Ultimate Vocabulary – Vocabulary Building Software

Professional English Classes In The Philippines By Christopher R. Delacruz And AIEpro.com

September 27, 2013

Good English skills lead to global employment opportunities, and that’s something that the graduating students at the American Institute for English Proficiency know well. It’s also one of the reasons that the school’s founder, Christopher Delacruz, decided to focus on sharing and promoting English skills in the Philippines. With on-site classes in three different regions (Quezon City and Makati near Manila, and Baguio to the north) students from all over the islands can learn to speak, read, and write English at a professional level, and students coming from abroad can learn English while enjoying the warmth and hospitality of the Philippine culture. We talked to Christopher about the school and the courses offered there.

UV: In your site profile, you mention that “freedom” is an important goal for you. Is helping students get the freedom to work and travel using English skills one of the reasons you decided to start this English school in the Philippines?

CD: I was born in the Philippines, but I grew up in the United States. When I moved to the United States, I realized that there was a stark contrast between these countries in terms of “freedom,” which I define as “time and money to do things.” In the United States, there was more opportunity to go to good schools and to get good jobs; in the Philippines, however, the quality of education and the amount of employment available are very poor. Consequently, many Filipinos cannot find that freedom. After graduating from Seattle University with a degree in political Science and having worked in Las Vegas for seven years after that, I came back to the Philippines for what was supposed to be a short-term vacation. However, I decided to settle down in the Philippines when I saw that the country I left when I was young was still the same country I left many years ago, lacking opportunities for its people. I decided to open a school with a business partner to become a part of the solution.

UV: Many of your courses are designed to help people who already speak English fairly well. For example, your “Public Speaking and Grammar” course will teach students how to really polish their professional presentation skills. Are there courses for beginning students also?

CD: These courses were designed for a heterogenous group. The basic requirement is that students can already understand and speak basic English. Most Filipinos are already speaking fairly well, so they enjoy the classes. For foreign students who do not speak that well yet, they have to go through a remedial private or one-on-one class until we feel that they are qualified for the group classes.

UV: Companies who are considering setting up business in the Philippines need people with good English skills. What types of corporate training do you provide?

CD: We offer our courses to all companies. Some companies want the program tailor-fit for them, so we talk to the companies first what their goals are so that we can design the course specifically. We have worked with major multi-national companies and local firms.

UV: Back in 2011 you offered a “train the trainer” course that taught skills that ESL teachers and people in leadership roles need to best support their students and employees in English skills development. Are you planning on offering this popular course again?

CD: Yes, we normally offer this course when there is an interest. Otherwise, we concentrate on our regular courses. We recently had professors from a university enroll as a group.

UV: What is your English Club all about? Who can join the club?

CD: The English Club is an extension of our courses and the school. We believe that learning English or any language must go beyond the classrooms. The English club is our student’s venue to continue expressing themselves in English. We hold social and academic activities as well as community service events. We encourage all our students to take part in our activities so that they can continue practicing English. Everyone, including non-students can join the club.

Nourish Your Vocabulary Study With Idioms

September 25, 2013

Learning new words is important, but it’s also important to learn how those words are used. One of the problems for people learning a new language is that the words in common idioms can be hard to understand without the cultural background in the language. An idiom is a phrase in which the meaning of the individual words used doesn’t really translate to the meaning of the phrase as a whole. For example, the English idiom “raining cats and dogs” doesn’t mean that you’ve got hairy animals falling from the skies, just that the rain is particularly heavy. Whether you’re learning English as a second language, or adding a new language to your set of skills to help with work or travel, you’ll find that you fit in better with the people around you – and will certainly understand them better! – if you work on the idioms for that language.

