Teaching vocabulary

Selection of vocabulary minimum

Under the principle of selection we understand the measurement of indications, on which the evaluation of the lexicon is organized.

In accordance with indications’ characteristics all the principles are distinguished into interrelated groups:

group - statistical principles:

- frequency (the total number of the word occurrence in the source or sources);

 

-range (words that occur across a wide variety of texts).

group - methodical principles:

thematic (related to the topics given in the curriculum);

semantic (words which reflect the main concepts of the topic, or situation);

learnability (spelling, phonological difficulties, syntactic properties, polysemy, false friends, cultural aspects).

group - linguistic principles:

combinability,

word-building value,

polysemantic words,

stylistic unboundedness.

The active (productive) vocabulary is used in oral speech, passive (receptive) is used in written speech. The active (productive) minimum of foreign language in schools includes approximately 1000-1200 words, passive (receptive) vocabulary is chosen in compliance of the active (productive) minimum.

The basic principles of selection of the active (productive) minimum vocabulary are:

semantic approach;

combinative approach;

stylistic approach;

frequency approach;

word-building value;

value of polysemantic words;

excluding synonyms;

excluding international words.

The criteria of selection of the passive (receptive) minimum vocabulary are:

derivability;

polysemantic character;

frequency and wide usage;

topical associations;

semantic and word-building value.