Unit 3: PHONOLOGY

The TKT book (Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., &Williams, M. 2011) describes phonology as the study of sounds, phonemes, word stress, sentence stress, and intonation. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound, and each sound has a symbol represented in a phonetic chart. Sounds vary in each language. Anderson S. (2001) says that in a language, some phonemes have meanings and others not. Some sounds are voiceless, and others voiced. That is the case of consonants. That is because the mouth blocks them partially when pronouncing some of them. 

 

We can understand that this is one of the reasons that people pronounce a word in different rhythms. But there are other reasons. In English, there are some words with have to stress. It means that people raise their tone of voice. Henry M. (2014) mentions the word class that should have the primary stress when speaking as adverbs, nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Those are content words. Generally, speaking structural words like pronouns or determiners are less stressed. But, when any of those words get stressed is contrastive stress. 

 

However, the speaker can decide which word stress. It depends on what the speaker wants to emphasize. So, the meaning of a sentence will vary depending on the word stressed. But it does not mean that one word should sound the most in a speech. The less important ones have secondary stress or any stress.  

 

In this way, a connected speech maintains rhythm. But that is not all. Linking words, contractions, and weak forms help to keep this balance too. Bruce M. (2003) explains that linking words are made up when a word ends in a consonant, and the other one starts with another. Also, he states that weak forms occur because some sounds change when they join to another one, so it sounds weak.  

Another essential feature is intonation. That determines the meaning of what is said. That is because people use different patterns depending on the function used. So, a sad person sounds different from a happy one and so on. 

To sum up this information, it is important to ask ourselves what did we learn in this unit?

We learned that some phonemes do not have meanings in some languages. Also, that phonology plays an important role when speaking. That is because the way someone says something depends on what the receptor interprets. Speaker decides which part of the speech wants to emphasize to demonstrate the meaning of the ideas. Additionally, it is essential to keep a good rhythm and intonation when speaking. To achieve that is important to be aware of linking words, weak words, and contractions in our connected speech.

 

Also, as teachers, we should take into consideration some points to improve our oral lesson so, there are some suggestion we can apply like:

Ø  Using a phonetic chart is an excellent way learners practice pronunciation. Teachers should pay more attention to the hardest phonemes to pronounce for students. For example, some diphthongs are difficult for students to pronounce for learners.

Ø  Asking students to look for minimal pairs is a useful way to develop their pronunciation and listening skill. In that way, they won’t get confused with those words. For example, students get confused with the words sea and see.

Bibliography:

Anderson, S. (2001). Phonology. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/02982-X

Bruce M. (2003). Encyclopedia of the Neurological Sciences. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-226870-9/01376-9

Henry M. (2014). Encyclopedia of the Neurological Sciences (Second Edition). Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-385157-4.00472-3

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., &Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1,2 and 3 (Second) Cambridge: Cambridge Univertity Press. https://doig,org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003

 

Unit 2: LEXIS

The term Lexis described by the TKT book (Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., &Williams, M. 2011) says that it refers to separate words or sets of words understood as one piece in a language. They have meaning. That meaning can be denotative that most of the time, we find in dictionaries entries. That is the real idea or thing we have of the object. Also, there is a figurative or connotative meaning.

 

People use that meaning when they want to represent some ideas in the real world. Additionally, people replace or compare something with others, similar to the previous one. For example, the Denotative meaning of the root, according to The Dictionary of Oxford, is the part of plants that is located underground and supports it. Meanwhile, someone’s root refers to the background of that person. Then, that term has a connotative meaning. 

 

Both meanings play an important role when people use them in context. The situation makes meaning to words when people communicate. For example: " He is younger than she."  We understand that he is less age than she, just knowing the meaning of "younger."

 

We already know that affixes change the meaning of words. Additionally, compound nouns change their meaning, too.  Cui, L., Cong, F., Hyönä, J. (2018) state two or more words can create a compound noun. The meaning of those compounds is different from the one that each word has separately, for example, cowboy, nightmare, horseman. We can see the base noun joins another that modifies the meaning of the whole word. Then, we cannot say that the first word refers to a boy with a cow shape or a similar meaning to the other two words.

 

Aarts, B. (2017) defines some words that, most of the time, they go together. The right term is chunks, which are words learned as a one-piece. The first one is idioms that are something like fixed expression but cannot be changed. Additionally, their meaning is cognitive and different from each of the definitions of each word, separately. For example, the ball is in your court. Also, he explains about collocation which, is often together like set the table. Also, another chunk is fixed expressions that cannot be changed, for example, "be as silent."

 

Some words have similar meanings (synonyms) and others that apposite (antonyms). Also, we can join words in a lexical set, where the group of words is in the same topic area. Or we can put terms in their word family, for example, work, worker, workshop. Some other kinds of words that have relationships are homophones, homonyms, false friends, and varieties of English. Kolanchery, G. (2014) states that homophones have the same sound but different meanings and spelling. Homonyms have two denotation meanings that their interpretation depends on the context. False friends confuse speakers of other languages because they look similar to some terms in their native language. Finally, varieties of English have the same effect on both natives and foreign speakers because of words used to refer to one thing. 