Spanish Idioms

nacio con el pan bajo el brazo
Literal translation: born with bread under the arm
English equivalent: born with a silver spoon in your mouth
(to be born with all the advantages, like being in a wealthy family)

no me tomes el pelo
Literal translation: don’t take my hair
English equivalent: don’t pull my leg
(don’t try to fool me)

Italian Idioms

sei sempre in mezzo come il prezzemolo
Literal translation: you’re always in the middle like parsley
English equivalent: you’re always underfoot

far d’una mosca un elefante
Literal translation: to make an elephant out of a fly
English equivalent: to make a mountain out of a molehill
(to make a big deal out of something insignificant or unimportant)

French Idioms

plein comme un oeuf
Literal translation: full as an egg
English equivalent: filled to the top

occupe-toi avec tes oignons
Literal translation: take care of your onions
English equivalent: mind your own business

For more interesting idioms from around the world, check out Jag Bhalla’s book, “I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears.”

Get Serious About English Vocabulary At Jim Gould’s www.IntensiveVocab.com

September 24, 2013

If you don’t have a lot of time, but need to quickly improve your English skills by learning core vocabulary words, then you need to check out Jim Gould’s customizable quizzes at www.IntensiveVocab.com. He’s identified 1,400 key English vocabulary words that will give you a solid foundation that lets you develop your reading, writing, and conversational abilities. The customizable online quiz format allows you to easily brush up on your English vocabulary when you have an hour of free time, or even just a few minutes to spare. Whether you’re a student preparing for a standardized test like the SAT or a professional looking to advance in your field, you’ll find the resources Jim provides to be very useful.

UV: You’ve picked 1,400 key words for your vocabulary list, and also include another 1,000 words related to the key words, plus synonyms. Are you planning on adding more words to the list in the future?

JG: Yes, I collect words. As I accumulate new batches of words that would be useful additions to the list, I will add them. However, the current list is hand-picked to cover what’s needed for the SAT, as well as for professional life. For efficiency, you won’t find on the list very common words known by most school kids. What you will find are the less common words used by good writers and loved by the creators of the SAT.

UV: Anyone can use the free vocabulary quiz tools for either learning or review just by going to your website, but you also have a registration option. What are the benefits of registering as a student on the site?

JG: Registration simply lets the site remember you so you can leave the site and come back later and pick up where you left off. For efficiency, you don’t want to have to be quizzed again on words you know.

UV: Your “word of the day” utility e-mails new words daily to people who subscribe to the service, and that’s a great way to fit vocabulary study into even the smallest amount of free time. If a person is registered as a student on the site, do the words come from the list they’ve marked as “don’t know yet” or are the words all pulled from the main list?

JG: Currently, the words just come randomly from among all the words. However, it’s a good idea to tailor the list to the student. We’ll look into that!

UV: You’ve divided the quiz sections into “learning” and “review.” How important is review in vocabulary practice?

JG: It really depends on the student and his or her learning style. It’s a quick way to double check that you know the words.

UV: Learning vocabulary is more than just learning definitions – people need to know how to use the word correctly, as well. What support does your website provide to meet this need?

JG: Each of our words is shown in use in a sentence. And we have tried to keep our sentences lively or even amusing in some cases — the better to remember the word!

Use Clusters to Boost Comprehension

September 23, 2013

When you learn words in groups, you improve the way you learn to read and use them. That’s because your brain makes connections between the words, and that makes it easier to remember those words – and even easier to make more connections with new words in the future. Not only that, but learning groups of words is a great time-saver. Words that are connected by meaning or by topic naturally align themselves in mental order, and you’ll find that it’s just as quick to learn five connected words as it is to learn two words that aren’t related in any way.

Working with word clusters also helps you fine-tune your knowledge of definitions and usage. For example, look at these words:

distinguish
distinguished
distinguishing

At first glance, you might not thing that they’re all that different. After all, there’s a main word (root word) and that same word, which is a verb, with two different suffixes, one that generally refers to the past tense (-ed) and one that is used in the present tense (-ing). Doesn’t that mean that it’s three forms of the same verb?

Well, yes, that’s true. However, the verb itself has several different definitions, so even simply starting with the root word means that you’re already learning multiple meanings, and clustering those meanings around the base word.

Definition 1: to identify something based on a specific feature
Example 1: “An hourglass-shaped mark on the back will help you distinguish the poisonous spiders from their harmless relatives.”

