LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY THROUGH NEWSPAPERS

It seems impossible to exaggerate the power of words; they literally have changed and will continue to change the course of world history. Perhaps the greatest tools we can give students for succeeding, not only in their education but more generally in life, is a large, rich vocabulary and the skills for using those words. Our ability to function in today’s multifaceted social and economic worlds is tremendously affected by our language skills and word knowledge.

This paper discusses an interesting technique to learn new vocabulary from newspapers and use them effectively. Reading English language newspapers, then, is a particularly valuable way of learning vocabulary. Newspapers have many articles and they’re written in a range of styles, from humorous to serious. A major benefit of reading newspapers is that you get to see English being used to describe current events which interest you or which relate to your life. You also get to see which words are used in combination with a given word, which is very important for building your academic vocabulary.

Reading newspapers regularly is the best option for learners, instead of learning vocabulary from the dictionary.Regular newspaper reading helps the learners in two ways: keeping general knowledge up to date and learning new words and sentence formation. Reading novels may not be many people’s hobby and if someone starts reading novels for improving vocabulary (out of compulsion), they may soon lose interest and stop the habit all at once. Buying a newspaper is cheap and reading it kindles a lot of interest in the reader. It also helps him to discuss matters with others. How can an ESL teacher use newspaper reading in the classroom effectively. First, he may select news which is suitable to the target audience and ask them to read in groups. After some time, he may start discussing with the learners pointing out the hard words. The teacher needs to be well prepared to conduct this session.

Let’s take a sentence from the newspaper: The shipping ministry is planning to revamp its communication system soon. For most of the learners, the word ‘revamp’ will be a challenge to understand. Once the teacher gives the meaning of the word, the students will understand the sentence properly. The teacher may continue to teach more words from the newspaper and it would look like that all students have learned a lot of new words. If a test is conducted after a week, it won’t be a shock to see that no one is able to remember the words that were taught the previous week. Let’s change the technique a bit.

Look at the presentation(PPT) below:

Picture of the ship.
The shipping ministry is planning to revamp its communication system soon.
Revamp - to make changes to the form of something
Another sentence: Could your kitchen do with a revamp?

If you can work on a PPT, you will be able to make a great presentation. Though the picture has nothing to do with the word, the students will be able to connect the word ‘revamp’ with the shipping ministry. It brings back the picture they saw and are able to get the right meaning when they see the word once again in a paper or book. This works as a memory technique and every time they think of ‘ship’, they connect with the word ‘revamp’. The additional sentence given helps to understand the use of the word. You must be careful to select a sentence that a picture related to it can be displayed.

Let’s see one more example:

Picture of water
Deplete - to reduce something by a large amount so that there is not enough left.
Another sentence: Food supplies were severely depleted.

If you teach ten words following this method, you will be surprised to see that the students will be able to remember most of the words you have taught them. However, make sure you don’t overload the students as they need time to digest what they have learnt. Prepare a worksheet comprising all the vocabulary you have taught and ask them to use the words in different sentences.

It’s time consuming but an effective method for students to learn. You can feel the difference in between teaching the same vocabulary orally and using PowerPoint slides.