Vocabulary Instruction Quotes

We are losing our common vocabulary, built over thousands of years to help and delight and instruct us, for the sake of what we take to be the new technology's virtues.

To think through things, that is the still life painter’s work - and the poet’s. Both sorts of artists require a tangible vocabulary, a worldly lexicon. A language of ideas is, in itself, a phantom language, lacking in the substance of worldly things, those containers of feeling and experience, memory and time. We are instructed by the objects that come to speak with us, those material presences. Why should we have been born knowing how to love the world. We require, again and again, these demonstrations. (p10)

The spectacle's instruction and the spectators' ignorance are wrongly seen as antagonistic factors when in fact they give birth to each other. In the same way, the computer's binary language is an irresistible inducement to the continual and unreserved acceptance of what has been programmed according to the wishes of someone else and passes for the timeless source of a superior, impartial and total logic. Such progress, such speed, such breadth of vocabulary! Political? Social? Make your choice. You cannot have both. My own choice is inescapable. They are jeering at us, and we know whom these programs are for. Thus it is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age with the Absolute Knowledge of computer science; while they are still unable to read, for reading demands making judgements at every line; and is the only access to the wealth of pre-spectacular human experience. Conversation is almost dead, and soon so too will be those who knew how to speak.

However, the Bleeding Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily limping about with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no knives, committing no outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on farinaceous and milk diet, and playing with Mrs Plornish's children of an evening, they began to think that although he could never hope to be an Englishman, still it would be hard to visit that affliction on his head. They began to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him 'Mr Baptist,' but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his lively gestures and his childish English—more, because he didn't mind it, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the language in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying 'Me ope you leg well soon,' that it was considered in the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to think that she had a natural call towards that language. As he became more popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the Yard ladies would fly out at their doors crying 'Mr Baptist—tea-pot!' 'Mr Baptist—dust-pan!' 'Mr Baptist—flour-dredger!' 'Mr Baptist—coffee-biggin!' At the same time exhibiting those articles, and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

The modern world had lost the thing which informs every act and gesture of Hatfield, of the King James Bible, and of that incomparable age: a sense of encompassing richness which stretches unbroken from the divine to the sculptural, from theology to cushions, from a sense of the beauty of the created world to the extraordinary capabilities of language to embody it. This is about more than mere sonority or the beeswaxed heritage-appeal of antique vocabulary and grammar. The flattening of language is a flattening of meaning. Language which is not taut with a sense of its own significance, which is apologetic in its desire to be acceptable to a modern consciousness, language in other words which submits to its audience, rather than instructing, informing, moving, challenging and even entertaining them, is no longer a language which can carry the freight the Bible requires. It has, in short, lost all authority. The language of the King James Bible is the language of Hatfield, of patriarchy, of an instructed order, of richness as a form of beauty, of authority as a form of good; the New English Bible is motivated by the opposite, an anxiety not to bore or intimidate. It is driven, in other words, by the desire to please and, in that way, is a form of language which has died.

