The Role Of Vocabulary English Language Essay

The Role Of Vocabulary English Language Essay However, nowadays, the importance of vocabulary as also learning a language has become more accepted. Vocabulary is a basic component of language proficiency which provides the basis for learners performance in other skills, such as speaking, reading, listening and writing. (Nation, 2008) Therefore, acquiring vocabulary it is a fundamental process when learning an L2 because it will not only develop the writing skills, but also the remaining ones. As a consequence, learners will become competent on their level of language because it seems that the four skills will be hand in hand. Between many forms or learning vocabulary, it is the possibility of learning vocabulary incidentally. Hunt and Beglar (1998) point out that many vocabularies are learned incidentally through extensive reading and listening. For this reason, motivating learners to read and listen extensively can provide them with great opportunities to learn new vocabularies. According to Except for the first few thousand most common words, vocabulary learning predominantly occurs through extensive reading with the learner guessing the meaning of unknown words. This process is incidental learning of vocabulary for the acquisition of new words and is the by-product of the reading. Most of the papers in the special issue of incidental vocabulary learning (Wesche Paribakht, 1999) refer to incidental learning as something that is learned without specific focus of attention in a classroom context. Research on both first and second language development supports the conclusion that most vocabulary learning occurs naturally when learners try to understand new words they hear or read in context. This process is called incidental because it occurs as learners are focused on something other than word learning itself. (T. Sima) Wode is the most specific author about this topic when he provides the following operational definition: language learning as a by-product of language use by the teacher or anybody else in the classroom, without the linguistic structure itself being the focus of attention or the target of teaching maneuvers In the process of incidental vocabulary learning, word knowledge is thought to be cumulated and developed gradually through multiple exposures in various reading contexts. Extensive reading, as a form of comprehensible input, has the effect of providing learners with rich contexts ideal for vocabulary learning. During the reciprocal process of extensive reading, the acquisition of words is the result of successes in inferring word meanings from a meaningful context and through more reading experiences the developed and matured vocabulary inference ability could in turn contributes to reading level. As believed by Huckin and Coady (1999), incidental vocabulary learning can be really advantageous for learners because it is a more learner based process, in which learners select the reading materials to study according to their personal preferences. Therefore, reading will be more interesting for each person. Another advantage of this process is that it can be pedagogically efficient, since it leads two activities at the same time: vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension. Learners acquire new vocabulary, language learning, and grammatical knowledge as also develop their critical thinking when reading and comprehending the main ideas. Finally, since it is contextualized, the readers can understand the meaning and the use of the word within the context established in the text. For this reason, enrich their knowledge of the words they already know, increase lexical access speeds, build network linkages between words, and a few words will be acquired Horst, Cobb and Meara (1998) (p. 221) Although having these favorable situations in order that it is easier for students to acquire new vocabulary, Ellis proposes some factors that may affect the process when learning an L2. These factors are grouped in four and are classified in: Intrinsic word properties, Input factors, Interactional factors and Learner factors. Intrinsic word properties Some words have a higher grade of difficulty in order to be learnt from oral input; R. Ellis considered four intrinsic word properties which appear to influence acquisition: a) Pronounceability: It takes a long time to students to pronounce an L2 word; thereby their ability to produce it will take a long time also. Laufer (1997) cites a number of sources that suggest that pronounceable words are more likely to be perceived accurately, and that learners may avoid attending to phonologically problematic words. While there is a major similarity between the learners first language and the target language functions, there will be a bigger determinant of difficulty. b) Part of speech: There are some researches that suggest that learners learn nouns faster than other parts of speech, at least in the early stages. There are a few explanations for these researches. Nation (1990) suggests that the meaning of nouns can be guessed from context more easily than the meaning of verbs. Other explanation is that learners initially concentrate on nouns because they are more useful when decoding and encoding messages. Ellis (1984) says that verbs are omitted more frequently than nouns because they are not so important when receiving a message. Finally, Ellis and Beaton (1993) suggest that nouns may be easier to learn than other parts of speech because they are more imageable. c)Distinctiveness of word form: learning a word that has its own