We used to think of grammar as the bones of the language and vocabulary as the flesh to be added given that language consisted largely of life generated chunks of lexis. This “skeleton image” has been proverbially used to refer to that central feature of lexis named collocation- an idea that for the first 15 years of language study and analysis gave a moment‟s thought to English classroom material and methodology.
The work of John Sinclair, Dave Willis, Ron Carter, Michael McCarthy, Michael Lewis, and many others have all contributed to the way teachers today approach the area of lexis and what it means in the teaching/learning process of the language. This also seems to have incorporated lexical ideas into the teaching mechanism and highlighted that the present knowledge of the nature of English lexis and collocation in particular raises a set of important issues for teachers in the first place. Such issues are:
1. Given that grammar still rules the sentence, lexis should be one of the principle organizing parts of the syllabus;
2. The need for different strategies for vocabulary learning at different stages of learning, both in and outside the classroom;
3. The need for more developed techniques that would help the students record and store lexis in ways that could enable them to retrieve and revise the proper words for examinations, i.e., lead them to become „lexis collectors‟.
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4. The need for a fresh look at bilingual dictionaries every now and then given that conventional dictionaries cannot give all the information necessary about collocation.
5. Lexis is an area where literal translation is often impossible; a collocation in English may be totally different in Spanish or German and thus the implication of translation should not be discarded as it is essential in English. (The translation skills of the non-native speaking teachers must be recognized in this area.)
6. The two main components of language (grammar and vocabulary) merge into one another and the dividing line is much less clear cut than teachers and textbooks often operate; yet accuracy must be treated as a late-acquired skill.
The study aims to examine the classroom activities of the developed English course (Flying High) for the high school first-grade students, identify creative thinking skills appropriate for this grade, and show the extent the classroom activities involve these skills from the female- teachers ‘point of view. The study adopted the descriptive survey method. The study community consists of all (50) English female-teachers who teach high school first grade in Arar city during the academic year (1440 -1441 A.H, the first semester). The study was applied to all respondents. The researcher used a questionnaire as a study tool. The study revealed that the female-teachers reported their disagreement and refusal of the classroom activities in th
... Show MoreThis paper identifies and describes the textual densities of ideational metaphors through the application of GM theory (Halliday, 1994) to the textual analysis of two twentieth century English short stories: one American (The Mansion (1910-11), by Henry Jackson van Dyke Jr.), and one British (Home (1951), by William Somerset Maugham). One aim is to get at textually verifiable statistical evidence that attests to the observed dominance of GM nominalization in academic and scientific texts, rather than to fiction (e.g. Halliday and Martin (1993). Another aim is to explore any significant differentiation in GM’s us by the two short- story writers. The research has been carried out by identifying, describing, and statistically analysi
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This study focuses on the writing skill which is a social act .Students need to express
themselves in writing, but students of History and Geography departments are poor in
writing. This study aims at identifying and classifying the errors committed by the
students, and then giving remedies.
Writing can be considered as a channel or as a goal of language learning.
Students learn to write in a foreign language. Writing as a goal basically focuses on
the development of writing skills to fulfill such purposes as note-taking, summarizing,
narrating, reporting and replying required for various real-life situation
(Mechalakelli,2007)
Students at Departments of Geography and History study English as a part of
their
Translating culture-specific proverbs (CSPs) is a challenging task since they often occur in a peculiar context. Further, CSPs are intended to imply meanings that extend far beyond the literal meaning of such a kind of proverbs. As far as English and Arabic are concerned, translators often encounter problems in translating CSPs due to cultural differences between the source language(SL) and the target language (TL) as well as what seems to be the lack of equivalence for some CSPs.
In view of this, the present study aims at investigating the translation of CSPs in three English-Arabic dictionaries of proverbs, namely Dictionary of Common English Proverbs Translated and Explained (2004), One thousand and One English Pr
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Iraqi EFL teachers face problems in teaching “English for Iraq Series” for primary public school pupils. In this paper, the researchers are going to identify the main problems faced by our teachers and try to find solutions to these problems. To achieve the aim of the study, list of questions asked and from teachers’ responses, the researchers have got an idea about the main problems which are related to textbook material, parents, learners, environment and technology. Therefore, the researchers adapted a questionnaire to achieve the purpose of the study with some changes and modifications. This questionnaire with five point scale (strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree). To achieve face validity, the
... Show MoreColors are universal, and throughout the ages, they have been associated with
various religious, social and spiritual meanings. They symbolize a galaxy of things
to designate certain ideas or symbols that are sometimes contradictory.
The present study is an attempt to investigate colors, their meanings and
symbolism, and the approaches to translating color idioms from English into
Arabic. It fathoms one of the thorny areas for translation theorists let alone
practitioners. Various definitions, classifications of types and symbolism across
cultures are provided. After reviewing idioms and methods of translating them, a
survey of 114 sentences that include color idioms was conducted to see which
method is mostly
Abandoned mines and mining activities are considered one of the most significant sources of trace metal contamination worldwide. Those activities resulted in environmental contamination of particular surrounding ecosystems of abandoned ecosystems. The main aim of this study is to evaluate the trace metal contamination in the vicinity of abandoned mine located in Leicestershire English Midland. Twelve soil samples with two water samples were collected from the abandoned mine site. Test results showed a wide range of soil pH was observed from extremely acid (2.5) to slightly alkaline (7.4) as well as LOI from 8% organic matter content to 40% was found. Moreover, results demonstrated that most elements were below Soil Guideline Values (SGV)
... Show MoreTeaching techniques are the vehicles, which are used by teachers to help pupils learn and gain experiences and create positive classroom activities, as much as these techniques are varied, they lead to successful and fruitful learning in the foreign language. They help teachers achieve their objectives (Asowrth, 1985: 124).
The English language teacher's work is an active and purposeful one when he can plan carefully and frequently make the necessary changes in the contents and methods of teaching programme to fit the interest and needs of pupils. It seems that the majority of primary English teachers' interests does not go far in planning their work, and do not understand which o
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