Stress is used to talk about the emphasis given to certain sounds, words or phrases when we speak. In English there are basically 2 times we talk about stress: on words in an utterance; and on syllables in a word. Stress on Syllables Take the word, august, as an example. […]
Continue ReadingSemantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. This can include the meaning of individual words and also the way in which their meaning may have changed over time. Meaning in languages is mainly studied by linguists. In fact, semantics is one of the main branches of contemporary linguistics. But there are […]
Continue ReadingSemantic Fields in TEFL
A semantic field (sometimes known as a lexical field) is a group of words related by meaning. In teaching a semantic field could be: animals verbs of perception foodstuffs … In practical terms the definition is quite loose and general. Sometimes a word will belong to just one semantic field […]
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When a student learns English in order to live and work in an English speaking country we say they are learning English as a Second Language. For example, these kinds of people learn English as a second language: an Afghan refugee resettled in Australia a Russian student who is studying […]
Continue ReadingSecond Language Acquisition or SLA
The way in which someone learns a second language is known as Second Language Acquisition or SLA. Overview SLA is often regarded as mimicking the way in which native speakers acquire their first language (or Mother Tongue (MT)) and it is often felt that imitating this methodology in the classroom […]
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