uniqueness is easier than learning a word that is similar to some other word. According to a study made by Huckin and Bloch (1993) learners allowed word shape to override contextual factors. For instance, one learner misread optimal as optional. It is interesting to note that the words causing the problem begin and end with the same letters being differentiated by letters in medial position. d) Length of word form: It is easy to believe that for learners it is better to remember monosyllabic than polysyllabic words. Meara (1984) reports that Chinese learners of L2 English were found to have an unexpected difficulty with long words. However, Meara suggests that the reason of this is that there is a need of putting more effort and time to process and remember polysyllabic words. Other factors are that long words may be less pronounceable than short words. Also, as Laufer (1997) says, in a language as English, shorter words tend to be more frequent in the input. Input factors Krashen (1994) expressed that comprehensible input is all that is necessary for second-language acquisition (Krashen, Stephen (1994). The input hypothesis and its rivals. In Ellis, Nick.  Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages. London: Academic Press. pp.  45-77.  ISBN  978-0-12-237475-3.) Krashen (1981) also said from some of his studies that the length of time a person stays in a foreign country is closely linked with his level of language acquisition. Cook, Vivian (2008).  Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. London: Arnold.  ISBN  978-0-340-95876-6. For further more evidence, Cook (2008) suggests that input comes from studies on reading: large amounts of free voluntary reading have a significant positive effect on learners vocabulary, grammar, and writing. Input is also the mechanism by which people learn languages according to the  universal grammar  model. Krashen, Stephen (1981a).  Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. New York: Pergamon Press.  ISBN  0-08-025338-5. Retrieved 2011-02-28. Interactional factors Ellis refers to interactional factors when the interaction provides more input that becomes more prominent to learners, and also she says that learners can acquire vocabulary from non-interactional input through different techniques, as teacher-discourse, which includes definition, conjunction, elaboration, among others. Learner factors Ellis suggests that the factors that are related directly with learners may be combined with different variations while the acquisition occurs, due to their background knowledge, procedural knowledge, second language vocabulary size, morphological knowledge, and learners L1. EVIDENCE: In the past, it was believed in the proposition that most vocabulary was learned incidentally through the argument that learning from context is the only way to account for most vocabulary acquisition and for the close relationship between the growth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension ability. (e.g., Nagy Anderson, 1984; Sternberg, 1987). Some researchers have investigated the subject matter and have shown evidence that vocabulary can be incidentally learnt through the exposure to reading comprehension texts. On one hand evidence presented from a case study of a Japanese ESL speaker studying anthropology at an American university (Parry, 1993) demonstrated her incremental vocabulary growth over time through repeated encounters with given words in the course textbook. Experimental evidence of incidental vocabulary growth has been reported in research on secondary school students learning pseudo- L1 words and rare L2 words (Hulstijn, 1992), in which significant-if quite low-incidental learning of target words occurred from a single encounter in a 900-word text. Similarly, an experiment that required adult ESL learners to read and subsequently recall stories demonstrated retention of some low-frequency L2 words first encountered in a 300-word expository text (Joe, 1995). A more complete study by Paribakht Wesche, 1997 was based on tracked vocabulary learning by 38 intermediate-level university ESL learners in a thematic reading program under Reading Only and Reading Plus instructional conditions, each program requiring equivalent class time. Learners experienced two thematic units for each treatment, thus acting as their own controls. In Reading Only, learners read selected texts on two themes (a total of four texts) and had to answer comprehension questions. The texts provided multiple exposures to a number of nouns, verbs, and discourse connectors that had been identified as generally unfamiliar to students at this level of ESL proficiency. In the Reading Plus treatment, students had to read four texts on two themes and then carried out text-based vocabulary activities targeting the same set of words. Gains in both treatments were measured by pre and post-administration of the target word list using the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS; Paribakht Wesche, 1993; Wesche Paribakht, 1996), an instrument that was developed not only to measure the number of words learners knew to some extent but also to identify different levels of knowledge ranging from the recognition of the word; its meaning and also the ability of learners to use the word grammatically correct in a sentence. The results between known versus unknown words before and after instruction on the VKS indicated significant gains in both treatments, although Reading Plus led to greater gains. After the Reading Only treatment, learners knowledge of target words tended to remain at the recognition