Learning from Reading

Learning from Reading

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This is an item on a fashion designer who just won first prize in the Avant-Garde category in New York. I use this brief item to show how much vocabulary and knowledge of collocations one can learn from reading even a short article. Though grammar books, dictionaries, and rules, not to mention sitting in class, obviously help, they are no substitute for habitual reading in the target language (or listening, if your goal is oral fluency). No dictionary, for example, will teach you collocated words (that is, words that belong together topically or idiomatically the way even this short item can do. Below are all the words that one uses in discussing fashion design, art, and award shows. Moreover, many collocations apply to other areas too ("emerging talent," "creative patterns," "award ceremony," "serve as," "stepping stone," etc. Consider:

    1. "I was late for the award ceremony on my graduation night."
    2. "I hope my degree will be a stepping stone in finding a job."
    3. "At the beach, my child made creative patterns in the sand."
    4. "That ticket will serve as a reminder not to pass a red light again.

    Now an ESL student might get stuck at any one of these collocated phrases, wondering, for example, how to find words for the time when they give out awards (not being able to think of "ceremony"), so we get an awkward construction such as, "award time," instead of "ceremony" or "presentations."
    Or an ESL student would get stuck and use a simple word ("be") instead of "serve" in the sentence, "I hope it will be a stepping stone." (One is a weak verb, therefore uninteresting, "serve" is stronger.)
    Or (one final example), an ESL student would probably write "I hope my degree will help me find a job" (which is a good oral construction but not strong enough for writing, compared to "be a stepping stone").
    None of these words or phrases are complex. It's putting them together properly (in strings and by topics) that is difficult for ESL students. Bad choices may range from poor writing to weak writing. "Modern" instead of "avant-garde" may not make your writing poor but it would make it weak (less colorful or specific).
    In sum, there is no substitute for habitual reading.

    1. avant-garde
    2. top prize (as distinct from first prize). (Remember our new phrase, "salary cap," as distinct from "ceiling").
    3. emerging talent
    4. creative patterns
    5. award ceremony
    6. "thrilled to bits"
    7. serve as
    8. stepping stone
    9. to access (the global fashion market)
    10. having his own brand
    11. investment partners
    12. pursuing my interests
(Note also synonymic replacement for Ku in the final paragraph, as "the 30-year-old." Note also how compound adjectives before the noun are separated by hyphens. There is, however, a typo in the second paragraph, where "won award" should be "won the award.")

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