Teaching English as a Foreign Language

Chapter 5: Standing in the Spotlight: Presenting to the Class 79

Conveying connotations

Certain words imply emotions or attitudes – they have connotations.

Think of one of those famous supermodels. Which of these words would you
associate with her?

thin trim

slim wiry

skinny bony

svelte twig-like

The word(s) you choose reveal whether you view her as truly attractive or

not and this is what you teach with connotation.

You need to point out whether a word is positive, negative or neutral, a

compliment or an insult. Failure to do this can leave students embarrassed

because they may come across as rude or over familiar.

Fish and? Teaching vocabulary in chunks

In English some words are often grouped together and seem to have an espe-

cially close relationship. These are called collocations. For instance, even

though the words ‘constructive’ and ‘criticism’ can be used perfectly well

apart from each other, together they form a common phrase. ‘Positive criti-

cism’ renders the same idea but just doesn’t sit right. It doesn’t collocate.

Equally, it’s fine to say ‘very serious’ but ‘deadly serious’ is so much better

and mirrors what a native speaker is likely to say. It’s collocation.

Going for more than one

Look for opportunities to teach chunks of language. Instead of teaching just

one word, try teaching two or three all at once. One way of doing this is by

highlighting collocations in reading texts. For example, ask students to under-

line all the occurrences of a particular word in a text and see which other

words come before or after it each time.

You can also reinforce collocations through multiple choice whereby you

offer the students several logical possibilities to partner a word, but show

that only one is the true match.