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How to Improve the Quality and Quantity of Your English Vocabulary

by Adekunle Ibrahim Agbaje

Feb 21, 2016 Speaking/Listening 3229 Views

I am a scrabble game freak and I make no pretence about. In point of fact the game is about the only one I enjoy playing without getting tired of it. When I was younger I used to play with a couple of my friends sometimes far into the middle of the night. That was when I had friends and acquaintances living in the same city with me. Honestly we used to make a great game out of it. The competition was really fierce and we really enjoyed it. That was when the quality and quantity of my vocabulary started going up on the ascendancy until it has improved to the present level. However we have all since moved on. Careers and marriages have separated us all.

These days without the Luxury of friends and acquaintances to play with, I have resorted to downloading the game onto my laptop. Right now I have graduated to playing with the champion having passed the level of playing with the expert and the pro. I usually inflict defeat on the champion just as it does to me. My dream is to very soon start playing with the perfect and defeating it. I intend to reach that level by the grace of God in 2015.

How did I improve on the quality and quantity of my vocabulary such that I have become so adept in playing the game of scrabble? Honestly it was not easy. Back then I used to be a novice amongst my friends and acquaintances because I was not up to scratch. To improve myself, I had to work at it. What did I do? I promised myself to learn two new words and their meanings from the dictionary every day. This I did consecutively for almost three years. With this I was able to improve on my vocabulary and raise my game.

Research have it that the average human being has in his or her amour and uses less than 1000 words of the English language in his or her day to day interrelationships. If that is so how do we communicate effectively with each other? We have consistently become worse off in our verbal and written communications in the English language so much so that we have resorted to hiring so called 'experts' to do so for us. If it is this bad amongst the adults it is completely bad amongst the younger ones and in particular students. Most students of nowadays could barely communicate effectively in the English language. I lecture in a higher institution and honestly you cannot read any of their write ups without making grammatical corrections.

Why is this so you may ask? It is laziness, pure and simple. The average student these days is not prepared to work hard at anything, forgetting that to communicate well they have to work at it. I have noticed that the average student of nowadays only have in his or her arsenal even less than five hundred units of English words. If that is so how do they perform well in their educational career? The answer is blowing in the wind. We parents have our own share of the blame too. We have abdicated our responsibilities to the teachers in the schools. We have forgotten that to have our children reach the level we want, we too must ensure that they work hard at it.

Improving the quality and quantity of our vocabulary should and must start from the young age. What will therefore happen if we ensure that our wards start learning at least one English word from the dictionary every day? If they could learn more that would be better. Come to think of it, if your ward learns a word a day, how many in a year? That would be three hundred and fifty-six at least. How many will that be in say five years? That would be more than one thousand five hundred on the average. I wish the best for you in the New Year.

Article source: http://eslarticle.com/pub/teaching/speaking-listening/119184-How-to-Improve-the-Quality-and-Quantity-of-Your-English-Vocabulary.html

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Author Name: Adekunle Ibrahim Agbaje

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