Scott Thonbury

how to
teach vocabulary
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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Cambridge University Press for extracts from the Catalan Word Selector and English
Vocabulary in Use (Elementary) by McCarthy and O’Dell and The New Cambridge English
Course 2 by Swan and Walter; Carcarnet Press Limited and the family of Allen Curnow for
his poem ’Wild Iron' published in Collected Poems', Cummington Press for the poem
'Silence' by William Carlos Williams published in The Wedge-, EMI Music Publishing for
the lyrics from Wannabe recorded by The Spice Girls; the poet, Ruth Fainlight, for her
poem 'Handbag* published in Selected Poems by Random House Group Limited; Oxford
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pages 95,150 and 165

Contents
Page
Introduction vi

1 What's in a word? 1
• Introduction
• Identifying words
• Word classes
• Word families
• Word formation
• Multi-word units
• Collocations
• Homonyms
• Polysemes
• Synonyms and antonyms
• Hyponyms
• Lexical fields
• Style and connotation

2 How words are learned

• How important is vocabulary?
• What does it mean to ‘know a word’?
• How is our word knowledge organised?
• How is vocabulary learned?
• How many words docs a learner need to know?
• How are words remembered?
• Why do we forget words?
• What makes a word difficult?
• What kind of mistakes do learners make?
• What are the implications for teaching?

3 Classroom sources of words 32

• Lists
• Coursebooks
• Vocabulary books
• The teacher
• Other students

4 Texts, dictionaries and corpora

• Short texts
• Books and readers
• Dictionaries
• Corpus data

iii
5 How to present vocabulary 75
• Presenting vocabulary
• Using translation
• How to illustrate meaning
• How to explain meaning
• How to highlight the form
• How to involve the learners

6 How to put words to work 93

• Integrating new knowledge into old
• Decision-making tasks
• Production tasks
• Games

7 Teaching word parts and word chunks 106

• Teaching word formation and word combination
• A lexical approach
• Teaching lexical chunks
• Teaching word grammar
• Teaching phrasal verbs
• Teaching idioms

8 How to test vocabulary 129

• Why test vocabulary?
• What to test
• Types of test
• Measuring word knowledge
• Assessing vocabulary size
• Doing action research

9 How to train good vocabulary learners 144

• Learner training
• Using mnemonics
• Word cards
• Guessing from context
• Coping strategies for production
• Using dictionaries
• Spelling rules
• Keeping records
• Motivation

Task File 162

Task File Key 178

Further reading 183

Index 184
Acknowledgements
Thanks, Jeremy, David and Hester once again. What a team! Thanks are
also due to Guy Cook, for his very useful feedback and suggestions. I'd also
like to thank the authors and publishers of the books listed in the Further
Reading list, without which this present book could not have been written.
(I should add, of course, that no blame must he attached to those books for
any flaws in this one.) And thanks, P. It takes two to tandem, sorry, tangi,
er tango ...
 Introduction
Who is this to Teach Vocabulary has been written for all teachers of English who
book for? wish to improve their knowledge and to develop) their classroom skills in
this important area.

What is this There has been a revival of interest in vocabulary teaching in recent years.
book about? This is partly due to the recent availability of computerised databases of
words (or corpora), and partly due to the development of new approaches to
language teaching which are much more ‘word-centred’, such as the ‘lexical
approach’. This interest is reflected in the many recent titles you will find in
the Further Reading list on page 183. However, these developments have
been slow to reach teachers in a form that is easily transferable to the
classroom. This book aims to bridge that gap: to sketch in the theoretical
background while at rhe same time suggesting ways in which the teaching
of vocabulary can be integrated into lessons.
Given the challenge involved in processing, storing and producing words
in a second language, the book attempts to answer the question: what can
teachers do to help?
Before looking at specific procedures and techniques, we will need first to
define what a word is, and how words relate to one another (Chapter 1).
Chapter 2 looks at the way this knowledge is acquired, organised, stored and
retrieved, and includes a brief discussion of the nature and role of memory.
Crucial to the success of a teaching sequence - whether a lesson or a whole
course - is the selection of items to focus on. There are a number of sources
from which to select words, and Chapters 3 and 4 survey these sources -
including coursebooks, dictionaries, corpora and literature.
Classroom techniques for presenting vocabulary items, and for practising
them (or 'putting them to work’) are dealt with in Chapters 5 and 6
respectively. In Chapter 7, the concept of the word is expanded to include
both the way individual words are formed from smaller components, and
the wav words themselves combine to form larger ‘chunks’, often with
idiomatic meaning. In Chapter 8, the testing of vocabulary is dealt with,
while Chapter 9 looks at wavs of helping learners to take responsibility for
their own learning, including ways of coping with gaps in their vocabulary
knowledge.
Practical classroom applications are signalled throughout by this icon
Finally, the Task File consists of photocopiable task sheets, relevant to each
chapter. They can be used for individual study and reflection, or for
discussion and review in a training context. An answer key is provided.
 hat's in a word?
Introduction

Identifying words

Word classes

Word families

Word formation

Multi-word units

Collocations

• Homonyms

• Polysemes

• Synonyms and antonyms

• Hyponyms

• Lexical fields

• Style and connotation

Introduction ‘A word is a microcosm of human consciousness.’ (Vygotsky)

All languages have words. Language emerges first as words, both

historically, and in terms of the way each of us learned our first and any
subsequent languages. The coining of new words never stops. Nor does the
acquisition of words. Even in our first language we are continually learning
new words, and learning new meanings for old words. Take, for example,
this description of a wine, where familiar words arc being used and adapted
to express very specialised meanings:

A deep rich red in colour. Lush and soft aroma with plums and
blackberries, the oak is plentiful and adds vanilla to the mix, attractive
black pepper undercurrents. The mouthfeel is plush and comfortable like
an old pair of slippers, boysenberry and spicy plum fruit flavours with
liquorice and well seasoned oak. The generous finish ends with fine
grained tannins and a grippv earthy aftertaste.
(from web page at www.ewinexchange.com.au)

If you are not familiar with wine-tasting terminology, you may have found
this text heavy going, due to both the density and specialised nature of its
vocabulary. For example, you may be familiar with lush and plush but
uncertain as to what they mean, or how they differ in meaning, in this
context. Some words may be entirely new to you - such as grippy and

1
How to Teach Vocabulary

mouthfeel. Learners of a second language experience a similar bewilderment

even with much simpler texts. They may be confronted by words that are
totally unfamiliar, or arc being used in ways that for them are novel and
possibly obscure. They may even be meeting concepts that are simply not
represented by words in their first language.
Their problems are compounded when they need to produce language.
Finding the right word to fit the intended meaning is frustrating when your
store of words is limited. And when words get confused with each other,
even within this limited store, the results can be disastrous, as in this
example from a student’s composition:
I am urifincj to ccmplain you. about an unnecessary operation tnat 1
had at 5t Charles Hospital, last May ЯЧ. Two months age, I wont to
visit Pcctcr Sanchez, who works at this Hospital, because I had.
adenoids that prevented me to breathe. He persuaded me to 'nave a
ra.se operation to get out the adenoids. I was worried w<tn this idea,
but finally 1 accepted 'ms decision. Two weeks later I had been operated.
The problem was wi^en he removed the bandages of my noise. I gave
a snout!!!! My noise had been changed by a small noise similar to the
pig's noises ...

To sum up, learning the vocabulary of a second language presents the learner
with the following challenges:

• making the correct connections, when understanding the second

language, between the form and the meaning of words (c.g. mouthfeel,
grippy), including discriminating the meanings of closely related words
(e.g. lush and plush)
• when producing language, using the correct form of a word for the
meaning intended (i.e. nose not noise)

To meet these challenges the learner needs to:

• acquire a critical mass of words for use in both understanding and

producing language
• remember words over time, and be able to recall them readily
• develop strategies for coping with gaps in word knowledge, including
coping with unknown words, or unfamiliar uses of known words

Identifying In order to address the above issues, it may pay to start at the beginning, and
words to attempt to define what exactly a word is. Here is a sentence that, at first
glance, consists of twenty of them:

I like looking for bits and pieces like old second-hand record players and
doing them up to look like new.