Definition 2: to act as an identifying mark of such a difference
Example 2: “Blue flowers distinguish the hydrangea bushes that are planted in very acid soil.”

Definition 3: to barely see something against its background or surroundings
Example 3: “It is almost impossible to distinguish the mottled sculpin in the water when it sits motionless on the pebbles of the riverbed.”

Definition 4: to stand out due to achievement or accomplishment
Example 4: “She will distinguish herself and bring honor to her school as a whole if she wins the prize.”

In addition, the words distinguished and distinguishing aren’t just different verb forms, they’re also different parts of speech when they’re used as adjectives. Here’s the difference:

Verb: “The scientist distinguished two kinds of reactions in the chemical process.” (to identify something)
Adjective: “The distinguished scientist received the Nobel Prize for his research into the chemical process.” (standing out, being renowned)

Verb: “This lesson will teach you about distinguishing the different types of transitive verbs in Japanese and Korean.” (identifying something)
Adjective: “Heavy use of garlic is one of the distinguishing features of the cooking in this region.” (what makes something different)

And you don’t have to stop there with this particular word cluster! Add the words distinctive and distinct and distinction, distinctly and indistinct, and you’ll learn five more words that are also all related. You’ll stand out from the crowd when you’ve got word power like this!

Cross-posted at the 7 Speed Reading blog.

At EnglishWorld.biz, Chris Williams Brings English Speakers And Students Together

September 20, 2013

Getting a high score on the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) is an important goal for anyone interested in getting ahead in today’s global marketplace. The TOEIC focuses on business and is an essential requirement for being hired by many multinational corporations. Students aspiring to overseas universities also need to focus on the TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language), and the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) will open doors for school admissions, work opportunities, and more in Europe and around the world. In short, English is the language to learn, and people like Chris Williams are the ones to go to for quality instruction. At his school in Thailand, Chris helps people learn English and join the 21st-century workforce.

UV: You have been working as a trainer and instructor for many years, and started focusing on teaching English more recently. How did you apply what you learned in the IT and business world to the needs of ESL (English as a Second Language) students?

CW: Back in the mid 90’s I started teaching people how to use complex business systems such as SAP. I did a lot of research and found out about a new technique called “role based training”. We role based training, instead of teaching the users every aspect of the software; you teach them the basics of the interface and then how to do their job with the system. This makes the learning much simpler for them and also less scary as they already know how to do their jobs.

I use the same approach for teaching Business English by teaching learners how to do their jobs in English. I also use the technique to teach Academic English, for example when teaching difficult subjects like noun, adjective and adverb clauses I like to give lots of examples within a limited subject area. For instance, if I am teach IELTS writing task 1 focused on charts I teach them lots of clauses specifically related to the task. This helps to focus them on how the clauses work rather than having to also try to relate to many subject areas.

UV: You use a system called “Fobble Phonics” to teach younger children how to read and speak English. How did you come up with this approach, and what does it involve?

CW: About 4 years ago I became interested in developing my own system to teach children English. Over the years I tried many different ideas and many different types of software technology. About 2 years ago while researching best practice in teaching; I realized how important Phonics was becoming for teaching children in the UK. I decided to focus on phonics and based by system design on the UK governments guidelines for teaching phonics. A year later the government changed and they came up with a new and much more tightly focused way for teaching. I built these changes into my model which actually made the software development much easier because the task was now better defined.

My basic idea for the system revolves around the idea of building words and decoding words by moving the letters sounds around. The idea for Fobble Phonics comes from the word game scrabble. Instead of using letters I make tiles that have the phonic sounds such as “oa”, “ai” etc. I have recorded all of the Phonic sounds and when you touch or move over any of the tiles they sound out their phonic sound. The tiles are all drag-able and so can be used to build words. With just the 44 phonic sounds I can build just about any word in the English language. I even use it to teach university students how to pronounce difficult words such as psychology.

The system is designed primarily as an in-class teaching aid but can also be used by individuals. It can also be used by non-native English speaking teachers. I hope to get the system accredited by the UK Ministry of Education.

