Week12 VT

WEEK 12
TIPS FOR TEACHING

VOCABULARY
TIPS FOR TEACHING VOCABULARY
A: THE IMPORTANCE OF VOCABULARY LEARNING
Vocabulary is the most important component of language to

learn. You can communicate with limited grammar and less-than-
accurate pronunciation, but you cannot do so without a lot of
vocabulary. The more vocabulary a learner knows, the better they
are likely to function in the new language.
1-Devote time to vocabulary teaching
If learners have little or no exposure to the target language
outside of class, they are not likely to pick up a lot of vocabulary just
through reading and listening. It is therefore essential to devote time
to deliberate vocabulary teaching in class.
When learning our mother tongue, we acquired an extensive
vocabulary incidentally: through listening and, more importantly,
reading. But learners of a new language, particularly if they are
learning in a country where the target language is not spoken outside
the classroom, cannot do the same: their reading and listening outside
class is likely to be in their mother tongue, and the limited amount of
reading they will do in the new language, though important as a
supplement, is not enough to ensure they acquire the numbers of
vocabulary items mentioned above.
We therefore need to spend instructional time on the
deliberate presentation, explanation and review of new vocabulary:
• Drawing attention to the forms and meanings of new items
encountered in texts;
• Encouraging learners to write down new items and review them;
• Introducing occasional new items for the sake of vocabulary
enrichment;
• Doing frequent vocabulary-review activities;
• Including vocabulary tests in any periodic assessment procedures
used during the course.
2-Raise learners' awareness of the importance of vocabulary
If learners are aware of the importance of vocabulary, they
are more likely to be willing to put in the necessary effort to acquire
it. It's worth devoting some lesson time early in the course to
awarenessraising discussions, with the aim of getting the students
to appreciate why it is so important to learn a lot of vocabulary in
the target language. Such awareness-raising is useful for various
reasons.
First, it's a good idea for teachers of any subject to share
with learners their reasons for teaching the way they do. Learners
need to feel they are active partners in the learning process, that
they know what is going on and why they are being asked to do
certain things.
Second, it cannot be taken for granted that learners will know
intuitively that vocabulary is important. It's far more important than
correct grammar! If learners understand why and how all this
vocabulary-focused activity will promote their success in learning,
they are more likely to invest effort in doing it.
Third, once we move beyond the fairly basic levels of the target
language (A1/A2), learners will need to supplement the vocabulary
they are learning in class with active learning outside it. We need, of
course, to teach as much as we can in class but in most courses the
number of teaching hours is too small to ensure enough vocabulary
coverage. Successful learning of new vocabulary outside the
classroom depends crucially on motivation: and motivation in its
turn depends on an awareness of the importance of such learning.
B: SELECTING VOCABULARY TO TEACH
If you are using a coursebook, this will often give you

guidance as to which vocabulary items to teach, though you may
find that you want to omit some and add others. If you are choosing
your own materials as you go, then the choice of which vocabulary
items to teach will be completely up to you. In either case, the tips
in this section may help you decide which to prioritize.
3-Prioritize the most common vocabulary items
Learners need to acquire a lot of vocabulary and the number
of hours we have to teach it is limited. We therefore should not
waste time teaching rare words that will not be very useful.
Particularly in the case of elementary learners, our priority is
to get them to master the most common vocabulary items, in order
for them to feel as soon as possible that they are able to
understand and convey basic messages in the new language.
Often your own common sense will tell you which items
from the materials are likely to be more common and useful. If you
want more objective criteria, refer to a corpus (a large database of
naturally occurring written and spoken texts in a specified
language).
4-Include multi-word items
Vocabulary is not just single words. It also includes items which
are composed of more than one word but convey a single meaning like
a word does. Some examples are by the way, more or less, look after.
It has been estimated that at least one-tenth of the vocabulary
we need to learn consists of chunks like these. In many cases, these
are non-compositional: that is, their meaning cannot be guessed by
knowing the meaning of the component words and the grammar that
links them. For example, you could not guess the meaning of by and
large by putting together the basic meanings of by, and, and large.
Very often such items can be paraphrased by single words: by and
large, for instance, means the same as generally.
Even compositional chunks are worth teaching. First, even if
it is clear what the item means, learners need to know, for their
own production, that this is how the idea is idiomatically expressed
in the target language. For example, 'What's the time?' in English is
the conventional way of asking about the time of day, rather than
the equivalent of 'How late is it?' as in German. Second, memorizing
a common multi-word item can help fluency: the learner doesn't
have to compose the phrase or sentence word by word but can say
the whole sequence straight off, confident that it is correct.
When choosing which vocabulary items to teach from a text,
it is important to search for and identify chunks that occur within
the text that it might be useful to draw students' attention to.
5-Teach word families selectively
It is sometimes taken for granted that it is useful to teach
word families: to add other items from the same family when
teaching any new word. For example, together with act we might
teach acting, acted, activity, action, inactive.
Note that not all words learnt earlier are necessarily the
most basic form of the word: learners are likely to learn computer
before compute for example. So teaching another member of the
word family may in fact mean teaching a base form when learners
have just learnt a derivative rather than vice versa.
Other words from the same word family may not necessarily
involve a prefix or suffix. The new family member may look and sound
exactly the same as the basic word you have just taught - but be used
as another part of speech. For example, in English, when teaching sign
the noun, we may teach that the same word can also be a verb.
Teaching word families is, in principle, a quick and easy way of
expanding vocabulary based on words the learners already know. But
we need to be cautious: not all the family members of a given word are
necessarily useful to the learner or easy to learn.
• Some derivatives have little or nothing to do with the root meaning
of the word: a nuclear reactor for example has no obvious connection
with the word react, or with the prefix re- or root verb act.
• Some members of a word family may be rare and not very useful to
most classes: if you teach proportion, it is probably not a good idea to
also teach disproportionately.
Bottom line: if you are going to teach other members from

