TEMA 11 - CAMPOS LÉXICOS Y SEMÁNTICOS EN LENGUA INGLESA.

LÉXICO NECESARIO PARA LA SOCIALIZACIÓN, LA INFORMACIÓN Y LA

EXPRESIÓN DE ACTITUDES. TIPOLOGÍA DE ACTIVITIDADES LIGADAS A
LA ENSEÑANZA Y AL APRENDIZAJE DEL LÉXICO EN LA CLASE DE
LENGUA EXTRANJERA.

The present essay aims to study the concept of Semantics. More precisely, it
focuses on those lexical items necessary for Primary students in the process of
socialisation, information and expression of their attitudes, as well as types of
activities and techniques.

In order to do so, I will first develop the concept of semantics, concentrating on

the semantic fields and sense relationships.

The second part of the essay will deal with the lexical items used when
socialising, dealing with information and expressing attitudes.

The third part of the essay, on the one hand, will concentrate on the different
principles when focusing on vocabulary development as part of an EFL
programme and, on the other, will discuss different techniques used in teaching
and learning vocabulary.

Finally, I will compile the conclusion and the bibliography used to develop this
topic.
Let us start the first part of the topic by developing the concept of semantics.
Semantics is the study of meaning in language. From the structuralist point of
view, language is a network of systematic relationships between units. Both
lexeme and lexical items are used when talking about these basic units of
semantic analysis. A lexeme is not a word, e.g. walk, walks, walked... are all
variants of the same lexeme, and idiom such as dice with death is just one
lexeme but three words.

After having examined these concepts, let us now turn to the study of semantic
structure. In order to do so, I will concentrate on semantic field (or lexical field);
then the sense relationships and finally the semantic components. As regards
semantic field, I will first define this concept. Lexemes can be organised into a
system, in which these lexemes interrelate, and define each other in specific
ways. It has been argued that the whole of a language's vocabulary is
structured into fields; but there is a great deal of variations as we move from
one part of the language to another.

There have been many attempts to classify the concepts in a language. The
most influential and popular work has been Roget's Thesaurus, first published
by Longman in 1852. Roget divided the English vocabulary into six main areas:

Abstract relations. They deal with such ideas as number, order and time.;
Space. It is concerned with movements, shapes, and sizes.; Matter. It covers
the physical world and humankind's perception of it by means of the five
senses.; Intellect, volition and affections deal with the internal world of human
beings. Intellect studies the human mind. Volition deals with the human will.
Affections deal with the human heart and soul.

This classification has been useful to many practical linguistic activities such as
foreign language learning and teaching. However, they do not contain
information about the sense relationships between individual lexemes. Let us
now examine these sense relationships. The organization of the lexemes of a
language is based on our intuitions that groups of lexemes are related in sense.
The relationships between lexemes can be analysed under two main headings:

a) Syntactic relationship: They refer to the tendency of lexemes to work

together or collocate in predictable ways. Collocation should not be
confused with associations of ideas.
b) Paradigmatic relationship: They refer to the way in which lexemes can
substitute for each other. Several types can be includes

- Synonyms: are two or more forms, with very closely related meaning.
- Antonymy: Two forms with opposites meaning: big-small; long- short,
etc
- Hyponymy: When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning
of another: dog-animal
- Homophony, homonymy and polysemy: Homophony is when two or
more different (written) forms have the same pronuntiation: pail-pale;
sew-so. The term homonymy is used when one form (written and
spoken) has two or more unrelated meaning: Bank (of a river) bank
(financial institution). Homonyms are words which have quite
separate meaning, but which have accidentally come to have exactly
the same form. Polisemy, is when a word has multiple meanings.

The second part of the topic will deal with socialization, information and
attitude expression vocabulary. There is a need to analyse the vocabulary
our pupils need in order to express themselves with communicative
competence in common situations. In order to develop this, I will examine first
socialization vocabulary; then information vocabulary and finally attitude
expression vocabulary.

As regards socialization, we may say that it studies the language necessary to:
 a) Begin and ending a conversation: e.g. greetings (hello/how are you?);
responses: (I´m fine thank/ I´m not too bad thanks); farewells (goodbye/
nice to meet you) introductions ( hello, I´m Jim) responses: Hello
b) Compliments and congratulating: E.g: what a marvelous lecture!; I´m
glad you like it.
c) Offering and thanking: May I offer you some tea?; Thank you so much!
d) Apologizing and regretting: Please, accept my apology for…; I´m sorry
that; You don´t need to apologise.
e) Expressing condolence: I´m sorry for your loss; If you need anything,
please ask.
f) Expressing good wishes, seasonal greetings and toasts: Seasons
greeting to you and your family.; My best wishes to our your family.
g) Speaking on the phone: Is that Jennifer?

