| LEARNING PARTS OF WORDS (WORDBUILDING) |
V9 |
The aim of this leaflet
The aim of this leaflet is to introduce you to materials that you
may find useful if you want to learn common parts of words (e.g.
re-, bio- etc.) so that you can improve your ability to
guess the meaning of new words.
Useful materials in the SAC
Vocabulary textbooks
- Search on the SAC computer catalogue: under 'Language Skill'
choose Vocabulary and then Word-building
- Try English Vocabulary in Use (section on 'Word formation')
or A Way With Words 3 (units on 'Affixation' and 'Word-building
tables') — both on the Vocabulary shelf, Reading Writing
Area.
CD-ROMs
- Merriam Webster's Vocabulary Builder is for advanced
level users who want to learn Latin and Greek roots to expand
their vocabulary.
Learning tips
Here are some tips for learning vocabulary for speaking or writing
that you may find useful:
- Find lots of examples of how the words you want to use are used
in context (dictionaries, concordancers etc.)
- Make cards for each word. Write the word on the front of the
card; on the back, you can put its meaning, with any other information
that you like, e.g. the sentence it came from, other example sentences
from a dictionary, its pronunciation, other meanings of the word,
other grammatical forms (e.g. -ly, -ness etc.), collocations,
synonyms etc.
- If you make a vocabulary list or learn from cards, try changing
the order of the words when you learn them each time, so that
you don't just remember them in a fixed order. Writing out the
words as a wordprocessed file can help — it's then easy
to sort the words in different ways.
- If you are not sure which words you should spend your time on,
see the Advice Sheet Deciding Which Words
are Worth Learning (V2).
- For techniques about planning your learning so that you don't
become overloaded, see the Advice Sheet Organising
your Vocabulary Learning (V3).
- For techniques about remembering words that you have learned,
see the Advice Sheet Remembering Vocabulary
(V4).
Evaluating your progress
Here are some methods for checking on your progress that you may
like to try:
- Test yourself (or ask a friend to test you) on your knowledge
of a set of words over a period of time (e.g. one or two months)
— how well do you know the words now?
- Do a 'before' and 'after' test: at the beginning and end of
a period of learning (e.g. when you start and a couple of months
later) do the same test, hold a conversation or write a report
on the same topic etc. — this is a good way to see if you
have progressed.
- Ask an Adviser on duty
in the SAC for advice about evaluation.
- For more information, especially on checking your vocabulary
size, see the Advice Sheet Evaluating
your Vocabulary Learning (V5).
And Now...
If you would like any help or advice, or just a chat about your
progress, please get in touch - we are here to support your
independent learning! This is how you can contact us:
- see an Adviser,
on duty at the SAC Advice Desk (for details of advisers and their availability, please go to http://lc.ust.hk/~sac/sacadviser.html)
- e-mail lcsac (lcsac@ust.hk) with your query;
- ask at the reception counter of the SAC — if the receptionist cannot help you directly, s/he will pass your query on to one of the SAC advisers
Glossary
Collocations |
When two words often go together (i.e.
one follows the other in speech or writing), they are said
to collocate with each other. For example, an adjective that
often collocates with rain is heavy. Heavy rain,
therefore, is a collocation. |
Concordancer |
A computer program that searches through
a large collection of texts and then lists all the examples
of a particular word in context. |
Connected speech |
Fast, conversational spoken English -
i.e. the speaker does not stop to pronounce each word separately,
but produces a ‘stream’ of sounds joined together.
|
Synonym |
A word similar in meaning to another
word. |
Tapescript |
The text (written words) of a spoken
audio or video recording. Tapescripts are available for most
audiotapes in the SAC: ask at the SAC Office if you can't
find one for the tape you are using.
|
Note
The introductory leaflet in this series is the leaflet Learning
Vocabulary (V1).
This advice sheet is part of the Vocabulary series of leaflets
supporting independent language learning, produced by the HKUST
Language Center SAC team. This leaflet written by Richard Pemberton,
1998. Version 1. If you copy from this leaflet, please acknowledge
the source. Thanks. |
