CC BY
10Sciences of Europe # 57, (2020)_
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DEVELOPING COMMUNICATIVE CAPACITY FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS OF ETHNIC MINORITIES THROUGH EXERCISES ON SYNONYMS
Tran Thi Kim Hoa
Thai Nguyen University of Education
Viet Nam
ABSTRACT
The article has mentioned the matter of developing communication skills for ethnic primary students through synonym exercises. This type of exercise brings students an opportunity to experience and build a number of synonyms as well as creates conditions for them to use the vocabulary to represent things and phenomena vividly in diverse ways and aspects. In addition, it also helps to facilitate the process of accessing and acquiring other knowledge for students.
Keywords: communication skills, exercises, synonyms, synonym exercises, primary students, ethnic minorities, ethnic primary students.
1. Introduction
The Vietnamese language is both a fundamental subject and an instrumental subject for students to acquire knowledge and skills of other subjects in the educational program. For ethnic students, the acquisition of the knowledge and skills of the Vietnamese language is completely new because their mother tongue is far different from the so-called officially national Vietnamese. "Since born, ethnic children have been exposed to speak their mother tongue only, which is the language of ethnic groups. Vietnamese is the common and national language, but it is just the second language for them. It is meant that Vietnamese is not the native language of ethnic students, so they cannot have the same innate advantages to acquire the language as the Vietnamese Kinh students have". Therefore, it is necessary to do research to find ways to overcome these limitations in order to improve the quality of teaching Vietnamese to ethnic students.
People do need a kind of certain language to think, the incomplete vocabulary makes it impossible to use a language as a means of communication. Teaching vocabulary to primary students is to provide them with vocabulary of the language as a means of communication. The richer their vocabulary is, the greater their ability to use the language and the more effective their communication will be. Therefore, providing and expanding vocabulary in general as well as synonyms in particular for students play a key role in the process of forming the basic linguistic skills such as reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Through surveying the linguistic ability of ethnic primary students, we found out that their Vietnamese vocabulary was limited, it was difficult for them to use words in appropriate contexts generally, and it was even more difficult for them to use the correct synonyms particularly. That was because a synonym has a distinct meaning besides its general meaning. Words in
a synonym sequence are often interchangeable in specific contexts, help users to avoid repetition of a language unit for many times which causes redundancy and boredom in discourse. In communication activities, especially in literary, the presence of synonymous means always create special effects for readers and listeners.
The design of the synonym exercise system is one of the ways to bring the synonym phenomenon to penetrate deeper into the memory of ethnic students, so that they experience communicating with the words of different syllabuses but fully express the same ideas and thoughts. Providing a number of synonyms for students means creating conditions for students to use them to represent things and phenomena descriptively in different aspects and angles. In addition, to facilitate the process of accessing and acquiring other knowledge for students.
2. Contents:
2.1. The method of building synonym exercises
From the proposed research orientation, the system of exercises to-be-designed should, first of all, ensure the goal of developing communication skills for students. The ideology of communication has a strong impact on and determines the establishment of the goals in teaching mother tongue, in selecting contents and methods, and in influencing the requirements and tasks of learning each language at school. Research on building synonym exercises for ethnic students is also not out of that ideology. Accordingly, the careful consideration of choosing the linguistic units which are typical and worthy representing the language unit to-be-formed in students becomes indispensable to ensure the principles of simplifying the process of identifying and classifying, optimizing the process of using, meeting the practical goals of using the language when teaching the mother tongue at primary schools. A requirement which needs emphasizing in building a system of synonym exercises to-be-taught is the need of showing
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positive and effective movements of words that are "different in sound but same or similar in meaning" in sentences and in communication -it is meant that it needs to comply with the principle of ensuring the systematic features of words and sentences; And showing the value and color of rhetoric, performance of words with similar meaning - It is meant that it needs to comply with the principle of ensuring consistency between grammatical contents and forms.
For building a system of exercises on synonyms, it is necessary to thoroughly grasp the basic pedagogical principles, such as communication, integration, and visualization. From the goal of developing the ability to use Vietnamese words for ethnic students, first of all, the requirement of "facilitating" in receiving the language units should be specified in the selection of the linguistics that are typical and visual, associated with signs of forms, not confusing but easy to recognize. It is also important to notice the differences of student capacity in different regions when designing the language exercises.
Psychological factors, excitement, and perception level should also be focused on to ensure that teaching materials are valuable and absorbed in the most complete manner.
2.2. System of synonym exercises for teaching at schools
In teaching Vietnamese at primary schools, corresponding to the students' levels of understanding and
using language, it is possible to structure the system of exercises into three groups as follows: Group of exercises to form knowledge of synonyms; Group of exercises to enrich and expand synonyms; group of exercises to practice and use synonyms.
While the group of exercises to form knowledge of synonyms helps to form concepts and initial understanding of words that have similar meanings or provides simple rules for operating this word class in the activity, the group of exercises to enrich and expand synonyms helps students to enrich synonyms both in quantity (accumulating vocabulary) and quality (grasping the meaning, understanding the meaning and practicing).
In the form of creating, exercises using synonyms help to develop students' ability to speak and write with synonyms, in which the ability to manipulate synonyms is shown in response activities (reading comprehension, literary perception and text production). Associated with each goal of developing capacity, exercises in each group are designed with their own features.
In order to facilitate the process of knowledge formation and recognition of linguistic signals that have meaning similarities, the group of exercises (1) often exploits the "fulcrum" of the meaning or visual image.