Let us turn our attention to information vocabulary. Probably one of the most
important reasons we use language for is to give someone some piece of
information which we think they do not know. Questions and statements are the
structures we typically use to convey or ask for information. One the pupils
understand and are able to use statements and questions they are able to use
English vocabulary to receive and transmit information, as well as:

a) Asking for an opinion: What do you think of…?

b) Giving an opinion: I believe…
c) Asking without giving an opinion: I don´t know what to think about.
d) Expressing agreement and disagreement: I fully agree/ I´m not
sure about this…
e) Expressing partial or qualified agreement: It´s true that… but…
f) Interrupting: Excuse me / hang on a moment
g) Expressing corroboration and clarification: I agree, and what is
more.
I will now go on to consider the expression of attitudes. This type of expression
can be summarized as follow:

- Volition: I will do anything for you

- Likes and dislikes: I love/ I hate
- Hope: I hope she arrives on time/ I hope to see her again
- Anticipation of pleasure: I´m looking forward to hearing from you
- Regret: I wish I were richer
- Surprise: It´s rather surprising/ What a surprise
- Concern: I´m concerned that…
- Emotive emphasis: whooops!
- Requesting: Could you call a taxi for me?;

The main objective of these expressions is to foster Communicative

Competence. The term is highlighted in our Educative System. More precisely
the Organic Law 3/2020, passed on 28 th December, establishes in Art. 17,
objective (f): “to acquire in at least one foreign language the basic
Communicative Competence.”

The term communicative competence was firstly introduced by Chomsky (1957)

who defined language as “ a set on sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of elements”. Nevertheless Hymes replaces
Chomky´s notion of competence with his own concept of Communicative
Competence and distinguishes the following aspects:

- Systematic potencial: A native speakers possesses a system that has

a potential for creating language.
- Appropriacy: A native speakers knows what language is appropriate
in a given situation.
- Occurrence: A native speakers knows whether something is said in
the language and acts accordingly.
- Feasibility: A native speakers knows whether something is possible in
the language.
Let us analyse Canale and Swain´s Theory, they point out that: “There is come
diversity of opinion in the literature as to:

- Whether or not the notion of communicative competence includes

that of grammatical competence, as one of its components.
- Whether or not “Communicative competence should be distinguished
from communicative performance.

According to Canale (1983:5) communicative competence refers to the

“underlying system of knowledge and skills required for communication” The
four components of communicative competence can be summarized as follows:

- Grammatical competence: including grammar, vocabulary,

pronuntiation and spelling
- Discursive Competence: It refers to the ability to use different types of
discourse and organize them according to the communicative
situation, with coherence and cohesion.
- Sociolinguistic competence: involving knowledge of the sociocultural
rules of language and discourse.
- Strategic competence: increasing the effectiveness of communication
and compensating for breakdowns in communication.
- Sociocultural competence: awareness of the social and cultural
context in which the foreign language is used.

Surprisingly, Canale did not offer a description of how these four components
interact. Such an interaction was proposed by Savignon (1983). As for her,
“Communicative competence is a dynamic rather than a static concept. It
depends on the negotiation of meaning between two or more persons who
share to some degree the same symbolic system. In this sense, then
communicative competence can be said to be an interpersonal rather than an
intrapersonal trait”.
In the third part of the topic, I will develop the importance of teaching vocabulary
in the foreign language classroom: types of activities and learner-centred
techniques.

According to McKeown and Beck (2003), it is important to use both formal and
informal vocabulary instructions that engages student´s cognitive skills and
gives opportunities for the learners to actually use the words.

Teachers should facilitate vocabulary learning by teaching learners useful

words and by teaching strategies to help learners figure out meaning on their
own. Vocabulary should also be integrated into teaching the four skills –
listening, speaking, reading and writing. Let´s move on to the different principles
that must be followed in order to teach vocabulary at Primary level.

A number of principles can be helpful when focusing on vocabulary

development as part of an English Foreign Language programme. Some of the
main principles for teaching vocabulary can be stated as follows:

a) Emphasise both direct and indirect teaching: Direct vocabulary refers

to teaching words and their meaning while indirect instructions refers to
strategies ( scanning, guessing from the context…)
b) Pre- teach vocabulary words before a new activity: When vocabulary
words are taught before a new activity, students benefit in two ways. First
they are better able to comprehend the activity. Second, teaching
vocabulary words in advance makes it more likely that student will
actually acquire the target vocabulary words.
c) Teach how to use context clues appropriately: Students can benefit
from learning how to use context clues and guessing the meaning from
the context. This is a strategy that learners can use when they encounter
unfamiliar words.
d) Present multiple exposures to new vocabulary items: Young learners
make educational gains when they are exposed to vocabulary items
repeatedly in rich contexts. As part of any teacher´s teaching repertoire.
 A new word should reappear many times and in different situations for
the next several weeks of instruction. Learners also benefit when there is
multi-sensory vocabulary input.
e) Give opportunities for deep processing of vocabulary items: By
providing opportunities for students to establish connection between new
words and their prior knowledge and using words in context, especially
meaningful for the learner.
f) Teach students to use dictionaries: The use of dictionary as a tool for
EFL instruction has come back into style. Young learners can benefit
from using dictionaries. Very young children, under the age of six, can
use a picture dictionary where words are grouped into different
categories.

