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Semantics: What Next?
It would be worth your while to show students relationships among words.
Exs: Words have hierarchical relationships (fruit: grapefruit, apple, blueberry . . . general to specific ); (citrus: lime, lemon . . . general to specific ); (apple: stem, skin, core . . . whole to part )
Exs: Words are similar (and different) to each other in many ways (thin/gaunt . . . synonyms – with a subtle difference in meaning ; toy/toy/toy . . . homonyms with the same pronunciation and spelling but different word forms (noun/verb/adjective) and consequently different meanings.
Exs: Words have cognates which mean that they have the same origin and may look and/or sound very similarly in two different languages. Cognates can be an ELL’s best friend. Consider the English word accident and the Spanish word accidente. Remind students to ask themselves, “Does this word sound like / look like / remind me of a word I already know?” For your reference, on the Links page is a link to a list of English-Spanish cognates.
Source: Curzan & Adams. (2012). p. 213.
It would be worth your while to show students relationships among words.
Exs: Words have hierarchical relationships (fruit: grapefruit, apple, blueberry . . . general to specific ); (citrus: lime, lemon . . . general to specific ); (apple: stem, skin, core . . . whole to part )
Exs: Words are similar (and different) to each other in many ways (thin/gaunt . . . synonyms – with a subtle difference in meaning ; toy/toy/toy . . . homonyms with the same pronunciation and spelling but different word forms (noun/verb/adjective) and consequently different meanings.
Exs: Words have cognates which mean that they have the same origin and may look and/or sound very similarly in two different languages. Cognates can be an ELL’s best friend. Consider the English word accident and the Spanish word accidente. Remind students to ask themselves, “Does this word sound like / look like / remind me of a word I already know?” For your reference, on the Links page is a link to a list of English-Spanish cognates.
Source: Curzan & Adams. (2012). p. 213.