level, whereas after the Reading Plus treatment many learners were able to write sentences using the new words. These findings were interpreted to mean that, although multiple encounters with given words during reading leads to increased knowledge of the words, a combination of reading and text-based exercises demanding different kinds of analysis and practice of the words is more effective for vocabulary learning. Despite the more favorable results of Reading Plus, the significant gains in Reading Only are arguably of greater practical significance for language learn Reading and Incidental L2 Vocabulary Acquisition. The concept of glosses dates back to the Middle Ages, but it has been largely studied by researchers until late in this century. Glosses provide a short definition or an image in order to facilitate reading and comprehension processes for L2 learners. Nation (1983) defined glosses as short definitions; Pak (1986) refers to them as explanations of the meanings of words. Glosses are usually located in the side or bottom margins, and they are most often supplied for unfamiliar words, which may help to limit continual dictionary consultation that may hinder and interrupt the L2 reading comprehension process. Many studies have confirmed that a gloss is more useful than no gloss for incidental vocabulary learning. Hulstijin, Hollander and Greidanus (1996) have examined the effectiveness of glosses on incidental vocabulary learning. They studied the influence of marginal glosses, dictionary use, and the reoccurrence of unknown words on incidental vocabulary learning. Recently, researchers have become interested in which gloss type is more effective, and whether there are any differences between different glosses, for example, between single glosses and multiple-choice glosses (Duan Yan, 2004; Miyasako, 2002). Miyasako (2002) compared multiple-choice glosses and single glosses and found there was no difference between the multiple-choice and single glosses in their effect on vocabulary learning. Duan Yan (2004) also examined the effects of multiple-choice glosses, single glosses and no glosses. The results indicated that both multiple-choice glosses and single glosses significantly promoted incidental vocabulary learning, while multiple-choice glosses were better than single glosses in incidental vocabulary learning. Others studied the effects of sentence-level L1 translations on incidental vocabulary learning. Grace (1998, 2000) tested the effects of sentence-level L1 translations on incidental vocabulary learning, while Gettys et al. (2001) compared the glosses of sentence level L1 translation with the glosses of dictionary form L1. Grace used sentence-level L1 translations to replace word definitions or explanations and found that the translation glosses were very effective, while Gettys et al. found that the dictionary form glosses were more effective than sentence-level translation glosses.

Essay --

Child beauty pageants have changed so much since the 1960’s. Children beauty pageants used to be about the children and having fun. Now, it seems like most children are being forced in these pageants by their parents, looking unnoticeable from all the heavy makeup they wear, fake hair, teeth and nails they use. Children being abuse, sexualize, having self-esteem problems etc in these pageants. Many people have questioned this sport and wonder if it should be ban? In this paper, I have augured and provided facts and information on why children beauty pageants should be ban.  Children Beauty Pageants Should Be Ban Seeing children as small as 0-month old to 12 years old in beautiful dresses, showing off their talents and competing to win cash and tiaras may seem cute. Today many mothers are taking the pageants to a completely different level. Do you think dressing a three year old as a prostitute for a movie theme pageant is appropriate? No, it is completely inappropriate and that is exactly what Wendy Dickey did to her three-year-old daughter Paisley Dickey in a film theme beauty pageant on TLC’s â€Å"Toddlers and Tiaras†. Wendy thought by dressing her daughter as a prostitute like Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman was going to â€Å"wow† the judges but just created controversy all over. Children beauty pageants may seem to be cute, but today it is a concern among many people on whether children beauty pageants should be ban because of what goes on in the pageant world that we do not see and the outcome and future of these children. When beauty pageants became a part of the American society in 1920, it also became a marketing tool. In 1921, in the state of New Jersey, in Atlantic City beauty pageants were used to make tourist stay... ...beauty pageants is that their parents wants fame. On one of TLC’s hit show â€Å"Toddlers and Tiaras†, there was an episode about a girl name Alan Thompson. Alan was new to the beauty pageant world, from being on that show and competed in a beauty pageant on the show the network gave Alan and her family a spin-off show which we all know â€Å"Here Comes Honey Boo Boo†. Here comes Honey Boo Boo is the top rated show on TLC as of right now. Alan and her family is famous now and since getting her own reality show and recognition she have not compete in any more beauty pageants. When you think about it if she really loved doing beauty pageants and was passionate about it she would still be doing it. I think her mother exploited her daughter in the beauty pageant world so she can get fame and money. I personally find that disgusting because I see it as selling your child for money.