Focus intently and beat procrastination.    Use the Pomodoro Technique (remove distractions, focus for 25 minutes, take a break).    Avoid multitasking unless you find yourself needing occasional fresh perspectives.    Create a ready-to-resume plan when an unavoidable interruption comes up.    Set up a distraction-free environment.    Take frequent short breaks. Overcome being stuck.    When stuck, switch your focus away from the problem at hand, or take a break to surface the diffuse mode.    After some time completely away from the problem, return to where you got stuck.    Use the Hard Start Technique for homework or tests.    When starting a report or essay, do not constantly stop to edit what is flowing out. Separate time spent writing from time spent editing. Learn deeply.    Study actively: practice active recall (“retrieval practice”) and elaborating.    Interleave and space out your learning to help build your intuition and speed.    Don’t just focus on the easy stuff; challenge yourself.    Get enough sleep and stay physically active. Maximize working memory.    Break learning material into small chunks and swap fancy terms for easier ones.    Use “to-do” lists to clear your working memory.    Take good notes and review them the same day you took them. Memorize more efficiently.    Use memory tricks to speed up memorization: acronyms, images, and the Memory Palace.    Use metaphors to quickly grasp new concepts. Gain intuition and think quickly.    Internalize (don’t just unthinkingly memorize) procedures for solving key scientific or mathematical problems.    Make up appropriate gestures to help you remember and understand new language vocabulary. Exert self-discipline even when you don’t have any.    Find ways to overcome challenges without having to rely on self-discipline.    Remove temptations, distractions, and obstacles from your surroundings.    Improve your habits.    Plan your goals and identify obstacles and the ideal way to respond to them ahead of time. Motivate yourself.    Remind yourself of all the benefits of completing tasks.    Reward yourself for completing difficult tasks.    Make sure that a task’s level of difficulty matches your skill set.    Set goals—long-term goals, milestone goals, and process goals. Read effectively.    Preview the text before reading it in detail.    Read actively: think about the text, practice active recall, and annotate. Win big on tests.    Learn as much as possible about the test itself and make a preparation plan.    Practice with previous test questions—from old tests, if possible.    During tests: read instructions carefully, keep track of time, and review answers.    Use the Hard Start Technique. Be a pro learner.    Be a metacognitive learner: understand the task, set goals and plan, learn, and monitor and adjust.    Learn from the past: evaluate what went well and where you can improve.

Mathews, 1967; Schlagal, 2002; Schlagal, 2007; Smith, 2002). Many phonics, spelling, and vocabulary programs are characterized by explicit skill instruction, a systematic scope and sequence, and repeated practice.

learners’ beliefs about the kind of instruction that is best can influence their satisfaction and success. The grammar translation approach is useful for the study of grammar and vocabulary and can be valuable for understanding important cultural texts. The audiolingual approach with its emphasis on speaking and listening was used successfully with highly motivated adult learners in intensive training programmes for government personnel in the United States. However, there is little classroom research to support such approaches for students in ordinary school programmes that must serve the needs of students who bring different levels of motivation and aptitude to the classroom.

The most common definition [of the word information] is: "the action of informing; formation or molding of the mind or character, training, instruction, teaching; communication of instructive knowledge. This definition remained fairly constant until the years immediately following World War II, when it came in vogue to use 'information' as a technological term to define anything that was sent over an electric or mechanical channel. 'Information' became part of the vocabulary of the science of messages. And, suddenly, the appellation could be applied to something that didn't necessarily have to inform. This definition was extrapolated to general usage as something told or communicated, whether or not it made sense to the receiver. Now, the freedom engendered by such an amorphous definition has, as you might expect, encouraged its liberal deployment. It has become the single most important word of our decade, the suspense of our lives and our work.

The most common definition of [the word information] is: "the action of informing; formation or molding of the mind or character, training, instruction, teaching; communication of instructive knowledge. This definition remained fairly constant until the years immediately following World War II, when it came in vogue to use 'information' as a technological term to define anything that was sent over an electric or mechanical channel. 'Information' became part of the vocabulary of the science of messages. And, suddenly, the appellation could be applied to something that didn't necessarily have to inform. This definition was extrapolated to general usage as something told or communicated, whether or not it made sense to the receiver. Now, the freedom engendered by such an amorphous definition has, as you might expect, encouraged its liberal deployment. It has become the single most important word of our decade, the suspense of our lives and our work.

In the seventeenth century, however, “religion” came to mean “a system of beliefs and practices.” The word could now also be used in the plural, and the Christian faith became just one among several “religions.” In essence, it was considered to be the same as any other. Its superiority over other religions was, at best, relative. This fundamental levelling of all religions also meant that the church's traditional vocabulary lost its theological content. To give one example, in its secularized form sin was perceived exclusively in moralistic terms; it referred to transgressing or failing to obey instructions. The inherent sinfulness of human nature was denied, and a remarkably optimistic view of humanity as essentially good was propagated; since evil had no inherent power over them, people would “naturally” do the right thing if left to themselves (cf Braaten 1977:18; Gründel 1983:105).