Example: Observe following pictures, compare pairs of words to understand what synonyms are.
a) bo - ba (To whom do the words "bo" and "ba" both refer? -> to "father")
(Source: http://www.nv.lovepik)
b) khieng (left picture) - vac (right picture) (What is different and similar between these two words?)
Source: Internet
The exercises in this group also help students see the "communicative usefulness" of synonyms in expressing thoughts, associating or forming double synonyms. Question: Find the words to refer to "mother" in the following verses:
"Ma ai, ma a lam chi mot mmh?" (Ma, what are you doing alone?)
"Ba Bu nam o chuoi kho /Ba Bu khong ngu ba lo bai baf' (Ba Bu is lying on a dry banana-leaves nest, Ba Bu is not sleeping but getting fidget on her life)
"Bam ai, som som chieu chieu /Thuomg con, bam cha lo nhieu bam nghe!".
(Bam, love me then don't worry too much about me all day long)
From the first steps in their early life, students can approach and get familiar to the words with the same or similar meanings, and at the same time grasp the rules of using words. For example, replace italic words with synonyms for the correct combination: a) khuon mat qua xoan (oval face); b) bau troi sum sue sao (the sky
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is starry); c) dang nguoi co giao cao vol voi" (teacher's very tall), the exercise give students a specific visualization of possible word combination and connection in synonyms with different things.
The type of word explanation exercises in the group is therefore received and actively practiced by students. However, the limitations of linguistic thinking and students' ability of word interpretation need to be paid attention when designing this type of exercises. The difficult level can be reduced in the form of multi-choice tests (word and meaning connection) or only ask students to state the basic meaning, the synonyms in specific verbal contexts, such as: What does the italic idioms eventually describe?
- Nha ai dai nang dam suang (Missing someone exposed to the sun and the fog)
- Me gia mot nang hai suang (Old mother exposed sun and dew)
(Both refer to the typical hard life of Vietnamese women, such as mothers and sisters, in the countryside)
Enrichment of vocabulary is a group of exercises that covers different types of exercises, including requirements for systematizing vocabulary, creating a sense of sentence and initially positivizing words with filling or replacing.
For example, select the appropriate word in parentheses and fill in the blanks:
"Dem ram, trang khong khuyet ma ..." (tron xoe, tron lan, tron vanh vanh)"
(At Full moon night, the moon is not crescent but ....; perfectly round referring to eyes, fleshy and solid round referring to body, perfectly round referring to things which have shapes like a circle)
"Nhung giot mua xuan .... bay" (phap phoi, lat phat, lat phat)
(Spring raindrops are .... : fluttering, sprinkling, flapping)
The communication capacity of primary school students is really developed when they understand and know how to use synonyms in verbal activities. These activities can be positive movements in text response, especially in artistic texts. The following exercises not only help students practice the manipulations of analytical and comparative thinking but also develop their verbal ability and the ability of perceiving literature: When reading the sentence "after a while, the birds were flapping wings then flew away, but their songs lingered in the sky outside the window ", one asked the question: "Why did the author use the verb "linger" but not "still exist" or "resound'? Let's give him the explanation!
In another form, by constructing a "paragraph", the exercise orientates students to naturally use words of the yellow color: Write a paragraph with the opening sentence as follows: "In Spring, the mountains are full offlowers."
2.2. Orientations in organizing practice exercises for students
It can be said that the ultimate purpose of language teaching is to help students be able to use language verbally. During the process of teaching, it is essential to focus on the nature of activities (initially, fundamental,
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practical or applicable, expandable etc.) while constructing, selecting and organizing the practice of synonym exercises. It is because of the fact that at certain stages of forming Vietnamese knowledge and skills, the impact of requirements of exercises, the fit of teaching materials etc. strongly influence the students' receptivity and creative capacity.
In the journey of decoding interesting unknowns about synonyms, the design of activities and exercises towards the "energy saving" orientation should be implemented and the attention to the goal orientation should be paid regularly and closely. Parallel to it, depending on the nature of exercises and degree of independent activity etc., the implementation of the students' learning tasks can be diversified when organizing the practical activities for students.
In the organization of teaching synonyms in general, and the organization of practicing synonyms in particular, it is vital to notice the exercises that help to reinforce, expand, and increase the dialogue field (with knowledge, acquaintances etc.). But, to make the exercises effective, it is also necessary to pay attention to the "dosage", goals and student interaction. At primary schools, teaching Vietnamese means organizing verbal activities for students to participate in.
For ethnic students, doing Vietnamese homework can be seen as the main form of the Vietnamese-learning activity. Vietnamese exercises are effective and irreplaceable means of helping students to acquire language skills and to develop thinking. Therefore, it is essential to make this regular language practice activity always become interesting so that students are excited to join in order to help develop real language and communication abilities in them.
3. Conclusion
Developing and improving communication capacities for ethnic students are ones of the important tasks that teachers in ethnic areas aim for. Every teacher needs to be aware that words are importantly integral from a language. Like making a house, the more adequate and of good quality the materials are, the better the house will be built. In order to ensure the development of communication skills for primary students, exercises should help them clearly see the characteristics of the similarities in meaning, the possibilities of word replacement to create a vivid picture in language, helping to connect language units and expressing ideas freely without making repeated mistakes etc. Besides, in exercises or special language situations, it is possible to increase usability of side-by-side synonyms helping to emphasize informative contents, creating a strong impression on listeners and readers.
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