ELT 303: UNIT # 02(PART 02)

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Second Language Learning

• Vocabulary
• Pragmatics
• Phonology
• Sampling Learners Language

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Vocabulary:
The Importance of Vocabulary
• Vocabulary is central to English language teaching because
without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand others
or express their own ideas.

• Without the help of grammar very little can be conveyed but,

without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. (David A. Wilkins)
• Teaching vocabulary helps students understand and communicate
with others in English.
• Children expand their vocabulary dramatically during their school
years.

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Vocabulary:
The Importance of Vocabulary

• Second language learners can also increase their

vocabulary knowledge through reading.
• However, few second language learners read the amount
of target language text that a child reads throughout more
than a decade of schooling.

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 Points to Remember
• Aspects of the second language that are different from the
first language will not necessarily be acquired later or with
more difficulty than those aspects that are similar.
• Second language learning is not simply a process of putting
second-language words into first-language sentences.
• Learners may not always be able to take advantage of
similarities unless they are pointed out to them.

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Points to Remember

• Learners from different backgrounds (Japanese,

Mexicans, and Arabs for example) often make the same
kinds of errors, and some of these errors are remarkably
similar to those made by first language learners (children
acquiring their first language).
• However, those who not only read but also receive
guidance from instruction (from teachers and learning
resources) and develop good strategies for learning and
remembering words will benefit more than those who
simply focus on getting the main ideas from a text.
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What Teachers can do?
• Teachers should use materials that expose students only to
language structures they have already been taught .
• Such a procedure can provide comprehensible input of
course.
• However, given a meaningful context learners can
comprehend the general meaning of oral or written texts that
contain vocabulary and structures they have not 'mastered'.
• We should remember that learners who successfully acquire a
second language outside classrooms certainly are exposed to
a great variety of forms and structures they have not
mastered.
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 Pragmatics: Definition

• Pragmatic is the study of how language is used in

context to express such things in directness, politeness
and deference.

• Even if a learner knows 5000 words from vocabulary and

also have a good knowledge of the syntax and
morphology of the target language , they can still face
difficulty using it.

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Pragmatics deals with:

• Using language for different purpose (for e.g. greetings,

informing, requesting, demanding, promising)
• Changing language according to the needs of the situation
( for e.g. Its normal to talk differently to different people)
• Following rules for conversations.
• 1) Dealing with breakdowns
• 2) Using verbal and non-verbal signals
• 3) Use of body language.

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Rules
• Pragmatic rules vary across and within cultures.
• Pragmatic awareness helps students improve
communication and avoid problems.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Pragmatics
• People's intended meaning.
• Their assumptions
• Their purposes and goals.
• And kind of actions.
• Example:
• Have you got any cash on
you?
• Deep meaning: Can you
lend me some money, I don’t
have much with me.
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• Difficult to reach true meaning
• We do not know what the
other person meant.
• Every individual has their own
way of interpreting
• Level of understanding varies.
• For Example:
• Do you wanna go for a lunch?
• Ohh my god he/she is asking
me out.
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Phonology

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Phonology

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Sampling Learners’ language
• The starting point in SLA is deciding what samples of learner
language to use for the analysis and how to collect these samples.
• A massive samples involves collecting several samples of
languages use from a large number of learners in order to compile
a comprehensive list of errors, representative of the entire
population.
• A specific sample consist of one sample of language use collected
from a limited number of learners.
• Incidental sample involves only one sample of language use
produced by a single learner.
• E.g Corpus Linguistics

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What is corpus Linguistics ?

• A collection of written texts, especially the entire

work of a particular author or a body of writing on a
particular subject.
• Corpus Linguistics:
Linguistic being the scientific study of language and its
structure , ‘corpus linguistics’ is the study of language
“on the basis of text corpora”
(Corpora: It is a large and structured set of texts which
is electronically stored and processed.)
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 THE END

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