Many people have difficulties believing that the Illuminati really exist. Many believe that it is a fictitious group. Most people hardly believe that there is a worldwide conspiracy that aims to repress the whole of humanity. This is understandable because the Illuminati have done everything to erase their tracks throughout the course of history. It was extremely important to the Illuminati to erase their name from the official and common vocabulary. Weishaupt and his companion Adolph von Knigge write in The Instructions of the Order: “It is important that the objectives are realized; the mask that is used is not important as long as there is a mask. The biggest power of our Order lies in its secrecy; don’t ever let the true name and intentions of the Order become apparent at any occasion or place, but keep operating under different names and causes.

certain other aspects of language—for example, individual vocabulary items—can be taught at any time. Learners’ acquisition of these variational features appears to depend on factors such as motivation, the learners’ sense of identity, language aptitude, and the quality of instruction, including how learners’ identities and cultures are acknowledged in the classroom.

Even with instruction and good strategies, the task of acquiring an adequate vocabulary is daunting. What does it mean to ‘know’ a word: •  Grasp the general meaning in a familiar context? •  Provide a definition or a translation equivalent? •  Provide appropriate word associations? •  Identify its component parts or etymology? •  Use the word to complete a sentence or to create a new sentence? •  Use it metaphorically? •  Understand a joke that uses homonyms (words that sound alike but mean different things, such as ‘cents’, ‘sense’, ‘scents’)? Second language learners whose goal is to use the language for both social and academic purposes must learn to do all these things.

The first step in knowing a word is simply to recognize that it is a word. Paul Meara and his colleagues (2005) have developed tests that take advantage of this fact. Some of these tests take the form of word lists, and learners are instructed to check ‘yes’ or ‘no’ according to whether or not they know the word. Each list also includes some items that look like English words but are not. The number of real words that the learner identifies is adjusted for guessing by a factor that takes account of the number of non-words that are also chosen. Such a procedure is more effective than it might sound. A carefully constructed list can be used to estimate the vocabulary size of even advanced learners. For example, if shown the following list: ‘frolip, laggy, scrule, and albeit’, a proficient speaker of English would know that only one of these words is a real English word, albeit a rare and somewhat odd one. On the other hand, even proficient speakers might recognize none of the following items: ‘goniometer, micelle, laminitis, throstle’. Even our computer’s spell-checker rejected two out of four, but all are real English words, according to the New Oxford Dictionary of American English.

Research on vocabulary learning through reading without focused instruction confirms that some vocabulary can be learned without explicit instruction (see Chapter 6, Study 17). On the other hand, Jan Hulstijn and Batia Laufer (2001) and others provide evidence that vocabulary development is more successful when learners are fully engaged in activities that require them to attend carefully to the new words and even to use them in productive tasks. Izabella Kojic-Sabo and Patsy Lightbown (1999) found that effort and the use of good learning strategies, such as keeping a notebook, looking words up in a dictionary, and reviewing what has been learned were associated with better vocabulary development. Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman (2009) provides many practical suggestions for teaching vocabulary and also for helping learners to continue learning outside the classroom.

1a What language do you speak best? Do you speak more than one language equally well? 1b When did you begin to learn this language (these languages)? 2     Which second or foreign language(s) have you learned with the most success? 3     Which second or foreign language(s) have you learned with the least success? 4     For the languages you mentioned in response to questions 2 and 3, answer the following questions in the appropriate columns:   Languages learned successfully Languages not learned successfully How old were you when you first tried to learn the language?                                                             Did you have a choice about learning this language or were you required to learn it?                                                           Do you currently speak this language regularly?                                                           Do you regularly read this language for information or enjoyment?                                                           How much of your learning experience with this language was in a foreign language classroom?                                                           If you no longer use this language on a daily basis, can you estimate how many years you spent learning or using it?                                                           Estimate how many hours of classroom instruction you had for this language.                                                           How much time have you spent living in a place where the language is spoken?                                                           Have you used the language to learn other subjects at school? At what level (elementary, secondary, university)?                                                           Do you have personal or emotional attachments to this language? For example, do you have peers or family members who speak this language?                                                           Do/did you enjoy studying the grammar of this language?                                                           Do/did you enjoy studying vocabulary in this language?                                                           Are/were you a successful student in other school subjects? Do you think of yourself as a person who likes to socialize? Do you think of yourself as a person who learns a new language easily? Photocopiable © Oxford University Press Table 3.1 Individual differences in language learning experience

