Selection and gradation of vocabulary

Selection of vocabulary:

• English is rich language having more than five lack words. It is written possible not desirable to teach
all these words.

• We have naturally to make a selection.

• We should aim at teaching 2,500 to 3, 000 words during a six year course

principles

i. Universality: the words to be selected should be of a universal use, in almost all walks of life
ii. • ii) Frequency: the words which are most frequently used in writing are the best words for
the pupils to acquire first.

Structural Value: •

a. Words which help in forming sentence but linking content in a word should be thought early in
the course.
b. • Al the structural words. That is essential for making basic sentence structural is being taught
earlier.

• Iv Utility:

The words should be useful for the learner and should not be above his mental level.

• v) Validity: words of current usage are included under this head. Out of date words would hence be
rejected.

• vi) Popularity: words used in speech. News and those which are very popular should be included.

• vii) Regionality: Some words are very important in a particular redefine.

• While other regions do not require them. A regional usage would be an important guiding principle

• Productivity: Such words, which produce more words, with prefixes and suffixes,

• like harm, harmful, harmless, and read, reading, readable etc., should be selected.

• Ix) Applicability: words which can be used in various situations should be selected.

• x) Suitability: ‘easy to memorize, ready to spell and easy to utter’. Such should have a priority.
• xi) Teach ability: words which are easily demonsratable and teachable should have a high priority with
the teacher.

• xii) Simplicity: words which are simple appear before those which are different in pronunciation,
spelling and meaning.

Strategies to develop vocabulary

• Learning a new language in basically a matter of learning the vocabulary of that language.

• In the early stages of learning

• Students learn less number of words and in later stages they use more number of words through
reading habits.

• Certain strategies to develop vocabulary:

• Each new and word need to be taught in the four aspects.

1. Spelling through (syllabification)

2. · Meaning through (through Pictures or any TLM)

3. · Pronunciation through (the teacher’s model)

4. · Usage (in different sentences)

1. Material demonstration:

2. Instead of telling the meaning of certain words orally, the teacher should show the reach objects
association either the meanings.

3. Picture association:

4. By showing relevant pictures, the students will catch the meaning very easily.

5. Words Association New words can be taught by associating them with the words which are already
known to them. g: synonyms Antonyms Correct – right right x wrong Accurate – exact coward x brave
• Definitions and explanation:

• Meaning can be explained by definition and explanations

• Difficult words can be taught giving explanations in simple English already known to them.

• Knowledge of prefixed and suffixes

• Enough knowledge of prefixes and suffix should be possessed by the students. The teacher should see
that such knowledge is acquired by the students. This will enrich the vocabulary of the students.

Word Chain

• Students should connect words through association or connection

• Key words: Hospital, nurses, doctors, injection, ward, ward boys, medicines, saline.

• One student should utter the keyword and every student connected in the group should say another
word in connection to the word “hospital”.

• Connotation: • Connotation means adding a word addition to this literal meaning. • E. g: slim person,
thin person, skinny person, may all be the same weight. But the choice of the phrases indicates how the
speaker feels about the person. • Unfavourable connotation for which students may ask to find out
favourable connotation.

• Collocation or word relations:

• Two key words for example garden and school are given. Students should select what are all the words
coined under the word school and garden. • Association: • Similar to the connotation of a word is its
association, where –as connotation relates to the system of the language and association relate to the
individual or the culture. • E. g: Words like doctor and treatment. Favourable association for lost people,
they may have unfavourable association for someone who has very unhappy experience during his
treatment. • The word market is a work used by the city reveller and he may not know the word ‘sandy’
and for someone coming fr4om rural area may not be familiarized with word market.

• Translation: • Passages, proverbs can be given to the students they may asked to translated it in their
mother tongue. • In other exercise the students have very little importuning to practice using the
foreign vocabulary in conversation. But in translation their thinking mind alerts and search for equal ant
words. Hence translation is a best method of teaching vocabulary.

Principles of gradation
• Grading of language material means putting it in a suitable order. • a) Phonetic groping: • Words
having similar sounds should be target together example. • Cow, bow, love. • Pat, rat, cat, • sit, bit, tint
• b) lexical grouping: • Words that can be used in the same situation come under this type of grouping. •
For example. Hospital • doctor, nurse, patient, tablet, tonic etc.

c) Grammatical Grouping:-Sentence patterns which are similar should be taught. d) semantic grouping:-
Words that convey similar meaning should be taught

Sequence: a) Lexical Sequence: Some words may be taught in a sequence order which will be effective.
For example. Sit, stand, come, go, etc, b) semantic sequence: The various meaning and usage of a word
are put in order and thought on different occasions. For example. ‘These’ indicates place, it is also used
as introduction. ? The table is there (which indicate place) ? There are many stories (introduction)

c) Sequence of structure: The structures should also be taught simple to complex in sequence. For
example, phrases to clauses, clauses to sentences. Sentences to paragraphs. Thus the principles of
selection and gradation are important for convenient and effective language teaching.