situations it may also mean using the learners’ mother tongue, as a more

accessible and cost-effective alternative to the sometimes lengthy and

difficult target- language explanation.

5. Illustrate with examples

You may explain, for instance, the meaning of a word, illustrating

your explanation with examples of its use in various contexts, relating

these as far as possible to the learners’ own lives and experiences.

6. Get feedback

When you have finished explaining, check what they have understood. It

is not just enough to ask “Do you understand?” ; learners will sometimes

say they did even if they did not, out of politeness or unwillingness to

lose face, or because they think they know what they have to do, but in

fact completely misunderstood! It is better to ask them to do something

that will show their understanding: to paraphrase in their own words,

provide further illustration of their own.

WHAT IS ANTONYMY

Traditionally antonyms are defined as words that have opposite

meaning. This definition is open to criticism. The latest linguistic

investigations emphasize that antonyms are similar as words belonging to

the same part of speech and the same semantic field, having the same

grammatical meaning and functions, as well as similar collocations. Like

synonyms antonyms are interchangeable at least at some contexts (hot in its

figurative meaning “angry, excited” is chiefly combined with the names of

unpleasant emotions: hot resentment, hot scorn; its antonym cold occurs

with the same words). Unlike synonyms antonyms do not differ in style, or

emotional colouring (they express, as a rule, emotional characteristics of

the same intensity).

So antonyms are two or more words belonging to the same pat of speech,

contradictory or contrary in meaning, and interchangeable at least at some

contexts.

Almost every word can have one or more synonyms; comparatively few

have antonyms because not all notions can be opposed to one another.

Antonyms are primarily found in adjectives, nouns expressing quality and

state.

It should be noted, that as words are polysemantic ones and the same

words may have different antonyms (light bag-heavy bag; light wind-strong

wind; light colors-dark colors).

Generally we may divide antonyms into 2 groups: absolute and

derivational.

Absolute antonyms are subdivided into antonyms proper where opposition

is gradual (cold (cool)-(warm) hot; large-little or small), complementaries

having a binary opposition (dead-alive, single-married), conversives

denoting one and the same referent from different points of view (to sell-

to buy, to give to receive).

Derivational antonyms may be affixal (happy-unhappy, logical-

illogical) or suffixal (hopeful-hopeless).

It is not always possible to replace a word by its opposite. Where it

is possible you may notice that some words have several opposites depending

on the context.

The opposite of “old”, for example, can be “new” or “young” depending

on the situation.

WORDS THAT ARE THEIR OWN OPPOSITES

There are some antonyms that are called auto-antonyms - words that

have two opposite meanings. For example, to "clip" may mean to cut a little

piece off, or to put a little piece on. To "look over" may mean careful

scrutiny or that you missed an important detail. Sometimes the antonymy may

be historical: "nice" used to denote an unpleasant quality. There is a

discussion of whether any generalities could be made about such pairs. Are

they regularly motivated, or always a coincidence? Meanwhile, here are more

auto-antonyms that got left out of last post: One auto-antonym is "moot",

which at once means "suitable for debate" and "not worth discussing".

Impregnable: able to impregnated or inable to be pregnated,

cope(s)mate: used to mean antagonist and now means partner or comrade, It

turns out that they were having a week celebrating "fence-setters",

evidently another term for what is calling auto-antonyms. BRUCE NEVIN

reminds us of an intercontinental auto-antonym pair: "public school" in

Britain is "private school" in the USA and vice versa.

Infer: historically (and now, informally) this means "imply" as well.

Rent, lease: several pointed out to me that these means both lend and

borrow. In addition, Chinese operates similarly with respect to this pair,

and WOLFGANG LIPP notes a similar auto-antonymy to represent "give" and

"take" in pronunciation but not in writing.

Learn/teach: in "sub" - Standard English, these two meanings fuse into

“learn”, as they do in standard Russian “uchit'” Here is “sensitive”: this

may describe either someone with profound understanding for the feelings of

others, and tolerates differences of opinion (thus "sensitivity training"

for group leaders) as well as a paranoid who doesn't listen to what people

are really saying, and decides to take everything as a personal insult.

