Results by title

An outstanding advanced text intended to complement and supplement Indonesian language materials now available. The author takes the student through a series of original essays and previously published material on a variety of subjects, not merely explaining grammatical and vocabulary matters, but offering detailed discussions of nuances, alternative meanings, synonyms and antonyms. This unique vocabulary exploration device forms about one–third of the book, and makes the lessons powerful aids to efficient and in–depth language learning.

In Vocabulary Myths, Keith S. Folse breaks down the teaching of second language vocabulary into eight commonly held myths. In debunking each myth, he introduces the myth with a story based on his 25 years of teaching experience (in the United States and abroad), continues with a presentation of what empirical research has shown on the topic, and finishes with a list of what teachers can do in their classrooms to facilitate true vocabulary acquisition.

The goal of Vocabulary Myths is to foster a paradigm shift that correctly views vocabulary as fundamental in any second language learning process and demonstrates that research supports this goal-that in fact there is a wealth of empirical evidence to support these views. In addition, an important theme is that teachers have overestimated how much vocabulary students really understand, and as a result, the so-called "comprehensible input" is neither comprehensible nor input.

The second language vocabulary acquisition myths reexamined in this book are:
*In learning another language, vocabulary is not as important as grammar or other areas.
*Using word lists to learn L2 vocabulary is unproductive.
*Presenting new vocabulary in semantic sets facilitates learning.
*The use of translations to learn new vocabulary should be discouraged.
*Guessing words from context is an excellent strategy for learning L2 vocabulary.
*The best vocabulary learners make use of one or two really specific vocabulary learning strategies.
*The best dictionary for L2 learners is a monolingual dictionary.
*Teachers, textbooks, and curricula cover L2 vocabulary adequately.

In this volume, David Hirsh compellingly makes the case for why vocabulary should be a necessary component of L2 writing proficiency and L2 writing instruction. He examines why vocabulary size and context matter, how productive use of vocabulary can be scaffolded, how to treat vocabulary errors, and the ways that technology like corpora and concordances can support teachers and improve students’ independent vocabulary acquisition. In fact, one chapter is devoted to fostering learner autonomy, an important contribution to pedagogy that is often neglected in similar texts.  
 
Each chapter concludes with a list of key points and tasks and discussion questions for pre- and in-service instructors. Several chapters also include sample activities for teaching vocabulary at various instructional levels, designed to encourage readers to consider more deeply how they will include vocabulary instruction in their classrooms.
 
Vocabulary and Second Language Writing will be an excellent guide for all college-level writing instructors and help them understand the critical role that vocabulary plays in writing quality—something that is often disregarded in favor of holistic features like genre and rhetoric. The volume may also be useful for writing center administrators and those who train writing tutors.
 

Irina H. Corten's Vocabulary of Soviet Society and Culture is an experiment in what Soviet scholars call lingvostranovedenie—the study of a country and its culture through the peculiarities of its language. Not a conventional dictionary, Corten's lexicon is selective, offering a broad sampling of culturally significant words in the areas of politics, ideology, the economy, education, arts and letters, social problems and everyday life as well as language associated with the personalities and activities of individual Soviet leaders.
The entries are listed alphabetically in English transliteration followed by the Cyrillic, although readers familiar with Russian may prefer to use the Cyrillic alphabet listing included in this volume. In each entry, the author provides a succinct but full explanation of the term and, whenever possible, cross-references to other entries, authentic examples of its use, and samples of relevant Soviet jokes. A reader may approach the lexicon either sequentially or with the aid of a subject thesaurus that divides the material into specific topics. A listing of complementary sources of reference appears in a useful bibliography.
With this fascinating lexicon of "Sovietisms," Corten provides an invaluable and easily accessible medium for those general readers and scholars of the Russian language and Soviet culture interested in understanding contemporary Soviet life.

Selected entries from the Vocabulary of Soviet Society and Culture

Anekdótchik (anekdótchitsa) (cyrillic spelling) (n.)
1: A person who tells jokes (anekdoty); 2: coll. since the late Stalin era, a person arrested and given a prison sentence for the telling of political jokes. The phenomenon indicates the important role of the political joke in Soviet culture and, specifically, in the dissident movement. See iazychnik; sident.

The following jokes were popular during the Brezhnev era:
1. "Comrade Brezhnev, what is your hobby?"
"Collecting jokes about myself."
"And how many have you collected so far?"
"Two and a half labor camps."
2. Question: What is a marked-down joke?
Answer: A joke which, under Stalin, got you ten years in a labor camp, and now gets you only five.

egoístiki (cyrillic) (n.; pl.). Lit., little egotists; coll. since the 1970s referring to headsets worn by music lovers, especially teenage fans of rock music. The idea is that, by wearing headsets, one shuts out the world and becomes indifferent to everything except oneself.

zhrál'nia (cyrillic) (n.). Der. zhrat', to gorge, devour (vulg.); coll. since the 1970s denoting an eating establishment with inexpensive and often bad-tasting food. In the late 1980s, the term also has been applied to new fast-food restaurants which have been built in Soviet cities by Western concerns, for example, McDonald's. See amerikanka; stekliashka; stoiachka.

This book is a collection of strategies and tips collected through a survey of 80 practicing ESL professionals, as well as a series of conversations with the author’s colleagues. The book reveals teachers’ motivations for choosing certain techniques. A unique feature of the book is the thinking that underlies teachers’ choices in terms of how they manage their classroom.
 
Voices of Experience was designed and written with teachers-in-training and seasoned professionals in mind; the book would be used differently by each.
 
The book has five units: The Classroom Environment, Lesson Planning, Pair and Group Work, Classroom Interactions, and Classroom Trouble Spots. Each unit has two or three chapters that discuss the survey responses and relevant quotes from participants. Each unit concludes with a Connections section that features:
·         *Challenging Beliefs: What Teachers Think, which presents a statement for readers to respond to and compare their responses to others who completed the survey.
·        * Classroom Connections: What Teachers Do, which lists reflection or discussion questions
·        * Strategies and Motivations: What Teachers Say, which presents more quotes from respondents, particularly those that look at what’s behind teachers’ choices. These too could be used for reflection or discussion.