Applying the knowledge – effective learning techniques.
Just because words are neither fixed in their meaning nor in their pronunciation, does not mean that vocabulary learning is now more difficult.
On the contrary, by no longer worrying about individual words, and learning words as things that change, you are now ready to learn two, three, even four words at the same time. Your listening and understanding will improve as you start thinking about words as sounds and not only meaning. And finally you will be amazed at how you can remember things so much more easily than before. What follows are some basic techniques to really improve your vocabulary skills.
Collocating
Since the meaning of a word is not just contained within that word, you should avoid learning one word at a time . Instead learn two or three that go together in a short phrase – at least one of which should be a new word. This can be done to learn set phrases e.g. for letter writing, but it really should be done with all words that you encounter while reading or learning from text.
This is called collocating and it’s a fantastic concept. Collocating means ‘placing with’ and that’s exactly what you do – with new vocabulary. You choose a word that is new and you feel is important. Then attach a few words to it to make a short phrase with as much meaning as possible. Make sure those other words are ones that you are familiar with.
From a text (book, article, poem etc.) just remember the sentence it’s in, if it’s in a longer sentence, remember the qualifiersQualifiers are anything like adjectives or adverbs. If the new word is ‘dress’ in this sentence: ‘she was wearing a red dress that night’ - learn ‘red dress’ as part of your studies, not just ‘dress’. it comes with. Do the same for vocabulary from a conversation/lecture. Obviously don’t write the whole sentence, just the words that go around the one you want to learn, and make sure that the one you want to learn is the only one that you have never encountered.
Practise Pronunciation
I wish I could say ‘this goes without saying’ but it doesn’t. Human beings are very good at spotting things they already know. That’s why there are such things as confirmation bias, and we see faces everywhere including the moon! The same goes for language – we’re very good at ‘hearing’ sounds we know.
Essentially we are trained to hear certain things – and as a result exclude other things. This is why foreign languages are difficult, they contain new sounds which we can’t just pronounce, our minds ignore these sounds because they are unfamiliar, and we sometimes never hear them at all. How do you remember something you haven’t heard? So when you learn a new word, or better, collocation, focus on the pronunciation.
Break the word down into its phonemes (sounds) and say them individually.This is a skill which improves amazingly fast, so at the beginning it’ll be slow but if you practise a lot, it will become very easy. Then slowly start saying them together. Say the word faster and faster. Notice if it’s hard to say fast, slow down at that point and focus on saying it right, not fast. Then get a native speaker to do the same thing. Look at their mouth, and see if it’s in a different position. Look at your mouth and say the word again. Once you’re good at it, say the word in a phrase. Then practise saying it loudly, softly, angrily, like you’re in love!
Then think of other words with similar sounds say them, make a little poem or rhyme. All this practise will reinforce the new vocabulary in your mind because you are learning to hear and then produce the new sounds. You can only remember something when you have learned what it is.
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