What's Your Topic?

Welcome back everybody. Today we’re going to move to a new section of the course. And in this section we are going to focus on Lexx school resource or vocabulary. And in this first lecture what we’re going to look at is the idea of topic related vocabulary by the end of this lecture you should understand why topic related vocabulary is so important and how you can use it to your advantage to get a higher score in the lexical resource category of the bad descriptors. So let’s get started by thinking about two topics. Museums and schools these are just two topics I picked at random as they are two typical topics which may appear in your task to question. But of course there are many other topics which might appear instead. Now what’s obvious is that these two topics are very different but that they have similarities. What might not be so obvious is that each of these topics has a specific set of vocabulary which relates to them individually. For example you would see the word curators when talking about museums you would see the word teachers when talking about schools but you wouldn’t see curators when talking about schools. And you’re not likely to see teachers when talking about museums. So your task with vocabulary in this regard is to demonstrate to the examiners your knowledge of these sets of vocabulary. Try to limit your use of very general and vague language language which could be used for more than one topic. For example the word staff that can relate to a number of different fields. So to illustrate the importance of this topic related vocabulary we’re going to look at two sentences. Now I want you to read this pair of sentences and decide for yourself which sentence in the pair is better. So the first sentence here museum’s most people would agree are great places of education thanks to the knowledge of their curators they’re well preserved artefacts from previous time areas and they’re enlightening exhibitions and galleries. Contrast that with the second sentence museums. Most people would agree are great places of education thanks to the knowledge of their staff they are well cared for things and their rooms full of interesting items and pictures. Hopefully you chose the first option. Why does the first option make more sense. Why is it more accurate why does it meet the ban descriptor requirements more directly. Well just have a look at this. If I changed the word museums for schools the sentence still makes sense. Schools are great places of education thanks to the knowledge of their staff they’re well cared for things in their rooms full of interesting items and pictures. So because of the vagueness of the language here you can directly substitute the main topic for a completely different topic and it still makes sense. It should not be this way. So have a look at the language in the top paragraph and you can see why that sentence works works much better. We’ve got language like curators well-preserved artefacts time errors and enlightening exhibitions and galleries you only get these in a museum. So one way that you can improve your topic related vocabulary is to make vocabulary tables for topics. Here are a couple of examples you could use. For example with museums you could remember to write down different word formations as well. You’ve got curator as the noun of the person and cure rate as the verb artefact well preserved exhibition exhibit gallery. Collect collection archive. Notice that I’m writing down all the verb at all the word formations here as well verb and noun. If we have schools we are teacher student teacher student ratio. Nice noun phrase there Class. Class room head teacher star pupil attend attendance to cram for an exam. Public health. Obese. Obesity. Health related issues. Sports facilities. Health care system. Spread of viruses. Notice collocations here being used as well threats to health. Healthy Choice. Just a little point to make about that purpled star bubble asterisk. Even museums exhibition. And exhibits so commonly confused word and exhibits is like a smaller version of an exhibition while an exhibit would take up just one room in a museum. An exhibition may take up an entire wing. So while that is important while topic Flate vocabulary is essential do use your common sense as well. It won’t look so natural if you just spend the whole sentence cramming in topic related words. You need to use some general vocabulary so that the essay can breathe a little bit. Consider these two sentences curators of museums and art galleries archive every artefact and painting discovered so they may later exhibit these works of art and historical relics to museum enthusiasts and historians in exhibition halls. Now after a deep breath let’s have a look at the second sentence. Museum curators often store the artefacts they find in an archive so that they can later be presented to the public in exhibitions. Yes. The second sentence does have more general vocabulary things like the public rather than museum enthusiasts and historians but it allows the sentence to breathe. Okay so you need to find the balance between topic related vocabulary and natural fluency that takes a bit of practice but it’s a start to start thinking about a topic related vocabulary trying to use a little bit more in your essays. But try not to get carried away. So never use words that you aren’t confident using. Find a shooter to experiment with new words and to check that you have the correct understanding. As always the eilts teacher Khan is one such place where you can find a tutor who can help you in this regard. Okay so now we understand the importance of topic related vocabulary. We know how we can use it to improve our score and we also know how we can improve that vocabulary by creating vocabulary tables in the next lecture. We’re going to take this fluency to a new level by looking at the importance of collocations. And if you haven’t heard of collocations before then join me in the next lecture and you’ll learn all about them. I’ll see you there.