Of course, there are not twenty different words in that sentence. At least two
of those twenty words arc repeated: and is repeated once, like three times: I
like lookingfor hits and pieces like ... look like new. On the other hand, the
first ZfZv? is a verb, and the other two are prepositions - so is this really a case
of the same word being repeated? And then there’s looking and look: are these

2
 1 • What's in a word?

two different words? Or rwo different forms of the same word? Then there’s
second-hand', two words joined to make one? Probably - the hyphen suggests
we treat second-hand diffcrendy from, say, I've got a second hand. But what
about record player! Two words but one concept, surely?
It gets worse. What about bits and pieces! Isn’t this a self-contained unit?
After all, we don’t ыу pieces and bits. Or things and pieces. A case, perhaps, of
three words forming one. (Like bits and bobs.) And looking for: my
dictionary has an entry for look., another for lookfor, and yet another for look
after. Three different meanings - three different words? And, finally, doing
them up: although doing and up arc separated by another word, they seem to
be so closely linked as to form a word-like unit (r/o up} with a single
meaning: reww/f. One word or rwo?
The decision as to what counts as a word might seem rather academic,
but there are important implications in terms of teaching. Is it enough, for
example, to teach to look and assume that learning to lookfor and to look after
will follow automatically? Do you teach /00^, looks, looking together? Should
you teach record and player as separate items before introducing recordplayer!
And how do you go about teaching to do something up when not only is the
meaning of the whole more than the sum of its parts, but the parts
themselves are moveable? You can do a flat up or do up a flat. Finally, how do
you assess how many words a learner knows? If they know bits and they
know pieces, can we assume they know hits and pieces! Does the learner who
knows bits and pieces know ‘more’ than the learner who knows only bits and
pieces!
Let’s take a closer look at these different aspects of what constitutes a
word. In so doing, we will attempt to cover the main ways in which words
are described and categorised. Knowing how words are described and
categorised can help us understand the decisions that syllabus planners,
materials writers and teachers make when it comes to the teaching of
vocabulary.

Word classes We can see from our example sentence that words play different roles in a
text. They fall into one of eight different word classes:

nouns bits, pieces, record, player

pronouns 1, them
verbs like, looking, doing, to look
adjectives old, second-hand, new
adverb up
prepositions for, like
conjunction and
determiner -

Like, like many words in English, can belong to two or more word classes.
The unrepresented class are the determiners - words like a, the, some, this,
last.
In terms of the meanings associated with these word classes, we can make
a crude division into two groups. On the one hand, there are words like for,
and, them, to that mainly contribute to the grammatical structure of the

3
 How to Teach Vocabulary

sentence. These are called grammatical words (or function words) and arc
generally prepositions, conjunctions, determiners and pronouns. On the
other hand, there are the content words, diose that carry a high information
load. Content words are usually nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. The
sense of a text is more or less recoverable using these words alone:

like looking bits pieces old second-hand record players doing up look new

Compare this with:

I for and like and them to like

Typically, where space is at a premium, such as in text messages, newspaper

headlines, and road signs, it is die content words alone that do the job:
RAIL STRIKE TALKS END. Content words are an open set: that is, there
is no limit to the number of content words that can be added to the
language. Here are a few that have been added recently - airbag, emoticon,
carjacking, cybersex, quark. Grammatical words, on the other hand, are a
closed set. The last time a pronoun was added to the language was in the
early sixteenth century. (It was them.)
Traditionally, grammatical words belonged to the domain of grammar
teaching, while the teaching of vocabulary was more concerned with content
words. However, the rigid division between grammar and vocabulary has
become blurred recently. The interdependence of these two systems is a key
tenet of what has been called the lexical approach (see page 112).

Word families We’ve seen how words may share the same base or root (e.g. look) but take
different endings: looks, looking, looked. This is a feature of the grammar of
most languages: the use of add-ons (called affixes) to make a verb past
{.looked), for example, or a noun plural (bits). These, different grammatical
forms of a word arc called inflexions. Adding affixes serves a grammatical
purpose. It is also a fundamental principle of word formation generally - die
adding of affixes to the roots of words (e.g. play) to fashion new words. A
word that results from the addition of an affix to a root, and which has a
different meaning from the root, is called a derivative:

Play
play + er
re + play
play + ful

So, while plays, played and playing are inflexions of play, the words player,
replay and playful are each derivatives of play. Inflexions and derivatives are
both formed by the process of affixation. Note that -er and -ful arc end-
of-word affixes, or suffixes, while beginning-of-word affixes, like re-, un-,
pre-, de-, etc. are called prefixes.
We can now talk about words as belonging to families. A word family
comprises the base word plus its inflexions and its most common
derivatives. To take another example, the base form understand includes the
following members in its family:

4
 1 • What's in a word?

understands
understanding
understood
understandable
misunderstand
misunderstood

Research suggests that the mind groups these different forms of the same
word together. Therefore, rather than talk about the number of individual
words a person knows, it makes more sense to talk about the number of
word families.

Word Affixation is one of the ways new words are formed from old. Another one
formation is compounding - that is, the combining of two or more independent
words, as in the case of second-hand, word processor, paperhack, and so on. The
fact that many compounds started life as two separate words is evident from
their variant spellings. Thus: dish washer, dish-washer, dishwasher', and wild
Power, wild-flower, wildpower. This is one reason why it is tempting to
consider recordplayer as one compounded word rather than two single words.
Another reason to consider recordplayer a single word is that this kind of
compound pattern - noun + verb + -er - is a very common, and highly
productive, one in English: a record player is a machine that plays records.
Likewise dishwasher, hairdryer, bus driver, goalkeeper, typewriter', they are all
formed according to the same principle. New words that follow this pattern
are constantly joining the language: screensaver, trainspotter, particle
accelerator, mail server. Another common pattern is the noun + noun
pattern, as in matchbox, classroom, teapot, mousemat, etc. Of course, the two
patterns - noun + noun and noun + verb + -er - can re-combine to form
even more complex compounds: dumptruck-driver, candlestick-maker,
windscreen-wiper, and so on.
Two words can be blended to form one new one (called a blend):
breakfast + lunch - brunch', information + entertainment = infotainment. Or a
word can be co-opted from one pan of speech and used as another, a process
called conversion. Typically nouns are converted into verbs (or ‘verbed’) as
in The shell impacted against a brick wall', Let's brunch tomorrow. But other
parts of speech can be converted as well: she upped and left (preposition -*
verb); a balloon flight is an absolute must (verb noun). Finally, new words
can be coined by shortening or clipping longer words: flu (from influenza),
email (from electronic mail) and dorm (from dormitory).
In the following text, 1 indicates words formed by affixation,
2 compounds,3 conversion and 4 clipping:

Weighed down by details? The 40MB Clik! PC Card Drive from

Iomega, a lightweight2, removeable1 storage1 drive for PC users, will
soon sort that out. Designed with people on the go3 in mind, rhe Clik!
PC Card Drive removes the need for additional cables and cumbersome1
storage back-up2,3. Each Clik! disc has the capacity to store 40 megas4 of
information quickly and conveniently. With packaging1,3 akin to your

5
How to Teach Vocabulary

favourite pair of Cutler and Gross specs4, this stream-lined2 system is an

essential lubricant1 to life in the fast lane.
(from Wallpaper magazine, Time Life)

Multi-word Even when words are not joined to form compounds, we have seen that
units groups of more than one word, such as bits and pieces, do up, look for, can
function as a meaningful unit with a fixed or semi-fixed form. Technically
these are known as multi-word units, but they are often called simply
lexical chunks. For example, in the following extract (in which two workers
are discussing the Australian car industry - a Holden is an Australian car)
the lexical chunks are in italics:

KEITH: It's amazing how the bleeding car industry’s swung round. Its
Holdensy^ryears and now Fords have got it. Well and truly. [... ]
Year afteryear they’re laying more off towards the end of the year so
they knew this was coming - it wasn’t out of the blue.
JO: I think that they shipped a lot of the accessory overseas too.
Before they did a lot of the hits and pieces themselves,
(from Slade D, The Texture of Casual Conversation}

The chunks vary in terms of how fixed, and how idiomatic, they are. For
example, out of the blue is both idiomatic (that is to say, its meaning is not
easily recoverable from its individual components) and fixed - you can’t say
from the blue or out ofthe green, for example. Well and truly and bits and pieces
(as we have seen) are also fixed, but less idiomatic. Year after year, on the
other hand, is only semi-fixed. It allows a limited amount of manipulation:
we can say month after month and day after day. Note that both a lot of and
for years are typical of the enormous number of chunks that are used to
express vague quantities and qualities: loads of, that sort of thing, more or less,
now and again.
It s amazing how ... belongs to a set of semi-fixed multi-word units that
function as sentence frames: they provide a structure on which to ‘hang’ a
sentence, and are especially useful in reducing planning time in rapid speech.
Especially common in informal language are compounds of verb + adverb
(like swung round), or verb + preposition {look after). These arc known as
either phrasal verbs or multi-part verbs. Because they are often idiomatic
(like lay off) and can sometimes be separated [laying more workers off and
laying off more workers), they present a formidable challenge to learners. (In
Chapter 7 you will find more on chunks and phrasal verbs.)
To handle the fact that there are multi-word items that behave like single
words, the term lexeme was coined. A lexeme is a word or group of words
that function as a single meaning unit. So, to return to the sentence that
started this chapter:

I like looking for bits and pieces like old second-hand record players and
doing them up to look like new.

we could count lookingfor, bits and pieces, record players, doing ... up and io
look as single lexemes, along with I, like, old, them, etc.

