Week 9: Blending Vocabulary

Articles read:

·         Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension (Andreea I. Constantinescu).

·         Online English-English Learner Dictionaries Boost Word Learning (Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov).

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Karla Diaz

My initial impression of this article was that finally I know how to deliver vocabulary. In both articles I noticed the importance that vocabulary has with respect of the others skills. Even though vocabulary it is not part of the four main skills, it is considered such a huge part when learning the second language. How can we listen, read and write new words if we do not know them? I like the fact that we can blend all the skills with vocabulary. Also, my favorite quote from the article was “Good readers have rich vocabulary” sometimes as teachers we forget the importance of reading; however, if we focus on enhancing this skill, we can closely relate reading comprehension with vocabulary.

I like the use of dictionaries when the meaning of the written form is not clear, but I did not know that monolingual dictionaries are designed for native speakers only. Fortunately, when I was reading this article I could find other types of dictionaries that help students with examples, and the word is highlighted for a better understanding. As a future teacher, I expect to teach the differences between a general use dictionary and the learner-use dictionary. I learned in a difficult way, and I do not want my students suffer the same. It is not the same write thousands of pages with new words, according with this article, it is recommendable to write only those useful words. If we do this, we will be capable to understand at least the 95% of any text.