Words and their more common meaning that learners may know
Meaning in the story
Service (n): a system that provides something that the public needs, organized by the government or a private company
a complete set of plates, dishes, etc. that match each other
Capital (a): involving punishment by death; (of letters of the alphabet) having the form and size used at the beginning of a sentence or a name
(old-fashioned) excellent
Advance (v): if knowledge, technology, etc. advances, it develops and improves
[intransitive] to move forward towards 2.4.4. Compositionality
Word-part analysis might be helpful but there are deceptive cases, such as “slipper(s)”,
“hunger”; students may think that they refer to someone because of the ending “-er”.
Similarly, “ornament” could be referred to as an action or result of something because of the ending “-ment”. In the case of “transparent” although it looks as if it is combined of meaningful morphemes “trans-” and “-parent”, they could not be broken into parts. That word is referred to as “deceptive transparent word” by Laufer (2013).
2.5. Comprehension problems related to ‘idiomatic’ expressions
The story contains some “idiomatic” expressions that are likely to pose comprehension problems even though their constituent words look familiar.
Idiomatic expressions
Meaning Sentence from the story If only used to say that you wish
something was true or that something had happened:
“if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it.”
Nothing but only; no more/less than “nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind.”
In this paper, the instructional procedures for learning the facets of vocabulary knowledge are not discussed. My focus here is to identify lexical items that learners may benefit from additional information (more deliberate vocabulary learning instead of incidental learning from reading for pleasure) as regards three facets of vocabulary knowledge, especially the facets of form and use. Nation (2009, p.54-55) also suggests some activities that help boost vocabulary learning from extensive reading. He also claims that it is essential to support and supplement extensive reading with language-focused learning.
3.1. Form
3.1.1. Pronunciation and spelling
Students should notice and practice the pronunciation of new words (i.e. word families from K5 onwards). Words showing irregular correspondence between written and phonological form should be paid more attention to. For example, ‘lustre’ /ˈlʌstə(r)/, and
“carriage” /ˈkærɪdʒ/ is likely to be wrongly pronounced */ˈlʌstrə(r)/ and */ˈkærɪeɪdʒ/ by Vietnamese students because of the sound /tr/ and the ending “-age” . Teachers should instruct students to use dictionary when they are not familiar with the pronunciation of those items. When they check their dictionary, they will also notice that “lustre” is also spelled “luster” and pronounced /ˈlʌstər/ in American English. Using dictionary while reading should also make reading more favourable (Knight, 1994), but this will prolong the time to finish reading (Hulstijn, 1993).
3.1.2. Word parts
Using word parts to remember the meaning of a word is an important vocabulary-learning strategy (Nation, 2007, p.73). Learners should know the most frequent and regular affixes so as to recognize them in words and to re-express its meaning basing on the meaning of the word parts. Teachers should drive learners’ attention to the compositionality of words so as to raise their awareness of using word-part strategies. For example, the meaning of “darkness”, “suspicion”, “expression”, “famously”, “terribly”,
“deliciously”, “delightfully”, “formerly”, “rosy” could be inferred from its stems and suffixes (“-ness”, “-cion”, “-sion”, “-ly”, and “-y”); the meaning of the transparent compounds “livelong”, “bareheaded”, “tablecloth” could be inferred from their compositions (“live” + “long”; “bare” + “headed”, “table” + “cloth”).
3.2. Meaning
The cases of polysemy and idiomatic expression as analysed above provide opportunities for broadening learners’ vocabulary knowledge. First, learners should be encouraged to use “service” (n), “capital” (a), and “advance” (v) with their less common meanings. Crossley, et al. (2010) claims that mastery of polysemy is a hallmark of higher proficiency. Second, students should be aware that some idiomatic language in the story consists of high-frequency words, such as “if only”, “nothing but”, and but a basic understanding of the literal meaning of these words will not suffice to understand the
idiomatic expressions (Martinez & Murphy (2011); hence, while reading or listening they should be careful of these of expressions and they should learn to use them.
3.3. Use
3.3.1. Grammar
Vocabulary and grammar are inseparable because every word has its own grammar.
Teachers should remind students that with new words (from K5 onwards), they should study information of part of speech and grammatical patterns they fit into as they appear in the text. This might be done when they have finished reading or while reading the story.
3.3.2. Constraints on use
Nation (2007, p.59) claims that “the constraints on vocabulary use are more closely related to meaning, and would benefit more from explicit learning”. One way of getting the knowledge of constraints on use of words is to look at the “style values” or usage labels in dictionaries (Cassidy, 1972; Hartmann, 1981 as cited in Nation, 2007, p.84). Therefore, teachers might explicitly explain that: “sorrow”, “ascends”, and “hitherto” are often used in formal situation; “stark” may express disapproving meaning; “urchin” is an old-fashioned word; “maiden” is often used in literary style. On the other hand, when dictionary skills are needed to developed, students should be reminded that some new words from K5 to K9 in the story are used in some specific situation, and they need to find out about these for themselves when checking them in their dictionaries.
3.3.3. Collocation or multiword expressions
Knowledge of collocations or multiword expressions should not be restricted to new vocabulary items; some familiar words may appear in new collocation or multiword expressions. Let’s first consider the collocations or multiword expressions with the words from K5 onwards:
K5: dreadfully fast, a picture of sorrow, roast goose, almost numbed with cold, straw and rags, brass ornament, became transparent, large iron stove, splendid porcelain service, soul ascends to God, stiff and stark.
K6: large slippers, the little maiden, old apron, dried plums, dump wall.
K7: had hitherto worn.
K8: in the lustre
K9: scuffled away, cowered together K10: burnished brass feet
K14: a single farthing, a farthing of money
Other noticeable collocations or multiword expressions of higher proficiency words that students should also learn (incidentally or deliberately) are as follow:
- Compounds: snow-white
- Uninterrupted word strings: of course, New Year’s Eve,
- Collocation: terribly cold, naked feet, a bundle of, cold and hunger, flakes of snow, long fair hair, beautiful curls, a world of comfort, bright flame, wonderful light, burn brightly, steaming famously, knife and fork, magnificent Christmas tree, star falls, expression of love, the whole bundle of matches, brilliant light, cold hour of dawn, rosy cheeks, smiling mouth, slightest suspicion.
- Idioms: the whole livelong day, if (she) only (dared), nothing but (the thick, cold, damp
wall), nowhere to be found.