6
 1 • What’s in a word?

Collocations We have seen how words 'couple up’ to form compounds, and how they ‘hunt
in packs’ in the shape of multi-word units. There is a looser kind of associ­
ation called collocation. Two words are collocates if they occur together
with more than chance frequency, such that, when we see one, we can make
a fairly safe bet that the other is in the neighbourhood. The availability of
corpus data (i.e. databases of text - see page 68) now allows us to check the
statistical probability of two words co-occurring. The most frequent
collocate of record, for example, is world. Another is л?/. So we have no
trouble filling in the blank when we hear someone say She set a new world...
Collocation is not as frozen a relationship as that of compounds or multi­
word units, and two collocates may not even occur next to each other - they
may be separated by one or more other words. Set, for example, is the second
most frequent collocate of record but it seldom occurs right next to it: He set
thejunior record in 1990. Notice that set and record can also collocate in quite
a different sense: Just to set the record straight... In fact set the record straight
is such a strong collocation that it almost has the status of a chunk, and
indeed it gets a separate entry (under record} in dictionaries, as do some
other strong collocates with record, such as for the record, off the record and on
record.
Collocation, then, is best seen as part of a continuum of strength of
association: a continuum that moves from compound words {second-hand,
record player), through multi-word units - or lexical chunks - (hits and
pieces), including idioms (out of the blue) and phrasal verbs (do up), to
collocations of more or less fixedness (jf/ the record straight, set a new world
record).
Here is a text with some of its more frequent collocations underlined,
while the more fixed multi-word units are in italics:

A record number of 54 teams will be competing in three sections as the

Bryants Carpets Intermediate Snooker League gets underway this week.
Once again all three sections are likely to be very closely contested. In
Section A, defending champions Mariner Automatics, captained once
again by the most successful skipper in the league, John Stevens, will be
the team to beat.
The biggest threat is likely to come from Grimsby Snooker Club A, and
P and J Builders who will have Steve Singleton at the helm for the first
time.
(from the Grimsby Evening Telegraph)

It should be clear from this passage the extent to which word choice is
heavily constrained by what comes before and after. This is perhaps the
single most elusive aspect of the lexical system and the hardest, therefore,
for learners to acquire. Even the slightest adjustments to the collocations -
by substituting one of its components for a near synonym (underlined) -
turns the text into non-standard English:

A record lot of 54 teams will be competing in three sections as the

Bryants Carpets Intermediate Snooker League reaches underway that
week. One time again all three sections are possibly to be very nearly
contested ...

7
How to Teach Vocabulary

By way of an example, in the learners text in the Introduction to this

chapter (page 2) there are a number of collocations that are non-standard:

to get out the adenoids (for to remove ... )

I was worried with this idea (for The idea worried me)
I gave a shout (for I shouted)

Taken individually, each of these ‘mis-collocations’ is perfectly intelligible

and nowhere near as serious as the nose-noise confusion, but in combination
they may have a negative effect on some readers.

Homonyms We have seen how like and like can be two quite different words: I like
looking ... look like new. Words that share the same form but have unrelated
meanings are called homonyms. For historical reasons, English is rich in
homonyms: well, bat, shed, left, fair, etc. Thus, while fair in the sense of
beautiful or pleasing comes from an Old English word (fager), its homonym
fair, as in Skipton Fair, comes from Latinferia by way of Frenchfoire. While
homonyms provide a headache for the learner, their ambiguity is a rich
source of humour. Like the joke about the duck who went to a chemist's to
buy lip-salve. ‘Will you be paying by cash or credit card?’ asked the
pharmacist. ‘Just put it on my bill,’ replied the duck.
Another potential source of confusion are the many words in English that
sound the same but are spelt differently: horse and hoarse, meet and meat, tail
and tale, discrete and discreet, aloud and allowed. These are called
homophones (literally ‘same sound’). There are also words that are
pronounced differently but spelt the same: a windy day, but a long and
windy road, a live concert, but where do you live?', a leadpipe, but a lead singer.
These are called homographs (literally ‘same writing’).

Polysemes As if homonyms, homophones and homographs weren’t enough, another

potential source of confusion for learners - and a challenge for teachers - is
the fact that very many words in English have different but overlapping
meanings. Take fair, for example. Clearly these two senses of jfo’r are
homonyms:

She had long fair hair.

My pig won first prize at Skipton Fair.

But what about these?

This isn't fair on anyone, but it does happen.

We have a fair size garden and we may as well make use of it.
She was only a fair cook.
The sun's rays can be very harmful, beating on unprotected fair skin.
This fair city of ours ...
It will be fair and warm.

Although there appear to be six different senses of fair represented here,

ranging from reasonable through quite large, average, pale, beautiful to dry and
pleasant, there is an underlying sense that at least some if not all of these

8
 1 • What's in a word?

meanings are related. Try substituting pleasing, for example, and you’ll find
that it more or less fits most of these contexts. Dictionary writers
(lexicographers) classify words like yJwr as being polysemous - that is, of
having multiple but related meanings, each of which is called a polyseme.
Holdis another good example of a polysemous word:

I held the picture up to the light.

I was held overnight in a cell.
You need to hold a work permit.
Mrs Smith is holding a party next week.
Marxists hold that people are all naturally creative.
He was finding it a strain to hold his students' attention.
They'll probably ho/c/the London train if we're late in.
The theatre itself can hold only a limited number of people.
Will you tell her the offer still holds.
These books hold the bed up.
(All examples offair and hold arc from the Collins COBUILD English
Dictionary.)

If the polysemous nature of English vocabulary provides a challenge to

dictionary compilers, it is a complete headache for learners. Ar what point
can you be said to know a word such as fair or hold - when you know its
most basic meaning, or when you know the different shades of meaning
represented by all its polysemes? This is an issue we will return to when we
look at the teaching of word meaning.

Synonyms and Synonyms are words that share a similar meaning. Thus: old, ancient,
antonyms antique, aged, elderly are all synonyms in that they share die common
meaning of not young/new. However, there the similarity ends. We are more
likely to talk about an old recordplayer and even an antique one than an elderly
record player or an aged one. Synonyms are similar, but seldom the same.
Even between words that seem interchangeable, such as taxi and cab, or
aubergine and egg-plant, one will be preferred over the other in certain
contexts and by particular speakers.
Notice we were forced to define old in terms of what it is not: not
young/new. Words with opposite meanings - like old and new - are called
antonyms. Again, like synonyms, rhe relation between such opposites is not
always black and white (to use two antonyms) and the very notion of
‘oppositeness’ is troublesome. The opposite of an old woman is a young
woman, but the opposite of an old recordplayer is a new one, not a young one.
Your old boyfriend, however, could be either the boyfriend who is not your
young boyfriend or the one who is not your new boyfriend. Nevertheless, like
synonyms, antonyms have a useful defining function and are dierefore a
convenient teaching resource.

Hyponyms Hyponym is another -nym word that is useful when talking about the
way word meanings are related. A hyponymous relationship is a kind of
relationship, as in A hammer is a kind of tool or A kiwi is a kind of bird (and a

9
 How to Teach Vocabulary

kind offruit). Thus, hammer is a hyponym of tool', kiwi a hyponym of bird

(and fruit). Co-hyponyms share the same ranking in a hierarchy: hammer,
saw, screwdriver are all co-hyponyms; too! is the superordinate term. But
saw also has a superordinate relation to different kinds of saw: fretsaw,
chainsaw, jigsaw, etc. We can illustrate these relations like this:

tool

I “1
hammer screwdriver saw

fretsaw chainsaw jigsaw

A similar kind of relationship is a part of: a keyboard is part of a computer.

Notice that this is quite different from saying a keyboard is a kind ofcomputer.
In this poem by William Carlos Williams, the words that have this kind of
relationship (called meronymy) are underlined, while co-hyponyms are in
italics:

Under a low sky

this quiet morning
of red and
yellow leaves -

A bird disturbs
no more than one twig
of the green leaved
peach tree

Thus, leaves and twigs are parts of trees, while red, yellow and green are kinds
of colours.