Benedict knew that hospitality could be life-saving for both monk and guest. I believe that he wanted Benedictine women and men to be so deeply grounded in hospitality that it would color everything they do and say. And in his Rule he indicated an acute awareness of the dangers of implosion in the monastic life, the dreadful insularity against “the world” that led the poor souls of Heaven’s Gate to their demise. He instructs Benedictines not to turn their backs on the world, even as they seek to detach themselves from worldly values. This seems to me the core of Benedictine hospitality. To reject the world is to reject other people. And to reject other people is to reject Christ himself.

Were all boys like this today, he wondered. In 1917, when he himself was eight, had he had so lethal a vocabulary, been so conscious of the other war? He decided not. There were no radios then, no Lifes and Looks—no newsreels, no avalanche of comic books about martial daredevils. For him during that war there had been only his parents’ talk about it, and the newspaper which came each morning. He’d had none of this war’s incessant instruction in the very sounds and colors and sights of killing and dying.

To provide a foundation in the use of ASL with its unique vocabulary and syntax rules; English as a second language (ESL) instruction

Immersion teachers adjusted their use of French to make it accessible to students. They did this through careful choice of vocabulary, syntax, pacing, and intonation, and by avoiding needless complexity, making points directly rather than elliptically, and adding redundancy. Other techniques included contextual cues such as gestures, facial expressions, and body language.

Advancing no particular theory of their own, some insist that explicit teaching of grammar, vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, and even pronunciation is necessary because students in immersion classrooms sometimes have trouble with these features of the second language. Direct instruction, they say, is the only remedy. Such claims rely heavily on short-term studies in which older students—rarely K–12 English learners—are taught a linguistic form, such as word order, verb conjugation, relative clauses, and so forth, then tested on their conscious knowledge of the form soon after.

English children’s vocabulary increases rapidly during the early school years. Anglin (1993, 62) estimated that first grade English children know approximately 10,000 words, third grade pupils know 19,000 words, and fifth grade pupils know 39,000 words. The annual increase in vocabulary is estimated to be 3,000 words from the first to third grade and 10,000 words from the fourth to the fifth grade. Nagy & Anderson (1984, 20) uphold that there is “the ability to utilize morphological relatedness among words (which) puts a student at a distinct advantage in dealing with unfamiliar words”. In a later work, Nagy (1988, 46) acknowledges that: “there is no doubt that skilled word learners use context and their knowledge of prefixes, roots, and suffixes to deal effectively with new words”. In short, in addition to context, there is awareness of word-formation devices which accounts for such rapid increase in early school age English children’s vocabulary. Such high vocabulary growth would certainly be of great interest in L2 acquisition. Nakayama, N. (2008) tested the role that explicit teaching of affixes (prefixes) plays in vocabulary learning to pre- and upper-intermediate L2 learners. The participants received instructions over the contribution prefixes played in the meaning of the complex word during an academic year. L2 learners’ vocabulary was measured in the beginning and in the end of the academic year. Assisted by the instructions, L2 learners learned easier the new derived words, but, in the end of the academic year they had forgotten the derived words whose meaning they acquired through instructions over the contribution prefixes played in the meaning of the complex word (2008, 70). In the end, Nakayama, N. (2008, 68) concludes that systematic teaching of prefixes does lead to better retention of the derived word, but only with regard to short-term memory. On the other hand, it has been estimated that the only the most advanced L2 learners can acquire 3000 words a year (Bauer, L. & Nation, P. 1993); a figure comparable to that of early school age native children acquiring their L1. Hence, word-formation knowledge leads to high vocabulary growth to L2 learners, but solely to the most advanced L2 learners. We may uphold that word formation devices have to be acquired rather than learned through explixit instructions.

