Hello, everyone.
“Why does an English word have several meanings?..”
When we were doing some dictionary work which was to teach students how to use dictionary, the question above was raised from a student who had been learning English for one and a half years. As his favourite subjects at school are English and history, I suppose he is eager to know everything he finds interesting.
For example, “ask” “fine”, “book”, “save” etc, each of them has some meanings. According to Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “ask : to request, to invite, to expect..”, “ fine: excellent, thin, punishment”, “book: text, to arrange” “save: to make safe, to keep, to except” etc. We know, it depends on a sentence or context, which meaning we must use. The student I mentioned above also knows there are several meanings written in the dictionary, but he would like to know why.
How would you explain to your students or learners?
If you get similar questions like this, which references would you/ do you use ?
I would appreciate your help! Thank you.
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version
Log in or register
Follow TeachingEnglish
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dear Friend,
You can tell your student that it's quite natural with most languages. Some words usually have more than one meaning.
It's a good idea to let your students learn words in contexts.
Amir Abbass Ravayee
To : Mr Ravayee
Thank you for your reply. I also believe it is natural that some words in English have more than one meaning. Some students are able to think like us, but others unfortunately aren't. They want to be convinced by teachers or someone who can explain it well. Eventhough they like leaning English, they sometimes find it difficult to choose or remember which word has more than one meaning. As far as questions are raised from students, I would like to respond sincerely to them, thinking students' point of view, so as to keep their motivation up!
To: Everyone
Words like " book" "fine" ,for example, have more than one meaning. What would you do if students want more explanation ...? I would like to know how other teachers normally tell and react to students. As I mentioned a little above, some students don't mind remembering one word for one / more than one meaning, but others do. The students I look after in an private tutoring school are mainly those who are left behind (academically) in English classes at school.
Could you kindly give me some more advice on this? Thank you!
Creativity in the classroom is very impotant . Teachers mut be creative and innovator in creating an alive atmosphere in the class room. Considering student's interests in choosing teaching materials also lead to better class management and excellent
Dear colleague,
Different meanings of some words in English arise from some historical backgrounds mostly the words which have intruded into English from other languages and their meanings have been changed during the time while keeping their root meanings. Therefore we better find some words in native language of the students we are teaching them so as to clarify that this matter exists in all languages. Thus, we can give some useful hints to our students by explaining to them this important historical event, happened to all alive languages. This event is going on at the moment we are reading this report and also in future. Changes happen around us all the time and language is not excepted from being changed.
We all know that the people of many years ago did not write or speak the same way as we are doing now; even our young adults use some expressions that the older people don’t use them. I think it is worth mentioning to students a list of these words, though I am sure that some of them are not patient enough to go deeply in researching this kind of historical events.
The following site has some has mentioned the most important words in English which have more than one meaning and will refresh student’s vocabularies.
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~umbidas/Homonyms_main.htm
On the other hand explaining “Homonyms” in English comes to this category and is useful. As an example the students can refer to following sites.
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/english/homonyms/
They can find other useful sites by searching.
All the best and wishing a merry Christmas for everybody
A Mazinanian,
Iran.
Dear Mr amazanianian
Thank you very much for your reply and providing me with useful information.
I will check them soon. Thank you.
Mamie
Dear Mamie,
I am very delightful that you have found those sites to be useful .I appreciate your reply.
Best wishes and have a geat time.
A Mazinanian