Semantics Lesson - Essay Example

Within this view, facial expressions, sounds, body language, as well as proxemics, have semantic (significant) content, and each one encompasses various branches of study. Things such as punctuation and paragraph structure, in written language, have semantic content. Some of the main aspects of semantics include lexical competence and sociolinguistic competence (Dragon & Fair-Bumbray, 2007). This paper will create a semantics lesson plan focusing on lexical competence. Lexical competence or ability is a fancy linguistic word, which refers to the way language learners differentiate the disparity between words in a similar “family” (for instance a seat = stool, chair or bench).

Semantics is significant because, in English, semantics (word meaning) is the key to unlocking understanding in words (Dragon & Fair-Bumbray, 2007). Also, in order for people to communicate, as well as comprehend, they must understand or be aware of the meaning of words. Secondly, they should know a bank of words from which to select from and finally they must know the strategies of supporting themselves in word retrieval. Semantics is significant because choosing the accurate words (or failure to) can have grave social and academic/professional consequences (Dragon & Fair-Bumbray, 2007).

The old strategy that educators have been using in their semantics lessons is visualization or imagery. This, even though efficient, has not managed fully to assist students, especially those who lack full competence in English, understand meaning in words. This paper, therefore, advocates for a new strategy, Word Hierarchies or Graphic Organizers, which is easy to understand and practical when it comes to teaching semantics. The target grades for this lesson will be students from 5th to 8th grade.

This is a comprehensive classroom setting which consists of 24 students (12 regular /8 special /8 ELL). Such a lesson would happen in a chain of mini-lessons using visualization to pass meaning through speaking and in writing, though the concepts might be used in any subject area where learners are projected to derive and/or express meaning with words. Students use their visualization abilities and apply them in learning a new strategy for conveying meaning, semantic mapping. Word hierarchies, in this lesson, will be used to scaffold students prior to their introduction of the approach of semantic mapping.

The aims of this lesson are for learners to examine or inspect word families and arrange related words by intensity or degree. The standards recognized have a widespread thread, which learners apply while using language (Cruse, 1986). The anticipation is that when communicating, learners will choose words suitable for the audience and context, and also utilize strategies for generating, expanding, as well as retrieving vocabulary. The standards of this lesson include 6LD-Q3, 6LD-V10 and 8LD-O7.

6LD-Q3 will identify mood, tone or emotion expressed in oral communication. 6LD-V10, on the other hand, will determine alternating word choices using thesauri, dictionaries or other resources. 8LD-O7 finally will distinguish and create informal and formal language suitable to the purpose and audience, including recognizing how to use words for specific effect. As a way of differentiating instruction to meet needs of different learners, this paper will advocate for metacognitive awareness and task strategies.

Metacognitive aware