UV: You place a lot of emphasis on spoken English, and offer a very popular series of conversation-based classes. Do you ask native English speakers to lead the conversations?

CW: I teach in Thailand where the students are very shy and also where there are relatively few native English speakers for them to practice with. I do generally use native English speakers but I mainly use high quality audio visual materials. I try to get the students to learn whole sentence rather than words and grammar in isolation to they get word and sentence stress right. A good non-native can speaking teachers can teach using these sorts of materials. I like to create my own Flash based teaching interfaces to make it easier for teachers to use the materials rather than rely on CD players.

UV: In your Basic English class the teachers use the Thai language to explain the English language. Does this make more sense than an “immersion” approach in which only English is spoken?

CW: Children in England learn the language over a long period of time through extensive use. In Thailand teaching resources are too scarce and too expensive to make this possible. A way to speed up the process is to use their own language to explain concept and grammar.

In my phonics system I help the children to recognize the letter sound by using their own phonic alphabet. The Thai alphabet is very similar to the phonic alphabet with 44 sounds. By the age of 4 children know their own alphabet and the sounds. They can use this knowledge to give them a framework for understand the English phonic alphabet.

UV: As well as your on-site classes, you offer free English resources via your website. Is on-line education going to be your next focus?

CW: I started teaching at the time that computer based training was introduced; I became an e-Commerce project manager and trainer in the year 2000 and trained worldwide using the internet. A few years later I set up my own company developing and selling business web portal systems to small businesses. In 2004 and 2005 I won awards from the UK Department of Trade and Industry for the Best Use of Tele-working. We Used home-workers to outsource tasks from small business owners. We used many different forms of internet based training as part of this.

My Fobble Phonics program already runs on the internet and Android devices and most of my in-class Academic English teaching and Business and TOEIC is delivered using Flash on the internet. So yes, the next move will be to develop a secure site and payment system to host it. To do this I need to find investors with a passion for this type of activity.

Punctuation to Conjunction: A New Word For the English Language

September 18, 2013

The way a language is used in real life eventually leads to how the language is recorded and described in dictionaries and grammar books. Like all other languages, English changes as the world of English speakers change, and new words come into being as others are forgotten. You’re much more likely to hear or see the word redonkulous today than you are the word ruricolous, for example. Pronunciation of words also changes, as well as the way the words are spelled (toune is now spelled town, and as the BBC noted a few years ago, “Not only is housewifery no longer pronounced huzzifry, it is almost entirely obsolete as a word.”) And the way the words are used changes over time as well; the word luxury originally meant “sinful self-indulgence, debauchery” and was not a complementary term at all!

While pronunciation, spelling, and usage are fairly common changes, what’s not common is the creation of a word from a symbol. Of course, letters themselves are symbols, but we’re referring to things like punctuation marks. A good example of this is the use of the word “period” to mean “full stop, that’s all, that’s how it’s going to be.” Instead of just using a “silent period” at the end of a normal sentence, you can articulate the mark to add emphasis, like this: “You can check out three books or two DVDs, period.” English professor Anne Curzan recently noticed the appearance of another vocalized punctuation mark: the slash (/).

It’s not unusual to see a slashed used in written form to make a connection between words or phrases that are separate but related, as in the common grouping of and/or. However, you don’t say “and slash or” because it’s understood that the slash is there (a “silent slash” if you will). What Curzan wrote about in The Chronicle of Higher Education is the increasing use of /slash as a word that is spoken out loud, or written out in a sentence as a word instead of a punctuation mark. You can read Curzan’s article here.

“Slash” isn’t really a new word for the English language, but this new use for the word is an interesting development in modern English. We’ll have to wait and see if the Oxford English Dictionary adds this new definition in the future, making it “officially” English slash not just slang any more.

