Passive vs Active vocabulary

So passive vocabulary either will carry other words you know when you listen or you read you understand you know what it means perfectly you don't have any trouble with understanding them however those are not the words that you can use every day in your speaking and your writing

active vocabulary on the other hand are those words that you use every day in your speaking and writing for example hello how are you those are the very simple terms that you use every day so this depends on what kind of jobs you do as well and whether your environment and people around you require you to speak English a lot or not a lot'

one way to think about this is about belongings in your house about the furnitures so if you have been living in a house for a while and do shopping now and then providing that you are not a minimalist who doesn't want anything in the room but a bow and a tatami mat you will have a lot of belongings in your house; however you don't use all of them every day; there are 20% of your belongings that you do use 80% of the time so you know where they are and you never forget where they are and when you need to use it you're just gonna go and grab them it's very fast because you use it a lot and you know where exactly it is; on the other hand there are things that you half buried in the wardrobes maybe it's some kind of clothes that you only wear for special occasions or some tools that you only use when your bicycle breaks down let's say a pump for your bicycle tyres; so whenever you need it it takes you longer you are still able to find it and you still know that you have it in your house but whenever you need to use it it just takes you more time to go and find and get that belonging out of their storage

so passive will carry in this stage are those belongings that are buried in your house which are rarely use so you don't know where they are and it's just takes you a little bit longer to retrieve them to recall them and to use them whenever you need to use; but those active vocabulary are the things that you use every day you know where exactly they are and you have a faster response time in using them

the application of this to your speaking skills is very simple; so let's get back to the example if you need a pump for your bicycle if you're tired if your bicycle tires has a puncture in it or need the pump again you wouldn't go and buy a new pump but instead you would go into your belongings and find it, ; or if you have a special occasions like a prom and you know that you have a beautiful dress in your wardrobe you wouldn't go and buy a new dress maybe you do if you're like me; but most of the time the solution is to go back inside and get out what we already know rather than try to learn new things; so in terms of speaking skills you would try to go back inside and use those a little bit more advanced and topic related words that you have understood and known all along however you weren't able to use them

I know that there are a lot of blogs and websites that are very tempting psychologically like use this word list to get 9.0 in in your exam but the truth is most of the time those words you are already know and if you use it it's more effective to go back in and find the words you already know to use them rather than trying to learn new words which you will very likely again bury them into your lockers into your passive vocabulary lockers

So in unit 6 of our book we explore the topic of making money spending money what this effectively mean is but we discussed the topic of shopping in supermarkets and different type of shops we learn the language related to this topic, spending money. on also with the bank discussion related to money, so you also need vocabulary in terms of banking what does it mean vocabulary that deals with money in terms of pronunciation you will we will focus on word stress we're in Monte Monte syllable words and we are going to read about how supermarkets manipulate people into buying more things at their place and we're going to listen to a conversation between two people who are trying to open a bank account and we learn some phrases which can be helpful if you're trying to open a bank account when you are abroad Additionally, in terms of vocabulary we would look into the difference between the verb plus to do and the verb plus doing, after you listen and after you read about the supermarket and the bank we will speak about advertisement and we will discuss the format for speaking Part 2 and speaking Part 3 including some good examples and how you can give those tips to use your skills to improve your speaking skills we will also learn some words to explain reasons and examples for writing we have an essay and write about buying things on the Internet the advantages and the disadvantages also we will discuss some tips some good examples and things that you can apply into your writing key grammar we would look at relative pronouns and relative clauses which can be considered as a complex grammatical use which will definitely bring your writing up to six rather than just five point zero

So by the end of this unit you would be expected to finish your writing task too in your personal writing file as well as be able to answer all the speaking questions relating to the topics using word stress using relative class in your sentences and this also applies into your writing which means you have to use those grammar and vocabulary grammar in your writing in your writing you in your writing and speaking you are also expected to use some of the verb plus to do or verb plus doing that we have learned so the the objectives has always been the same that you need to use you need to be able to speak and rise to produce languages using all the knowledge that you have learned from the units