the same family as a new word, then focus on the most common
and useful ones, with clear links to the meaning of the original
word. Don't feel you need to try to teach them all.
6-Teach occasional idioms and proverbs
There is a common belief that idioms (like the best of both
worlds in English) are a common feature of the speech of native
speakers - and that it is important to teach them. Neither of these
ideas is true.
Idioms like the best of both worlds are very rare. This one,
for example, occurs on average a little less than once per million
words: about the same frequency as words like scrutinize or
evasive, which we certainly would not see as useful items for any
but the most academic level classes. The same goes for proverbs:
even an apparently common proverb like better late than never
rates only 0.5 per million in frequency.
So why teach them?
• Because they happen to come up.
• Because they are fun. Learners may enjoy learning the sometimes
interesting, humorous or piquant idiomatic expressions that occur in
another language.
• Because they may have cultural value. It is interesting to compare a
proverb in the target language, with parallel, or contrasting proverbs
in the L1, and explore the cultural implications.
Bottom line: It is not recommended teaching a whole set of idioms or
proverbs for their own sake as part of the vocabulary syllabus, unless
your class is very advanced (Cl-C2). They are not common or useful
enough to merit the time and effort needed. But teach occasional
examples.
7-Teach basic texting vocabulary
The language of phone texting, using messaging apps, has
developed as a genre in its own right. Should 'texting' vocabulary
therefore be part of the syllabus of a language course?
Some teachers would answer 'no' to this question: the
language used in texting, some say, is an inferior shorthand,
impoverishing rather than enriching language knowledge. Anyway, if
learners need it, they will pick it up through exchanges with friends,
they don't need us to teach it. And they might start using such
language in formal writing, where it is unacceptable.
On the other hand, it is undeniable that our learners today will
need to be able to communicate effectively through texting in their
new language as much as - maybe more than - they will need to be
able to compose and understand emails. If this is so, then surely we
should be supporting their learning of the vocabulary for such
communication.
In general, most of the vocabulary used in texting is similar to
that of informal speech. Some differences specific to this genre are:
• Simplified spelling, (e.g., nite for night);
• Abbreviated or clipped words to save keying in long sequences of
letters (e.g., demo for demonstration);
• Substitutions of single letters or symbols for full words (e.g., u for
you, 4 for for);
• Initials (e.g., asap, bfn).
There is a place for teaching such vocabulary, while making
sure that our learners are aware that it is specific to texting and not
appropriate for more formal writing. The selection of which items to
teach is a more difficult issue: in general, choose the more common,
well-established items rather than very new ones that may not yet
be widely recognized.
8-Use published vocabulary lists with caution
Published vocabulary lists of the most common vocabulary
items in English can be useful in designing or evaluating a vocabulary
syllabus or when deciding which theme-based items are most
important to teach. Three major ones are the General Service List (GSL),
the Academic Word List (AWL), and the English Vocabulary Profile (EVP).
You will find other lists on the internet, too many to detail here.
They vary quite widely in their content, according to the corpora they
use and the criteria for inclusion adopted by compilers. Many do not
distinguish between different meanings or parts of speech (e.g., mean
may be listed as a single item); the majority only give single words and
provide no information on frequency of multi-word items. You will,
therefore, often need to use your own professional judgement in
evaluating and supplementing information they provide.
9-Prioritize internationally acceptable items
Teachers of English used to wonder whether to teach British or
American vocabulary. Today this is an irrelevant question: the criterion
for selection is rather whether the vocabulary item will be understood
by people using English for international communication.
Teachers may not know which words and expressions commonly
used in some native variety of the language are not internationally
comprehensible. As time goes on, both teachers and materials writers
are becoming increasingly aware of this issue and try to avoid teaching
vocabulary that is limited to a particular speech community. Very often
dictionaries can help: a good dictionary will tag a usage if it is limited
(for example, Br.E, if it is used mainly, or only, in British English).
A useful tool is the Glowbe corpus (https://www.english-
corpora.org/glowbe/) which will show you, for any particular word or
expression whether its use is spread over a wide range of speech
communities or confined to only a few of them.
10-Avoid introducing sets of words that are all 'the same kind of thing'
In many course books for young beginners, new vocabulary is
presented in lexical sets: for example, colors or animals. This probably
does not facilitate learning.
There has been substantial research on whether it is a good idea
to introduce new words in lexical sets. A number of studies have found
that learners remembered sets of new items better if they were all
different kinds of things than if they were from a list of words relating to
the same semantic field and all the same part of speech (parts of the
body, for example). It seems that if items have similar meanings the
learner tends to confuse them, which slows down learning.
It is probably not a good idea to introduce together words
pronounced similarly, or sets of synonyms, or items with similar
grammatical structure (a list of phrasal verbs based on get, for example).
New words are likely to be learnt better if they are
connected thematically or syntactically: if they tend to appear
together in a particular kind of context or sentence. So, for example,
it is better to teach blue with sky than blue with red, yellow, green.
Note that this applies only to the first time new vocabulary
is presented. Single items taught later can be linked to sets of words
already learnt; and there are excellent review tasks that are based
on grouping vocabulary items into sets: 'odd one out' exercises, for
example or brainstorming associations.
11-Teach useful classroom vocabulary early on
In order to be able to run the lesson in the target language, it's
essential to teach words and phrases that will be often used in lessons.
Inevitably, in many monolingual classes a lot of the instructions
for how to do tasks and explanations of language points in beginner
classes will be done in the learners' mother tongue (L1). But to use L1
to express things or activities that regularly come up in the classroom
process is surely a lost opportunity for learning. Many kinds of words,
phrases and even sentences are repeatedly used in lessons; once the
learners have been taught them, they are likely to encounter them
again and again and learn them well.
These include, of course, single words like page, book, look,
listen, read, word. But perhaps even more important are standard
teacher instructions like 'Please sit down' as well as questions like 'Do
you understand?', or evaluative comments like 'Excellent!' or 'Very
good'. Later it is useful to teach standard course book instructions such
as 'Circle the right answer' or 'Complete the sentence'.
C: INTRODUCING NEW VOCABULARY
The goal of the first introduction of a new word or phrase is