Easy, Effortless English: Tips From Fatih Erdem at www.Power-English.net

September 13, 2013

English is a difficult language to learn, but there are some ways that you can make the process easy. Learning English doesn’t have to be stressful, as long as you know the shortcuts, the most important points to focus on, and the common problems that can be quickly eliminated. Once you get a solid base to stand on, you can take the time to build the more complicated grammatical sentences that are the mark of a fluent English speaker. A good place to go for the essentials of English is the website set up by Fatih Erdem, www.Power-English.net. Whether you have a question about basic grammar rules, vocabulary improvement, or even slang terms, this website has your answers.

UV: You’ve collected a lot of good resources for learning English on your website. What made you decide to create this website and help people with their English skills?

FE: Well, in fact I am not a native speaker and I have been trying to improve my English for years. You know, schools and even special English courses are not enough to speak excellent English. Because, especially in my own country, they are using classical methods and boring textbooks to teach English. So, I tried and tried lots of different ways to improve my English speaking. And finally, I decided to build a website to help people with my experience. I wanted people to use best methods to learn English.

UV: Learning English vocabulary is important, but it’s also important to learn grammar so that you know how the words all fit together correctly. Do you recommend that people start by focusing on grammar, or on vocabulary?

FE: When I was searching the best methods for learning English, I red an article called “Children’s Secret” by Dr. J. Marvin Brown. I learned that children learn to speak their language without studying grammar rules. So English learners must focus on vocabulary an listening a lot, not focusing grammar rules. When I was a student in a high school, my grammar was fine and exam results was okay. But I wasn’t able to speak English fluently. It is very essential to learn vocabulary and phrases plus a lot of listening to speak English fluently.

UV: Many people learn basic English in school, but find they really need good English skills when they have the opportunity to get a new job overseas or with an international company. Where should these people go to get help with the language?

FE: After people learned basic English skills, especially speaking, they need to improve vocabulary in their specific area. In other words people needs to build their own business English vocabulary. To do that, they can use Ultimate Vocabulary builder software. This is very useful and handy feature that build people their own word list. Ultimate Vocabulary can help people get promoted, earn more money, and enjoy a successful life.

UV: Slang and idioms are often very hard for people to learn, because these phrases involve words that are generally not used in the normal way, with the standard definitions. For example, “hair of the dog” doesn’t have anything to do with hair, or a dog – it refers to a “morning after” drink to help get rid of a hangover. How can people learn, and practice using, expressions like this?

FE: Well, one of the most difficult part of learning English are slang and idioms. It is even difficult to find out their meaning in the general dictionaries. However, slang and idioms are very common in daily real English. You might speak English fluently and you don’t have to use lots of slang and idioms. But in order to understand native speakers correctly, you have to know their meaning.

This is where Ultimate Vocabulary come in. This is the most powerful vocabulary builder which I used. It is easy and fast to learn lots of new slang and idioms that are difficult to learn from textbooks. I highly reccommend Ultimate Vocabulary for English learners.

UV: You offer several English lessons as free MP3 downloads so that people can learn English anywhere. Are you planning on adding more material to this section soon?

FE: Yes, I think mp3 audio lessons is very useful to improve English listening and also speaking. You can put them into your phones and mp3 players and listen them everywhere and everytime again and again. So I search this kind of materials on the internet and use them for myself. Because of they are free I want to share them with people. I will add more listening materials in our free download page soon.

Vocabulary Tip: Watch Out For Similar Words With Different Meanings

September 11, 2013

When you’re typing, you need to watch out for those inadvertent slips of the finger that create typos – misspelled words that you might not catch with your computer spellchecker because the misspelling actually creates a new word that’s correctly spelled, but not at all the word you meant to use. For example, if you mistype the word complaint as compliant your computer won’t flag that as a mistake, but your readers certainly will!

You need to also watch out for “audible typos” when you’re speaking, to make sure that you don’t use words with similar appearance and pronunciation incorrectly. Sometimes words that are easy to mistype or misspell don’t cause problems when you’re speaking, because the pronunciation of the words is so different. It’s not likely that you’ll say the word complaint (pronounced kuhm-PLAYNT, “a stated grievance or disapproval of a situation”) instead of the word compliant (pronounced kuhm-PLY-uhnt, “easy-going, agreeable”) because the words are not really alike in pronunciation, even though the spellings are almost identical.

