It is important for teachers to master the means of presenting word meaning. One of the means used to present the meaning of a lexical item (word) is translation; this traditional means is very often used in monolingual classes and has some advantages.
One of the advantages is that translation is a direct path to the meaning of a word; this happens when the word in the foreign language and the equivalent word in the native language match very closely. Thus, translation is economical and also helps learners to approach incidental vocabulary which may appear during lessons.
There are however some disadvantages when using translation excessively. Learners do not succeed in developing independent vocabulary in the foreign language; they use the foreign words by thinking about the equivalent native words and by not accessing the foreign word directly. In other words, students do not think in the target language they need to learn. In the case of English, students should work out the meaning of a word by making use of other simple English words in a certain context; if they do this, they will think directly in English.
One of the simple alternatives to translation, especially when presenting concrete objects, is the attempt to illustrate or demonstrate those objects. This approach may be achieved if the teacher uses real objects which are named “realia”; the teacher can also use pictures or they can mime. Demonstrations, realia and pictures are used as a technique belonging to the Direct Method; this approach is suitable first of all for teaching beginners, especially if the learners are mixed from the point of view of their nationality.
The above technique was reclaimed by the supporters of a method called “Total Physical Response” (TPR). According to this method, teachers use the classroom environment by bringing things into this environment (real objects), by demonstrating certain actions which have to be performed by learners as a response to certain commands such as: “Point to the lemon tree”; “Give the pear to John”; in this case, plastic fruit can be used as realia.
The visual aids can be divided into types such as: flashcards, pictures, drawings or images projected on the board or on the wall through OHPs (overhead projectors). These aids are not used only for presenting new lexical items (words), but they are also used to practice these vocabulary items.
When they want to illustrate meanings of words, teachers can rely upon real objects, upon demonstration or upon illustration; but the efficiency of all these is however limited; these devices can hardly represent physically the meaning of abstract words such as “forgive”, “become” or “sarcasm”.
There are also words which appear incidentally; for these words, teachers will not have realia or visual aids within reach. The teacher has to think of an alternative solution in order to transmit the meaning of a word and the solution is that of using other words which are verbal means of explaining meaning; these means are non-visual and are the bases of dictionary definitions.
In order to put to work these means of transmitting meaning, teachers should provide example situations, should give example sentences, synonyms or antonyms and also should provide full definitions.
The procedures mentioned above need to be combined when they are used; these procedures also have to be combined with drawings and mime (visual means). It takes longer to verbally explain a word than to explain it through visual means, mime or drawings.
The verbal explanation of words has some evident advantages; it provides students with more listening and even reading practice and it helps them think in English when they are trying to explain words by themselves and to get to the heart of a word. If we want our students to get to the heart of words, the explaining words must be simple and within their capacity to use and understand those words.
One of the verbal means of presenting vocabulary is creating examples of situational presentations; the situational presentation consists of a context story or scenario in which the target words appear. We may for example create a situation for presenting the words “terrified/ terrifying”.
It is advisable for teachers to support the mentioned-above situational presentation with gestures, drawings or pictures; in this way, the presentation can be hardly forgotten by students.
The teacher and the students can tell their own story meant to contextualize the words “terrified/terrifying”; even if it takes a lot of time to do this, students have the opportunity to practice speaking and listening starting from only two words.
Another means of presenting vocabulary is represented by the example sentences; these sentences are in fact contexts in which the target word appears. The teacher should provide students with as many example sentences as possible in order to cover the meanings of a word.
Starting from the variety of sentences, learners can be capable of inducing the meanings of the presented word; hence, students make use of the process of induction (they start from examples and finally work out the meaning or meanings of that word). The teacher has to permit learners to hear the sentences as many times as they think it is necessary. For example, students may be provided with a variety of sentences with the word “call”.
In order to induce the meanings of the above word, students could write down the example sentences; the teacher can elicit from them a translation of the word “call” in their native tongue especially if the whole class has the same mother tongue; the teacher can also try to elicit a synonym or even a definition or definitions.
There are advantages of teachers’ using example sentences. The learner hears the word many times and he/she will remember it after a long time; students can also form their own collocations and can detect grammar features such as: “regular verb”; “transitive verb” or “countable noun”.
It is worth mentioning that teachers’ use of quick explanations, synonyms, antonyms is very efficient and useful especially when learners come across vocabulary which appears incidentally (on the spot); this means that teachers or even students gloss (explain) the incidental words.
Let us now pay attention to another means of presenting meaning: definitions; they are associated first of all with dictionaries. We can divide dictionaries into conventional dictionaries and learners’ dictionaries.
The advantages of learners’ dictionaries are that they explain words through other words which are accessible to students; they offer layered definitions covering all meanings; these layered definitions consist of short statements; each of the short statements includes the target word; learners’ dictionaries combine the short statements from definitions with example sentences easy to be understood by students.
The layered dictionary definitions are in fact layers of meaning or in other words shades of meaning. Learners’ dictionaries use all the techniques mentioned by now because they also offer synonyms and antonyms.
In conclusion, the process of teaching and learning the meanings of words is a gradual one and allows all of us enrich our vocabulary and adapt to communicative situations. Meanings of words and grammar constitute the bases for acquiring the four skills.
Bibliography
Jones, L. 2007. The Student-Centered Classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rodgers, T. 2001. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University.