92-pages-GUIDELINES-FOR-SECONDARY-SCHOOLS-All-Streams-and-Sections

instance, creating mental linkages, applying images and sounds, reviewing systematically and in a well
structured way, etc.
Recycling Vocabulary
Forgetfulness and language attrition seem to be ‘serious’ but inevitable processes unless learners constantly
revisit the items they have previously learned. Learners should also be helped with efficient techniques for
adequately recording and revising vocabulary in a context. “Recycling”, then, is necessary for vocabulary
building and durability. It is also a surer way for learners to be able to retrieve the right word in the right time
and situation. When materials fail to recycle vocabulary, the teacher is advised to keep track of the important
vocabulary items presented in previous lessons, and make sure they come again and again in a variety of ways
and throughout the year. “Recycling” is not to be mistaken for ‘repetition’, and it should hence be visualized as a
‘snowball’ that gives a “second chance” to the vocabulary seen earlier to get fixed, expanded and enriched.
Guessing is not enough for effective reading
The now-widely-known saying that “ reading is a psychological guessing game” has contributed to the fact that
the goal of the teaching of reading is generally geared towards providing learners with the necessary strategies to
read more efficiently; i.e. to guess from the context, to define expectations, make inferences about the text, skim
ahead to fill in the context, etc. These strategies are very important for effective reading, but guessing might be
impossible or misleading at times. Special attention should be paid to the following issues:
1. The problem of limited vocabulary: Good vocabulary resources free readers from the cognitive
load of guessing or interpreting the meaning of words.
2. Text opacity : Good guesses could be impossible if the clues are not available in the text, if the
clue words are not familiar to the reader, if the clues are misleading, or if the reader’s schemata
is incompatible with the text content.
3. The problem of words the reader thinks he/she knows: Many words lead readers to
misinterpret texts. Some of these are: deceptively transparent words 40 , idioms, false friends,
words with multiple meanings, and ‘Synforms’ (similar lexical forms) (e.g.
economic/economical, or reduce/deduce/induce).
40 These words look as if they provided clues, but in fact they don’t. For example the word “ shortcomings” might induce
readers to think it means the sum of its parts( i.e. “short+comings”, meaning “ short visits”(p.25).
40
التوجيهات التربوية وبرامج تدريس مادة اللغة الإنجليزية س ت ث ت 2007