Tag Archives: context paradox

Common words

DISCUSSION POINTS from http://cte319.pbworks.com/activity+-+intro+to+vocabulary+profiling

  • How can knowing the most commonly used words help in teaching English?
  • Is it necessary to teach the common words–they are common, so won’t students just learn them naturally?
  • Should we explicitly focus on learning vocabulary? How effective is decontentextualized teaching of vocabulary?
  • To what extent are word lists useful in learning vocabulary? Aren’t dictionaries good enough?

The context paradox

DISCUSSION POINTS from http://cte319.pbworks.com/activity+-+intro+to+vocabulary+profiling

  • How often do your students fail to guess the meaning of an unknown word?
  • Did the coursebooks you’ve used include lots of ‘guess the meaning from context’ activities?  What strategies do they advocate?  Is the “9 out of 10” rule in guessing from context observed?
  • To what extent would it be good for teachers to develop their sense of word frequency in terms of teaching?