Speaking about words...

we could discuss how valid these statements are.


1. Beginner learners only need to know the denotation of words.
Knowing only the denotation of words will leave students in the very basic aspects of lexis. There is often much more to a word than its denotative meaning, knowing the connotative meaning shows a higher degree of mastery of the language and it should be encouraged as it triggers the students' creativity (trying to find out the meaning behind that phrase they don't understand) and inference skills. Not knowing the connotative meanings of words could put the foreign language speaker in very uncomfortable situations if he were to have real conversations in the native speakers' context, even in the classroom!
Connotative language often refers to sex, crime or other taboo themes, but it's not because of this that it should be -or will be removed altogether from the learners' reach. They always find a way to learn these words! Of course, this does not mean that they should be given utmost importance in our EFL lessons: they should still be handled with care. 


2. Learners don't need to learn the names for the different kinds of meanings -or words (this somewhat relates to the previous post about the types of nouns).
Do students need to learn the definition for every part of speech and every type of noun? Do they need to go over complicated terms that fall into the field of linguistics? Not really. Students often know much more than we think, in a subconscious level. The difference between what we mean in a context or another, between types of words, are inherent to language and therefore understood without official explanation. However, being presented with those terms will make students aware of their linguistic knowledge regardless of the language, which is one of the most important tasks of the EFL teacher.  


3. The only way to learn vocabulary is through reading widely.  
It may not be the only one, but it's certainly one of the best. First reason is, we don't learn the same vocabulary from reading and from speaking. Reading is a very complete language exercise that garners a wealth of vocabulary, inference skills, writing skills, and to top it all off, knowledge. Students should be encouraged to read even if they don't like it, the key is finding a topic that they really 
want to know about -that is, reading for pleasure, whatever preferences they may have.