My OperaOne Thought-provoking After-class Meeting
Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:09:43 AM
After class time, I had a meeting with a former teacher who was in charge of promoting listening skill for students. She was conducting a survey on how to best deal with vocabulary intake. 2 friends and I were sampled. There were numerous questions, most of which in my opinion would do the trick, but some of which did not apply to me at all, which sparked off certain thought.
The questionnaire consisted of 2 main parts, the background information and the actual experience of vocab acquiring. The former section queried about how long I had been studying English, how long I spent on vocabulary a day, why I had chosen to pursue the English language, how I obtained guidelines on how to overcome the vast number of unfamiliar words so often encountered. The latter focused on 6 topics, e.g memory efficiency, teamwork..., each of which contained from 5 to 10 questions, which was to be answered by placing a number on the blank area at the end. Each number - from 1 to 5 - corresponded with how true the statement applied to my case, from the least true to always true in ascending order. Some of the statements were rather puzzling and some others were not specific enough for my case.
I had no difficulty covering the first part. The questions were easy to answer as they were pretty clear. For example, I had been studying the language for 11 years, with my heart set on becoming an excellent English teacher; I assigned about 30 minutes to 60 to vocabulary each day, but this was not necessarily the case, for I never gravitated toward separating vocab from other skills. In other words, whenever I pour time and effort into the bottomless glass of English, I am enhancing my vocab simultaneously. The last question centered around the method. Actually I had developed a method of my own based on self-experience alone. And to cut long story short, the method is to seek a highest possible chance of words re-encountered. The fastest track to nail something in mind is to have it repeated as frequently as possible.
The second part was not such a bed of roses though. As aforementioned, it contained 6 topics. Due to the lack of time to review the paper, I can only name 2 of them: memory efficiency and teamwork. This part in general was absolutely indisputable. However, it appeared to host 1 or 2 bugs. I do not know about the others, but to me some of the statements were a little perplexing and non-applicable. Take this one for example: I tend to relax whenever I feel afraid to use English. Or, I normally ask English speakers to correct me when I speak English. Or that kind of stuff. But the bottom of the problem is that, during my personal acquisition of unfamiliar (I should not prefer "new") words, there is more or less no human interference. To put it simplier, the dictionary itself and the endless resources of exemplifying sentences from the Internet already bring about adequacy; whereas native English speakers and superior students of English are elusive. So the assessment on my "teamwork skill" should leave a lot to be desired.
But all in all, the questionnaire was highly academic, about which I cannot complain too much. Basically, I always stand on my own ground. And should you wonder what the ground is, I am happy to elaborate on it as below, since this was the first time I gave vocabulary some hindsight thinking.
When I was first initiated into the world of English around 11 years ago, I was merely a student of no purpose. I came to class solely at my parents and my neighbour - who was also my first teacher - insist. I soon discovered my aptitude. But for the following 9 years, not much accomplishment was up to scratch. I still did not have a clear target in mind; the best shots were all in the dark. But when I climbed up to grade 11, light ambitions began to take shape in my subconscious.
On year before that, I enrolled in a class by Mr. Dinh Quyet Tran, who was an Master in TESOL at my senior high school. Ever since, it gradually dawned on me what the meaning of the word "English" is. English was not merely a school subject, but a type of true art and the most effective means of communication. With the hang of English, the world is your oyster. So, at the end of grade 10, I splashed out for the first dictionary of my life - a paperback MacMillan. From then on, my self-motivated vocab learning path wrote its name on my map of routes. But the first step fell short of my expectation.
Having a real English dictionary to count on, I was over moon whenever unknown words arrive. The feeling of turning over pages and checking up meanings of words on your own outweighs the most pleasurable moment of all. What I did was to take new vocabulary down to a kind of notebook. For the first few months, I wrote down the words first, and then look them up all at the same time. One problem arose: there was not enough space to fill in the missing definitions and examples. With this in mind, I launched a new strategy, to deal with each word at a time, so that the format of the pages should come across as pleasant to read for the next time. But this also did not stir satisfaction since the words drop off the wrinkles on my brain quite readily.
I had filled about 5 vocab books with ink before I actually got the nerve to face the fact that those words did not seem to stick properly. So, how was I supposed to get a move on? After hard thinking, I came to realize that learning vocabulary by mainly memorizing word by word would not fit the bill. Therefore, I had to come up with a new strategy. And that was to incorporate those words into larger units. In other words, I needed paragraphs which glue words and sentences together. The words may belong to a particular thesaurus or different ones. But when put together, they had to make sense. And the sense they make sticks them in my mind more tightly. That is, practice makes perfect.
By and large, learning vocabulary cannot be done without the help of writing. Theory will never make its way into perfection without practice. And this applies also to other skills: reading, listening, and writing itself. If we keep doing something on regular and appropriate basis, we will do it well in the course of time.
