The Words You Need - Student's Book [antikvár]

Preface The importance of words in verbal communication hardly needs stressing, yet no other language component has been more neglected in foreign language teaching than the lexicon. While a great deal of energy and imagination is going into the teaching of grammar, comparatively little is being done to teach words, and students of foreign languages, even after several years of strenuous effort, often know many grammatical frames but have very little to put into them. The Words You Need sets out specifically to organise the acquisition of language skills within the context of a structured approach to vocabulary teaching. The inspiration for our book came directly from the work on semantic fields and lexical structure of Adrienne Lehrer from the University of Arizona, and we owe her a particular debt for her encouragement, and continued interest. The approach used is a completely new one, adapting insights from theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics to the service of the language learner. A teacher's book accompanies this student's book. In it we explain the teaching methods used and give practical guidance on the many and varied uses to which the material can be put. Acknowledgements We are most grateful to Sandra Colen, René Dirven, Roger Flavell, John Green, Adrienne Lehrer, Jacques van Roey, Emma Vorlat, and Don. Young, who read, reviewed and criticised sections ofthe manuscript. We would also like to express our thanks to the following people, who provided examples, comments, suggestions and the opportunity to discuss recalcitrant points: Alessandra Bini, the Channell family, Patrick Griffiths, Peter Kelly, Androulla Kyriacou, Mary Ann Martin, Maryam Mathis, Conny Templeman, Margie Thomas, Ludolph van Hasselt, June Wickboldt. The following people arranged or took part in tests and trials of the material : René Dirven and his seminar students at the University of Trier, Germany; students of Enghsh at the Kathoheke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium; and students at York Advanced English Summer School, summer 1978.