So we started off by discussing the difference between shops different type of shops so we have fashion boutique we have electronic stores we have bookstore we have souvenir stores and we also talk about the things that track you to some shops more than others so this can be promotion this can be held a display this can be the personality of the sharp assistant who you love talking to so this is just to activate your knowledge of the knowledge about of the topic about spending money at shops so the best thing to do at this stage is just to read a little bit about shops online do a little bit of Googling and read about it

then we went into the reading section so before you read there are some words that uh those are vocabulary that can be useful for your reading as well as you're speaking in terms of the topics so the first word we'd have is aisle which is not long narrow space between the rows of shelves in a large shop; the second word is a bargain that is something on sale at a lower price than its true value; then we have branded product - which is just a product made by a particular company; own-label product is a little bit different, which is a product with the name of the shop where you buy it rather than the name of the company that made it; then we have promotion which is the activities to advertise something; then we have “purchase” which is a noun illustrating something that you buy; and we finally we have “retailer” which is a person, shop or business that sells goods to the public so this to be differ with wholesaler which is a person shop or business that sells goods to the business for resale.

Aand all these words would be available in the Quizlet set that is provided along with your learning materials so please have a look, use the flash cards or your favorite learning media to learn them.

When we comes to the reading, the very first step as always is reading which is so take a moment and remind yourself of what reading for gists is or read the article about reading for chess that is provided in your notebook and we will practice reading for cheers in this reading very first step the questions one to four is reading for specific information also remind yourself of reading for specific information and if you are new please check out the article the question 5 to 10 is actually true false not given and that is actually the reading for detailed comprehension skills the questions help us to understand the reading much better and this reading is about the way that our brain buys and how supermarket has arranged their store in order to tell us to buy more so the very first way is they have a decompression zone where people need to slow down and have a look at the surroundings so usually they would put large items here with a lot of promotions so for people to think that there are more bargains further down the store so encourage people to get in uh another way that people do is they have some greeters so people who are smiling and saying hi to the customers so the purpose of this is to cut shoplifting because it's harder to steal from nice people then there is a chill zone where they plays a lot of magazines and books and DVD's so this is out there first attempt to try to get us buy things that we didn't plan for the first section in the supermarket is always fruits and vegetables and the symbology behind it is to make customers buy it and feel less guilty about buying things that are not necessarily later on another trick is placing popular items halfway along a section so people have to walk all along the aisle looking for them some more browsing; another strategy they use is trying to place branded products at eye level which are more expensive while cheaper brands are lower down and along with the supermarket own label products that is for shelf positioning; one more way is um have a lot of changing room for clothes because they realize that the more people try on clothes the more likely they will buy it and the last one the last strategy is to have three items one with high price one with low price and one with middle price and the customer tend to choose the middle price one

So those are very valuable ideas that you can use for your speaking and writing later on which is also about within the topic of making money and spending money also I forgot to add that questions 11 to 13 is also reading for specific information which I encourage you to go back and read the article about reading for specific information

Tự luyện speaking với bạn

Ai cũng hay bảo là có bạn Tây, ‘chém gió’ với nó nhiều là tự khắc giỏi tiếng Anh. Đúng, nhưng quan trọng là ‘chém’ như thế nào, chớ quanh đi quẩn lại chỉ chào nhau rồi…rủ đi nhậu thì bao giờ mới lên được.

Kể cũng khó, tự dưng ra gặp bạn lại nói về chuyện ô nhiễm môi trường hay tăng tuổi nghỉ hưu thì cũng hơi ‘đâm bang’. Hơn nữa, người ta bản xứ tiếng Anh, chớ đâu có chuyên môn sư phạm mà dìu dắt mình.

Người ta không biết ‘dạy’, thì mình biết ‘học’. Tea chỉ cho.

Khi muốn bạn luyện nói cùng mình, hãy nói rõ mục đích của mình và đặt ra thời gian rõ ràng, cụ thể, hẹn nhau ‘thời gian địa điểm rõ ràng’ để luyện nói. Tức là hôm đó nhân vật chính là mình, mình nhờ bạn ấy ra luyện nói với mình, không phải một buổi đi chơi như bình thường. Không nên cố tận dụng những buổi đi chơi bình thường để tập nói tiếng Anh, như thế là có phần hơi ‘ich kỷ’, cuộc trò chuyện cũng sẽ hơi gượng gạo và không hiệu quả nè.