During a temporary absence of General Harney, Captain Lyon, commanding United States forces at St. Louis, initiated hostilities against the State of Missouri under the following circumstances: In obedience to the militia law of the State, an annual encampment was directed by the Governor for instruction in tactics. Camp Jackson, near St. Louis, was designated for the encampment of the militia of the county in 1861. Here for some days companies of State militia, amounting to about eight hundred men, under command of Brigadier-General D. M. Frost, were being exercised, as is usual upon such occasions. They presented no appearance of a hostile camp. There were no sentinels to guard against surprise; visitors were freely admitted; it was the picnic-ground for the ladies of the city, and everything wore the aspect of merry-making rather than that of grim-visaged war. Suddenly, Captain (afterward General) Nathaniel Lyon appeared with an overwhelming force of Federal troops, surrounded this holiday encampment, and demanded an unconditional surrender. Resistance was impracticable, and none was attempted; the militia surrendered, and were confined as prisoners; but prisoners of what? There was no war, and no warrant for their arrest as offenders against the law. It is left for the usurpers to frame a vocabulary suited to their act.

Difficulties of technical translation: features, problems, rules Technical translation is one of the most important areas of written translation in modern translation practice. Like the interpretation technique, it has its own characteristics and requirements. The need for this type of work is due to economic and scientific and technical progress, as well as the development of international relations. Thanks to technical translation, people share experience, knowledge and developments in various fields. What are the features of this type of translation? What pitfalls can be encountered on the translator's path? You will learn about this and much more from our article. ________________________________________ Technical translation is one of the most difficult types of legal translation. This is due to the large number of requirements for such work. Technical translation includes all scientific and technical texts, documents, instructions, reports, reference books and dictionaries. The texts of this plan contain a lot of specific terminology, which is the main difficulty of technical translation. A term is a word or a combination of words that accurately names a phenomenon, subject or scientific concept, revealing its meaning as much as possible. The most common technical texts in the following areas: • engineering; • defense; • physics and mathematics; • aircraft construction; • oil industry; • shipbuilding, etc. The main feature of technical translation is the requirement for its high accuracy (equivalence). The task of the translator is to convey information as close as possible to the original. Otherwise, distortions may appear in the text, leading to a misunderstanding of important information. Vocabulary selection is carried out carefully and carefully. The construction of phrases should be logical and meaningful. Other technical translation requirements include adequacy and informativeness. It is equally important to maintain the style of such texts. This includes not only vocabulary, but also the grammatical structure of the text, as well as the way the material is presented. Most often, this is a formal and logical style. Unlike artistic translation, where the main task is to convey the content, and the translator can use his imagination, include fancy turns and various figures of speech, the presence of emotionality and subjectivity is unacceptable in technical translation. Let's consider the peculiarities of technical translation in English. According to the well-known linguist and translator Y. Y. Retsker, English technical literature is characterized by the predominant use of complex or complex sentences, which include adjectives, nouns, as well as impersonal forms of verbs (infinitives, gerundial inflections, etc.). Passive constructions are also often found. In this direction, it is permissible to use only generally accepted grammatical structures. Another feature of such texts may be the absence of a predicate or subject and a large number of enumerations. In addition, the finished text should have an appropriate layout equivalent to the original. Let's consider the basic rules of technical translation for a specialist: • knowledge of the vocabulary, grammar and word structure of the foreign language from which the translation is performed (at the level required for understanding the source text); • knowledge of the language into which the translation is performed (at a level sufficient for a competent presentation of the material); • excellent knowledge of the specifics of texts and terminology; • ability to use linguistic and technical sources of information; • familiarity with the specifics of the field

Neuroascesis,” as we call the business that sells programs of cerebral self-discipline, is a case in point. On the one hand, it appeals to the brain and neuroscience as bases for its self-help recipes to enhance memory and reasoning; fight depression, anxiety, and compulsions; improve sexual performance; achieve happiness; and even establish a direct contact with God. On the other hand, underneath the neuro surface lie beliefs and even concrete instructions that can be traced to nineteenth-century hygiene manuals. The vocabulary of fitness is transposed from the body to the brain, and traditional self-help themes and recommendations are given a neuroscientific luster.

