Vocab-backup Strategy: 5 Sequential Self-learning Steps to Boost Your Vocabulary Knowledge

Vocab-Backup Strategy

5 Sequential Self-Learning Steps to Boost Your Vocabulary Knowledge

Adel M. Alharbi

Copyright © 2017 Adel M. Alharbi

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

www.adlism.com

To my mom (Fatimah) and Dad (Marzouq)

who taught me my life’s first vocabulary.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

Purpose

Audience

About This Book

INTRODUCTION

How and Why Did This Strategy Come About?

Why Learning Vocabulary is Important

My Vocabulary Story

Introducing the Vocab-Backup Strategy – VBS

CHAPTER I

Step #1: Synonyms First!

Synonym Strategies Process

Semantic Map Example

CHAPTER II

Step #2: Meaning with Context

CHAPTER III

Step #3: Pronunciation Practice Process

CHAPTER IV

Step #4: Bookmark Your Vocabulary Search

CHAPTER V

Step #5: Remembering Strategy for Writing

CONCLUSION

VOCAB-BACKUP 5 STEPS STRATEGY

ACTIVITIES TO USE VBS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDIX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, my absolute thanks are to God [Allah, The Creator] who made our knowledge in words to be seen, developed our language to be spoken in infinite tongues and meanings, and guided our actions to the right path.

I would like to give my thanks too to all my professors and students who supported me in writing this book and who showed their motivation toward my book topic. Also, I should give a special thanks to my book editor, Dr. Steven Miller, who made this book look better.

This book’s initial spark came from the immense support and guidance of Dr. Mahmoud Amer, who pushed me to continue investigating this topic. I am especially thankful to the Self-Publishing School for supporting me to walk me through how to publish. I have built more confidence after I joined their program. The pro. class level allowed me to master all the requirements to make my book publishing dream happen. Additional appreciation goes to Dr. Teresa Dalle (my PhD supervisor) for her great assistance and support in guiding my research.

Finally, I must thank Dr. Rebecca Oxford for her endless endeavors to encourage the flourishing of the field of vocabulary learning strategies and language learning strategies. She inspires and motivates us to think strategically in our language learning and to activate the power of self-regulation in the field of Applied Linguistics.

Lastly, my endless gratitude and thanks to my family Samar and Rayan who supported me the whole journey to publish this book. Thank you so much for giving me time and courage to make my book publishing happened on time.

PREFACE

Purpose

Vocab-Backup Strategy: 5 sequential self-learning steps to boost your vocabulary knowledge aims to help language learners integrate the best strategies in acquiring new words. The core stimulus of this project came after years of teaching ESL students and noticing that students’ language proficiency in most classes (English, history, grammar, reading, and other writing-intensive subjects) were insufficient, despite their academic achievements. In other words, it is neither their lack of learning motivation nor different styles of communication that lowers their language proficiency, but rather a lack of building a sufficiently sized new vocabulary to use the language. Years of research in language learning has shown that most language learners prefer to use a strategy that they can depend on, and most start with vocabulary learning strategy during the process of learning. For this basic reason, I am offering this book for students to succeed in their academic journey and fulfil their course requirements to achieve higher vocabulary knowledge. Frequently, teachers’ frustration about students’ progress was mostly recognized as due to a failure of vocabulary building. This motivated me to contemplate this topic and offer a workable method to learners and teachers as well. Another purpose of this book is to evoke the use of vocabulary learning strategies in the mind of language learners.

I should tell you here that this book is supplementary data