Lexical fields In the following passage (from a short story by David Guterson) there are a
number of words that are connected to the idea of Christmas (Christmas
Eve, the tree, lights and carols):

We were ar my sister’s house for Christmas Eve, fire in the fireplace,

lights on the tree, Christmas carols playing on the stereo. Outside the
window a light snow blew down. Icicles hung from the gutters and in the
yard the grass looked sprinkled with powder. By morning everything
would be white.

As Christmas-themed words, wow, icicles and fireplace could also be

included, since they all belong to a mental scenario associated with northern
hemisphere Christmas celebrations. Words that have this kind of thematic
relationship are said to belong to the same lexical field. Tree, carols,fireplace
and lights all belong to the lexical field of ‘Christmas’ - although all of them,
with the possible exception of carols - belong to other lexical fields as well.
Notice that the text also contains a lexical field of weather-related words

10
 1 • What’s in a word?

that partly overlaps with die Christmas words (snow, blew, icicles, powder,
white), as well as words connected with the house theme (fireplace, stereo,
window, gutters, yard, grass).

Here’s an extract quoted earlier in this chapter:

KEITH: It’s amazing how the bleeding car industry’s swung round. It’s
Holdens for years and now Fords have got it. Well and truly.
[ ... ] Year after year they’re laying more off towards the end of
the year so they knew this was coming - it wasn’t out of the blue.
JO: I think that they shipped a lot of the accessory overseas too.
Before they did a lot of the bits and pieces themselves.

Expressions like the bleeding car industry, out of the blue and bits and
pieces, suggest a style of language that is closer to spoken, informal English
than to a formal written style. Moreover, the use of bleeding suggests
British or Australian English rather than North American English. British,
Australian and North American are different varieties of English. More
than anything, choice of words is an indicator of style and place of origin.
Dictionaries typically indicate the style and variety of a word by conventions
such as the following:

Am North American English

Aus Australian English
Br British English
dated
fml formal
infml informal
law
literary
poetic
slang
taboo
(from The Cambridge International Dictionary of English, CUP)

A distinction is often made between style and register. A register of English

is a variety of the language as used in specific contexts, such as legal English,
academic English, or technical English. Discrepancies in style and register
are as disconcerting as unusual collocations. Take, for example, this email 1
received (from somebody I had never met):

Dear Scott,
I have booked Diana to arrive in Barcelona at 22.25 (10.25pm) on
Saturday 19th August. I hope the lateness of the hour doesn’t
discommode you too much. Di will be flying out of Barcelona on Friday
25th August at 1.25pm. Are you cool with these arrangements? If not, I
can change them no probs.
Also, I’m still trying to track down the article you want.
Regards,
[-]

11
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Note the difference in style between words and expressions like lateness of
the hour and discommode, (formal, and somewhat archaic, on the one hand)
and are you cool, no probs, track down (colloquial and spoken, on the other).
Linked to style is the issue of connotation. Two words may be synonyms,
but each may evoke quite different associations. Famous and notorious both
have an underlying meaning of well-known, but only the latter has negative
connotations. In this book, you will find the term learners used in preference
to students or pupils, which have somewhat passive connotations. In the
following newspaper text, the emotive connotations of the underlined words
emphasise the writers disapproval of an event that itself was triggered by a
politician’s use of the negative (or pejorative) term ‘mongrel’:

EX-PRIME Minister Ted Heath last night torpedoed William Hague’s

desperate bid to shut down the Tory race row. He compared maverick
MP John Townend - who described the British as a ‘mongrel race’ - to
Enoch Powell and said he should be kicked out of the party. Sir Ted, who
booted Powell out in 1968, warned ‘many other’ right-wing MPs shared
Townend’s extreme views.
(from 77w Sun newspaper)

Conclusions In this chapter the aim has been to show that a word is a more
complex phenomenon than at first it might appear. For example:
• words have different functions, some carrying mainly grammatical
meaning, while others bear a greater informational load
• the same word can have a variety of forms
• words can be added to, or combined, to form new words
• words can group together to form units that behave as if they were
single words
• many words commonly co-occur with other words
• words may look and/or sound the same but have quite different
meanings
• one word may have a variety of overlapping meanings
• different words may share similar meanings, or may have opposite
meanings
• some words can be defined in terms of their relationship with other
words - whether, for example, they belong to the same set, or
co-occur in similar texts
• words can have the same or similar meanings but be used in
different situations or for different effects

Looking ahead Now that we have looked at some of the complexities of vocabulary,
the next chapter will examine how words are learned, both in the first
language and in a second language. We will also explore how theories
of learning might impact on the teaching of vocabulary - a theme
that will be developed in subsequent chapters.

12
 w words are
rned
w important is vocabulary?

hat does it mean to 'know a word'?

How is our word knowledge organised?

How is vocabulary learned?

• How many words does a learner need to know?

• How are words remembered?

• Why do we forget words?

• What makes a word difficult?

• What kind of mistakes do learners make?

• What are the implications for teaching?

How important ‘Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing
is vocabulary? can be conveyed.’ This is how the linguist David Wilkins summed up the
importance of vocabulary learning. His view is echoed in this advice to
students from a recent coursebook (Dellar H and Hocking D, Innovations,
LTP): ‘If you spend most of your time studying grammar, your English will
not improve very much. You will see most improvement if you learn more
words and expressions. You can say very little with grammar, but you can say
almost anything with words!’
Most learners, too, acknowledge the importance of vocabulary acqui­
sition. Here are some statements made by learners, in answer to the question
How wouldyou like to improve your English?

• Ora.\ <s my weakness and I can't spcack a fluent sentence in English.

Sometimes, I am lack oF useFul vocabularies to express my opinions.
• My problem is that I Forget the words soon after I have locked in the
dictionary. Fgt example when I read a 6nqlish bock.
• I would like to improve my vocabulary. I have the -Feeling that 1 always
use the same idiomatic expressions to express diFFerent sort oF things.
• I’d like to enlarge my vocabulary (this word I also had to rind in
dictionary). Teo often my speaking is hard caused by missing words.

However, vocabulary teaching has not always been very responsive to such
problems, and teachers have not fully recognised the tremendous
communicative advantage in developing an extensive vocabulary. For a long

13
How to Teach Vocabulary

time, teaching approaches such as the Direct Method and audiolingualism

gave greater priority to the teaching of grammatical structures. In order not
to distract from the learning of these structures, the number of words
introduced in such courses was kept fairly low. Those words which were
taught were often chosen either because they were easily demonstrated, or
because they fitted neatly into the ‘structure of the day’.
The advent of the communicative approach in the 1970s set the stage
for a major re-think of the role of vocabulary. The communicative value of
a core vocabulary has always been recognised, particularly by tourists. A
phrase book or dictionary provides more communicative mileage than a
grammar - in the short term at least. Recognition of the meaning-making
potential of words meant that vocabulary became a learning objective in its
own right. In 1984, for example, in the introduction to their Cambridge
English Course, Swan and Walter wrote that 'vocabulary' acquisition is the
largest and most important task facing the language learner’. Coursebooks
began to include activities that specifically targeted vocabulary.
Nevertheless, most language courses were (and still are) organised around
grammar syllabuses. There are good grounds for retaining a grammatical
organisation. While vocabulary' is largely a collection of items, grammar is
a system of rules. Since one rule can generate a great many sentences, the
teaching of grammar is considered to be more productive. Grammar
multiplies, while vocabulary merely adds. However, two key developments
were to challenge the hegemony of grammar. One was the lexical syllabus,
that is, a syllabus based on those words that appear with a high degree of
frequency in spoken and written English. The other was recognition of the
role of lexical chunks (see page 6) in the acquisition of language and in
achieving fluency. Both these developments (which we will look at more
closely in Chapter 7) were fuelled by discoveries arising from the new
science of corpus linguistics.
The effect of these developments has been to raise awareness as to the key
role vocabulary development plays in language learning. Even if most
coursebooks still adopt a grammatical syllabus, vocabulary is no longer
treated as an 'add-on'. Much more attention is given to the grammar of
words, to collocation and to word frequency. This is reflected in the way
coursebooks arc now promoted. For example, the back covers of three recent
courses claim:

Strong emphasis on vocabulary, with a particular focus on high frequency',

useful words and phrases, (from Cutting Edge Intermediate)

Well-defined vocabulary syllabus plus dictionary training and pronun­

ciation practice, including the use of phonetics, (from New Headway
English Course)

... a strongly lexical syllabus, presenting and practising hundreds of

natural expressions which students will find immediately useful, (from
Innovations)