primarily to make learners aware of its form and meaning, and to
do this clearly and with maximum impact. We'll go more deeply
into ways of explaining meanings: this one gives some general tips
on managing the first encounter with new vocabulary items.
12-Teach written and spoken forms together
In general, it helps if you make sure that learners encounter
both how the new vocabulary item sounds and what it looks like
when written. It's not so good to present the oral version first and
delay teaching the spelling until later.
Providing only the written, or only the spoken, form of a
new word or expression may create mistaken perceptions in the
learners' minds which may persist: for example, they may
mispronounce a word because they have only seen the written
form, or misspell it because they have only heard it - mistakes
which will need to be corrected later.
In most cases, seeing the written form will help learners

perceive the spoken form more accurately, and vice versa. It will
also help the item make more initial impact and leave a better
memory trace which can be reinforced in later review.
13-Keep metalanguage (e.g., adjective ) to a minimum
The use of terms like adjective and definite article doesn't
contribute very much to learners' understanding and learning of new
vocabulary: try to avoid using them. If you have taught the word red and
are satisfied that your students have understood its meaning, then it is
unlikely that they will try to use it, or understand it, as a verb, noun or
adverb. The same goes for any other vocabulary item. The part of speech is
an integral part of the meaning of a word: if you know the meaning of a
word, you will be implicitly aware of its part of speech. It is therefore
unnecessary for learners to write the part of speech by each new item they
write down: a note of its meaning is all that is needed.
A further factor to be taken into account here is the infrequency of
most metalinguistic terms. The word adjective for example, appears only in
the sixth thousand of Nation's frequency list of word families- which would
make it, in CEFR terms, at least C1 level. Such terms are not a very useful
addition to most learners' general communicative vocabulary knowledge.
Exceptions to all this are where the term is fairly simple
anyway and represents a feature which it is important for learners
to understand: count and non-count for example, for those learning
English whose own language treats this distinction much less
consistently (e.g., has only one word for much and many).
Note that although metalinguistic terminology is to be
avoided as far as possible at beginner and intermediate levels, it
may be useful with advanced learners, who are likely to understand
and benefit from more abstract explanations.
14-Teach first the most common form of a word
Many common words have grammatical variations (irregular
pasts of verbs, for example) or derivatives formed with prefixes and
suffixes. In general, teach the most common one - which may not
be the 'base' word.
This tip looks obvious. Of course we teach a word like see
before we teach the past saw and a word like act before we teach
action. And in most cases, this is how it works: the base word is the
most common, and to be taught first.
However, sometimes the simplest base word form is not the
most common. In such cases, it is the most frequent form that
should take the priority in teaching, not the one that looks simpler.
One example of this is plurals such as children, people -
much more common than child, person. Similarly, most parts of the
body that occur in pairs are more frequently found in the plural:
eyes, ears and feet are more common than eye, ear, foot. In such
cases it makes sense to teach the plural first - it will probably be
encountered first anyway - and come on to the singular later.
Another example is words with derivational prefixes and
suffixes. It is sometimes assumed that learners will first learn the
base form of a word and later its derivations. However, in many
cases the base word is actually rarer than one or more of its
derivations, so it is better to teach the derivation first. Some
examples are government, beautiful, accessible where the base
forms govern, beauty, access are less common.
15-Teach one meaning at a time
Many words have multiple meanings, so it is tempting to
teach some or all of these when introducing the word. But it's
usually best to teach only the most common one first.
A lot of the most common words in any language are
polysemes: they have accumulated other meanings over time,
mainly through metaphorical association: head as part of the body
and head meaning the leader or principal of an organization, for
example. The question is whether to teach two or more of such
meanings at first encounter or only the meaning implied in the
context where the word occurs.
If you encounter star meaning a twinkling light in the sky,
are you going to teach that it also means an outstanding actor or
singer?
It is probably better to stay with the primary meaning as it
appears in context, simply in order not to overload learners'
memories with multiple meanings at first encounter.
Note that very often, the most common meaning is not the
original basic one, but a metaphorical extension. If we are not
encountering the word in context but simply teaching new words in
isolation, then we should teach the most common meaning first,
not necessarily the original concrete one.
16-Teach collocations/links with other words
Many words tend to co-occur with other specific words in context:
for example, a certain adjective will be followed by a certain preposition or
certain kinds of objects may follow certain verbs. Because the link is often
apparently purely arbitrary it is useful to teach the collocations associated
with a particular word when introducing the word itself.
For example, English says 'angry with' and not 'angry on' as some
other languages do; 'afraid of’ rather than '*afraid from'. It therefore makes
sense to teach, for example, the whole phrase angry with rather than just
angry, and so on.
An associated problem is the choice between two apparently
synonymous words which differ mainly in their collocational links. Some
verbs, for example, are differentiated mainly by the objects they collocate
with rather than their basic meaning. An example in English is the distinction
between make and do: you 'make an effort', for instance, but 'do your
homework'. In such cases, it helps to explain 'the kind of thing' that each
collocates with, and also to provide plenty of examples of the most common
17- Teach how new words behave grammatically
This is important particularly where the equivalent word in the
learners' L1 has a different grammar, which might lead learners to
