Very often examples are given in the text to illustrate the meaning of a word:
“... well-intentioned NGOs in Scandinavia were attempting to support Namibian refugee children living in camps in Angola and Zambia by sending them literacy materials. “
“And guess what? Large amounts of money were being spent on British mother-tongue basic readers presenting a world in which ‘Peter is helping Daddy wash the car, while Susan is doing the washing-up with Mummy’... .”
From the above example, it is clear that large amounts of public money were wasted.
Contrast
The meaning of some sentences and words may be understood by contrasting them to other sentences and words. E.g.: “The financial constraints that increasingly drive higher education in the UK mean that English for Academic Purposes, pre-sessional language training, is being privatised, since there is cash in the foreign students industry, and universities can then maintain their language departments, and an ‘apolitical’ focus on literature, unchanged.
By contrast, native speaker mythology has never taken root in most countries of continental Europe, which have a relatively successful tradition of learning foreign languages, including English, taught by locals with proficiency in the target language.”
From this paragraph, it is clear that the phrase native speaker mythology is signaling Dr. Phillipson is critical of native speaker language training and higher education in the UK, in general.
Semantic and thematic groups
Semantic groups are formed of words and phrases close in meaning; thematic groups are formed of words referring to the same variety or type of objects or phenomena. Making up a glossary of semantically/thematically close words and phrases is an effective tool if you group them on the principle of similarity or closeness of meaning. E.g.: Linguistic imperialism, linguistic imperialism of neoliberal empire, the linguistic imperialisms of dominant languages, global and local inequalities, the oppressed.
Word nests
It is easier to memorize words when they are organized into root-related groups of words. E.g.: colonialism, neo-colonialism, colonizers, decolonizing, the colonized.
MODULE 2-2. THE SKILLS OF CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Unit 2-7. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION – THE NEW NORM