UNIT 3

PHONOLOGY

The concept of phonology is the study of sound features that we use to communicate in a language.Those features include phoneme, word stress, sentence stress and intonation. Analyzing each one we have that a phoneme is considered a small unit of sound that helps to differentiate the meaning in a language also a phoneme distinguishes one word from another e.g./s/-/sh/ in sock and shock (Spratt, Pulverness, and, Williams,2011). The phonetic chart represents each phoneme in a language and it is divided into three categories vowels. diphthongs, and consonants. Then, the word stress is the syllable in which it puts more force of voice and it is represented by this sign ' or also could be underline e.g. important. On the other hand, the sentence stress is a useful process to understand the real meaning of the sentence.Commonly one word in a sentence has primary or main stress that indicates the word is really important for the speaker and the other words could not be relevant and it has secondary stress. The last feature is intonation, which is important because it shows the meaning through the changes of the level of the voice. According to Roberson (1946) is crucial to diagnose the legitimate pronunciation in order to evaluate not only the different difficulties but also the needs that learners have to improve. For that reason including real models of listening in classroom promote the real pronunciation. Also including phonetic transcription on the wall is a good strategy so the learner can look them every day(Hayes,2011).

References:

ü  Sprat, M. Pulverness, A. & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Modules 1,2,3. Second Edition.

ü  Hayes, B. (2011). Introductory phonology (Vol. 32). John Wiley & Sons.

UNIT 2

LEXIS

The term lexis is the word or set of words which has a meaning. According to Scrivener (2005) defines the word lexis such as a combination of words that we can use without a previous knowledge of grammar. On the other hand, words have various types of meaning between them we have denotative, connotative and vocabulary item. The first one, denotative meaning that is the direct primary meaning or the exact meaning e.g. the definition of a tree in dictionaries. Second, connotative that refers to a word can be used in a figurative way or it can have an imaginative e.g. the tree of the life. Then, the third meaning is the vocabulary item which depends on the situation or context that is used. In this case, the meaning is defined to their form. It includes affixation. For instance, prefixes adding at the begging and suffix adding at the end to base words. Also includes, compounds which are words that come together to give a new meaning different as an individual word meaning e.g. bookshop. Furthermore, collocations are a group of words which frequency happen together e.g. arrive at. Additionally, include idioms, fixed expression because these sometimes can be changed, completely different than chunks, one piece of language with specific meaning. (Spratt, Pulverness,and, Williams,2011). The activity that I will apply is the use of flash cards in order to use affixation for explaining the meaning of the different words. To conclude, teachers need to know some teaching ideas about the importance of lexis in order to get student communicate in English in a fluent accurate and natural way.

(This video explains some ideas to teach lexis during the class.Also, the importance of this in the development of fluency and accuracy.)

References:

ü  Sprat, M. Pulverness, A. & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Modules 1,2,3. Second Edition.

ü  Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning teaching (p. 227). Macmillan Education.

http://www.tv411.org/vocabulary/understanding-how-words-work/what-makes-compound-word

ü  Train Me To Teach (2016). YouTube. Retrieved 17 April 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K0qgnw4MPY

UNIT 1

GRAMMAR

In unit one, the purpose is to define important concepts such as grammar, the grammatical forms, and grammatical uses which are essential for learning a language.

First, grammar is the way of organizing and combining words o group of words in order to give a meaning. According to Haussamen (2003) Grammar is divided into two types of knowledge the one is subconscious knowledge, the way of the children develop the language ability without teaching it and the other one is conscious understanding that refers to be familiarized with sentences and how they work together in order to express a meaning.

Second, the grammatical forms are the way of how words are made and the representation in speech or writing. For instance, in the case of plural nouns that are represented by the base word and the letter s at the end. The grammatical forms could be identified in the parts of the speech (verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and pronouns), conjunctions, words with prefixes and suffixes. Furthermore, we can identify grammatical forms in grammatical structure (Spratt, Pulverness, and, Williams, 2011).

Then we have the grammatical uses that mean how grammatical structure is used to communicate or convey meaning. One example is the meaning of present simple that not only describe the present also it will describe future in a schedule. So, the meaning will depend on the context we want to express.

Finally, this unit was really helpful because I could understand the world of grammar and I need to take in mind that as a future teacher it is necessary to consider that learning particular grammatical distinctions takes much time (Zhang, 2009). For this reason, I will need to consider relevant topics to be taught according to the student knowledge or level.

References:

ü  Sprat, M. Pulverness, A. & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT course. Modules 1,2,3. Second Edition.

ü  Haussamen, B. (2003). Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers. National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock no. 18720: $17.95 members; $23.95 nonmembers).

ü  Zhang, J. (2009). Necessity of grammar teaching. International Education Studies, 2(2), 185.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1065690.pdf