14
 2 • How words are learned

What does it Wc have been talking about the importance of having an extensive
mean to 'know vocabulary - that is, knowing lots of words. But what does it mean to know
a word'? a word?
At the most basic level, knowing a word involves knowing:

• its form, and

• its meaning

If I tell you that there is, in Maori, a word that takes rhe form tangi, you can
not really claim to say you ‘know Awjg?* since you don’t know what tangi
means. The form of the word tells you nothing about its meaning.
So, what does tangi mean? Well, it means sound. But is that sound the
noun, or sound the verb, as in to sound"' In fact, it can mean both - so part
of knowing the meaning of tangi is knowing its grammatical function. But
tangi doesn’t mean only sound \ it also means lamentation., dirge and to
weep. In fact the waiata tangi (funeral lament) is an integral part of the
tangihanga, or Maori funeral ceremony, so much so that tangi has come to
mean (colloquially) simply funeral. But, of course, not a funeral in the
European sense. A Maori tangi is a very different kind of ceremony, f or a
start ... (and so on). In other words, knowing the meaning of a word is not
just knowing its dictionary meaning (or meanings) - it also means knowing
the words commonly associated with it (its collocations) as well as its
connotations, including its register and its cultural accretions.
Finally, wc need to distinguish between receptive knowledge and
productive knowledge. Now that you know the meaning of tangi you can
probably make sense of the opening passage from the short story ‘Tangi’ by
Witi Ihimaera:

Do not listen to the wailing, Tama. Do not listen to the women chanting
their sorrows, the soaring waiata tangi which sings alone and disconsolate
above the wailing. It is only the wind, Tama. Do not listen to the sorrows
of the marae ...

Assuming you understood tangi in this extract, you may still feel
uncomfortable about working the word into a letter or dropping it into a
conversation. (And so far you have only had its written form, not its spoken
form.) In other words, you have receptive, but not productive, knowledge of
the word. Receptive knowledge exceeds productive knowledge and generally
- but not always - precedes it. That is, we understand more words than we
utter, and we usually understand them before wc are capable of uttering
them.

15
How to Teach Vocabulary

To summarise, word knowledge can be represented as in this diagram for

the word tangi:

What is involved in knowing the word 'tangi'

Of course, even a proficient speaker of Maori may not ‘know’ all these
aspects of the word tangi: word knowledge is incremental and takes time.
What is sometimes called a state of initial fuzziness seems to be an
inevitable part of vocabulary learning.

How is our The above diagram for the word tangi suggests that the way words are
word stored in the mind resembles less a dictionary than a kind of network or
knowledge web. This is an apt image: the mind seems to store words neither randomly
nor in the form of a list, but in a highly organised and interconnected
organised?
fashion - in what is often called the mental lexicon.
The mistakes we make offer an insight into the way the mental lexicon is
organised. For example, the speaker who says ‘1 watched this Maori tango on
television is confusing two words that are similar in form, if quite different
in meaning: tangi and tango. This suggests that words with similar sound
structure are closely interconnected, so that the search for one may
sometimes activate its near neighbour. The comic effect of this kind of
mistake (called a malapropism) has not been lost on writers, including
Shakespeare:

bottom: ‘Thisbe, the flowers of odious savours sweet

quince: ‘Odious’ - odorous!
 2 • How words are learned

As in a dictionary, similar forms seem to be located adjacent to each other.

But if every time we ‘looked up’ a word in the mental lexicon, we started
with its form, we would have to scroll through a great many similar­
sounding but totally unrelated words: tandem, tangent, tangle, tango, etc.
This would be very time-consuming. To speed things up, words are also
interconnected according to their shared meanings - all the fruit words
being interconnected, and all the clothing words interconnected too. So, if I
want to say 1 had a delicious mango for breakfast, the lexicon activates the fruit
department before triggering a search of words beginning with zrawg-. This
accounts for the fact that, in experiments, subjects find that answering the
first of the following two questions is easier and quicker than answering the
second:

1 Name a fruit that begins with p.

2 Name a word that begins with p that is a fruit.

In each case the word search simultaneously focuses on form and meaning,
but it seems the brain is better disposed to begin the search via the
meaning-based (thesaurus-like) lexicon than the form-based (dictionary­
like) one. This also accounts for the fact that, once subjects have accessed
the fruit category, they are able to find other fruits more quickly. All of this
suggests a semantic (meaning-based) organisation, but one that also has a
form-based (or what is called morphological) back-up. The two systems
work in tango, sorry, in tandem. This explains why malapropisms (such as
odious/odorous) are not only similar in sound to the intended word, but are
almost always the same part of speech and often share aspects of their
meaning. Hence, many learners of English confuse chicken and kitchen-, not
only do the two words sound alike, they are both nouns and they share
elements of meaning in that they belong to the same lexical field.
We can think of the mental lexicon, therefore, as an overlapping system
in which words are stored as ‘double entries’ - one entry containing
information about meaning and the other about form. These individual
word entries are then linked to words that share similar characteristics,
whether of meaning {mango/papayd) or of form {tangi/tango) - or both
(chicken/kitchen). The number of connections is enormous. Finding a word
is like following a path through the network, or better, following several
paths at once. For, in order to economise on processing time, several
pathways will be activated simultaneously, fanning out across the network in
a process called ‘spreading activation’.
Linked to this system are other areas of cognition, such as world
knowledge (like an encyclopedia) and memory (like a personal diary or
autobiography), so that activation of a word like tangi or mango or tango also
triggers general knowledge and personal experiences that extend beyond the
simple ‘dictionary’ meanings of these words. Knowing a word, then, is the
sum total of all these connections - semantic, syntactic, phonological,
orthographic, morphological, cognitive, cultural and autobiographical. It is
unlikely, therefore, that any two speakers will ‘know’ a word in exactly the
same way.

17
How to Teach Vocabulary

How is Knowing a word is one thing - but how is that knowledge acquired? In
vocabulary learning their first language the first words that children learn are typically
learned? those used for labelling - that is, mapping words on to concepts - so that
the concept, for example, of dog has a name, dog. Or doggie. But not all four­
legged animals are dogs: some may be cats, so the child then has to learn
how far to extend the concept of dog, so as nor to include cats, but to include
other peoples dogs, toy dogs, and even pictures of dogs. In other words,
acquiring a vocabulary requires not only labelling but categorising skills.
Finally, the child needs to realise that common words like apple and dog
can be replaced by superordinate terms like fruit and animal. And that
animal can accommodate other lower order words such as cal, horse and
elephant. This involves a process of network building - constructing a
complex web of words, so that items like black and white, orfingers and toes,
or family and brother are interconnected. Network building serves to link all
the labels and packages, and lays the groundwork for a process that
continues for as long as we are exposed to new words (and new meanings
for old words) - that is, for the rest of our lives.
In what ways is the development of a second language (L2) lexicon any
different from that of the first language (LI)? Perhaps the most obvious
difference is the fact that, by definition, second language learners already
have a first language. And not only do they have the words of their first
language, but they have the conceptual system that these words encode, and
the complex network of associations that link these words one with another.
Learning a second language involves both learning a new conceptual sys­
tem, and constructing a new vocabulary network - a second mental lexicon.
Consider, for example, the problems I faced when learning Maori kinship
terms:

The word teina is used by (1) a boy when speaking ofhis younger brother;
(2) a girl when speaking of her younger sister. The word tuakana is used
by (1) a boy when speaking ofhis older brother; (2) a girl when speaking
of her older sister. The word tuahine is used by a boy when speaking of
his sister. The word tungane is used by a girl when speaking of her
brother.
(from Harawira K, Teach YourselfMaori. Reed Books)

The cultural ‘distance’ between Maori and European conceptual systems is

relatively large, but for most language learners there will be much more that
is shared than is foreign. Even learning Maori, I did not have to relearn the
concept of hand, for example, or of horse. The fact that the adult learner’s
concept system is already installed and up-and-running, means that he or
she is saved a lot of the over- and under-generalising associated with first
language learning. An adult learner is unlikely to confuse a dog with a cat,
for example.
However, there is a downside to having a ready-made conceptual system
with its associated lexicon. Faced with learning a new word, the second
language learner is likely to short-cut the process of constructing a network
of associations — and simply map the word directly onto the mother tongue

18
 2 • How words are learned

equivalent. Thus, if a German-speaking learner learns the English word

table, rather than creating a direct link from table to the concept of table,
they are more likely to create a link to their LI equivalent (77rc/>). The Ll
word acts as a stepping stone to the target concept.
Perhaps - in order to pre-empt an over-dependence on mental translation
- learners should be advised to follow Christopher Isherwood s advice:

