English Proficiency Vocabulary - Gürcan Günay, Mustafa Demir

In learning a foreign language, there are certain challenges like learning its grammatical structure, adopting a correct pronunciation pattern and most importantly acquiring as many useful words to be able to communicate with as possible. Just as the construction workers lay the foundation of a building as the initial step, someone hoping to learn a language needs to obtain the fundamentals of that language first – its grammar. However, learning process of grammar does not last very long, taking up just a few months at the longest. What’s more, grammar should never remain on the surface of the learning medium, pushing the language learner to become grammar oriented and grammar-conscious at the very beginning of the language learning process.

Instead, grammar should be embedded in the learning material, concealed somewhere in the background, and must be acquired subconsciously. Namely, grammar of the language is not something a language learner should worry about that much. The main problem will continue to persist even after spending several years in the target language: vocabulary! Enrichment of vocabulary is the problem of almost all foreign language learners. Even if you have studied a single word for tens of times, the next morning when you see that word again, you may not be able to remember what it means and you get mad at yourself.

However, that is quite a natural experience for every language learner and you are not the first person to experience this and won’t be the last either. Enriching vocabulary in the target language requires a set of systematic study techniques. In the very first place, memorization, the most commonly referred technique by most language learners,
is in fact the most obsolete and unfruitful method, as any memorized word is just like a word written on the sand by the ocean. Only a few seconds will be enough to wipe memorized words out of your mind. Yet most language learners, unknowingly or helplessly, or just because think it is the best way to acquire even more words, resort to this technique.

Even after several months, they end up with a small set of words left in their minds from a few thousand targeted words. This being the case, what should a language learner do to overcome this problem? The answer is so simple: Get involved in the language you want to learn, love it, be a part of it and always do live together with it! To do this, you have to live in the language, not go around it. You should do a lot of reading every day, without coming up with daily excuses. What’s more, you should read texts not in your academic field only or those that appeal to you, but also texts that you don’t have any taste in. You have to see any unknown word over and over in several texts and contexts. Remember, contextual learning is the best and most meaningful learning ever. Retention of words in the mind
is only possible through living the language rather than just wanting it.