 

To sum up this information, it is important to ask ourselves what did we learn in this unit?

We learned that lexis refers to vocabulary. Words and sets of words have three meanings, which are denotative, connotative, and in context. Those meanings play an essential role in communication to avoid misunderstandings. Also, learners of a language should be conscious of idioms, collocations, fixed expressions. That is because their meanings are kind of difficult to interpret. Other features to consider are homophones, homonyms, false friends, compound nouns, and varieties of English. That is because their meanings are different from the ones they can guess.

 

Also, as teachers, we should take into consideration some points to improve our oral lesson so, there are some suggestion we can apply like:

Ø  Asking students to have a notebook or folder specifically for vocabulary. Those records will help them to recall their meanings and use them in the right way. They can join words into lexical words and word families. For example, if students want to recall a word, they will use their notebooks instead of asking to the teacher.

Ø  Learning words using authentic material and context make students learn vocabulary better than isolation. For example, telling stories helps students to get a wide range of vocabulary

Bibliography:

Aarts, B. (2017, March 29). Grammatical form. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://grammarianism.wordpress.com/tag/grammatical-form/

 

Cui, L., Hyönä, J. (2018, February 16). Effects of Grammatical Structure of Compound Words on Word Recognition in Chinese. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00258/full

 

Kolanchery, G. (2014). lexis & vocabulary. 10.13140/rg.2.1.3770.2567. kolanchery, dr. (2014). lexis & vocabulary. 10.13140/rg.2.1.3770.2567.

 

Oxford University. (2018). Root: Definition of Root by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Root. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.lexico.com/definition/root

 

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., &Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1,2 and 3 (Second) Cambridge: Cambridge Univertity Press. https://doig,org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003

 

Unit 1: GRAMMAR

What is grammar?

        The TKT book (Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., &Williams, M. 2011) describes grammar as the way that people combine parts of words, words, sets of words, so they have meaning.  Also, it refers to the rules of any language that lead its forms and uses. Grammar is an unconscious process that human beings do when they want to communicate with each other in an oral or written way. When listening and reading, we use this process too. So, the message is understood.

We understood what grammar is. Now, it is time to introduce the term grammatical form. Aarts, B. (2017) defines grammatical forms as category labels used to build blogs of languages which, are presented in a speech or writing. There are some examples to explain that definition, such as the form of some adverbs (part of speech) made up by adding -ly (suffix) at the end of an adjective: Happy= happily (affixation). Another example of the form of the present simple (a grammatical structure) is Subject + verb + complement +.

In the example happy+ -ly= happily, we can see that the word changes its meaning by adding a set of letters at the end. That process is affixation. There are two classes of affixes: suffixes (a group of letters added at the end of a base word) and prefixes (a group of letters added at before of the root of a word). According to Manova S. (2014), affixation allows word classes to change their functions and meanings. In the last example, we found that the adjective “happy” changed into the adverb happily by adding a suffix.

 So, it means that we can find grammatical forms in parts of speech or word classes. The meaning of part of speech, according to O’Brien E. (2019), is the way that words behave in a sentence. There are nine parts of speech or word classes divided into two categories: structural words and grammatical words. First, structural words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. On the other hand, grammatical words are pronouns, conjunctions, determiners, prepositions. Exclamations are the last part of speech, but they do not fall in any category.

Grammatical structures are part of grammatical forms, as we found in the last example: Structure: Present Simple; Form: Subject + verb + complement +. 

At this moment, we can describe the meaning of grammatical uses. Ovillang, J. (2019) says that when grammatical structures combine with each of them in a speech or writing piece, they make sense to the listener or reader. That meaning depends on the context and the receptor’s knowledge of the world. So, sometimes words are less polite than others depending of the culture. 

To sum up this information, it is important to ask ourselves what did we learn in this unit?

We learned some key terms refer to grammar. First, we understood the meaning of grammar. Most of the time, people talk about grammar, but they do not about that it is the way of combining words, set of words, and parts of words. Also, we discover that grammar does not refer only to grammar structures. But, it is about other grammatical forms such as affixation and parts of speech. We learned the differences between lexical set and word family. Now we can join in in a better way.

Also, as teachers, we should take into consideration some points to improve our oral lesson so, there are some suggestion we can apply like:

Ø  Techers must teach grammar in context. For example, if teachers just say that present progressive is formed with a noun; the verb to be; another verb in gerund; and the complement, students will get lose.

Ø  Teachers should provide students with activities focused on form and use of grammar, so they will know how to use the language in any situation. For example, if they know when the present perfect is used, they will not use present simple ever.

 

Bibliography:

Aarts, B. (2017, March 29). Grammatical form. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://grammarianism.wordpress.com/tag/grammatical-form/

Manova, Stela. (2014). Affixation (Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics, version 2014). 10.1093/OBO/9780199772810-0183.

O’Brien, E. (2019). English Parts of Speech. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from

Ovillang, J. (2019). Grammar. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., &Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1,2 and 3 (Second) Cambridge: Cambridge Univertity Press. https://doig,org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003