When Christopher began giving English lessons, he would try to convey

to his German pupils something of his own mystique about the German
language. ‘A table doesn’t mean ein Tisch — when you’re learning a new
word, you must never say to yourself// means. That’s altogether the wrong
approach. What you must say to yourself is: Over there in England, they
have a thing called a table. We may go to England and look at it and say
“that’s ourTisch”. But it isn’t.The resemblance is only on the surface.The
two things are essentially different, because they’ve been thought about
differently by two nations with two different cultures. If you can grasp the
fact that that thing in England isn’t merely called к table, it really is a table,
then you’ll begin to understand what the English themselves are like ...
Of course, if you cared to buy a table while you were in England and
bring it back here, it would become ein Tisch. But not immediately.
Germans would have to think about it as ein Tisch for quite a long while,
first.’
(from Christopher and His Kind, Eyre Methuen)

Isherwood is suggesting that the words table and Tisch are not synonymous
- that their meanings do not map onto each other snugly. While this
example may be a little far-fetched, it is true that the degree of semantic
overlap between words in different languages can vary a lot. This is often a
cause of lexical errors. A Spanish speaker who complains that her shoes
make ‘her fingers hurt’ is over-generalising from Spanish M which means
both finger and toe. Likewise, a German speaker who has left his ‘clock’ at
home, may in fact mean his 'match'. Uhr stands for both clock and watch.
Many cross-language errors are due to what are known as false friends.
False friends are words that may appear to be equivalent, but whose
meanings do not in fact correspond. Examples of false English friends for
speakers of Polish, for example, are:

actually (aktualnie in Polish means ‘at present’, ‘currently’)

apartment (apartament in Polish is a ‘hotel suite’)
c’flty (jze/'is Polish for ‘chief’ or ‘boss’)
dress (dres is Polish for ‘tracksuit’)
history (historia in Polish means ‘story’)
lunatic (Junalyk in Polish is a ‘sleepwalker’)
pupil (pupil in Polish is a ‘pet’ or ‘favourite’)

Over-reliance on transfer from Ll could, conceivably, result in a Pole say- j

ing: ‘Tell die chef that actually there’s a lunatic in a dress in my apartment!’
Generally speaking, however, languages that share words with similar|
forms (called cognates) have many more real friends than false friends. AnJ
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Italian learner of English, for example, need not feel suspicious of the
English word apartment {appartamento in Italian), nor garage (the same in
Italian), garden (giardino), or balcony (balcone) - among thousands of others.
As well as false friends and real friends, there are strangers: words that
have no equivalent in the Ll at all, since the very concept does not exist in
the learner’s lexicon. Supposedly Chinese has no equivalent for the English
words privacy or community. In this case, the Chinese learner of English is
in a position not dissimilar to a child learning his or her Ll; they are
learning the concept and the word in tandem. The way colour terms are
distributed in different cultures is also a possible source of conceptual
strangeness. Russian, for example, distinguishes between two kinds of blue:
ляу vs goluboj, for which English has no satisfactory equivalents. But one
needs to be careful not to read too much into such reported differences; like
the Inuit’s one hundred different words for rnow, they may in fact be
language myths.
By analogy with false friends, real friends and strangers, it may be the case
that, for a good many second language learners, most of the words in their
L2 lexicon are simply acquaintances. They have met them, they know them
by name, they even understand them, but they will never be quite as familiar
to them as their mother tongue equivalents. This is because die associative
links in the second language lexicon are usually less firmly established than
mother tongue links. To extend the metaphor: learning a second language is
like moving to a new town - it takes time to establish connections and turn
acquaintances into friends. And what is the difference between an
acquaintance and a friend? Well, we may forget an acquaintance, but we can
never forget a friend. (For more on remembering and forgetting, see below.)

How many A further major difference between first and second language vocabulary
words does a learning is in the potential size of the lexicon in each case. An educated
native speaker will probably have a vocabulary of around 20,000 words (or,
learner need
more accurately, 20,000 word families - see page 4). This is the result of
to know?
adding about a thousand words a year to the 5,000 he or she had acquired
by the age of five. An English dictionary includes many more: the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, for example, boasts ‘over
80,000 words and phrases’, while the Oxford English Dictionary contains
half a million entries. Most adult second language learners, however,
will be lucky to have acquired 5,000 word families even after several years
of study.
This relatively slow progress has less to do with aptitude than with
exposure. The average classroom L2 learner will experience nothing like the
quantity nor the quality of exposure that the Ll infant receives. It has been
calculated that a classroom learner would need more than eighteen years of
classroom exposure to supply the same amount of vocabulary input that
occurs in just one year in natural settings. Moreover, the input that infants
receive is tailored to their immediate needs - it is interactive, and it is often
highly repetitive and patterned - all qualities that provide optimal
conditions for learning. By comparison, the average L2 learner’s input is, to

20
 2 • How words are learned

say the least, impoverished. Given these constraints, how many words does
the learner need to know?
The answer must depend to a large extent on the learner’s needs. A
holiday trip to an English-speaking country would obviously make different
vocabulary demands than a years study in a British university. But is there
such a thing as a threshold level - a core vocabulary that will serve in most
situations? One figure that is often quoted is 2,000. This is around the
number of words that most native speakers use in their daily conversation.
About 2,000 words, too, is the size of the defining vocabulary used in
dictionaries for language learners. These arc the words and suffixes that are
used in the dictionary’s definitions. Moreover, a passive knowledge of the
2,000 most frequent words in English would provide a reader with
familiarity with nearly nine out of every ten words in most written texts. In
this paragraph, for example, so far only the following words fall outside the
top 2,000 words in written English: vocabulary (mentioned twice), threshold,
core, quoted, native, dictionaries/dictionary's, suffixes, definitions, moreover,
passive, familiarity and paragraph. In other words, fourteen out of 140
running words, or exactly ten per cent of the text, would be unfamiliar to
the learner who had learned the top 2,000.
And very many of the words in the preceding paragraph - such as the, to,
a, on, would, in, hut, is, there, that, will and one. — are extremely common
indeed. In fact, it has been calculated that the most frequent 100 words in
English make up almost fifty per cent of most texts. That is to say, a half of
this book consists of merely 100 words!
Of course, the majority of these 100 high frequency words are grammar
- or function - words, such as has, to, did, she, were, etc., and not content
words like answer, depend, large, extent, learner, needs, etc. On their own, as
we saw in Chapter 1, function words have very restricted usefulness: try
having a conversation with the ten most frequent words in written English:
the, to, of, a, and, in, I, was, for, that\
There is a strong argument, then, for equipping learners with a core
vocabulary of 2,000 high frequency words as soon as possible. The
researcher Paul Meara estimated that at the rate of 50 words a week (not
unreasonable, especially if the emphasis is taken off grammar teaching) this
target could be reached in 40 weeks, or one academic year, more or less. Of
course, this is the minimum or threshold level. Most researchers nowadays
recommend a basic vocabulary of at least 3,000 word families, while for
more specialised needs, a working vocabulary of over 5,000 word families is
probably desirable. Students aiming to pass the Cambridge First Certificate
Examination (FCE), for example, should probably aim to understand at
least 5,000 words even if their productive vocabulary is half that number.
On the other hand, students preparing for academic study might be
better off working from a specialised academic word list. A recently
published academic word list consists of just 570 word families, covering a
variety of disciplines - arts, commerce, law and science - and includes such
items as analyse, concept, data and research. These 570 word families account
for one in every ten words in academic texts. For example, the following
words occurring in the paragraph we analysed above are covered in this

21
How to Teach Vocabulary

academic list: core, quoted, passive and paragraph. Knowledge of this

academic list (on top of the 2,000 most frequent words in English) would
have thus reduced the unfamiliar words in that paragraph to a mere ten.
A preoccupation with vocabulary size, however, overlooks the importance
of vocabulary depth. Vocabulary knowledge is not an all-or-nothing
phenomenon, that is, a case of either knowing a word or not knowing it.
Consider, for example, these different degrees of ‘knowing’ in my own
knowledge of Spanish, using words taken randomly from the Q section of
the dictionary:

queso (cheese) can understand and produce it (both in speaking

and writing) without effort
querer (want) can understand it and produce it, though need to
think about past irregular forms
quedar (stay) can understand it and produce it, but only in its
main non-idiomatic senses
quirdfano can understand it in context only, and can produce
(operating theatre) it if prompted (e.g. with first letter) but not
confident about correct word stress
quiehra can understand it in context only, and can’t produce
(bankruptcy) it even if prompted
quicio (hinge) probably wouldn’t understand it even in context,
and certainly can’t produce it

This suggests that, at the ver}' least, estimates of vocabulary size must take
into account productive and receptive knowledge. Then there is knowledge
of spelling and pronunciation, of derivative forms and of different shades of
meaning. Finally, there is the degree of control over word knowledge: is the
word readily accessible, or does it require prompting? (Think of how you
answer crossword clues: some words come only when several letters have
been filled in; others require no prompting at all.) Again, these different
aspects of‘knowing’ suggest that the task of acquiring a functional lexicon is
more complicated than simply memorising words from lists.
In the end, however, exacdy which words a learner needs to know is a very
personal matter. It is not easy either to predict learners’ needs nor to ensure
that the words that have been selected for teaching will be learned. Nor will
there be time, especially in non-intensive language courses, for all the words
that the learners need to be explicitly taught. A good part of vocabulary
acquisition has to be incidental. Incidental learning is facilitated through
exposure to language input, in the form of extensive reading, for example.
Input from the teacher and from other learners is also an important resource
for incidental learning (see Chapter 3).
Most important of all, perhaps, is that the teacher encourages an enthu­
siasm for vocabulary acquisition, and provides learners with the strategies
for self-directed learning - strategies that will be discussed in Chapter 9.