make errors. When we are teaching common modal verbs like can,
should, must in English, it is useful to draw learners’ attention to the
fact that they take a simple infinitive after them, without to, since
many other languages may use the equivalent of to. Some English
verbs, like enjoy and hate, take -ing and have parallel verbs in other
languages which may use the equivalent of to. Such points taught at
first encounter with the new verb can help learners avoid errors later.
Another area where initial teaching of a word can help
learners avoid grammatical errors is the use of definite/indefinite
articles, which may behave differently in the learners' L1. An example
is abstract or general terms: English refers to happiness or music with
no definite article, but these words translate into other languages
preceded by the definite article: la felicidad (Spanish).
18-Teach new vocabulary both in context and in isolation
Teachers are often urged to teach vocabulary in the context
of a sentence or full text; but it is also useful to look at the new item
in isolation, particularly when it is being taught for the first time.
Later review will, of course, also include activities that
engage with the target items in context.
A useful occasional compromise is to insert items in 'mini-
contexts': two- or three-word phrases that contextualize a new
item: adding an appropriate adjective to a newly-learnt noun, for
example.
19-Draw attention to problematic pronunciation
There are two main sources of the pronunciation problems that
learners encounter when learning a new word. One is when the spelling does
not clearly correspond with its pronunciation. The second is the pronunciation
of sounds that may not exist in the learners' L1, and may be difficult for them
to hear, let alone articulate themselves.
The problem of spelling is particularly acute for those learning English
as an additional language, owing to the fact that a single sound in that
language may be represented in writing by a variety of letters or letter
combinations, and vice versa.
With regard to difficulty of articulation: a new word may be misheard or
mispronounced owing to the sheer unfamiliarity of a new sound. Alternatively,
the sound may be close to one in the learners' L1, and they may be unable to
perceive that it is in fact different. In both such cases, mispronunciation may
lead to misunderstanding. So, it is a good idea when introducing a new word
which includes such sounds to draw learners' attention to the pronunciation
and get them to practice articulating the word themselves.
20-Draw attention to problematic spelling
This tip relates mainly to English, in which there is not always a
predictable and consistent correspondence between sounds and
letters. The spelling of some English words seems to be completely
arbitrary (what, one, busy, for example), and these need to be taught
and practiced one by one, as the new words are encountered. Such
words are almost all relatively common and typically acquired by
learners at an elementary level.
The vast majority of English words conform to regular spelling
conventions. There are common combinations of letters that have
consistent pronunciation (e.g., bigrams like th, ee and suffixes like -
tion). There are rules like the 'magic e' (an 'e' after a single consonant
at the end of a word causes the preceding vowel to be pronounced like
its name as in nine, inflate ).
21-Write up new vocabulary on the board and leave it there
Anything we can do to reinforce learning of a new item is good!
Leaving the new items written up on the board after teaching them is a
simple initial step towards such reinforcement.
It is not enough just to draw learners’ attention to it in their
textbooks. The actual movement involved in the creation of the written
image on the board draws attention: as does its relatively large size and
the possibility of using color.
If, however, you then delete the new vocabulary in order to make
room for whatever is coming next, you convey the message 'this doesn't
matter any more'. You also deny students the possibility of looking again
at the new vocabulary during the lesson. If you need space, then contract
the new vocabulary display slightly and move it aside.
If you teach more vocabulary later in the lesson, add the
new items to the previous list, so that by the end of the lesson all
the new vocabulary learnt in this lesson is there ready for you to
note down for future reference.
Leaving the vocabulary on the board also furnishes the basis
for a quick review or reminder later in the lesson. For example, you
might elicit translation of each of the items; or tell students to close
their eyes, delete an item and challenge them to identify which is
missing; or give them a few seconds to look through the vocabulary
again, then delete it and challenge them to recall the entire list.
22-Make sure learners write down new items
The attention paid to the act of writing helps learning,
provided that this implies awareness of both form and meaning: just
mechanically writing down something does not help very much. So it
makes sense to require your students to note down not only the item
itself but also a reminder of what it means - which they can do
however they like, as long as it is clear to them. In the majority of
cases, this will be a translation into their L1. Alternatives are
drawings, brief explanations, or samples of use in phrases that make
the meaning clear. They don't have to add phonemic transcriptions,
or the part of speech or other members of the same word family.
Note that it is not essential for learners to keep separate
vocabulary notebooks for this purpose: they can write the vocabulary
into their digital devices, or in their regular course notebooks.
23-Make learners aware of common mistakes associated with a
new item
If learners are made aware in advance of problems that are
likely to occur with specific vocabulary items, this will help them to
avoid associated errors. Many of these are associated with L1
interference: learners tend to carry over assumptions from their L1
and apply them, often mistakenly, to the new language.
Where we know in advance that a certain error is very likely
with a new vocabulary item, it is a good idea to draw learners'
attention to it, rather than waiting for them to make a mistake and be
corrected. Such awareness-raising may prevent the error being made
at all; but even if an individual learner forgets, makes the error and
needs to be corrected, the fact that they have been told about the
problem previously will help them understand and take on board the
correction.
D: CLARIFYING MEANINGS OF NEW VOCABULARY
There are lots of different ways of explaining the meaning of

