TEFL Vocabulary Terminology 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is a 'collocation' in English vocabulary teaching?
- A word with multiple meanings
- Words that naturally and frequently occur together (Correct answer)
- A word borrowed from another language
- A compound word formed by merging two words
Correct answer: Words that naturally and frequently occur together
A collocation is a pair or group of words that habitually appear together, such as 'make a decision' or 'heavy rain.'
Question 2: Which term describes a word's emotional or cultural associations beyond its literal meaning?
- Denotation
- Morphology
- Connotation (Correct answer)
- Etymology
Correct answer: Connotation
Connotation refers to the implied or emotional meaning attached to a word beyond its dictionary definition.
Question 3: What does 'lexical density' measure in a text?
- The number of syllables per word
- The proportion of content words to total words (Correct answer)
- The frequency of repeated vocabulary items
- The ratio of active to passive voice
Correct answer: The proportion of content words to total words
Lexical density measures the ratio of content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) to the total number of words in a text.
Question 4: A 'false cognate' (false friend) is best described as:
- A word that sounds the same in two languages and has the same meaning
- A word that looks or sounds similar across languages but differs in meaning (Correct answer)
- A newly coined word adopted into the lexicon
- A word that has fallen out of common usage
Correct answer: A word that looks or sounds similar across languages but differs in meaning
False cognates are words in two languages that appear similar but have different meanings, such as English 'embarrassed' and Spanish 'embarazada' (pregnant).
Question 5: In vocabulary instruction, what is 'spaced repetition'?
- Teaching new words with gaps between each definition
- Reviewing vocabulary at increasing intervals to strengthen retention (Correct answer)
- Spacing out word lists alphabetically for easier recall
- Introducing words in clusters separated by topic
Correct answer: Reviewing vocabulary at increasing intervals to strengthen retention
Spaced repetition is a learning technique where vocabulary items are reviewed at gradually increasing intervals to maximize long-term retention.
Question 6: What is a 'lexical set'?
- A group of words sharing a common topic or semantic field (Correct answer)
- A list of irregular verbs organized by tense
- A collection of words with identical spelling patterns
- A set of morphological rules for word formation
Correct answer: A group of words sharing a common topic or semantic field
A lexical set is a group of words associated with a particular topic or semantic field, such as kitchen items: knife, fork, spoon, bowl.
Question 7: Which vocabulary learning strategy involves inferring meaning from surrounding text?
- Rote memorization
- Contextual guessing (Correct answer)
- Dictionary drilling
- Morphological analysis
Correct answer: Contextual guessing
Contextual guessing (inferring from context) is a strategy where learners use surrounding words and sentences to deduce the meaning of unknown words.
TEFL Vocabulary Terminology 2
What is a 'collocation' in English vocabulary teaching?