Mohammad Ahmadvand
Mohammad Ahmadvand, born in Malayer, Iran, is an English teacher.[1] He has been teaching English for 22 years in different universities and schools in Iran and Kuwait. He has published three books and more than 10 academic papers. His most famous innovation is teaching English vocabulary through association in a book published in 2000.[2] He is also a senior member of the AzerELTA Association.[3] He is a teacher and is getting his PhD, a writer with many published short stories, a filmmaker with a certificate in film-making, and a journalist contributing more than 200 articles in different magazines and newspapers.
Mohammad Ahmadvand's Education
- 1996 – BA in TEFL – Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran
- 1999 – MA in TEFL – Tabriz University, Iran
- 2011- Ph.D. student – University of Isfahan, Iran
Other training courses
- 2006 – Certificate of Film-making – Iranian Youth Cinema, Iran
- 2014 – MBA (General Management) – Pars Online, Iran
Work experience
- 1996 – up to now: Ministry Of Education of Iran
- 1999 – up to now: Different Universities in Iran
Teaching English Vocabulary through Association (innovated by Mohammad Ahmadvand in 2000)
By association we mean creating any kind of link between our previous knowledge and the new word to help us find out and/or remember the meaning of the new word. This technique, which has a strong psychological basis, is a lot of fun, especially for adult learners whose knowledge of the world is much greater than that of kids (Ahmadvand, 2000). The following are some mnemonic devices and examples of how to create links:
a) Breaking the words: Sometimes if you break the words into parts, their meanings become clear. Break, for instance, "Russian" into Russ + ian, or "pressure" into press + ure, or "luxury" into lux + ury, and so on. Russ in Farsi means from the country Russia (روسی), press in Farsi means put something on another thing forcefully (فشار دادن), and lux in Farsi means something which is beautiful and expensive but not necessary (لوکس وتجملاتی). From the meaning of the parts familiar to us, we can arrive at the meaning of the words themselves. Do you know the meaning of "alpinism"? Now break it into alp + inism. What is "alp"? Yes, it is the name of a mountain, and alpinism means climbing mountains!
b) Adding to words: Sometimes you can arrive at the meaning of a word by adding prefixes or suffixes or other words to it. For example, "adapt" means adjust, like an "adaptor" which adjusts the electric current of some devices. Or "ultimate" means last, and we know that "ultimatum" means the last chance given. We can infer that "ham" is a kind of meat because "hamburger" is a kind of food made of meat. We can deduce that "gentle" means calm and kind because a "gentleman" is a person who is kind and calm and well-behaved.
c) Playing with words: Try to find interesting points, stories, or examples for words so that you will remember them more easily. For example, "Christian" is similar to "Christmas"; Christmas is the new year celebration of مسیحیان, so Christian means مسیحی. A digital watch shows the time by using numbers, so "digit" means number. The word "ambulance" is a mobile or moving hospital, so "ambulant" means mobile or سیّار. Now think about the following words and try to find something interesting related to them: village, army, clip, chip, balance, contract, folk, and human.
d) Attending to the sounds of words: Some words are formed from their sounds. Words like "chick," which reminds us of جیک جیک جوجه, "pick up," which is the sound we hear when we pick up a telephone receiver, and "cough," which means سرفه کردن.
e) Finding patterns among words: There are some words which have similar patterns. These patterns are very interesting and make learning more interesting. We present two patterns as examples. The first pattern includes words which have different and new meanings when they are used in the plural form:
- wood چوب – جنگل woods جنگل
- good خوب goods کالا
- means وسیله mean معنی دادن – منظور
The second pattern comprises words which have different and new meanings when they are capitalized:
- polish جلا دادن Polish لهستانی
- ottoman مبل Ottoman عثمانی
- hungry گرسنه Hungary مجارستان
Publications
1- Book: Look, Laugh, Learn, 2000
2- Book: A New English Grammar, 2004
3- Book: Practical Teaching Techniques, 2010
4- Article: How to Motivate Students, National Conference in Iran, 2006
5- Article: How to involve learners in active learning, FLT Journal, Iran, 2006
6- Article: How to become a reflective teacher, FLT Journal, Iran, 2007
7- Article: How to focus on form in our classes, World Journal of English Language, Canada, 2012
8- Article: What is in a name? A Short Survey on the Sources and the Factors Affecting the Act of Name-Giving, Journal of Sociological Research, USA, 2012
9- Article: Vocabulary learning during reading: A comparison of a word-based strategy versus a text-based strategy, Elixir Social Studies, India, 2012
10- Article: Discourse Analysis of SMS Jokes: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Joke Strategies in Persian and English, Malaysian Journal of Media Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia, 2013[4]
11- Article: Culture and life-style: The effect of cultural, political, and social factors on the structure of traditional houses of Isfahan City of Iran, Elixir Online Journal, India, 2013
12- Article: Attention to meaning and form vs. attention to meaning alone: The effect of focus on form on vocabulary retention in an EFL context, International Conference on Current Trends in ELT, Urmia, Iran, 2013 13- Article: Book Review: Bachman, L. and Palmer, A. (2010). Language Assessment in Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, International Journal of Scholarly Research Gate, Iran, 2013
14- Article: The role of background knowledge on performance in ESP tests, International Journal of Research Studies in Educational Technology, the Philippines, 2013
15- Article: GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION-TASK-BASED METHOD TO TEACHING FPREIGN LANGUAGES: A POSSIBLE WAY OUT FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, Spectrum: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, India, 2014
References
- ↑ Ahmadvand, Mohammad. "Interview with Mohammad Ahmadvand", Roshd FLT Journal, Iran, 27 October 2008. Retrieved on 18 September 2014.
- ↑ Ahmadvand, Mohammad. "Interview with Mohammad Ahmadvand", Etelaat Haftegi Magazine, Iran, 21 July 2010. Retrieved on 18 September 2014.
- ↑ Ahmadvand, Mohammad. "Who is who in AzerELTA", AzerELTA Association, Iran, 01 January 2009. Retrieved on 27 September 2014.
- ↑ Ahmadvand, Mohammad. "paper published in Malaya University of Malaysia", Malaysian Journal of media studies, Kulalumpur, 2013. Retrieved on 18 September 2014.
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