APPLICATION OF ETYMOLOGY-VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES TO TEACHING FINANCIAL ENGLISH VOCABULARY: A KOREAN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

It is a common belief that English for Specific Purposes students (herein ESP students) in general, and Financial English students (herein FE students) find it harder than Basic/General English (GE) for a number of reasons, one of which is differences between FE and GE. The paper first identifies the most important factors in teaching FE by clarifying such differences between FE and GE and pointing out peculiarities of FE vocabulary. Then, we share our experience in seeking effective FE vocabulary teaching techniques to overcome our Korean students’ difficulties in the ESP course compared with their GE course. In our efforts, we piloted different techniques which combine etymology and visualization for teaching FE vocabulary, including derivative reasoning technique, monolingual reasoning technique, multilingual reasoning technique, semantic contrast technique, word decomposition technique, and definition grouping technique. We also checked our students’ retention of some FE vocabulary items taught through both traditional and piloted techniques, and initial results manifest that these etymology-visualization techniques promise to be effective. Above all, the paper presents a glimpse of ESP teaching/learning in our country in the hope that what works in our case in Korea can also be effectively applied elsewhere.