Teaching Vocabulary

At our training meeting Saturday, there were several questions about how to teach vocabulary. Of course, now that I have this fun blog, I was intrigued, did some research, and came up with a number of articles and tips to share with my wonderful tutors. I want to specifically share two articles by Dorit Sasson, but I will include several links at the bottom of this post to other articles. Please feel free to post your comments with your own ideas or additional questions. I look forward to hearing from you!

How to Teach Vocabulary
Motivating Students to Learn New Words in the ESL Classroom
© Dorit Sasson
Feb 6, 2007

Effective learning of a foreign or second language involves to a great extent learning new vocabulary words... and a lot of them. What is the trick?

Research has it: Adults and adolescents need between 10 and 16 encounters with a new word before they can put it in their long term memories. This has implications for vocabulary practice. Letters, sounds, words, chunks, grammatical structures need to be spread out and built up from noticing, to recognition to production.

From passive to active production

There is a gradual progression in vocabulary learning. Learners usually start by noticing then recognizing a word before they are able to produce it.

There are four stages in the acquisition of new vocabulary:

The learner notices the new word (with help)

The learner learns to recognize it (with help)

The learner recognizes it on his/her own

The learner can both recognize and produce it.

Putting theory into Practice: Ways to make vocabulary learning interesting

Students need to be motivated to learn vocabulary constantly. Therefore, it is important that the review is as interesting as possible in terms of the types of exercises, strategies and activities. The visual element is equally important. Here are some of the activities I tend to use in my EFL classroom. They are, by no means exhaustive.

Stage 1: Noticing the word: the visual element

• Flashcards
• Pictures

Stage 2: Recognition

• True/false
• Categorize the words
• Matching. (this category is huge with both open and closed types of exercises)--matching the word to its definition, L1-L2, opposites, adjectives and nouns, verbs and adverbs, word to the picture, match two words that go together
• Multiple choice
• Drawing the word
• Bingo games
• Circle the word you hear

Stage 3: Production

• Dictation
• Answering questions
• Guessing games: I’m thinking of:
• Picture description
• Miming

Final Words: Points to consider

• Try to have as many success oriented activities that are geared to the age groups you teach.
• Gradually progress from one stage to another but vary the activities within each stage.
• Consider appealing to the various multiple intelligences. The visual element in learning is particular important – for all age groups but particularly important for younger children.

Further Reading

How much vocabulary does a second language learner need?
1000 most common vocabulary words
Research and Practice in Teaching Vocabulary

Used with permission
Dorit Sasson is an ESL teacher and freelance writer for the educational market. Read about Dorit's services for new teacher support at: http://newteacherresourcecenter.blogspot.com/.
You can also read additional articles, tips and resources at the new teacher support website at: http://newteachersupport.suite101.com.

Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary
Vocabulary Games and Activities, A Pre-Reading Lesson Plan
© Dorit Sasson
Sep 13, 2007

Pre-reading lesson plans involve learning how to use a variety of vocabulary games and activities.

There is no limit to how many vocabulary activities a teacher can use, but there is a bit of restriction as to how to use them, especially during the first ten minutes of a reading lesson otherwise known as a 'pre-reading' part of the lesson plan.

Using Vocabulary in a Pre-Reading Lesson

Vocabulary activities can easily start off a pre-reading lesson. When it comes to using vocabulary activities, a pre-reading lesson should contain some if not all, of the new vocabulary. Some ideas include: starting with a brainstorm, comics, a quotation, a dialogue or a sentence as lead-in.

Teaching Vocabulary Strategies

When a text may have too many challenging or difficult words, a teacher may want to employ a variety of techniques such as translation, picture matching, or explaining the new vocabulary in context. Pre-teaching vocabulary helps:

• learners focus on the subject of the text
• teachers predict the content of the text using the target vocabulary.

This pre-reading section of the lesson should take approximately ten minutes. Then, when the text is being read to the students, the teacher has the chance to either confirm the students' predictions or, to go straight to the main reading task depending on what was previously done.

Fun Vocabulary Games and Activities

There are also pre-reading lessons that are based on vocabulary review. Essentially, these act like warm-ups that have the effect of calming the class and help you get ready for the main task at hand. There are a variety of fun vocabulary activities that have game-like features that are very motivating:

• "I'm thinking of" - You give the class a few definitions corresponding to a 5-6 vocabulary words and the students guess the word.
• The teacher whispers the word and the students try and recognize the word.
• The teacher spells the word backwards and the students try and recognize the word.
• Bingo using the words. The teacher calls out the definitions or translations.

If the teacher feels that an adequate amount of practice via these recognition activities has been reached, s/he can opt for more challenging vocabulary games and activities that aim to reduce fear and hesitancy that is sometimes characteristic of language learners studying a language that isn't their mother tongue. Examples:

• The telephone game or otherwise known as: "What word did you say?"
• Mini-Dialogues: students are given a situational context and they need to use the vocabulary.
• Dictations: students fill in a sentence using a choice from three words the teacher says.

Over to You:

Take a look at the pre-reading part of your reading plan. Do you have varied vocabulary activities and games? Which ones have you tried? Which ones would you like to try. Try keeping a journal of those vocabulary lessons that went successfully and always aim for new and different ways to motivate your students to learn vocabulary.

Used with permission
Dorit Sasson is an ESL teacher and freelance writer for the educational market. Read about Dorit's services for new teacher support at: http://newteacherresourcecenter.blogspot.com/.
You can also read additional articles, tips and resources at the new teacher support website at: http://newteachersupport.suite101.com.

Other interesting articles and ideas I stumbled across:

Dave's ESL Cafe Idea Cookbook

EFL Vocabulary Teaching Tips

Important Vocabulary Definitions

Vocabulary: The Power of Guessing