22
 2 • How words are learned

How are words To achieve the kind of outcomes described in the last section, the learner
remembered? needs not only to learn a lot of words, but to remember them. In fact,
learning is remembering. Unlike the learning of grammar, which is
essentially a rule-based system, vocabulary knowledge is largely a question
of accumulating individual items. There are few short cuts in the form of
generative rules: it is essentially a question of memory. How, then, does
memory work? And what are the implications for teaching vocabulary?
Researchers into the workings of memory customarily distinguish
between the following systems: the short-term store, working memory,
and long-term memory.
The short-term store (STS) is the brain’s capacity to hold a limited
number of items of information for periods of time up to a few seconds. It
is the kind of memory that is involved in holding in your head a telephone
number for as long as it takes to be able to dial it. Or to repeat a word that
you’ve just heard the teacher modelling. But successful vocabulary learning
clearly involves more than simply holding words in your mind for a few
seconds. For words to be integrated into long-term memory' they need to be
subjected to different kinds of operations.
Focussing on words long enough to perform operations on them is the
function of working memory. Many cognitive tasks such as reasoning,
learning and understanding depend on working memory; It can be thought
of as a kind of work bench, where information is first placed, studied and
moved about before being filed away for later retrieval. The information
that is being manipulated can come from external sources via the senses, or
it can be ‘downloaded’ from the long-term memory; Or both. For example,
a learner can hear a word (like tangi) t download a similar word from long­
term memory (like tango), and compare the two in working memory, before
deciding if they are the same or different. Material remains in working
memory for about twenty seconds.
This capacity is made possible by the existence of the articulatory loop,
a process of subvocal repetition, a bit like a loop of audio tape going round
and round. It enables the short-term store to be kept refreshed. Having just
heard a new word, for example, we can run it by as many times as we need
in order to examine it (tangi... tangi... tangi... tangi...) - assuming that
not too many other new words are competing for space on the loop. The
holding capacity of the articulatory loop seems to be a determining factor in
the ability' to learn languages: the longer the loop, the better the learner. Or,
to put it another way, the ability' to hold a phonological representation of a
word in working memory is a good predictor of language learning aptitude.
Likewise, any' interference in the processes of subvocal repetition - e.g.
distracting background talk - is likely to disrupt the functioning of the loop
and impair learning. Another significant feature of the articulatory loop is
that it can hold fewer L2 words than Ll words. This has a bearing on the
length of chunk a learner can process at any one time.
Also linked to working memory' is a kind of mental sketch pad. Here
images - such as visual mnemonics (or memory prompts) - can be placed
and scanned in order to elicit words from long-term memory into working
memory' (see Chapter 9 for more on mnemonics).

23
How to Teach Vocabulary

Long-term memory can be thought of as a kind of filing system. Unlike

working memory, which has a limited capacity and no permanent content,
long-term memory has an enormous capacity, and its contents are durable
over time. However, the fact that learners can retain new vocabulary' items the
length of a lesson (i.e. beyond the few seconds’ duration of the short-term
store) but have forgotten them by the next lesson suggests that long-term
memory is not always as long-term as we would wish. Rather, it occupies a
continuum from 'the quickly forgotten to ‘the never forgotten. The great
challenge for language learners is to transform material from the quickly
forgotten to the never forgotten. Research into memory' suggests that, in
order to ensure that material moves into permanent long-term memory, a
number of principles need to be observed. Here is a brief summary’ of some
of the research findings that are relevant to the subject of word learning:

* Repetition: The time-honoured way of ‘memorising’ new material is

through repeated rehearsal of the material while it is still in working
memory - i.e. letting the articulatory loop just run and run. However,
simply repeating an item (the basis of rote learning) seems to have little
long-term effect unless some attempt is made to organise the material at
the same time (see below). But one kind of repetition that ri important is
repetition of encounters with a word. It has been estimated that, when
reading, words stand a good chance of being remembered if they have
been met at least seven times over spaced intervals. (Are you still in any
doubt, for instance, as to the meaning of tangi?)

* Retrieval: Another kind of repetition that is crucial is what is called the

retrieval practice effect. This means, simply, that the act of retrieving a
word from memory makes it more likely that the learner will be able to
recall it again later. Activities which require retrieval, such as using the
new word in written sentences, ‘oil the path’ for future recall.

* Spacing: It is better to distribute memory work, across a period of time

than to mass it together in a single block. This is known as the principle
of distributed practice. This applies in both the short term and the long
term. When teaching students a new set of words, for example, it is best
to present the first two or three items, then go back and test these, then
present some more, then backtrack again, and so on. As each word
becomes better learned, the testing interval can gradually be extended.
The aim is to test each item at the longest interval at which it can reliably
be recalled. Similarly, over a sequence of lessons, newly presented
vocabulary should be reviewed in the next lesson, but the interval
between successive tests should gradually be increased.

‘ Pacing: Learners have different learning styles, and process data at

different rates, so ideally they should be given the opportunity to pace
their own rehearsal activities. This may mean the teacher allowing time
during vocabulary' learning for learners to do ‘memory work’ - such as
organising or reviewing their vocabulary - silently and individually.

24
 2 • How words are learned

• Use: Putting words to use, preferably in some interesting way, is the best
way of ensuring they are added to long-term memory. It is the principle
popularly known as Use it or lose it. In Chapter 6 we will look at ways of
putting words to work Meanwhile, the following points all relate to ways
of manipulating words in working memory.
• Cognitive depth: The more decisions the learner makes about a word,
and the more cognitively demanding these decisions, the better tlie word
is remembered. For example, a relatively superficial judgement might be
simply to match it with a word that rhymes with it: e.g. tango/mango. A
deeper level decision might be to decide on its part of speech (noun,
adjective, verb, etc). Deeper still might be to use it to complete a
sentence.
• Personal organising: The judgements that learners make about a word
are most effective if they are personalised. In one study, subjects who had
read a sentence aloud containing new words showed better recall than
subjects who had simply silently rehearsed the words. But subjects who
had made up their own sentences containing the words and read them
aloud did better still.
• Imaging: Best of all were subjects who were given the task of silently
visualising a mental picture to go with a new word. Other tests have
shown that easily visualised words are more memorable than words that
don’t immediately evoke a picture. This suggests that - even for abstract
words - it might help if learners associate them with some mental image.
Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to matter if the image is highly imaginative
or even very vivid, so long as it is self-generated, rather than acquired
‘second-hand’.
• Mnemonics: These are ‘tricks’ to help retrieve items or rules that are
stored in memory and that are not yet automatically retrievable. Even
native speakers rely on mnemonics to help with some spelling rules: e.g.
i before e except after c. As the previous point suggests, the best kinds of
mnemonics are often visual. The most well-attested memory technique
is the keyword technique, which is described in Chapter 9.
• Motivation: Simply wanting to learn new words is no guarantee that
words will be remembered. The only difference a strong motivation
makes is that the learner is likely to spend more time on rehearsal and
practice, which in the end will pay off in terms of memory. But even
unmotivated learners remember words if they have been set tasks that
require them to make decisions about them.
• Attention/arousal: Contrary to popular belief, you can’t improve your
vocabulary in your sleep, simply by listening to a tape. Some degree of
conscious attention is required. A very high degree of attention (called
arousal) seems to correlate with improved recall. Words that trigger a
strong emotional response, for example, are more easily recalled than
ones that don’t. This may account for the fact that many learners seem to
have a knack of remembering swear words, even if they’ve heard them
only a couple of times.

