Page 262 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

Project Name: Manual for Soft Skills
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These two words are antonyms. See the way they are formed. It might
help you prepare on your very own list of antonyms. ‘Family Word Finder’
published by the Reader’s Digest is a rich resource, in addition to the OALD
or its digital variant, to understand and use antonyms. Such reference books
stocked in your school library would make your own as well as your learn-
ers’ written communication more effective. An interesting way to make your
learners, thus, take interest in their vocabulary growth would be to ask
them prepare lists of specialized terms, relating to ‘mania’, ‘phobias’, different
‘-ologies’ and ‘-graphies’ so as to make them understand the value (and the
wealth of) of a precise word.
As you must know, we have two types of vocabulary—‘active’ and
‘passive’. ‘Active’ vocabulary is the limited repertoire for our ready usage.
‘Passive’ vocabulary forms the deep resources that we can tap if we truly
want to communicate well through writing.
Antonyms (words with opposite meanings) mostly form a part of our
passive vocabulary. Truly, most human beings love to criticize others and
the more powerful they are, the merrier they are while indulging in such an
activity. The comments we, as teachers, write on our helpless learners’ note-
books/answer sheets, the nasty nothings we, as administrators, uncharitably
express about our colleagues’ (especially the junior ones) work show how
much we need antonyms.
In English, we have certain antonyms which are formed at the root level
itself, e.g., ‘bad’, ‘evil’. Often, though, an antonym is formed through prefix-
ing. ‘Dis’ (disrespectful), ‘anti’ (antipathy), and ‘a’ (atheist) are some of the
examples of this process.
For effective communication through writing, it helps to have a good
repertoire of antonyms. One of the assignments we can give to our learners
is asking them to make a list of negative prefixes (for example, ‘un’, ‘in’, ‘im’)
with some examples of words they can be affixed to. Such an assignment will
help them understand how English is an interesting language when it comes
to the pronunciation–spelling mismatch.

Homonyms

Homonyms form one such unit of the English language exhibiting the pro-
nunciation–spelling mismatch
A homonym is a word identical with another word as far as the spelling
and pronunciation go. It differs though from the other word in origin and
meaning. In fact, you can, thus, help your learners note the etymological
growth and development of words.
e.g., Our three words ‘synonym’, ‘antonym’ and ‘homonym’ have ‘nym’
as the root to which prefixes (‘syn’, ‘anti’ as ‘anto’ and ‘homo’) are
affixed to create new words.

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