a new word or expression. In this section, we'll look at a range of
strategies, and discuss where and why they are more or less
effective, and how they can be combined for optimal learning.
24-Explain meanings yourself, rather than sending learners to a
dictionary
In a lesson where you are available to provide information, it is
time-saving and more helpful to learners if you explain meanings of
new words yourself.
The dictionary is, of course, a valuable tool for vocabulary
learning but if the goal is to get your students to understand the
meaning of a new vocabulary item during a lesson, rather than the use
of the dictionary for its own sake, then it is better to explain it yourself.
First, looking up words in the dictionary takes more time.
Second, even when they find the word, there may be problems of
understanding the definition or when there are several possibilities of
choosing the right one. Third, there is the problem of multi-word items
like as though or a great deal: the learner may not realize that they
need in fact to look for a meaning of a combination of words rather
than just one of them.
Your own explanation will be expressed in language
appropriate to your students: their L1 or simplified target language.
You will also know in advance which meaning of a word is needed in
any particular case.
The use of dictionaries for learners in lesson time should be
in general limited to those activities which are deliberately designed
to teach dictionary skills. Outside actual lessons, learners will
mostly use them when they need to understand a difficult word in a
written text on their own without any knowledgeable speaker of
the target language to help them.
25-Link the new vocabulary to items previously taught
Building on previous knowledge when teaching something new
is a basic principle of good teaching of any subject. In vocabulary
teaching, this means linking the new item with ones the learners
already know.
We may explain the meaning of a new word in various ways but
one useful strategy is to use previously learnt words as a 'hook' to
clarify meaning: miserable means the same as very sad; rise is the
opposite of fall; a lion is a kind of animal, from the cat family.
After the initial explanation, learners can be asked to
brainstorm other words or expressions that are associated with the
new word: what other animals have we learnt, other than lion? What
other negative feelings can you think of besides miserable? Or more
general associations: what other words does the word rise remind you
of ?
26-Explain meanings briefly
Extended explanations of a new word are used by teachers
who feel that they wish to avoid the use of L1 but can't find a quick
synonym or easy way to paraphrase the meaning. It is often quite
difficult for learners to understand such explanations; typically, they
only begin to get the point towards the end. But time spent 'not
understanding' is time wasted as far as vocabulary learning is
concerned.
It makes sense, therefore, to keep the explanation brief in
order for learners to understand what the new item means as soon
as possible. They will then have more time to engage with it to
make and receive messages that they understand, and thus begin to
consolidate learning.
27-Use the learners' mother tongue (L1) to help clarify
It is gradually becoming more acceptable, worldwide, to use
the learners' mother tongue in language teaching. In vocabulary
teaching, translating a new word conveys its meaning rapidly and
clearly; it takes maybe a second or two, as compared to a minute or
more that a target-language explanation could take. Perhaps
paradoxically, the use of the L1 to explain vocabulary actually frees
up more time for target-language use in providing examples,
contexts and associations for the new item.
It is also more learner-friendly; many learners like the
teacher to explain things in the L1, and feel 'safer' if they can relate
the meaning of the new item to a word they know in their own
language.
28-Use pictures and realia
The value of the use of pictures and realia (actual objects) to
explain the meanings of new words lies mainly in the fact that such
illustrations make more impact and are more motivating than dry
explanations or translations.
Pictures and realia are traditionally used a lot in classes of
(beginner) young learners: partly because it is assumed that young
learners respond better to pictures than do older ones, and partly
because the vocabulary taught at the elementary levels tends to be
more concrete and easier to depict. However, older learners also like
and benefit from looking at pictures (otherwise, why would
newspapers include illustrations? ). And there is some evidence that
pictures can help learners retain the meanings of abstract, as well as
concrete words: for example, a picture of someone looking frightened
can help a learner remember the word for 'fear‘.
29-Use mime, gesture, facial expression
Your own body is a vital visual aid. It can be used, often even
more effectively than pictures or realia, to facilitate or reinforce
learners' understanding of meaning and make impact.
One of the advantages of face-to-face teaching is that the
teacher is able to take full advantage of facial expression and body
movements to express meanings; and these are more effective in
drawing learners' attention than are static pictures or realia. And
there is some researchbased evidence that seeing the teacher
acting out word meanings, or acting them out themselves, helps
learners remember the target items it pictures better than just
verbal clarifications .
30-Vary the way you explain
The main methods that can be used to convey the meaning
of new vocabulary are the following: definition in the target
language ('rich means you have a lot of money'); quick definitions
in the form of synonyms and opposites (trot is like run; cheap is the
opposite of expensive ); examples of the kinds of things included in
the item (swimming, football and tennis are all sports ); sentences
using the item in context ('That video was very funny: it made me
laugh.'); pictures and realia; mime and facial expression;
translation.
One reason for varying your methods is simply for the sake of
variation itself: as in many components of the teaching process,
repeated routines tend to bore learners and we can raise interest by
using different methods at different times. Another is that any specific
item is likely to be more, or less, amenable to certain types of
clarifications: action verbs are probably best taught through mime, for
example. For each item, we need in principle to select the method that
is likely to convey the meaning most clearly, effectively and impactfully.
Obviously, you won't have time and attention to be able to think about
and select an appropriate method for every single new item you teach
- but be aware of the basic principle, and apply it where you can.
It is good to combine two or more methods for any particular
new item. For example, you might show a picture and back it up with a
definition; you might provide a synonym and then add examples in
context; you might demonstrate something, and then translate it to
make sure the demonstration is clear.
31-Teach where it is appropriate/inappropriate to use a new item
Knowing the meaning(s ) of a word or expression will not
always enable a learner to know when and where to use it in real-
world communication. They also need to know in what contexts it
may or may not be appropriate.
Some items are appropriate for some and not for others.
The most common distinction of this kind is that between informal
versus formal: items marked for informal usage include words like
guy, kid, lots of, a bit of as compared to person, child, much/many, a
little.
Some items are confined to certain contexts and might give
offence or cause discomfort if used outside them.
32-Teach connotations
If you look up connotation online, the main focus will be on
'positive/ negative' implications or positive/neutral/negative: typical
examples in English are slim v skinny, famous v well-known v
notorious. These are fairly clear examples.
Commonly, the real-life, concrete meaning of a word is
neutral and only when used figuratively does the word take on a
negative or positive connotation: for example, the word great
originally simply 'large in size' has come to mean 'very good',
'famous' or 'admirable').
The connotations may be culture-specific, which is why you
may need to teach them as you teach the new word.
33-Avoid asking learners to study corpus data themselves
In the literature on data-driven learning, it is recommended
that learners use corpora in order to check out how a vocabulary
item is used. This, however, is timeconsuming and rarely worth the
effort.
You, the teacher, can provide the relevant information in a
fraction of the time it takes for the learner to look up a vocabulary
item in the corpus; and if back-up information from a corpus is
needed, your interpretation of the data is probably more reliable.
The exception might be with very advanced academic
learners who are likely to work faster and may find the search and
discovery involved in corpus use interesting in itself as well as
revealing.
E: VOCABULARY REVIEW AND PRACTICE
It is essential to provide learners with plenty of