In a study of 106 undergraduate and graduate nonnative English—speaking students, Schmitt and Zimmerman (2002) found that it was rare for a student to know all four forms or no form of a word. In other words, partial knowledge of at least one form was the norm. Results also showed that learners tended to have a better understanding of the noun and/or verb forms rather than the adjective and/or adverb forms. The authors conclude that teachers cannot assume that learners will absorb the derivative forms of a word family automatically from exposure and suggest explicit instruction in this area of vocabulary.

Many parents feel like they are victims of hostile and alien forces that have invaded their homes through MTV, VH1, video game hardware and software. Their children have interests, a vocabulary, and values—an entire culture that they, the parents, know nothing about. I have asked concerned parents, “How did your child afford a video game, a TV, and computer for their bedroom?” “Oh, he didn’t buy it; I bought it for him.” “You bought it for him and now you are upset with him because he uses it?” We must be discerning about the entertainment we provide. We may be inviting unwelcome guests who become difficult to evict.

In April 2012, The New York Times published a heart-wrenching essay by Claire Needell Hollander, a middle school English teacher in the New York City public schools. Under the headline “Teach the Books, Touch the Heart,” she began with an anecdote about teaching John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. As her class read the end together out loud in class, her “toughest boy,” she wrote, “wept a little, and so did I.” A girl in the class edged out of her chair to get a closer look and asked Hollander if she was crying. “I am,” she said, “and the funny thing is I’ve read it many times.” Hollander, a reading enrichment teacher, shaped her lessons around robust literature—her classes met in small groups and talked informally about what they had read. Her students did not “read from the expected perspective,” as she described it. They concluded (not unreasonably) that Holden Caulfield “was a punk, unfairly dismissive of parents who had given him every advantage.” One student read Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies as raps. Another, having been inspired by Of Mice and Men, went on to read The Grapes of Wrath on his own and told Hollander how amazed he was that “all these people hate each other, and they’re all white.” She knew that these classes were enhancing her students’ reading levels, their understanding of the world, their souls. But she had to stop offering them to all but her highest-achieving eighth-graders. Everyone else had to take instruction specifically targeted to boost their standardized test scores. Hollander felt she had no choice. Reading scores on standardized tests in her school had gone up in the years she maintained her reading group, but not consistently enough. “Until recently, given the students’ enthusiasm for the reading groups, I was able to play down that data,” she wrote. “But last year, for the first time since I can remember, our test scores declined in relation to comparable schools in the city. Because I play a leadership role in the English department, I felt increased pressure to bring this year’s scores up. All the teachers are increasing their number of test-preparation sessions and practice tests, so I have done the same, cutting two of my three classic book groups and replacing them with a test preparation tutorial program.” Instead of Steinbeck and Shakespeare, her students read “watered-down news articles or biographies, bastardized novels, memos or brochures.” They studied vocabulary words, drilled on how to write sentences, and practiced taking multiple-choice tests. The overall impact of such instruction, Hollander said, is to “bleed our English classes dry.” So

Many of the things that appear in this book exist because of the widely accepted creed of meritocracy. In this view of the world, it is primarily the job of politicians to sort the sheep from the goats. It is perfectly acceptable for someone to toil away hopelessly in a rotten job, as long as that person has been judged to lack the requisite merit to do anything better. Our entire political vocabulary – social mobility, bright but poor kids, grammar schools – is geared towards pulling a few people out of the soup without changing its basic ingredients. The debate in 2017 around grammar schools in instructive in this regard: it is not seen as wrong that a child who fails the 11-Plus team should have to spend a lifetime doing soul-destroying work; rather, the tragedy is that it should happen to the wrong child. Woe betide if a 'bright but poor child' should slip through the net, so to speak. One can do what one likes with the other lot.

The arbitrary influences affecting artists' vocabularies are many, and not necessarily all beneficial. The limiting trends of the day, the biting criticism, or the instruction insistent upon getting us to conform against our temperament can affect the work in profound ways, sometimes stalling us for decades.