The importance of learning vocabulary when studying another language is second to none. It simply must be done for there to be any possibility of success, and in this post I outline one very useful and very effective method for building your vocabulary quickly, but surely. When learning a second language it is important to …

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Ok, so we've established that the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the difference between what a learner already knows (their actual development level, developed "retrospectively"(Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994, p. 468)) and what they can do when assisted (the ZPD, developed prospectively (ibid)), and it is virtually impossible to discover the novice's ZPD without dialogic …

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In Japan they certainly have an odd way of selling things at schools. The guy in this photo comes to this school nearly everyday trying to sell educational resources to the teachers. He comes in, goes to each row of teachers' desks, says his hellos and then proceeds to sit down at this desk (it's …

Weird Japan Read More »

The 2000 most common English words cover around 75-78% of modern English used today and therefore vocabulary should be prioritised by frequency or by importance to your own needs. Knowing this much vocabulary will allow you to function in English, however what does it mean to know a word? Knowing a word means you understand …

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Finding the vocabulary you should learn is the easy part, actually learning it is much more difficult. There are two main ways vocabulary can be learnt and there are a few terms for each way; intensive/ explicit learning is when you purposefully study words through lists or word cards etc. Extensive or implicit learning is …

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In this post I will give some tips on learning vocabulary in a second language that have been proven to be effective through empirical studies. Firstly you need to know what vocabulary you should learn, which means you should have a good idea of your current level. For anyone learning English as a Second language it …

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In my Sociocultural Theory classes the focus recently has been on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is the difference between what someone can learn by themselves, known as the Actual Development Level (ADL), and what they can learn with assistance. Say for example you have two 10 year old students who when …

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