opportunities to review new items through practice activities. This
section provides some ideas on how to make vocabulary practice
effective.
34-Practise a lot
Very common words are likely to be encountered several times
without any particular focused practice: words like open, sure, for
example. But as soon as you get on to less frequent items, even if they
are not very advanced (kitchen or discover, for example), the chances
that the learner will come across them enough times by chance in a
new text or interaction are low. Or by the time they do come across the
second encounter they may have forgotten what they learnt from the
first.
We therefore need to provide systematic, regular and focused
vocabulary practice exercises in lessons. Clearly it is not going to be
feasible within the lesson time at our disposal to provide six or more
review exercises of every single new item we teach: but we can at least
note them all down as we teach them, and make sure that we remind
learners of them in class at least two or three times, run periodic tests,
and include vocabulary review tasks as regular homework assignments.
35-Avoid meaningless copying or repetition of the new items
It is certainly useful to get learners to pronounce a new item
themselves and write it down when learning it for the first time, in
order to make sure they have perceived its spoken and written forms
correctly, and to help them take it into short-term memory as the first
stage in learning. It is also important to review new items in order to
consolidate knowledge. But meaningless repetitions will not aid such
consolidation.
Activities involving these need to require attention and be
meaningful and interesting. Some examples are learning by heart and
reciting rhymes, poems, chants or dialogues that contextualize target
vocabulary. Such activities need, however, to be carefully designed so
that the learners performing such texts understand what they are
saying and demonstrate this understanding through the way they say
them.
36-Give tasks that get learners to retrieve
Retrieval of meaning takes place if you provide the students
with the target item and challenge them to demonstrate that they
understand what it means. This could be through multiple-choice
questions, or gapfills with a word bank, or matching of item and
definition, or simple translation into Ll. More difficult, but perhaps
more effective for learning, is retrieval of form, where you provide
the meaning - through a definition, for example, or a picture, or the
L1 equivalent - and ask the students to produce the target item
themselves in response. The first involves receptive knowledge; the
second, productive.
37-Make exercises interesting to do
Standard vocabulary exercises based on multiple-choice,
sentence· completion/gap-fill or matching tend to be rather tedious
to do - and to check. This is partly because they are based on one,
predictable answer, partly because their content is unlikely to relate
to topics of interest to the learners, partly because the challenge is
only 'getting them all right' with no interesting task attached, and
no flexibility as to how much to do or in what order.
Here are a few ideas to make exercises more interesting:
• Time-limit: tell students they can work in pairs or alone and have
exactly three minutes to do as many of the items as they can. Give
them a clear signal when to start and when to finish.
• Open-ending: in a 'gap-fill', after filling in gaps from a word bank,
challenge students to find other words to fill the gaps; or other
sentences to contextualize the words.
• Recall: after you've finished an exercise, tell students to close their
books and recall all the words that were practiced in it, or as many of
the actual sentences as they can remember.
• Personalize: tell students to re-word sentences from the exercise so
that they are true for them - but still include the target vocabulary.
• Make flexible: in teacher-led 'ping-pong' interaction, instead of going
through the exercise in the set order, tell learners to read through, and
raise their hands to answer any they are sure they can get right. Or if
they are working in pairs, they do all the items that together they can
get right and ask you or other students about the others.
38-Personalize vocabulary review
Personalizing means relating the vocabulary you want to
review to the individual student: experiences, preferences,
opinions, personalities, routines, occupations and so on.
A simple example: if you have a set of words and
expressions from a course book unit you have just studied, or a
reading text, write or display these on the board, and then invite
students to choose one and compose a sentence that relates to
themselves in some way.
Another idea: Ask individual students to share words or expressions
that they have learnt in the last few weeks that they particularly