On the other hand, the words credible and creditable are probably easier to misuse when speaking than when writing or typing, because there’s an extra set of letters in the second word. This also creates an extra syllable, but since it’s not emphasized, it’s easy to slur over it and confuse the two words. Credible is pronounced KREH-dih-bull and means “believable, trustworthy.” Creditable is pronounced KREH-dih-tah-bull and means “deserving of praise.”

Keep your eyes open to watch out for spelling mistakes and your ears open to avoid pronunciation mistakes, and you’ll be sure to speak and type typo-free!

Free English Lessons From Kirsten Kukulski at www.EnglishIsAPieceOfCake.com

September 6, 2013

Sometimes the hardest thing about learning a new language is getting over the fear that it’s going to be too hard to learn! That’s when someone like Kirsten Kukulski can really help. She has a long history of motivating ESL (English as a Second Language) students and providing them with fun, easy, and always helpful exercises to learn and improve English skills. Using her background as an English teacher overseas, she has put together a website full of valuable resources for both students and teachers. If you’re an ESL teacher who needs some inspiration for motivating your own students, then Kirsten’s site is definitely one you’ll want to bookmark. And if you’re a student getting ready to start your studies in the English language, you’ll find help and support on her website as well. Relax – learning English is a piece of cake with a website like this!

UV: You’ve lived all over the world and taught English in several countries. What was your own experience with learning other languages, and how has that helped you as an ESL teacher?

KK: Learning a new language as a beginner all the way through to advanced level has been invaluable in helping me to develop my own teaching style and methodology. I have been able to assess what is most effective in learning the various skills, as well as vocabulary and grammar. And I could see how discouraging lessons are, that are set at too high a level, or alternatively how boring easy lessons are.

I have been able to evaluate whether the teaching techniques I was taught are truly the most effective. For example, I was taught never to use the students’ mother tongue during lessons, but to keep everything in English. I have often had 15 minutes of my Polish lessons wasted with the teacher trying to explain a word to me, at the end of which I still didn’t understand, and all I did was go home and look up the word in the dictionary anyway. Giving the word to me in the lesson would have saved me lots of time and frustration. Not that I am suggesting that the mother tongue becomes used regularly in the classroom, but sometimes it can save time (although obviously with mixed nationality classes this would be tricky!).

Learning a new language has also helped me to appreciate how regularly you need to come into contact with a new word or grammar point before you can actually use it yourself. And this is what students find the most discouraging. Coming into contact with a word once or twice, or even three or four times is NOT enough. So I spend a lot of time in my lessons doing revision, and trying to find interesting ways of using words and idioms over and over again … and testing previous vocabulary.

UV: One of the sections on the website is titled “How to Teach” and has an outline of some of the issues that prospective ESL teachers need to consider to be as effective as possible when working with students. But you’ve also got a “How to Learn” page in the student resource section. Isn’t learning something that just happens?

KK: I agree that children’s learning often just happens, but even when learning a foreign language or an instrument, children have to set time aside to concentrate especially on the task. Learning a new language is very challenging, and it’s very easy to give up along the way. So being motivated is very important. Having a structured plan of how to learn, having a good teacher or good materials and committing more time to the exercise are all ways of speeding up the process.

UV: You emphasize the importance of saying vocabulary words out loud when you’re learning them, and that’s obviously something that students working alone can do easily. How does this technique work in the classroom? And while we’re talking about saying words out loud, what in the world does “przebyszywskiego” mean, and how is it pronounced?

KK: When I first started learning Polish – even in the first two weeks, my Polish teacher got us to read lists of difficult to pronounce words, even though we didn’t understand them. I found this exercise very helpful in establishing good pronunciation practice before we could get into any bad habits. For other levels reading out loud from a text (especially when it has first been modelled by a native speaker) can help the students with their pronunciation and intonation. During my lessons I also write down words that the students mis-pronounce and then I go through them at the end of the lesson, and get them to practise and use them in sentences.