Hole/whole: Spelled the first way, an entire absence of matter; the

second, entire presence. This reminds me of "pit" which can be either a

hollow or the stone of a fruit. Which reminds me of "seeded" oranges

(insert your favourite fruit here) - oranges with seeds (as opposed to

navel oranges, which have no seeds), OR oranges that have had their seeds

removed. If you think you're beginning to see some patterns here, you're

not alone! There were received a few theories on the ultimate essence of

auto-antonymy, historical, psychological, and sociological approaches.

These theories show that auto-antonymy comes about for a variety of

reasons.

“I've been enjoying the discussion of words that are their own

antonyms.

At first I thought the classic example of Latin Altus "high" or "deep"

might fit in, but as I thought about it I figured it was just unmarked

for point of view (say when cleaning out an empty swimming pool then

"Deep" becomes "high") so I just looked to see if it was on the list and

got a comment. No. Good. But one that I have long wondered about is

"risk" as in "he risked winning the game". I was shocked (as a teenager)

the first time I saw "he risked losing the game" (or something like that)

in print, because I previously thought (and am still inclined toward)

the complement of risk being the desirable result, not the undesirable

one. Whether or not this fits into this discussion, I wonder if anyone

else has had a similar (or opposite) reaction or any thoughts

about what's going on in the case of "risk"[2]”.

HOW TO TEACH ANTONYMS

Teaching antonyms requires great skill and practice. For this purpose

the teacher uses various techniques and methods.

For example, while teaching antonyms “small” and “big” he uses

pictures for presenting them. He says: In these pictures you see two balls.

(The balls should differ only in size.) This is a small ball, and this is a

big ball. This ball is small, and that ball is big. Now, Sasha, come up to

the picture and point to the small ball (big ball).

Then the teacher shows another picture with two houses in it – a white

house and a yellow house, and he asks another pupil to point to the white

house, to the u yellow house, and so on.

The teacher may use gestures, for example, for conveying the meaning

of stand up, sit down. He says: Lena, stand up. He shows with his hands

what she must do. Lena stands up. Now, sit down. Again with the movement of

his hands he shows the girl what she must do. The other pupils listen to

the teacher and watch what Lena is doing. Then many pupils are invited to

perform the actions.

If the antonyms are difficult for understanding the teacher may use

the learners’ mother tongue and translate them directly or to give the

analogies. For example, the teacher says: антоним слова “широкий” на

русском языке будет “узкий”, а по-английски это слово звучит как “narrow”.

ANTONYM QUESTIONS TEST KNOWLEDGE OF VOCABULARY

The teacher must be sure of his vocabulary. . These questions

obviously test vocabulary. So if yours could use some work, spend time

improving it. Apart from having a great vocabulary, you can also do well on

antonyms by using test-smarts and strategy.

Antonyms present you with a single word followed by five answer

choices containing words or short phrases. Your task here is to find the

answer choice that’s most nearly opposite in meaning to the original word.

If you’re stumped about the meaning of a word, try to think of a context

where you’ve heard the word before. You may not be able to recite the

definition of the word covert, for instance, but you’ve probably heard the

phrase “covert operation” to describe some type of cloak-and-dagger

activity. Also, use your knowledge of foreign languages and word roots to

help “decode” the meaning of a tough word. For instance, you may not know

what benediction means, but you may be able to determine that the root bene

means “good” from knowing the more common word “benevolent.” That may be

all you need to answer a question if you spot a word like “curse” among the

answers.

Although antonym questions test knowledge of vocabulary more directly

than do any of the other verbal question types, antonym questions measure

not merely the strength of your vocabulary but also your ability to reason

from a given concept to its opposite. Antonyms may require only rather

general knowledge of a word, or they may require that you make fine

distinctions among answer choices. Antonyms are generally confined to

nouns, verbs, and adjectives; answer choices may be single words or

phrases.

