COURSE INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

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~STRENGTHENING  LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THROUGH VOCABULARY~
 

Language is made up of words that are used to communicate intent and negotiate understanding. Therefore, the primary importance of vocabulary to the process of language learning cannot be understated. From my perspective as the instructor of this course, vocabulary is more than a topically defined word, it is an asset that enhances the value of a person’s interactive discourse with the world around them. It is the foundation of communicative competence, which is the main goal of successful language acquisition.

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The vocabulary we will focus on in this course will be business related. If they prefer, students can choose to use subjects taught in their school’s Career and Technical Education curriculum as conversational topics, then I will coach them in how using the business and English concepts presented in this course can help them to develop an entrepreneurial and a financially meaningful approach to their chosen skill.

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I would like to emphasize the following points about vocabulary development and course content:

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1. In the first video, I introduce a graphic depicting 7 concepts along with related vocabulary words, a total of 56 items that are taught in this course. This comprehensive introduction will lay the groundwork for grammatical and pragmatic understanding of the English language.
    

2. There is a difference between grammatical competence and pragmatic competence. Working (course) definitions of each are:
    

   • GRAMMAR - the appropriate use of rules relating to forming clauses, phrases and words into sentences for the purpose of creating comprehensible structure in the usage of a given natural language.
      

   • PRAGMATIC – The 2-way communicative process of negotiating intended understanding between parties.  Pragmatics relates to the striving to provide contextual meaning in a communicative effort, for the purpose of conveying intent and interactively navigating varying levels of respectable understanding as well as competent reaction.
      

3. There is a relationship between Vocabulary study and Phonetics that will intrinsically reveal itself through the relationship of both in the development of pragmatic language choices.
    

4. Although I emphasize vocabulary as a main part of the grammatical aspect of second language acquisition, it is also essential as a starting point for both pragmatics and phonetics for the following reason: In order to begin the process of conversational negotiation, one must have an established lexicon of well understood words that relate to the jargon of their conversational target. The choice, construct, and usage of words as well as the pragmatic implication of their contextual usage is critical to this process.
    

5. I have provided a study note below on the importance of vocabulary. Students are encouraged to use their preferred search engine to develop a list of similar links and notes that they can place in the course files they will be making.
    

6. At this point I would like to remind students that since this is a business-related English course, vocabulary selection and conceptual presentations will be contextually surrounded by business jargon and related scenarios as opposed things that can be casually differentiated as everyday interactions. Accordingly, this course will include an introduction to organizational as well as strategic business concepts and scenarios.
    

The first business scenario we will study, after the course introduction, is Business Startups. In this first lesson the activities and resources found at the course website will guide the critical process of motivated self-study and student preparation for group and private interactions.

 

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