Kelmscott School March 2018 Youre growing taller You Your body has almost finished growing taller Youre growing cleverer Year 7 You Your brain has stopped growing bigger but now youre tidying it up ID: 735356
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Slide1
How to grow words
Dick Hudson
Kelmscott School, March 2018Slide2
You’re growing taller
You
Your body has almost finished growing taller.Slide3
You’re growing cleverer
Year 7
You
Your brain has stopped growing bigger, but now you’re tidying it up. Slide4
And more wordy
hat
titfer
[your word here]
sombrerochapeaupetasumHutpălăriekoofiyad
titfer < tit for tat < hat
Cockney Rhyming Slang
καπέλο
kapelo
шапка
shapka
şapka
قبعة
qaba’ah
帽子
màoziSlide5
Back to English: How big is our vocabulary?
Test it at http://testyourvocab.com/
How many of these words do we know?Slide6
And your vocabulary is growing
New words learned per
day:
Primary school: 6
Secondary school: 12
The highest scorers know more than twice as many words as the lowest scorers!
You
Still growingSlide7
Does vocabulary size matter?
Yes. Every word gives you an idea (a ‘concept’) for thinking with and for communicating.
So a large vocabulary helps you to:
write, read, listen and say complicated things.
enjoy reading and writing.do well at school.get a job, learn the job.deal with life.
and get good grades at GCSE.Slide8
Does size matter at GCSE?
Let’s look at two answers to the same GCSE question, about snow.
We know what the markers thought of them:
One scored a level 1
The other a level 4.Why?Slide9
Level 1
Ignore the colours put in by markers.Slide10
Level 4
and three more pages.Slide11
Does size matter at GCSE?
Yes:
Level 1: 86 words
Level 4: 566 words
I.e. try to write lots of wordseven if they’re nonsense!But another kind of size is the size of your vocabulary.Markers are looking for evidence of a large vocabulary.
The best evidence is if you use a lot of different words.But what kind of word?Slide12
A little research project
Select a strong and a weak bit of writing (‘text’).
Count the length (in words ) of the two texts.
Take the shorter text as the standard, and count the same number of words from the start of the longer text.
Count the number of different ‘big’ words in each text by word class:nounadjectiveverb
What do you think we’ll find?Slide13
For example
I am writing to you to tell you that snow is very bad.
This is because when people are going to work there car might get stuck and they wont be able to move again or if they do not have a car there train, bus, taxi, or plane might get canceled. So that’s why it is bad.
Children love playing in the snow because the like throwing it at each other and making snowmen and snow angeles. Thats why kids like it but not adults.
Snow. The joy and/or sorrow that floods into our bodies when we wake up in the morning to see that cars are camouflaged into the driveway by a wash of a white substance.
Snow. Thinking of endless things to do on our bucket list of the day which somehow always manages to include the outdoors, i.e. building a new friendly snowman (before it melts into the ground later), sledging down a steep hill for a local (and free) exhilarating ride, and snowball fights with the ones
Level 1
Level 4Slide14
The result
Total number of words = 86
Distinct big words:
level 1
level 4
nouns
7
21
adjectives
2
8
verbs
11
11
Grow your nouns and adjectives!Slide15
What kinds of nouns?
Level 1:
concrete: snow, car, train, bus, taxi, plane, child
abstract: --
Level 4: concrete: snow, body, car, driveway, substance, things, snowman, ground, hill, snowballabstract: joy, sorrow, morning, wash, bucket list, day, outdoors, ride, fight
Use more abstract nounsSlide16
What kinds of adjectives?
Level 1: bad, able
Level 4: white, endless, new, friendly, steep, local, free, exhilarating
Use more precise adjectives.
But not mindlessly – nouns are just fine without an adjective! Slide17
How to grow your words
Notice
Don’t just ignore new words
Study
Guess or use a dictionaryWonderBe interested!If you’re interested, you’ll remember.
What’s a titfer?UseLook for opportunities to use your new wordsLive dangerously – we grow by making mistakes.Slide18
How to impress the examiners
Use words from the extract to be analysed.
Adapt these words by adding or removing parts
e.g. assassination > assassinate > assassin
Think across subjects for metaphorsgeography: bedrock, confluence, delta, dormantscience: acceleration, acid, amplitude, antibody, arteryThink across languages – use words from your other languages
Never hesitate to create new words or phrases in the exame.g. wordify, cross-word harmony, depunctuate, upstyle