APPLYING CALL INTO VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AND READING SKILL

Maria Jose Lopez Aguirre

Week 8: Online English-English Learner Dictionaries Boost Word Learning.

Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension.

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This week articles contain useful information about using CALL to enhance vocabulary acquisition. Something that caught my attention from the first article was the implementation of learner dictionaries designed for ESL/EFL students. Amazingly, these online dictionaries are available for students in the web providing features such as meaning, frequency use, examples, collocations, etc. that ease learners to acquire new words strategically and enjoyably. Something I learned is that corpus-based dictionaries are appropriate to use because the content is based on authentic environment that show how the language is actually used. So, students should became aware of what kind of dictionaries use, that help focus mainly on frequent word usage and meaning. Furthermore, when learners encounter the vocabulary many times in any material they are more willing to retain the meaning of the words. The second article is focused on the role of vocabulary acquisition in reading comprehension. My favorite quote from the article was “good readers have a rich vocabulary, and similarly, a rich vocabulary is one of the key elements that ensure reading proficiency”. In fact, vocabulary plays a major part in reading proficient due to the requirement that EFL/ESL learners should know a considerably number of words to reach the necessary grade of comprehension of the text. Moreover, multimedia offers content which contain annotations, such as pictures, videos, and interactivity facilitating the retention and learning of new words. To conclude, CALL provide meaningful materials that can be applied to foster the usage of learner-oriented dictionaries in order to develop vocabulary acquisition and reading skill, becoming both elements closely related.