Teaching vocabulary: making an impact

by Penny Ur© Cambridge University Press 2012

Teaching vocabulary: making an impact By Penny Ur

© Cambridge University Press 2012

If we make the introduction and review of new vocabulary items interesting and 'impactful', learners are likely to master them more quickly and more enjoyably than if we engage in the routine gapfills and matching exercises that we so often see in teaching materials.

For example, suppose we want to review the following items from a text: walk, path, sunset, hills, climb, tired, windy.

A gap fill exercise like:

I worked all day, and by evening I was very … .

We … up the mountain.

would be less conducive to good learning than asking these questions:

What makes you tired?

What kinds of things can we climb?

(with a request to include the target items in the answers).

The first exercise needs only a quick definition, and does not require much thinking about the item. The second requires some thought, and the request to include the target item in the response ensures that it will be repeated within the meaningful context created by the student.

Retrieval, cost-effectiveness, minimalization of 'not knowing' There are some important features that should be included in impactful vocabulary exercises.

Teaching vocabulary: making an impact

by Penny Ur© Cambridge University Press 2012

Retrieval There is ample evidence that vocabulary learning is best when it gets students to successfully retrieve the target items from memory, rather than just undergo re-teaching, or take time for further study (Karpicke & Roediger, 2008). Even at initial encounter, an immediate effort to retrieve can lead to better learning (Barcroft, 2007). So our impactful exercises should provide opportunities for students to recall the new items and use them meaningfully. Just writing them up on the board again, or reminding students of meanings, is likely to be less effective.

Cost-effectiveness The idea of 'deep processing' as a way of ensuring good learning of new information was introduced by Craik and Lockhart (1972), and has become fairly well accepted: the idea that if you invest some thought about the meaning of what you are learning, you will remember it better than if you just repeat it or focus on aspects of form. However, there is a problem of cost-effectiveness: how far do activities that have students engaging in sometimes lengthy 'deep processing' activities repay the investment of time? For example, if a student is asked to draw a picture of someone climbing a mountain in order to reinforce the word climb – it is likely to take them some time, but may not contribute much to a consolidation of their learning of that item.

Minimalization of 'not knowing' Guessing words from context, or looking them up in the dictionary are essential strategies for reading comprehension; but they are ineffective for vocabulary review, since a lot of the time spent doing them is devoted to 'not knowing'. Guessing from context is demonstrably unreliable as a way of accessing accurate meanings (Laufer, 1997), and learners waste a lot of time wondering and guessing wrongly. Similarly, much of the time looking items up in the dictionary is spent searching rather than finding. It makes more sense for the teacher to remind the students quickly of the meanings of words they have forgotten or not learnt yet, and then spend the time saved getting students to engage with the items in various meaningful contexts.

Teaching vocabulary: making an impact

by Penny Ur© Cambridge University Press 2012

Impactful activities in practice Here are some more ideas for interesting and 'impactful' review of new vocabulary:

1 What goes with this word?

- what adjectives describe the word path?

- what adverbs go with the word walk?

2 Make up sentences using …

- any two of these words.

- any one word, but the sentence has to be false.

- any one word, but the sentence has to be true for you.

3 How would you translate this word or phrase into your language? Is there more than one possible translation?

4 When would you NOT (walk, climb)?

Where would you NOT find (a path, a hill)? Where would you NOT see (a sunset)?

5 Make up a story using all of the words.

For further ideas, see Penny’s new book, Vocabulary Activities.

Now that you’ve read Penny’s article, why not take part in the discussion here.

Teaching vocabulary: making an impact

by Penny Ur© Cambridge University Press 2012

References Barcroft, J. (2007) Effects of Opportunities for Word Retrieval during Second Language Vocabulary Learning. Language Learning, 57 (1), 35-56.

Craik, F. I. M. & Lockhart, R. S. (1972) Levels of Processing: a Framework for Memory Research. Journal of Verbal Language and Verbal Behaviour, 11, 671-84.

Karpicke, J., & Roediger, H. L. (2008) The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science, 319, 966-968.

Laufer, B. 1997. "The lexical Plight in Second Language Reading: Words you don't know, words you think you know and words you can't guess". In Coady, J., & Huckin, T. (Eds.) Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: a Rationale for Pedagogy (pp.20-34). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ur, P. (2012) Vocabulary Activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.