12. Theoretical fundamentals of formation

OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMPETENCE IN LEXIS

In secondary school

1. VOCABULARY LEARNING AS CENTRAL TO LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 162

2. GOALS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY 163

12.3. MAIN FACTORS FAVOURING ACQUISITION

OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE VOCABULARY 163

12.4. FUNCTIONAL GROUPS OF VOCABULARY.

WAYS OF INCREASING THEM 165

12.1. Vocabulary learning as central to language acquisition

It is a well known fact that without mastering vocabulary it is impossible cither to exchange words in dialogical speech or understand any idea in read­ing or listening. Vocabulary learning is a central problem to language acquisi­tion, whether the language is first, second, or foreign. Lexical competence is at the very heart of communicative competence, and is a contributing factor of the ability to communicate a foreign language successfully and appropri­ately [28, 159; 58, 315; 60, 285, 297].

Some researchers recognize that developing lexical competence is to be given preference from the very beginning of teaching in comparison with any other components of foreign language communicative competence. They suppose it is lexical competence that provides students with the language for meaningful communication, in particular considering social contexts (formal and informal conversations). Along with this, most learners going to study a foreign language expect it is vocabulary they have to learn first of all, and it would be a mistake not to capitalize on these expectations [78, 9; 72].

But is it really possible to master and use all the words of the language? Even the biggest dictionaries can't include all of them because the composi­tion of vocabulary of every language changes constantly: under the influence of social and economic conditions of life new words enter the language, some become obsolete, others become weaker or less common in use and die out, some are used only in certain functional styles of the language.

Taking all this into consideration, methodology must give answers to key questions: What does it mean to know the word? Which words, combinations of words, lexical phrases, conversational formulas and collocations as well as what number of them do learners need to know?

12.2. Goals of teaching vocabulary

The goals of teaching foreign language vocabulary in a secondary school are

as follows: on the contents of the topics of the Syllabus to develop in students communicative lexical competence which would allow them within the scope of these topics to use a sufficient number of lexical units in oral speech inter­action and in writing, as well as to have a recognition vocabulary large enough to take part in speaking, reading, writing and listening.

To achieve the goals formulated it is necessary to analyze factors which would positively influence foreign language vocabulary acquisition.

12.3. Main factors favouring acquisition of foreign language vocabulary

Getting acquainted with new words in speech usage and not through trans­lation e. g.:

QUIET [kwaiBl] adj.

1. Electric cars are quiet, they don't make so much noise as usual cars do. When an electric car runs along the road its noise can't be heard in the rooms of the houses. Is the street you live in quiet?

2. There is much noise in a school house at intervals between the lessons. When after classes students leave the school, and the house becomes quiet. Why are the streets quiet in the morning?

3. In summer we stayed in a quiet little seaside town where there were a small number of cars and people. When there was no wind the surface of the lake was quiet. After JO p.m. everything in the town was quiet. In what season are resort towns quieter?

Studying meanings of words only through their translational equivalents as separate linguistic units in the way shown in the brackets (QUIET [kv/aizt] adj. — тихий, спокйний) doesn't favour learners' further usage of words in speech interaction. A French linguist of the 19-th century F. Gouin before visiting Germany had learned by heart a French-German dictionary, how­ever staying in Germany he was disappointed being not able to take part in speech interaction [28,159]. The unsuccessful experience induced him to find other more effective ways of mastering vocabulary. They consisted "in using situations, themes and actions for presenting vocabulary which are known as Gouin Sequences"[82, 5].

Rather often, even at intermediate and advanced stages, it is difficult for students to comprehend vocabulary units which have been studied. Some­times in authentic language words that have been mastered at early stages of teaching are difficult to understand. For example, it is rather difficult to un­derstand the usage of words in the following sentences "Those people knew zip about art.", "It was seen that she hasn't combed her transformation for a long time." though all the words are known. Besides this, in speech us­age sound-motor and sound-letter images of well known words can also un­dergo drastic changes, e. g.: "I wanna call her.", "Look at 'em back.", "Can o'beans, please." No doubt, such changes are to be also taught to students.

Another factor which favours vocabulary acquisition in a secondary school is ability to memorize a new word as a unity of its sound-motor and sound-letter images and meaning.

From the point of view of methodology it means that sound-motor, sound-letter and meaningful relationships of unknown words are to be formed in learners as early as possible. It especially refers to mastering words with tradi­tional spelling which are studied at the starting and beginning stages of teach­ing: daughter, mother, there, etc. and those words which, though they obey regular rules, require special linguistic knowledge which starters and begin­ners haven't acquired yet: name, these, table, little etc.

Reading and spelling habits of using such words are to be imprinted in learners' minds without any conscious-raising at the beginning stage. They are to be trained in producing sound-letter relationships of words they use with the help of techniques of imitative reading.

One more factor which facilitates memorizing unknown words is adequate comprehending and constructing grammatical forms of an unknown words. For example, in the following cases it is only learners' correct understanding of the grammatical category of the words in bold which can help them to de-I ermine their meaning: Those people who like watching or listening to football mutches are fans. At the concert Mum often fans herself with her programme. A cure-laden man is always busy. A careless person always has a lot of free time.

Clear meaningful contexts, in which such words are used, facilitate de-irimining their grammatical category and syntactical function, thus helping much in comprehending their meanings [28, 165; 60, 291].

Referring an unknown word to its word family also favours vocabulary ac-quisition. For example, if students know the words care п., to care v., careful adj., carefulness п., careless adj., carelessly adv., it will help them in compre­hending the word carelessness.

Highlighting a word family in a text or in a passage helps students to see the relationships of words and their functions. For the learners to see it better initial learning of authentic texts may be simplified and reconstructed by the teacher, e. g.:

Reading the text, define the meanings of the underlined words:

Л conductor of an orchestra must spend years studying music and must also learn how to conduct other musicians so they can play together. The proper conduct of each musician will contribute to the success of the performance [60, 287J.

So, knowledge of grammar also adds much to mastering vocabulary.

Knowledge of words' combinability is a factor which also can help avoid a great lot of difficulties in usage of new words, because combinability of trans-lational equivalents in the native and foreign languages in many cases is dif­ferent, for example, it is impossible to say in Ukrainian «домашне Micro» заметь «рщне Micro» while the combination "home town" is widely spread in English. As well as it is impossible to say in Russian «рельсовый путь», meaning a railway.

So, teaching combinability of words is a special aim of teaching vocabu­lary.

Guessing the meaning of unknown words from context is nearly the most important factor that facilitates understanding unknown words. This is a kind of cognitive curiosity which initiates in a reader a strategy of finding such clues to an unknown word which help to comprehend its meaning [60, 290; 29; 79, 201].

Finding clues of a word is closely connected with division of vocabulary into several functional groups.