Now that I have discussed the different principles involved in the teaching of
vocabulary, let us suggest some practical ideas. The Decree 89/2014
establishes the contents related to the vocabulary in the blocks: Comprehension
of written texts and oral

Many of these activities could be done throught ICT as new technologies are an
important motivating tool to be considered in the foreign language classroom,
as it is established in the Appendix I and II of the Decree 89/2014.

There are three stages in which the activities related to the teaching and
learning of lexis in the foreign language class is required: the presentation
stage, the practice stage and the production stage. During the presentation
stage, vocabulary is often presented in groups activities. Some techniques to
introduce vocabulary are:

- Realia: It is attractive and motivating for children and help them

memorise words through visualization.
- Pictures: They are very handy and help the students understand the
meaning in a easier way. Pictures can be drawings, flashcards, etc.
- Mime: actions and gestures.
- Opposites: we can present one word by contrasting with others,
which help students learn two words at the same time ( small/ big)
 - Guessing from context: It will help student to build up their self
confidence.
- Elicting: the teacher can ask the student for the words they would
expect to learn ( brainstorming)
- Translation: It can save time with words that are difficult to explain.

The next stage is practice stage where the students use the new words and the
new vocabulary by doing different types of contexts. The activities will be oral or
written. Some oral activities:

- Guessing games: Hide and seek, I spy with my little eye.

- Picture dictation: Draw a____color the____ in the____.
- Memory games: “Chinesse whisper” or the “Market game”

Some written activities are:

- Matching words with pictures ( at basic level)

- Labelling pictures. A picture of a body to label the parts.
- Bingo: with the written words and pictures.
- Classifying words into categories such as food, clothes.

The last stage is the production stage. The teacher should encourage the
students to develop learning strategies

Finally, I will examine some learner-centred techniques. Recent developments

have emphasized the importance of equipping our pupils with the necessary
strategies to deal with activities. In learning vocabulary this involves:

a) Asking other in English can foster co-operative learning and it also

makes our pupils offer the best context to elict the word they want. This
is a skill we have in our mother tongue, and we use it very frequently
when we do not know a lexical field.
 b) Using a dictionary is one of the most important skills we must teach our
pupils. A dictionary will give them the pronuntiation, grammar, spelling
and meaning of words.
c) Deducing meaning out of context is a predictive skill they must use both
in listening and reading. It is a skill we use in our mother tongue when we
face an unknown word. We must always let our pupils have a go at the
meaning of a word so they develop this feeling for meaning deduction.

Last but not least it is to be mentioned that ICT resources must be

applied in the lessons. The Organic Law 3/2020, … + D89 Appendix I
and II …

To conclude we can point out that teaching English to young learners is a

very rewarding experience in words that methods used nowadays are both
motivating and realistic. Firstly, they are motivating because they are
thought for the proper age groups, that is to say, depending on the age
group teachers will focus more on a playful way to teach the language, that
´s the case for the youngest kids, or more on a personal context to get a
natural reaction fron the eldest age groups.

Secondly, they are realistic because the methods are based on English in
context. It means that English is taught from the reality they see in the
classroom every day and from their own reality.

The vocabulary development is an important area in the process of learning a

language as it is a key for the reading and writing process and it should be
based on motivation and reality. It is much easier for students to acquire a
linguistic competence if us, as teachers follow these principles always taking
into account that our students will develop a communicative competence. That
´s why this topic is so accurate to the current teaching methods. On the one
hand, the topic mentions basic expressions to teach in the classroom and on
the other hand the topic makes a detailed account of techniques for the process
of teaching-learning.

In order to develop this topic, the following bibliography has been used:

- Brewster, J. Ellis, G. and Girard, D. The Primary English Teacher´s

Guide, New Edition. Pearson Education Limited, Essex, U.K. 2002
- Windownson, H.G. Teaching Language as Communication. O.U.P.
Oxford. 1978
- Ellis, G. and Brewster, J. Tell it Again! The New Storytelling
Handbook for Primary Teachers. (2nd Edition) Longman. London
2002
- Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.
London, Fourth Edition, 2008
- Nunan David Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Second Language Teaching
and Learning. 1989.