Thursday, August 23, 2007Context Clues
Standard dictionaries aren’t always up-to-date with new words that are being used by English speakers and this can be very frustrating for ESL students. -
- Students sometimes struggle to understand new words that they’ve read in newspapers or heard in movies, but are unable to find in the dictionary. It’s important to point out to students that many of these words are new to native speakers as well. We rely on context clues in order to understand new expressions.
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- Using context clues is an important skill that students need to develop instead of running to a dictionary to check all unfamiliar vocabulary. Demonstrate to students how they can determine the meaning of the expression “mouse-potato”, using context clues in the following sentences:
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- Child obesity is becoming a serious problem. It’s difficult to convince many young couch-potatoes and mouse-potatoes to turn off their TVs and computers and play outside.
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- Point out all the clues in these sentences that will help learners understand the expression mouse-potato.
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- a) Mouse-potato and coach-potato sound alike and are being grouped together.
b) We understand that coach-potatoes want to continue watching television and that mouse-potatoes want to continue using their computers.
c) We’ve read in the first sentence that obesity is a very real issue. -
- Those clues allow us to make an educated guess that “mouse-potato” probably means a person who spends most of their time on a computer.
POSTED BY Cecelia Sumi AT 1:51 PM
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