Vì đây là nhờ bạn ấy giúp, nên đổi lại có thể mua thức ăn, nước uống cho bạn, hoặc trả chi phí đi lại cho bạn. Theo nguyên tắc làm tình nguyện (volunteer) thì ‘doesn’t get paid but shouldn’t cost you anything neither’ - tức là bạn ấy làm không để kiếm tiền, nhưng cũng không nên để bạn thiệt chi phí gì.

Để hiệu quả thì các anh chị nên hẹn bạn ấy cố định, thường xuyên, có thể mỗi hai tuần, hay mỗi tháng, để duy trì nhịp độ. Nếu tần suất nhiều hơn thì có thể nên cân nhắc gửi bạn một chi phí tượng trưng để bạn vui vẻ dành thời gian với mình.

Không phải là bạn là người nói tiếng Anh mà có ‘đặc quyền’ như vậy, nhưng vì mình là người đang được giúp. Nếu bạn muốn nói chuyện với mình để học tiếng Việt thì cũng sẽ tương tự lại như vậy thôi nè.

Vậy gặp nhau nói gì? Các anh chị nên có một chương trình, không hẳn là sách giáo khoa mà là một khung sườn những nội dung, câu hỏi, từ vựng để bám vào nói. Gặp nhau một hôm thì có đủ thứ chuyện để nói, chớ gặp nhau 64 hôm (4 tháng) thì hơi…khó hihi. Chương trình này nên bao gồm:

• Các chủ đề: mỗi chủ đề nên kéo dài khoảng 2 buổi - để anh chị kịp ‘quên và nhớ’ theo phương pháp spaced repetition và active recall.

• Bài đọc liên quan đến chủ đề: Bài đọc vừa sức mình - chứa khoảng 20% từ vựng mới, lạ là được. Khó quá thì nản mà dễ quá thì không có hiệu quả.

• Bài nghe liên quan đến chủ đề. Cũng phải vừa sức như bài đọc. Đây có thể là video, podcast, đoạn ghi âm.

Trước buổi học, anh chị và bạn ‘Tây’ nên đọc trước, nghe trước những bài này. Riêng người học thì nên tra sẵn những từ mới, tìm những cụm từ hay muốn sử dụng và viết ra thành một danh sách dễ nhìn.

Trong buổi ‘học’, hai người sẽ cùng thảo luận, chia sẻ ý kiến, quan điểm cá nhân về chủ đề mà đã nghe trước, đọc trước ở nhà. Anh chị cũng có thể nhờ bạn ấy giải thích một vài chỗ mà mình chưa hiểu trong bài, hay nhờ bạn hỏi vài câu hỏi liên quan đến nội dung xem mình đã hiểu rõ nội dung chưa.

Nếu muốn, các anh chị cũng có thể đề nghị bạn ấy lắng nghe và ghi lại những lỗi ngữ pháp, phát âm, dùng từ mà mình có thể cải thiện và đưa ra nhận xét, lời khuyên vào cuối buổi học. Tùy người sẽ thích được sửa lỗi ngay hoặc sửa ở cuối buổi, tuy nhiên Tea khuyến khích sửa ở cuối buổi sẽ giúp các anh chị dạn hơn, đỡ ‘nhát’ do phát triển phản xạ vô điều kiện là ‘cứ nói là bị sửa’.

Phương pháp này không chỉ áp dụng với bạn ‘Tây’ mà bất cứ ai nói tiếng Anh cũng được nha. Ai nói tiếng Anh cỡ mình cũng được, giỏi hơn xíu càng tốt - chủ yếu là phải có người để mà nói cho đã cái nư hihi.

Ngày 20/07 Tea tổ chức workshop hướng dẫn cách tự học tiếng Anh với bạn Tây. Các anh chị tham dự sẽ được tặng một chương trình bao gồm chủ đề, bài đọc, bài nghe và từ vựng, ngữ pháp do Tea soạn để có thể đi thực hành luôn nha, nhắn em Tea để lấy link Zoom tham dự ạ!