Unit 2 Lexis

Lexis refers to vocabulary in general. It is about words form, collocations, compounds, suffixes, prefixes, etc. Vocabulary is really important for English as a Foreign Language learners, I would say it is like “legato” for guitar players. Without a wide range of vocabulary productive skills such as: writing and speaking would not be possible. Therefore, we must work a lot on this feature of the language.

If we want to widen students’ vocabulary, we must work a lot on affixation. For Latin-based languages speakers such as Spanish or French, affixation is something common, so we can explain them the meaning of some affixes by using matching activities. For instance, our students can learn that the meaning of the prefixes un-, im- and in- is negative or opposite. As a result, when reading they are not going to need a dictionary because it is easier for them to deduce meaning from the root and its affixes. Thus, they will be able to produce more when writing or speaking.

Sometimes our students just use basic words like: nice, very, interesting, and so on. This make their production limited, so as teachers we may want them to produce more complex and sophisticated vocabulary. Hence, we can practice lexical sets in the class to activate their passive vocabulary by doing some games. For instance, we can divide the class in groups and write a lexical set on the board. Students have to write as many words as they can with the vocabulary they know and to make it more interesting we can create a contest in the class with some prices that could be: candies, chocolates or, if appropriate, extra points.

On the links below, there are some useful strategies we may use in our class:

Teaching Vocabulary

This video shows some strategies to introduce vocabulary avoiding the dull and daunting old-fashion strategies.

How to Remember Vocabulary

This video shows some tips that we can give our students to remember vocabulary.

References

Lessons, E. (Dirección). (2013). How to Remember Vocabulary [Vídeo].

Scott, J. (Dirección). (2008). Teaching Vocabulary [Video].

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2012). The TKT Course Modules 1,2 and 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.