HOW TO BUILD UP YOUR VOCABULARY

People get easily noticed or attract others in the group by the strong vocabulary and the language they possess. Watch the leaders and speakers! Successful persons generally have a good vocabulary.

Vocabulary is nothing but the words used in speaking or writing a language. Another meaning of vocabulary is ‘the words or group of words known to a person or used by a person and are at the command of a particular person’. Building up vocabulary has long been recognized as a strong reason for success in study or life.

Learn 5 new words a day:

Recent research has shown that the number of word meanings learned a day is much lesser than the past i.e. one to seven words a day. Words of varying vocabulary levels and language spoken at home are easily learned by the children.

It is understood that up to 20 new words a week can be taught in primary classrooms and retained over a four-week period. Thus, it is possible to teach a significant amount of vocabulary in the school. A school student should know at least 2500-5000 words. It varies depending on the socio-economic and family background of the child.

Learning from context:

Most word meanings are learned from context. This is true from the early stages of a child’s life, but the type of context changes. Early learning takes place through oral usage.

Later vocabulary learning shifts to written context.

Written vocabulary supports learning new word meanings, features and body language. So, the oral context is more important in the vocabulary building up process.

How to learn new words:

1. New words are learnt by showing interest in learning new words.
2. Students should listen and observe words used by the people and those which are written in the books.
3. Students should try to guess the meaning in the given context in a lesson. It is somewhat like we understand the story of a film in unknown language, without knowing the language.
4. Students should learn the meaning of the words they learn. It will help them to build up their vocabulary.
5. Next step is to learn the spelling of the word. By using it correctly several times you will be building up the vocabulary.
6. Students should try to learn the word used repeatedly in the same sentence or consequent sentences. When you read a book, you will guess the meaning of a new word and when it reappears in the same or next sentence it will become more familiar and so you can learn it easily.
7. See the same word used in different lessons.
8. Students should try to do the exercise at the end of the lesson with these new words.

Vocabulary from unfamiliar words:

This is a kind of technique to learn from unfamiliarity.

There are hundreds of unfamiliar words, ideas, constructions etc. which have to be used as study tools. Study these unfamiliar words connecting unfamiliar situations and stories.

REFERENCES/CITATIONS:

URL: https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2188/Literacy-VOCABULARY-VOCABULARY-LE