Przybyszewskiego is the name of the road next to mine, so is a word I need to use whenever giving directions to my house. It is named after a Polish novelist Stanislaw Przybyszewski, and the ending is changed with an -ego because it is a possessive adjective (masculine) when used as a street name. It is pronounced pshibishivskee-ego (with the i pronounced as i on ink).

UV: Your vocabulary lists are very useful for people who want to quickly learn words and expand their vocabulary, and you have them grouped under topics like “school,” “science,” and “emotions.” Why did you group the words this way?

KK: When learning words they need to have a link to something else in order to make them easier to remember. Trying to memorise 5 arbitrary words is very difficult. It’s like files in a computer – they are easier to locate if placed and named appropriately. Our brains also find it easier to relocate information if it has been placed there in a structured and logical manner. This can be done in different ways e.g. learning topic specific vocabulary (emotions – happiness, anger, joy, despair), learning words with the same roots (audio, audience, auditorium, audible), or learning a word and its collocations (coffee – table, mug, shop, machine)

UV: Would you recommend that students check out the resources you provide for teachers, and vice versa? Why or why not?

KK: Because of the time restrictions that I have, I have been adding more resources to the teaching section of my website than to the student resources. This means that there are far more materials available for teachers. Students would still find these resources suitable and (hopefully) enjoyable, as the readings, videos, vocabulary and idioms are obviously all clearly set out, but it means the students have to wade through some information in the teacher’s notes, that is not necessary for them. But the answer key is provided, so they can still check their answers

Visual Vocabulary

September 4, 2013

A giant squid has the largest eye of any creature on the planet – each of the eyes of an adult squid is the size of a basketball! It needs the plate-sized pupil to gather all the light possible in the deep, dark depths of the ocean where these squid live. Like most other animals, squid depend on their eyes to learn about their environment, and to identify and remember information about objects, locations, and other creatures. Although humans don’t normally have to fight off whales or keep track of where fruit trees are blossoming in order to survive, we still need to learn and remember information, and we still generally depend on our eyes to help us do that. In fact, we’ve used our eyes as learning tools for thousands of years, and this long history has made visual-based learning strategies very effective for most people. You can use these strategies for vocabulary improvement by incorporating images and illustrations in your study program, and by using “maps” to create connections between different words.

Images and Illustrations

Some words are easy to illustrate, and you’ll probably quickly find an image on line for almost any noun. If you’ve got the words pendulum and amoeba and labyrinth on your vocabulary list, you’ll probably find the words easier to remember if you call up an illustration or image of the word, and study it while you’re studying the word’s definition, pronunciation, and spelling. The Ultimate Vocabulary system allows you to add images to your words, but you can do the same thing yourself by copying and pasting images into a document, or even printing them out and gluing them onto your flash cards.

Verbs, adjectives, and adverbs can be more difficult to illustrate, because there’s often no one image for words like confuse or sparkling or quickly. As long as there’s an image that brings the word to mind, it will work, so don’t worry if the picture you choose to match with a word doesn’t make sense to anyone else. It’s important to find things that have meaning for you, and that help you make those mental connections that link the visual center of your brain with the language center, and create a long-term memory of the word so that you make it part of your permanent vocabulary.

Mapping and Linking

Speaking of connections, another important visual tool is learning to “map” the way words are connected. This will help you remember words in clusters, and will also help you learn groups of words all at once, rather than one at a time. For example, if you have the word arbitrary as your word of the day to learn, you can easily add the words random, erratic, capricious, irrational, and inconsistent because they are all synonyms for strategy. You might draw this out by putting the word “arbitrary” in the middle of the page, and writing out all the other words to the right of it, using red ink to draw lines between each synonym and the base word. Then you can use another color to draw lines between the main word and its antonyms, like consistent, logical, dependable, and unchanging. Add more lines in a different color for derived words like arbitrarily. You can make as many connections as you need and want so that you have a good understanding of the word and all its meanings.

How do you use visual aids in vocabulary improvement?