Page 120 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Teaching Grammar and Vocabulary

each other in our mental lexicon but that meaning seems to be more impor-
tant than form. As a proof of that he refers to experiments in which learners
are asked which of these questions is easier to answer:

1. Name a fruit that begins with p or
2. Name a word that begins with p and is a fruit.

Although the focus is on form and meaning in both cases it seems that it
is easier to access the vocabulary item through meaning, so most learners
would choose the first option. This suggests that our mental lexicon is based
on meaning but that there is also a form-based back-up (Thornbury, 2002).

WordsasConcepts
Children develop their conceptual knowledge as they acquire experiences
in their environment. As they grow, they learn to make different associations
between words. Research has shown that younger children tend to make
moresyntagmaticassociations,such asconnectingideasfromdifferent word
classes (e.g. chair – sit), while later on they are more likely to produce paradig-
matic responses, which connect two concepts from the same word class (e.g.
chair – table). This process corresponds to the development stage in which
children develop the ability for abstract thinking (Cameron, 2001).
Another process which develops as children expand their mental lexicon
is categorisation which is based on different hierarchies. Words are organised
in hierarchies, with the basic level at the centre (e.g. dog) which can extend
upwards to more general levels (e.g. animal) or downwards to more specific
ones (e.g. German Shepherd). Figure 7.3 presents an example of categorising
dogs, including some basic characteristics of dogs in general and selected
breeds.
Being aware of word hierarchies can help us build and organise sets of vo-
cabulary items in the foreign language classroom, usually starting with basic-
level meanings and then extending them to general or specific levels. We can
say that some category members are more prototypical than others. For in-
stance, some category members (robins and sparrows) are highly prototyp-
ical of the category birds, whereas other category members (penguins and
ostriches) are less prototypical. What is important to note here is that we re-
trieve information that is prototypical of a category faster than information
that is less prototypical (Rosch, 1999).
In addition, words are organised in networks of connections or ‘schemas’
whichareactivatedwhenwecomeacrossaparticularword.Wehaveschemas

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