Vocabulary: Why should you learn new words in context?

Some learners try to improve their vocabulary by having a list of words to learn for the day. We have known some that even try to learn words from the dictionary, starting from the letter ‘A’! It is possible to learn some words if you use this approach, but it certainly is not the best way to learn. “Is there any other way?”, you might ask. As a matter of fact, there is…we call this as ‘learning in context’. “What does that mean…you might ask? Well, learning in context means learning a new word when you are reading or listening.There are many advantages for this way of learning.

1. You have a NEED to know the meaning

If you happen to come across a new word in the middle of your story or article, you really want to know the meaning of it. Otherwise, you cannot fully understand or follow the story. This creates a desire or interest in finding out the meaning of the word. You want to find out the meaning of the word, at any cost. Learning that takes place under such conditions is long lasting and effective. Imagine you came across the simple word ‘patient’ in the middle of your story.

Example:

“Lily was a patient when she met Dr. Fred. He came across as a genuinely caring person, who truly sympathised with her in this situation. Her broken leg gave her an opportunity to think about the things that really matter in life”.

In our example, you want to know the meaning of all of the words in these sentences, because you really want to understand the story and the characters in the story.

2. You can learn the meaning ‘in context‘

If you have a good dictionary, try flipping through the pages of the dictionary and you’re sure to find that there are many meanings listed under most of the words. Some words even have 25 different meanings! Can you believe that? Maybe that makes you say, “Oh, my God! How can I learn so many words?” Well, like anything difficult, you should approach it step-by-step. The best way to get through all of the meanings is to learn them in their context. When you learn them in context, you can know the meaning of the word in that sentence. In the above sentences, the in context, meaning of the word patient is, someone who is ill in hospital.

3. You get an example sentence of how to USE it

Just learning words separately, doesn’t help you to learn how to use the word. After all, that is the reason why you want to learn new words in the first place. When you learn in context, this problem is solved, because you get given an example sentence, right in front of your eyes! If you want to be a good learner, then you will write down your new sentence and the example in your vocabulary notebook, to be practised later.

4. You can try to guess the meaning of the new word which is a good way to approach learning a new word

You can also learn to guess the meaning of the word this way, by reading or listening around the word you don’t know. In our example, we can guess the meaning from the phrase ‘her broken leg’ and from the name of one of the characters, Dr. Fred. When you try to guess first and then look up the meaning in a dictionary, the time you are spending with the word increases, which helps you to remember the word better. Also, this method of learning a new word helps you to learn the word faster, because your brain becomes more active in the learning process.

What do you think? Do you learn words in context or do you prefer to just learn a list of words? Feel free to give your own comments about this topic.

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Tagged as: learning new words, spoken English tips, Vocabulary