King Duncan’s murder marks the beginning of MacBeth’s downfall Essay

Who can be held most responsible for this? In this essay I am going to be discussing who was mainly to blame for MacBeth’s downfall. I am going to be looking at Lady MacBeth, the Three Witches and MacBeth himself. Shakespeare wrote this play for King James 1. The moral of the play demonstrates respect for the King and how there would be chaos if his authority was disrupted. Shakespeare shows us this when King Duncan is murdered, even nature is upset – horses go wild and start to attack each other, owls shriek and many more strange things happen. This idea would have pleased King James because in Shakespearian times Kings and Queens believed that they were chosen by God to rule over a nation. The play illustrates that killing a King would be like disobeying God’s will. King James 1 was obsessed with witches and Shakespeare’s use of them in ‘MacBeth’ would have pleased the King further. James believed that witches caused evil and they were the work of the devil. So when they appear to MacBeth in the play, and could ultimately cause his downfall due to their predictions, the King would have approved of this, and so approved of Shakespeare’s work. I am now going to discuss in further detail, how Lady MacBeth could be to blame for MacBeth’s downfall. Lady MacBeth first appears in the play speaking a soliloquy. This has a dramatic effect on the audience in that we can see inside her mid as she speaks. We get the impression that she doesn’t think that her husband is capable of ruling over Scotland. She thinks that he is too weak by saying, ‘†¦ yet I do fear that thy nature is too full o’th’milk of human kindness’. She also thinks that if MacBeth got to be king, he could and would only get there by going good, and this is not prepared to do any evil to get there. She says, ‘What thou wouldst highly, thou wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win’. From her soliloquy we can learn that Lady MacBeth comes across as not really knowing her husband, and that she is mean and evil. The audience really get to see into her thoughts. But we start to think, ‘does she know the true MacBeth?’ as further on in the play she is not at all surprised by what her husband can do. In Act 2 Scene 2, we really begin to see the how Lady MacBeth can influence MacBeth and how unemotional she is. She finally persuades MacBeth to murder King Duncan, and after he has carried out the deed, she shows no remorse and no emotion to MacBeth when he is worried. She says that if Duncan hadn’t reminded her of her father, she would have killed him herself, ‘Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t’. However, here we see that she does have some kindness, but it wasn’t enough for her to stop Duncan from being killed. She is ultimately evil and nothing can deter her from it. In the same scene she goes on to say that MacBeth shouldn’t worry about what they have done, ‘These deeds must not be thought of after these ways; so, it will make us go mad’. This is significant in the play, as in the end, Lady MacBeth does herself go mad. She starts to sleep walk and tries to wash imaginary blood off her hands. In the end her guilt gets too much for her and she kills herself. I think that Lady MacBeth cannot be blamed for MacBeth’s downfall. She did contribute to some of it, as she emotionally blackmailed him into doing her work. The other murders that MacBeth committed, they were on his own and Lady MacBeth had nothing to do with them. We could maybe say that she started him off with the realisation that he could actually kill King Duncan when MacBeth told her about the witches. But MacBeth already had the thought of murder in his head before she said anything to him. In Shakespearian times all of the audience of ‘MacBeth’ would have believed in witches. Witches symbolised the devil. People thought that they were a source of evil, and so they were very superstitious about people acting ‘differently’. In ‘MacBeth’, Shakespeare introduces the witches as being very strange characters. He describes the, as, ‘†¦ so withered and wild in their attire, that look not like th’inhibitants o’th’earth’, ‘†¦ by each at once her choppy finger laying upon her skinny lips; you should be woman and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so’. From this we can create a picture in our minds of very wild and weird looking women. In Shakespearian times if anyone had looked like this they would have been branded as a witch and killed. When MacBeth and Banquo first meet the witches they are returning home from a victorious battle. The witches give them both predictions. To MacBeth they say, ‘All hail MacBeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis. All hail MacBeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor. All hail MacBeth, that shalt be King hereafter’. The witches don’t give MacBeth bad predictions they just tell him what will be in the future. Further on in the play, MacBeth returns to see the witches, forcing the, to tell him more predictions. They make apparitions appear to MacBeth. The first apparition, an armed head, enters and says, ‘MacBeth, MacBeth, MacBeth; Beware MacDuff, Beware the Thane of Fife’. The second apparition, a bloody child, now appears and says ‘†¦ Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm MacBeth’. Finally the