At the moment I am learning Chinese as a second foreign language. The first is always the hardest, which can never fall under the shadow of doubt. However, as an experienced student of language, I am totally aware of how to push myself forward. By applying the principle above, I will cross the corner soon. Then, things will lot into their own places.
The questionnaire consisted of 2 main parts, the background information and the actual experience of vocab acquiring. The former section queried about how long I had been studying English, how long I spent on vocabulary a day, why I had chosen to pursue the English language, how I obtained guidelines on how to overcome the vast number of unfamiliar words so often encountered. The latter focused on 6 topics, e.g memory efficiency, teamwork..., each of which contained from 5 to 10 questions, which was to be answered by placing a number on the blank area at the end. Each number - from 1 to 5 - corresponded with how true the statement applied to my case, from the least true to always true in ascending order. Some of the statements were rather puzzling and some others were not specific enough for my case.
I had no difficulty covering the first part. The questions were easy to answer as they were pretty clear. For example, I had been studying the language for 11 years, with my heart set on becoming an excellent English teacher; I assigned about 30 minutes to 60 to vocabulary each day, but this was not necessarily the case, for I never gravitated toward separating vocab from other skills. In other words, whenever I pour time and effort into the bottomless glass of English, I am enhancing my vocab simultaneously. The last question centered around the method. Actually I had developed a method of my own based on self-experience alone. And to cut long story short, the method is to seek a highest possible chance of words re-encountered. The fastest track to nail something in mind is to have it repeated as frequently as possible.
The second part was not such a bed of roses though. As aforementioned, it contained 6 topics. Due to the lack of time to review the paper, I can only name 2 of them: memory efficiency and teamwork. This part in general was absolutely indisputable. However, it appeared to host 1 or 2 bugs. I do not know about the others, but to me some of the statements were a little perplexing and non-applicable. Take this one for example: I tend to relax whenever I feel afraid to use English. Or, I normally ask English speakers to correct me when I speak English. Or that kind of stuff. But the bottom of the problem is that, during my personal acquisition of unfamiliar (I should not prefer "new") words, there is more or less no human interference. To put it simplier, the dictionary itself and the endless resources of exemplifying sentences from the Internet already bring about adequacy; whereas native English speakers and superior students of English are elusive. So the assessment on my "teamwork skill" should leave a lot to be desired.
But all in all, the questionnaire was highly academic, about which I cannot complain too much. Basically, I always stand on my own ground. And should you wonder what the ground is, I am happy to elaborate on it as below, since this was the first time I gave vocabulary some hindsight thinking.
When I was first initiated into the world of English around 11 years ago, I was merely a student of no purpose. I came to class solely at my parents and my neighbour - who was also my first teacher - insist. I soon discovered my aptitude. But for the following 9 years, not much accomplishment was up to scratch. I still did not have a clear target in mind; the best shots were all in the dark. But when I climbed up to grade 11, light ambitions began to take shape in my subconscious.
On year before that, I enrolled in a class by Mr. Dinh Quyet Tran, who was an Master in TESOL at my senior high school. Ever since, it gradually dawned on me what the meaning of the word "English" is. English was not merely a school subject, but a type of true art and the most effective means of communication. With the hang of English, the world is your oyster. So, at the end of grade 10, I splashed out for the first dictionary of my life - a paperback MacMillan. From then on, my self-motivated vocab learning path wrote its name on my map of routes. But the first step fell short of my expectation.
Having a real English dictionary to count on, I was over moon whenever unknown words arrive. The feeling of turning over pages and checking up meanings of words on your own outweighs the most pleasurable moment of all. What I did was to take new vocabulary down to a kind of notebook. For the first few months, I wrote down the words first, and then look them up all at the same time. One problem arose: there was not enough space to fill in the missing definitions and examples. With this in mind, I launched a new strategy, to deal with each word at a time, so that the format of the pages should come across as pleasant to read for the next time. But this also did not stir satisfaction since the words drop off the wrinkles on my brain quite readily.
I had filled about 5 vocab books with ink before I actually got the nerve to face the fact that those words did not seem to stick properly. So, how was I supposed to get a move on? After hard thinking, I came to realize that learning vocabulary by mainly memorizing word by word would not fit the bill. Therefore, I had to come up with a new strategy. And that was to incorporate those words into larger units. In other words, I needed paragraphs which glue words and sentences together. The words may belong to a particular thesaurus or different ones. But when put together, they had to make sense. And the sense they make sticks them in my mind more tightly. That is, practice makes perfect.
By and large, learning vocabulary cannot be done without the help of writing. Theory will never make its way into perfection without practice. And this applies also to other skills: reading, listening, and writing itself. If we keep doing something on regular and appropriate basis, we will do it well in the course of time.
At the moment I am learning Chinese as a second foreign language. The first is always the hardest, which can never fall under the shadow of doubt. However, as an experienced student of language, I am totally aware of how to push myself forward. By applying the principle above, I will cross the corner soon. Then, things will lot into their own places.