Here are some approaches that may be helpful in answering antonym

questions:

1. Remember that you are looking for the word that is the most nearly

opposite to the given word; you are not looking for a synonym. Many

words do not have a precise opposite, so you must look for the answer

choice that expresses a concept most nearly opposite to that of the

given word.

2. In some cases more than one of the answer choices may appear at first

to be opposite to the given word. When this happens, try to define

more precisely or in greater detail the meaning of the given word.

3. In weighing answer choices, it is often useful to make up a sentence

using the given word or words. Substitute the answer choices in the

phrase or sentence and see which best “fits”. The best answer will be

the one that reverses the meaning or tone of the sentence or phrase.

4. Remember that a particular word may have more than one meaning.

5. Use your knowledge of root, prefix, and suffix meanings to help you

determine the meanings of unfamiliar words.

WORD RETRIEVAL ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN

What is a word-retrieval problem?

The terms “word retrieval problem” or “word finding difficulty” imply

that the person knows and understands the word, and has used it correctly

before. However, they have difficulty retrieving such known words at times.

Children and adults with language disorders are frequently found to have

word retrieval difficulties. Often when a person (child or adult) is having

difficulty retrieving a word they will have the sense that it is “on the

tip of their tongue”: a state of affairs familiar to all of us; at other

times they seem simply to “go blank”.

ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES

These activities are intended for children .

Not all of the activities will suit all children - so be selective.

Put the emphasis on listening, thinking and speaking.

The activities are aimed at having the child retrieve known words -

not at extending the vocabulary by teaching new words.

Use a minimum of visual cues. If the word to be “retrieved” does not

come easily for the child, provide an auditory cue (e.g., say the first

sound or syllable of the word) or a verbal clue (e.g., “it rhymes with...).

Give the child time to think, but don’t leave it so long that they are

struggling to find the word. Rather than letting them persist

unsuccessfully, tell them the answer, and go on with the next few items.

Then ask them the one that was difficult again.

Aim for a high success-rate to encourage motivation and confidence.

Adapt the tasks to suit the (developmental) age of the person. Talk

about words and word-meanings.

As natural opportunities arise talk about such topics as “Why is Big

Bird called Big Bird?” Talk about people being named after other people.

Talk about why certain names might have been chosen for pets and TV

characters (Cookie Monster, Vinny the Poo, Uncle Scrooge, The Fat

Controller, etc). Try to work these conversations in around topics of

genuine interest to the child.

PLAYING GAMES INVOLVING ANTONYMS

Do this as a sentence completion (cloze) activity (e.g., “The opposite

of hot is...”) or use a question-and-answer format (e.g., “What is the

opposite of hot?”), or as a confrontation naming task using pictures in

which the child has to name “opposites pictures” as rapidly as they can

(e.g., hot cold, wet dry, big little, fast slow, deep shallow, apart

together).

( Play word games involving differences

For example, “What is different about a bird and a plane? They can

both fly, but they are different because...”

( Checking test

Each of the following questions begins with a single word in capital

letters. Five answer choices follow. Select the answer choice that has the

meaning most opposite to the word in capitals.

1.CEDE:

(A) estimate (B) fail (C) get ahead of (D) flow out of (E) retain

2. ACRID:

(A) surly

(B) vapid (C) damp (D) steady (E) sweet

3. NOISOME:

(A) lurid

(B) healthful (C) peaceful (D) morose (E) rancorous

( Answers

This question type is heavily based on vocabulary. The better your

vocabulary, the better you will do. But there are a few tricks you can try

to use. For example, if a choice doesn’t have a clear opposite, it can’t be

the correct answer. Such words as “hinterland” or “automobile” don’t have

very clear opposites and would be incorrect if you were to see them as

answer choices. In this case, answer choice (A) does not have a clear

opposite and can be eliminated even if you don’t know what “cede” means.

Also, if it’s a tough question and the keyword is really hard,

remember to stay away from choices that are too good to be true. The hard

questions, which are the last few questions of each question type, often

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