come across as phony, or insincere. Unfamilair with the code, outsiders often misinterpret culture-bound behavior. On the other hand, you'll never go wrong saying please and thank you.

Twelve Angry Men

In support of this week's unit on the American justice system, we watched Twelve Angry Men, the classic 1957 courtroom drama that mostly  takes place inside a jury room. Having received their instructions from a bored, monotone-speaking judge, eleven men are ready to convict and send to his death a teenager charged with murdering his father. However, one lone juror holds out for acquittal because he believes there is a reasonable doubt about the youth's guilt. Tempers reach the boiling point as these jurors struggle to reach a decision in an atmosphere of tension and racial bias. At the same time, the film is a paean to the ideals of democracy and fairness embedded in the Constitution. It also follows a common theme in American culture -- the righteous lone individual standing up against the System, or the State, or the Corporation, or against any number of other evils and badness. The jurors are neither good nor bad, but ordinary citizens guided by a complex set of emotions, values, and agendas.  Juror #8 is an extraordinary individual who uses reason and logic to overcome emotion and prejudice. There was a comment in class today about the fact that we never learn the jurors' names, except at the end, when the old man and #8 introduce themselves to each other. That the jurors are nameless reinforces a notion of universality. The jurors are Everyman. Hence, the jury of 12 "angry men" is meant to be a microcosm of society at large.  The class had previously debated the pros and cons of the death penalty, and deliberated as a mock, activities that I hope helped students gain a better appreciation for the awesome responsibility of juries. Today's discussion of the film,which barely scratched the surface before we ran out of time, left me hungry for answers: Can we ever really know the truth about something? Can we ever truly understand other people's motives? What kinds of pressure do jurors face to vote one way or another? Does a set of facts always point to the truth? In a world where nothing is simply black or white, but shades of gray, can we ever be certain about why people do the things they do, or say the things they say? One thing's for certain: prejudice obscures the truth, as this scene so powerfully shows.