Download English for Academic Skills Independence [EASI]

English for Academic Skills
Independence
[EASI]
Session 3
Vocabulary
A quick review
From Session 2 on formal vs informal language.
We should avoid using informal language in academic writing.
Share with a partner some examples for each of these types of
informal language:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Informal/slang words
Contractions
Personal pronouns
Generalisations
Vague language
Phrasal verbs
Incomplete sentences (fragments)
By the end of this session you will be able to …
• list the nine parts of speech and give examples of
each
• locate a word family on the Academic Word List
(AWL) & Academic Vocabulary List (AVL)
Parts of speech
• For example: nouns, verbs…
• There are how
many parts of speech ?
nine
• The 9 parts of speech are:
nouns
verbs
adjectives
adverbs
conjunctions
prepositions
determiners
pronouns
interjections
Which part of speech?
Facebook has become enormously popular throughout the world.
adverb
noun
verb
preposition
adjective
noun
determiner
Which part of speech?
Facebook has become enormously popular throughout the world
adverb
noun
verb
preposition
adjective
determiner
and it offers numerous social opportunities, OMG!
conjunction
verb
pronoun
adjective
adjective
noun
noun
interjection
Part of Speech
Function
Examples
noun
a person, place, thing, quality, or act
teacher, Manukau, table, kindness,
swimming
verb
indicates doing, sensing, thinking, saying,
being, or having
study, hear, believe, argue, seem, own
adjective
describes a noun
studious, difficult, peculiar
adverb
describes a verb, adjective, or adverb
quickly, completely, very
conjunction
joins words, phrases, or clauses
and, but, because
preposition
describes a relationship between a noun or
pronoun and other words in a sentence
of, to, from
determiner
refers to someone or something
a, an, the, his, her, this, that
pronoun
replaces a noun or noun phrase
he, she, it, him, her, this, that, who
interjection
describes a sudden spoken statement
ouch! wow! sheesh! lol!
Academic Word List (AWL)
• List of words - appear with high frequency in
English-language academic texts
• 570 word families divided into 10 sublists
•
- Sublist 1 - 60 most common words
•
- Sublist 2 - next most frequently used words etc
• AWL words occur frequently in a range of academic
subjects (Arts, Commerce, Law and Sciences)
Communicate
• From AWL Sublist 4
• How many words in this family?
– Visit the EASI webpage and locate the AWL sublists in the
Learning resources area – Session 3 Vocabulary
• communicate:
communicable, communicated, communicates,
communicating, communication, communications,
communicative, communicatively, uncommunicative
Academic Vocabulary List (AVL)
• New list based on the Corpus of Contemporary
American English (COCA)
• Shows the 20 most frequent collocates (nearby
words)
• Has 200 examples of each word used in sentences
AVL Task
Google: “wordandphrase.info”
Look up the word communicate
What are three synonyms?
Which prepositions are often used after this
word?

Which subject discipline uses this word the
most?
http://www.wordandphrase.info/academic/frequencyLi
st.asp


What are the missing parts of speech?
noun
verb
• In conclusion, this essay has identified that Facebook
noun
adverb
potentially offers interesting innovations for learning
and teaching at tertiary level, although it also
verb
adjective
involves particular inherent issues for both students
and teachers.
Vocabulary size
• If are interested in finding out the approximate size
of your vocabulary:
– http://my.vocabularysize.com
– http://www.lextutor.ca/tests/
– http://www.lextutor.ca/tests/levels/productive/
Vocabulary exercises
• Vocabulary Exercises for the Academic Word List
• Vocabulary learning
– http://www.vocabulary.com/
• If you need more information about parts of speech:
– Parts of speech 1
– Parts of speech 2
Reading
• Extensive reading helps vocabulary development
– AUT library and Auckland libraries have graded readers to
3000 word level at 428.64
Auckland libraries are free to join and use:
http://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/
They have a growing collection of ebooks.
Find books that are interesting for you and read as much as
possible. Read a book before you go to sleep!