Page 100 - Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies 2009

Chapter 5: Standing in the Spotlight: Presenting to the Class
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Conveying connotations
Certain words imply emotions or attitudes – they have connotations.
Think of one of those famous supermodels. Which of these words would you
associate with her?
thin trim slim wiry skinny bony svelte twig-like
The word(s) you choose reveal whether you view her as truly attractive or not and this is what you teach with connotation.
You need to point out whether a word is positive, negative or neutral, a compliment or an insult. Failure to do this can leave students embarrassed because they may come across as rude or over familiar.
Fish and . . . ? Teaching
vocabulary in chunks
In English some words are often grouped together and seem to have an espe- cially close relationship. These are called collocations. For instance, even though the words ‘constructive’ and ‘criticism’ can be used perfectly well apart from each other, together they form a common phrase. ‘Positive criti- cism’ renders the same idea but just doesn’t sit right. It doesn’t collocate. Equally, it’s fine to say ‘very serious’ but ‘deadly serious’ is so much better and mirrors what a native speaker is likely to say. It’s collocation.
Going for more than one
Look for opportunities to teach chunks of language. Instead of teaching just one word, try teaching two or three all at once. One way of doing this is by highlighting collocations in reading texts. For example, ask students to under- line all the occurrences of a particular word in a text and see which other words come before or after it each time.
You can also reinforce collocations through multiple choice whereby you offer the students several logical possibilities to partner a word, but show that only one is the true match.