third apparition appears, a child crowned with a tree in his hand, and says to MacBeth, ‘Be lion – melted, proud and take no care, who chafers, who frets, or where conspirers are. MacBeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to High Dunsinane shall come against him’. In all of the predictions that the witches and the apparitions have told him they have not actually mentioned murder. The witches cannot be blamed for the murder of King Duncan and MacBeth’s downfall. It was a personal choice of whether to act upon or ignore the predictions. Banquo chose to ignore them and never think of their evil again, whereas MacBeth decided to make sure that they came true. Shakespeare makes the witches look bad because they were what started MacBeth off with thinking he could be something greater than he already was. But the witches did seem to find great delight in MacBeth’s downfall. They could be said to be pure evil. They put thoughts into MacBeth’s head without the audience really realising it. I think that the witches planned all of this to happen. They wanted to think that they would have some part in MacBeth’s downfall. If they hadn’t of gone to him and said that he could be King, MacBeth would never have thought of it and he would never have broken down. The role of the witches was to produce temptation, choice and opportunity. Shakespeare was trying to get the message across that things shouldn’t always be thought upon. We can see this by how MacBeth was brought down from listening to the predictions, and Banquo wasn’t caught up in it all because he chose to forget about them. MacBeth, however, can be blamed for his own downfall. At the start of the play he is portrayed as being a hero by the Captain, ‘†¦ For brave MacBeth – well he deserves that name – disclaiming fortune with his brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution, like valour’s minion carved out in his passage†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢. King Duncan goes on to say, ‘O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman’. With what the Captain and the King say about MacBeth, we get the impression that we should look up to and think highly of him. When MacBeth first meets the three witches, he is confused by how they look. When they tell him their predictions he wants them to tell him more, ‘Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more’. He likes what they have said to him and straight away we get to see a darker side of him, ‘My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical shakes so my single state of man that function is smothered in surmise, and nothing is, but what is not’. This shows that MacBeth has an image or picture of murder in his mind. The thought of murder is already there. Ultimately MacBeth had the choice to either kill or not kill Duncan, and he chose to. He did it because he wanted to, even though there was influence. But MacBeth was a strong man and could have said no. In the end temptation took over and he acted upon it – he murdered King Duncan. MacBeth showed real evil by doing this – evil that was already inside of him, it couldn’t have been put there by somebody else, no matter how persuading they are. But Lady MacBeth and the Three Witches triggered this evil off. It made MacBeth go from a bold, valiant soldier, to a cold blooded killer. Shakespeare has put across the moral question, ‘why is there evil and suffering in the world?’. He has answered this by showing how people can just change when they are faced with temptation and opportunity – opportunity to be something bigger than they already are. He shows that most people can never be happy with what they have and that they strive to have something bigger and better – no matter what they have to do, and who they have to hurt to get there.

Philip Kitcher s Article Believing Where We Can Not Prove

In this essay I will comment on a paragraph in Philip Kitcher’s article entitled â€Å"Believing Where We Cannot Prove.† The paragraph says, â€Å"Like Tennyson, contemporary Creationists accept the traditional contrast between science and religion. But where Tennyson agonized, they attack. While they are less eloquent, they are supremely confident of their own solution. They open their onslaught on evolutionary theory by denying that it is a science. In The Troubled Waters of Evolution, Henry Morris characterizes evolutionary theory as maintaining that large amounts of time are required for evolution to produce â€Å"new kinds.† As a result, we should not expect to see such â€Å"new kinds† emerging. Morris comments, â€Å"Creationists in turn insist that this belief is not scientific evidence but only a statement of faith. The evolutionist seems to be saying, Of course, we cannot really prove evolution, since this requires ages of time, and so, therefore, you should accept it as a proved fact of science! Creationists regard this as an odd type of logic, which would be entirely unacceptable in any other f ield of science.† (Morris 1974b, 16). David Watson makes a similar point in comparing Darwin and Galileo: â€Å"So here is the difference between Darwin and Galileo: Galileo set a demonstrable fact against a few words of Bible poetry which the Church at that time had understood in an obviously naà ¯ve way; Darwin set an unprovable theory against eleven chapters of straightforward history which cannot be