Teaching & Practicing Vocabulary

Fundamental questions on teaching vocabulary (adapted from Carter and McCarthy, 1988: 1-2)

● How many words provide a working vocabulary in a foreign language?

● What are the best words to learn first?● Can words be graded for ease of learning?● What are the best means of retaining new language?● What is the importance of context?● How about multiple meaning words?● Are some words more likely to be encountered in spoken

rather than written discourse?

How much vocabulary does the ELL need to be able to communicate successfully?

● Linguists refer to word families: root form, inflections, derivations: between 2,000 and 3,000 to understand conversational English and a range of 8,000 to 9,000 word families to read a wide variety of text without unknown vocabulary becoming a problem

● Students need ○ Guidance○ Effective learning techniques

English is a rich language lexically speaking and strongly contextual.

How many definitions of the word run do you think you may find? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/run

What does it mean to know a word? Some concepts

● Receptive and productive vocabulary● Paul Nation includes the following dimensions to word knowledge:

○ Meaning○ Written form○ Spoken form○ Grammatical behavior○ Collocation○ Register○ Associations○ Frequency

● Which aspects to teach according to level, purpose, etc.

Key Principles

● Introduce new vocabulary in context● Focus on the most useful vocabulary first● Teach learners strategies for vocabulary acquisition so

that they can continually add to their repertoire. Some examples are ○ Classifying○ Using the dictionary○ Practicing in context

● Pay attention to repetition and spacing

What teachers want to know: Vocabulary selection

● Word lists● Collocations● Lexical phrases

Word List Sample

1. The 11. He2. Of 12. Was3. To 13. For4. And 14. On 5. A 15. Are6. In 16. With7. Is 17. Us8. It 18. I9. You 19. His

10. That 20. They

Using nonlinguistic representations of vocabulary

● Dramatization and brief skits● Hands-on material and realia● Tableaux, timelines, and process lines● Images ● Word clouds and visual dictionaries

inlingua Method

Idiomatic Expressions & Phrasal Verbs● Idioms add to the richness of

a language, conveying meaning through figurative speech

● Invite students to share an English idiomatic expression they hear outside of school

● Keep an idiom wall to revisit

Frayer Model

Vocabulary ActivitiesQuestions & Answers

● Warm-up games● Interviews● Guessing games

○ A day in the life of○ Packing a suitcase○ What’s in the box?

● Charades● Odd Word Out● Memory game:

collocations/famous pairs

● Jeopardy● 3 adjectives● Choosing pictures● Clusters● Back-to-back● Similar and different

(think/pair/share)

● Jigsaw tasks○ The same or

different?● Questioning activities

○ Find somebody who

Vocabulary ActivitiesDiscussion & Decisions

● Ranking exercises○ Qualities○ Desert Island○ Personalities

● Discussion games● Problem-solving activities

Vocabulary Grouping Activities● Idiom matching

● Film/TV show title matching

● Picture matching

● Personality matching

● Compound word

● Object matching

● Country and product

● Job and tool

Make hay while the sun shines

You can’t teach

an old dog new tricks

No parkingNo food or drink here

butter fly

car airplanebustruck

New Zealand

drill

Kiwi

dentist rakegardener

Lady Gaga

Star Wars

Online Resources Idiomatic Expressions (and miscellaneous)

● Dave'sESLcafe● Activities for ESL/idioms

Virtual field trips

○ Concept + Vocabulary○ Abstract ideas & processes○ Promote active listening and questioning ○ Be revisited and reviewed independently

● Google Earth● CNN Travel● Scholastic VFT

Teaching & Practicing Vocabulary: Sources● Zuniga Dunlap Carmen, Helping English Language Learners Succeed,

Second Edition, Shell Education, 2015● FluentU English Educator Blog● Teaching English● Nunan David, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, An

Introduction, Routledge, 2015● Sousa David, How the ELL Brain Learns, Corwin, 2011● Klippel Friederike, Keep Talking, Communicative fluency activities for

language teaching, CUP, 1986● The Teacher Toolkit (Frayer Model)● Merrian-Webster online dictionary definition of RUN