ESL Lesson Plan

Marlen,

We must have a plural for the word "vocabulary" for times when we refer to the various vocabularies we study/learn/memorize with regards to different nomenclatures and languages. For example, "The assorted vocabularies of everyone present today gave the U.N. interpreting staff a run for their money." Or, "Your vocabulary differs from my vocabulary. We have different vocabularies."

So, it seems your students and their delightful, little dictionaries are correct, as is evidenced by the authority of all authorities,The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, available online.

I suppose that in the situation you described, I would just gracefully concede defeat (as I often must, sadly, when it comes to a mastery or understanding of this language) and say something like, "good for you! . . . you've just discovered a very obscure and uncommonly used English language plural . . . much like 'waters' or 'hairs' Let's try to understand when using that plural is appropriate." Then, walk the hall of shame after class and go home to research some "real doozies" for the next week. You know, turn the whole affair into a lesson.

As a matter of fact, I was just corrected the other day on my own blog by Dr. Townsend about an erroneous example of a simile I had used in a recent entry. So, rest assured that everyone makes these kinds of mistakes. You might retort by asking if your students if they know every single word in the Japanese dictionary and all its varous nuances.

In my experience, I usually had these type of "correct the teacher" encounters with students overseas who constantly corrected my usage of S.E.A.E. (Standard Edited American English) with Received Standard (British) English. Sometimes this occurred even in courses properly "advertised" as American-English-specific courses too, oddly enough.

Perhaps this is an issue we should take up with the "Pain In the English.com" blog which specializes in these types of disputes! Have you been to that one?

Good luck,

Lee
http://www.english-blog.com

Student: "I need to improve my vocabularies."
Me: "Just vocabulary, no i-e-s..."
Student: "My dictionary has vocabularies."

Me: Very good, Bill. It CAN be plural, but very seldom is. If you and Meg each had a list of all the English words you knew, those two lists would be your vocabularies. But, in this case, you are talking about the total number of words YOU know and that is an uncountable noun. Check your definitions again. Think about the difference between "fish" and "fishes" -- same thing.
Bill, I think it's time you bought a real English/English dictionary -- they are much more precise than English/Chinese dictionaries and you are ready to take the next step upwards.

I would use the direct strategy of correcting student. Like this:

Student:"I need to iprove my vocabularies."
Me :" Well, there are many ways of improving
your vocabulary. Having a good
dictionary is one.That is what
dictionaries are for---to improve your
vocabulary."

I use direct strategy for correction right then and there and emphasize the word "vocabulary" twice... I don't argue. It's up to the student to find out later---sometimes, learning a word or something is not overnight. It takes time.Let him discover the right word in time.That I call the discovery method.Sometimes,a student will just say to himself "My teacher is right" without actually telling you. But YOU did your part--as a teacher. Edna

Lee, Mike, Brenda,

Thanks for sharing your ideas! I think you've all agreed that conceding the error and turning it into a lesson would be a great place to start...

Stay tuned for my response in Tueday's blog entry!

Marlen

Ok - so in this case, here's what I did:

I checked the student's dictionary, gave her 5 points for outstanding active participation and English use, explained that vocabularies is the plural form, but in conversational English, I've always referred to vocabulary, like "My vocabulary test" or "the vocabulary for this chapter". I then elicited additional similar words for homework and reviewed the concept once more the following week...

How'd I do?

Marlen

I think you handled that really well, especially using it as an opportunity to point up further anomalous plurals.

Teachers are not infallible and they cannot possibly know everything, especially in such a fuzzy field as language. Think of yourself as more of a guide helping students plot their own learning route and being willing to journey with them.

Brenda - I love it! A guide! I've always said that my posiiton in the classroom (from my own perspective) has been truly more of a, yep, you guessed it, guide, rather than a giver of knowledge!

Thanks for another great comment!

Marlen