like; or find particularly difficult to remember; or that are
meaningful to them for some personal reason.
39-Review after a time-gap
If learners are taught a new item, they will take it into short-
term memory. We then need to run a review before they have
forgotten it, so that they will be able to retrieve its form or meaning
- albeit with an effort - if challenged. After this second learning,
they are likely to remember it a bit longer so we can allow a longer
gap before reviewing again ... and so on, until the item is probably
firmly established in their memory.
This is the principle called expanding rehearsal: allowing
longer and longer gaps between reviews in order to make sure that
something is permanently remembered.
In practice, this means running the first review at the end of
the lesson, assuming you taught the new vocabulary at the
beginning, the second some time in the succeeding lesson, then a
third a week or so later, and a fourth after a month or so.
It's up to you to make sure that you provide opportunities
later in the term or year for your students to do periodic retrieval-
based vocabulary review activities on items taught in previous units.
One strategy that can help here is what is called narrow reading:
introducing further reading texts later that deal with the same topic
as earlier ones, and which are therefore likely to provide further
exposure to the relevant vocabulary.
40-Try to avoid word games
Word games like the one still popularly known as 'Hangman'
are used by teachers in many classrooms: they are fun, but they
don't teach much.
The goal of this game is usually described as 'in order to
review (the spelling of) a word'. But most of the time is spent calling
out names of letters until there are enough filled in to be able to
identify the actual word. For only these few seconds are the
learners actually engaging with the target item.
In addition, such word games are limited to single words,
out of context, without any requirement to understand meaning in
order to succeed. The teacher can, of course, add these factors by
the use of additional tasks or information but they are not an
essential component of the basic game.
41-Use collaborative activities
Collaborative activities are ones where learners, work together
to get better results than they could have done on their own, and
where there are opportunities for peer-teaching.
'Information gap' tasks - where one participant needs to convey
information to another - clearly have to be done in pairs or groups.
Other than these, the main types of tasks appropriate for collaborative
work are those where the task is based either on recall or on
gathering ideas (e.g., brainstorming). A larger number of participants
will always recall or think of more ideas than will a single individual.
It is also involved in procedures like 'Pass it round', where vocabulary
based worksheets move from one student to another to be added to
or changed, or 'mingling', where students meet partners briefly to
exchange ideas and then move on to meet someone else, or even full-
class pooling of ideas or 'brainstorming‘.
42-Encourage learners to use new vocabulary in their own speech
and writing
The majority of vocabulary review activities in our materials
invite learners to identify or understand the new items; very few
actually get them to produce them in their own output.
It is rather difficult to design activities that get learners to
use newlylearnt items productively. It is not surprising that most
vocabulary exercises in our textbooks or online present the learner
with the target item and then require them to do something with it:
match with another, or insert in a sentence, or determine if a
sentence including it is true or false - which all involve only
receptive knowledge. It is, however, important also to find ways of
getting the learners to produce the vocabulary themselves.
One way of doing this is to give tasks that explicitly require
inclusion of vocabulary learners have studied in a spoken or written
assignment. If a set of new words and phrases has been learnt
through a text, then they can be asked to do assignments based on
that text that will naturally provide a context for use of the new
items. They can be asked to use at least seven (or however many you
think appropriate) vocabulary items from the original text in a
summary of its content; or in a rewriting of the text in a different
format or different genre (as a slide presentation, as an email, as a
conversation), or in a critique of its ideas.
If the vocabulary you want students to produce is not from a
particular text, then simply ask them to try to compose a story that
includes as many of the items as possible: an entertaining exercise
that can be done orally in small groups.
F: TEACHING VOCABULARY FROM A READING TEXT
Perhaps the most common source of new vocabulary in the

