Application of sense relations to teaching english vocabulary

years working with multiple-level of language 
learners, it seems to be impossible to teach young 
learners (who are at primary level) about sense 
relations when their knowledge of mother tongue 
is even limited. It is a truth that teaching low-
level learners to identify the types of antonyms or 
recognize polysemy is uneasy because it requires a 
deep understanding of semantic features.
The second problem is found in the learners’ 
needs in learning vocabulary as Higa (1965) 
suggests that learners may lack motivation to learn 
two words that have similar meaning or denote 
similar information, which leads to difficulty in 
learning synonyms. This fact is also indicated in 
studies by Tinkham (1993) and Waring (1997). 
Furthermore, as Laufer (1990) states, the less 
advanced learners are unlikely to learn new words 
with similar meanings because they have a greater 
need to learn unknown second language meanings. 
Furthermore, in English For Specific or 
Content and Language Integrated Learning 
courses, although it is important to introduce 
technical terms, there remain challenges for both 
teachers and learners because it is impossible to 
pair the vocabularies into antonyms or synonyms. 
For example, the author has been working in a 
police’s academy and English lessons may focus 
on topics like: the penal code of Vietnam, mutual 
legal assistance, extradition, crime investigation 
and so on. It appears that grouping words or mind 
mapping are the two most frequent and favorable 
choices in designing activities in class.
3. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR 
TEACHING AND LEARNING 
VOCABULARY
In the light of obtained result it might 
be appropriate to make the following 
recommendations for language teachers in their 
teaching techniques and methods:
Playing the role as a facilitator, a guider and 
a supporter, teachers should always keep in mind 
that their teaching targets should be directed to 
increase the learners’ collocational competence 
with the vocabulary they have already got. Then, 
they should raise learners’ awareness of sense 
relations in vocabulary acquisition, knowledge 
about words families should be taught in language 
classes. Second languages learners should be 
guided to learn vocabulary by grouping words in 
different types of semantic field (lexical sets) such 
as: similar meaning, opposites, derivatives, idioms 
or multi words, verbs, inclusion and so on. 
45KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰNo. 19 (5/2019)
 LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY v
Because learners should realize that the 
meaning they first learnt for a word may not 
be the one that it has in a new context, they 
need encouragement in guessing the meaning 
through the context. For example, when dealing 
with a reading text with a variety of unknown 
words, teachers should increase learners’ stock 
of vocabulary by using the word relations like 
antonyms and synonyms. The teachers should 
guide them to guess the meaning of new words 
from the context. Besides, it is important for 
teachers to remind the learners not to use source 
like dictionary as the first tool to look up for any 
word. Enough exercises should be provided in the 
section of “antonymy” and “relational opposites” 
for the learners to make the correct use of them as 
well as to differentiate between them. Knowledge 
about part or speech should also be highlighted so 
that the learners are directed to generate different 
words. Furthermore, materials found in authentic 
dialogues or daily conversations, TV programs 
should be taken into use not only to enhance 
listening skill but also promote the learners’ ability 
in guessing the words through spoken text. 
When working with learners at low levels, 
teachers can use visual aids to teach vocabulary 
to make the process easier. For instance, when 
teaching adjectives, teachers should generally 
give learners a set of adjectives with pictures to 
represent them. Once they have matched the 
adjectives to the pictures, teachers give them 
the antonyms and ask them to match them with 
their opposites; this also helps build a long-term 
memory. Besides, it is also possible to teach lexical 
sets or hyponyms together. In particularly, labeling 
exercise can be adopted; for instance, teachers 
illustrate by giving a picture (e.g. of a house) with 
blank labels and a set of words (e.g. rooms and 
parts of a house) and ask them to label the items. 
This is generally very effective and helps learners 
memorize words more easily with visual images.
At more advanced levels, teachers can draw 
learners’ attention to homonyms and polysemy 
when encountering them in exercises or texts. If 
possible, we can represent the different meanings 
with pictures or drawings. If that is not possible, 
we can try giving at least 2-3 examples for each 
item, to help learners grasp the differences in 
nuance (for polysemous words) or in meaning (for 
homonyms). A more likely way to get words lists 
that match learners’ desires and needs is to have 
the learners make their own lists from materials 
they use. It is certain that learners will learn the 
vocabulary of fields that interest them.
4. CONCLUSION
Basically, knowing a word involves being 
able to recognize its sound, its spelling and to 
distinguish it from a word with a similar form. 
Knowing a word is also about the ability to 
produce it, to use it in grammatical pattern along 
with the word it usually collocates with and to 
use it in a suitable situation using the word to 
stand for the meaning it represents. Clearly, sense 
relations are good descriptive devices helping with 
the compilation of dictionaries and thesauri, as 
source for the development of vocabulary learning 
and of large-scale databases of words for use in 
various applications. Therefore, understanding 
and applying knowledge of sense relations in 
enhancing lexical resources can benefit both 
teachers and learners in teaching and learning 
English. In order to improve learner’s language 
proficiency, it is advised to equip them an 
adequate bank of vocabularies and create chances 
to promote suitable responds in communication. 
Grasping well lexical resources can enable people 
to successfully deliver their messages without 
causing any ambiguity or misunderstanding./.
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46 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰNo. 19 (5/2019)
v LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY 
ỨNG DỤNG LÝ THUYẾT VỀ MỐI QUAN HỆ NGỮ NGHĨA 
TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH
NGUYỄN THỊ HÀ THƯƠNG
Tóm tắt: Việc học từ vựng là vô cùng quan trọng trong quá trình học ngôn ngữ đặc biệt là với 
người học tiếng Anh. Nhiều sinh viên gặp khó khăn trong việc chọn đúng từ ngữ để diễn đạt ý 
tưởng của mình do kiến thức từ vựng chưa đầy đủ. Bài viết này nhằm phân tích tầm quan trọng 
của việc ứng dụng lý thuyết về mối quan hệ ngữ nghĩa trong giảng dạy từ vựng. Tác giả hy vọng 
đề xuất một số giải pháp mới trong xây dựng và thiết kế nhiều bài tập và hoạt động trong ứng 
dụng lý thuyết về quan hệ ngữ nghĩa nhằm nâng cao năng lực tiếng Anh của người học, đặc biệt 
là học từ vựng. 
Từ khoá: quan hệ ngữ nghĩa, giảng dạy từ vựng 
Ngày nhận bài: 18/4/2019; ngày sửa chữa: 15/5/2019; ngày duyệt đăng: 17/5/2019
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