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Editorial:
Words And Images
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Words
walking without masters; walking altogether like harmony in a song.
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Many of us may have had the experience that Mu
Fengying describes in her article featured in this issue. When she begins a new class each
academic year, she asks her students what they hope to learn from her course. Invariably
she hears them respond, "Vocabulary!"
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This issue includes a number of articles that
address the teaching and learning of L2 vocabulary. Joe, Nation, and Newton draw on recent
research to show how vocabulary learning goals can be integrated into speaking activities.
They make valuable suggestions to show how teachers can increase the opportunity for
planned vocabulary learning without compromising the communicative nature of spoken
activities. Fengying and South share innovative techniques to explain word meaning. By
taking abstract concepts and making them concrete through simple schematic drawings, they
show how teachers can help students visualize the meaning of new words or problematic
grammatical structures like prepositions. Wilhoit and Cohen discuss learning strategies
that students can use for taking control of their vocabulary acquisition process. Wilhoit
uses a striking metaphor comparing new words to Chinese tea leaves that sink to the bottom
of a jar of hot water if not periodically shaken; he describes a program that periodically
"shakes up" new lexical items so that they remain accessible to the learner.
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In this issue we also
celebrate the centennial year of the motion picture. In 1895,
the American inventor Thomas Edison produced the peephole movie,
The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots at the same time
that the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere were completing the
film Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory in France. First
to successfully adapt photographed moving images to a projection
device, these three individuals can be considered the founding
fathers of the film industry.
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Like no other art form, film captures the
imagination of people everywhere. Massi and Merino capitalize upon this quality using
feature films with students of English. Their article describes the different activities
they have developed to go along with box office blockbusters like Forrest Gump as
well as with thought-provoking films (of less general appeal) like Quiz Show or
Philadelphia.
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Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park was
enormously popular around the world, and its special effects, action, and suspense held
audiences in rapt attention. But what may remain more vivid in the minds of moviegoers are
films from Hollywood's Golden Age (1930-1959) and contemporary films like Dead Poets
Society or Bridges of Madison County because of the charisma of the actors and
the unforgettable lines they spoke. The words combined with the images on the screen speak
to us about things that we know: hopes and disappointments, good guys and bad, the noble
and the profane. They reinforce or contribute to our understanding of life and give us
something to share and to talk about. -TJK
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"My
class, you will learn to think for yourselves again. You will
learn to savor words and language. No matter what anybody tells
you, words and ideas can change the world."Robin Williams
as English Teacher John Keating (Dead Poets Society, 1989.)
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