language classroom is the reading text. It is therefore worth
thinking carefully about how to choose which items from a text to
focus on, and how.
43-Be selective in deciding which vocabulary to teach
A new reading text is often, at first encounter, mostly
incomprehensible to learners: a large proportion of the important
content words are likely to be unknown. They will have to understand
these in order to understand the text. So we will probably need to clarify
the meanings of most of them: either in advance or in the course of the
reading. Your course book may provide a list of items to be learnt but it is
better to go through the text yourself in advance and note down all the
vocabulary that you are fairly sure that most of your students will not
know.
When making a list of vocabulary to be taught from a text, it is
important to note those you think may be useful for students' own future
communicative purposes - ones which occur relatively commonly in the
language - and make sure that these are written down and reviewed
later. Rarer ones, or ones whose use is confined to very specific contexts,
can be clarified temporarily to enable the students to understand the
text, but do not need to receive much further attention.
44-Use vocabulary profilers
A very useful tool that has been developed based on corpus
analysis is the vocabulary profiler, which analyses a text and tells
you how common a particular word is.
Some useful profilers are:
Text Inspector: http://englishprofile.org/wordlists/textinspector
Word and phrase: https://www.wordandphrase.info/academic/
analyzeText.asp
The frequency may be defined according to CEFR levels (Al,
A2, etc.) or through specifying in which thousand words it occurs in a
frequency list: whether it is in the top most common thousand words
or the second, and so on.
The results of a profiler analysis can be very helpful in
choosing which vocabulary to prioritize but you will also need to use
your own professional judgement in interpreting and using them. For
example, profilers usually define a word's level according to its most
common meaning but your text may be using it in a less common
one; or the program cannot identify multi-word items, and therefore
relates to each word separately. The databases (corpora) on which
the profilers are based will also make a difference: for example, how
much of the corpus is based on written or spoken text.
45-Check if there are useful multi-word items in the text
If we ask students to list vocabulary they don't know in a text,
they will typically list single words and probably will not be able on their
own to identify unknown multi-word items. This is often because such
items are composed of single words which they do know or think they
know. We therefore cannot rely on students to identify new multi-word
items and need to do so for them. Most important to teach, of course,
are those which are non-compositional: the meaning of the item could
not easily be guessed by knowing the meanings of each of the
component words (by and large, for example).
When introducing a new word it is good to teach which other
words it tends to go (collocate) with. The reading text is an opportunity
to see such links in context. Where two collocated words occur next to
each other and the combination is frequently used, it is useful to draw
students' attention to them: for example, wrong collocates more often
with completely than with absolutely, so the phrase completely wrong is
worth teaching.
46-Draw attention to vocabulary learners have been taught before
It is important to teach the new vocabulary in a text: but it is
no less important to draw students' attention to those items they have
been taught before but may not remember.
There is always new vocabulary that you are fairly sure most
students will not know and that will need teaching; but there are also
items that you have already taught but that some students may not
remember. So when you are considering which vocabulary needs
teaching, note items like these that you'd like to remind the students
about.
It is not a waste of time to ask students about a particular
word and then find out that most of them remember or can easily
work out what it means: on the contrary, it is a useful added review
and very helpful to those who didn't remember it, or weren't sure.
47-Encourage learners to choose which vocabulary to learn
Having noted which vocabulary in a text is, in your view, most
important to teach, it is good also to allow students some choice of
which items they want to learn.
When you have been through the text once and clarified items,
ask each student to note down those items that he or she feels are
important to remember. They might share and compare their lists at this
point: to explain why they find particular items important and to help
each other if there are any meanings they are not quite sure about.
After this process, you may want to ensure that the essential
items you have prioritized are on everybody's list. Beyond this, there
will be individual differences in which items different students want to
learn. This helps to cater for mixed levels - less advanced students will
list fewer, or more basic, items; the more advanced will list more, or
more difficult ones. It also helps students to feel a sense of ownership of
the items they have chosen.
48-Pre-teach some of the new vocabulary, sometimes
Pre-teaching vocabulary is, in many classrooms, a regular
preliminary routine before teaching a reading text. Sometimes, it
may be better to wait and teach the new items as they come up in
the text.
A problem with pre-teaching vocabulary is that one teaching
of a new item does not result in permanent learning: in fact, learners
tend to forget new items fairly quickly unless they are reviewed. And
the more items you have taught, the more overload on the learners'
memory and the fewer they are likely to remember.
If you pre-teach, it is best to limit the number of items:
choose the ones that are most essential for understanding the text.
And introduce them in a previous lesson, giving students time to
review them both at the end of that lesson and again at the
beginning of the next one.
It is perfectly legitimate not to pre-teach the new vocabulary
at all but to launch straight into the text, with perhaps some
preliminary discussion of the topic. You can then help students to
understand the new vocabulary in the course of teaching the text.
This way, the new item is taught in context and the teaching of
meaning is reinforced by the content of the surrounding text; the
students also see how it links with other words in the sentence. If it
is an important item for students to learn, you can pause to write it
on the board, and then allow more time later for them to write it
down and review it.
Whether or not you pre-teach vocabulary, it is important to
list and review later those items which you feel it is particularly
important for students to remember.
49-Be wary of asking learners to infer meanings from context
The main reason why inferring meaning from context
(inferencing) is not very useful is that evidence indicates that learners
are likely to guess wrong. This is not just because they don't
understand all the words of the surrounding text. It is mainly because
in most cases the information from the surrounding text, even if the
reader understands all of it, does not provide sufficient clues to the
meaning of the unknown word.
This does not mean we should never ask our students to guess
meanings from context, or that we shouldn't suggest strategies that
will help them to do so. Inferencing is a useful tool for reading,
particularly when a student does not have any other source available
to tell them the meaning of an unknown word. Even if the exact
meaning of the word is not clear, often a rough idea of 'the kind of
thing' is sufficient for reading comprehension.
For the purposes of vocabulary learning, however, a rough
idea of 'the kind of thing' is inadequate: we want our students to
know what the word means. If there is an unknown word in a text,
therefore, it is probably not a good idea to ask them to guess its
meaning, unless we are sure there are sufficient comprehensible
clues in the surrounding text to enable them to guess correctly.
In most cases, a request to inference the meaning of a new
word will take time and is likely to result in wrong guesses. It is
probably better simply to tell learners what it means, and then use
the time saved to engage with the new word in context.
NEXT WEEK
TEACHING VOCABULARY
(UR, FROM G TO J)

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Bottom line: if you are going to teach other members from

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There are lots of different ways of explaining the meaning of

It is essential to provide learners with plenty of

Perhaps the most common source of new vocabulary in the

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