25
 How to Teach Vocabulary

• Affective depth: Related to the preceding point, affective (i.e. emotional)

information is stored along with cognitive (i.e. intellectual) data, and may
play an equally important role on how words are stored and recalled. Just
as it is important for learners to make cognitive judgements about words,
it may also be important to make affective judgements, such as Do I /ike
the sound and look of the word? Do 1 like the thing that the word represents?
Does the word evoke any pleasant or unpleasant associations? In this vein,
Christopher Isherwood, continuing his discussion about table and Tisch
(see page 19), makes the point that ‘the difference between a table and ein
Tisch was that a table was the dining-table in his mother's house and ein
Tisch was ein Tisch in the Cosy Corner [a low-life bar in Berlin]'.
Similarly, the reforming educationalist Sylvia Ashton-Warner, who
taught reading and writing skills to underprivileged children in New
Zealand in the 1960s, used the affective value of words as the basis of
what she called her ‘key vocabulary’ approach. Her primary school
children chose the words they wanted to learn. These often had a strong
emotional charge, such as Mummy, Daddy, kiss, frightened, ghost. In
teaching early literacy one of Ashton-Warner’s basic principles was that
‘First words must be made of the stuff of the child himself, whatever and
wherever the child’ (from Ashton-Warner S, Teacher, Virago).

Why do we Even with the best will in the world, students forget words. As a rule,
forget words? forgetting is rapid at first, but gradually slows down. This is true in both the
short term (e.g. from lesson to lesson) and in the long term (e.g. after a
whole course). It has been estimated that up to 80 per cent of material is lost
within 24 hours of initial learning, but that then the rate of forgetting levels
out. And a study of learners’ retention of a foreign language (Spanish) over
an extended period showed that - in the absence of opportunities to use the
language - rapid forgetting occurred in the first three or four years after
instruction, but then levelled out, with very little further loss, even up to 50
years later. Two factors seemed to determine retention. First, those words
that were easy to learn were better retained. (See the following section for a
discussion of what makes a word easy or difficult to learn.) Secondly, those
words that were learned over spaced learning sessions were retained better
than words that were learned in concentrated bursts - consistent with the
principle of distributed practice (see page 24).
Forgetting may be caused both by interference from subsequent learning
and by insufficient recycling. With regard to interference, most teachers will
be familiar with the symptoms of‘overload’, when the price for learning new
language items is the forgetting of old ones. This seems to be particularly
acute if words are taught that are very similar to recently acquired words.
The new words have the effect of ‘overwriting’ the previously learned
material. This is an argument against teaching words in lexical sets where
words have very similar meanings (see Chapter 3).
More important, perhaps, as a remedy against forgetting, is recycling.
Research shows that spaced review of learned material can dramatically
reduce the rate of forgetting. But it’s not enough simply to repeat words, or

26
 2 • How words are learned

to re-encounter them in their original contexts. Much better is to recycle

them in different ways, and, ideally, at successive levels of depth. Research
suggests that if learners see or use a word in a way different from the way
they first met it, then better learning is achieved. For example, study this
sentence (in Maori), and its translation:

E Hohepa e tangi, kati ra te tangi!

(Joseph, you are crying, but you have cried enough!)
(froin The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse)

Even if you can’t make much sense of the grammar, the novel encounter
with tangi, in its sense of‘crying’, is further reinforcement of tangi = funeral.

What makes a Anyone who has learned a second language will know that some words
word difficult? seem easier to learn than others. Easiest of all are those that are more or less
identical, both in meaning and form, to their Ll equivalents. When this is
due to the fact that they derive from a common origin, they are called
cognates. Thus Catalan vocabulari, French vocabulary Italian vocabolario
and English vocabulary are all cognates and hence relatively easily
transferable from one language to the other. The global spread of English
has also meant that many English words have been borrowed by other
languages. Examples of such loan words in Japanese are shanpu (shampoo),
shoppingu (shopping), and sunakku (snack). Cognates and loan words
provide a useful ‘way in to the vocabulary of English, and are worth
exploiting (see page 35). However, as we have seen, there are a number of
traps for new players, in the form of false friends. Knowing that actually and
aktualnie are false friends may make the learning of actually difficult for a
Polish speaker (or a French or Spanish speaker, for that matter), since they
may tend to avoid using it altogether.
Other factors that make some words more difficult than others are:

• Pronunciation: Research shows that words that are difficult to

pronounce are more difficult to learn. Potentially difficult words will
typically be those that contain sounds that are unfamiliar to some groups
of learners - such as regular and lorry for Japanese speakers. Many
learners find that words with clusters of consonants, such as strength or
crisps or breakfast, are also problematic.

• Spelling: Sound-spelling mismatches are likely to be the cause of errors,

either of pronunciation or of spelling, and can contribute to a word’s
difficulty. While most English spelling is fairly law-abiding, there are
also some glaring irregularities. Words that contain silent letters are
particularly problematic: foreign, listen, headache, climbing, bored, honest,
cupboard, muscle, etc.

• Length and complexity: Long words seem to be no more difficult to

learn than short ones. But, as a rule of thumb, high frequency words tend
to be short in English, and therefore the learner is likely to meet them
more often, a factor favouring their ‘learnability’. Also, variable stress in

27
 How to Teach Vocabulary

polysyllabic words - such as in word families like necessary, necessity and

necessarily - can add to their difficulty.

• Grammar: Also problematic is the grammar associated with the word,

especially if this differs from that of its Ll equivalent. Spanish learners of
English, for example, tend to assume that explain follows the same
pattern as both Spanish explicar and English tell, and say he explained me
the lesson. Remembering whether a verb like enjoy, love, or hope is followed
by an infinitive (to swim) or an -ing form (swimming) can add to its
difficulty. And the grammar of phrasal verbs is particularly troublesome:
some phrasal verbs are separable (she looked the word up) but others arc
not (she looked after the children).

• Meaning: When two words overlap in meaning, learners are likely to

confuse them. Make and do are a case in point: you make breakfast and
make an appointment, but you do the housework and do a questionnaire.
Words with multiple meanings, such as since and still, can also be
troublesome for learners. Having learned one meaning of the word, they
may be reluctant to accept a second, totally different, meaning.
Unfamiliar concepts may make a word difficult to learn. Thus, culture­
specific items such as words and expressions associated with the game
cricket (a sticky wicket, a hat trick, a good innings) will seem fairly opaque
to most learners and are unlikely to be easily learned.

• Range, connotation and idiomaticity: Words that can be used in a wide

range of contexts will generally be perceived as easier than their
synonyms with a narrower range. Thus put is a very wide-ranging verb,
compared to impose, place, position, etc. Likewise, thin is a safer bet than
skinny, slim, slender. Words that have style constraints, such as very
informal words (chuck for throw, swap for exchange), may cause problems.
Uncertainty as to the connotations of some words may cause problems
too. Thus, propaganda has negative connotations in English, but its
equivalent may simply mean publicity. On the other hand, eccentric does
not have negative connotations in English, but its nearest equivalent in
other languages may mean deviant. Finally, words or expressions that-are
idiomatic (like make up your mind, keep an eye on ...) will generally be
more difficult than words whose meaning is transparent watch). It
is their idiomaticity, as well as their syntactic complexity; that makes
phrasal verbs so difficult.

What kind of Given the kinds of difficulty outlined above, it is not surprising that learners
mistakes do make mistakes with words. In fact, rhe researcher Paul Meara estimates that
learners make? lexical errors outnumber other types of error by more than three to one.
Here is a sample of lexical errors (underlined):

1 I hope after bigqeninq Snglish 5tu.dir^ 1 5^11 not have a free time
at all.
2 I’d like to spend a couple of week somewhere on a pecpleless «sland.
3 I like watching flowers and inhaling their кл/еіу smell.

28
 2 • How words are learned

All lexical errors are instances of a wrong choice of form - whether a

spelling error (e.g. biggening, shell), or a suffix error (peopleless), or the wrong
word altogether {hope, watching, inhaling). However, for convenience we can
categorise errors into two major types:

• form-related
• meaning-related

Form-related errors include mis-selections, misformations, and spelling

and pronunciation errors. A mis-selection is when an existing word form
is selected that is similar in sound or spelling to the correct form - the
equivalent to a native speaker’s malapropism (see page 16). For example: My
girlfriend was very hungry with me (for angry). Or, He persuaded me to have
a noise operation (for nose). .
Misformations often result from misapplying word formation rules (see
page 5), producing non-existent words, as in a peopleless island, or his
hopeness ofpeace. Sometimes these misformations will show a clear influence
from the learner s mother tongue, as in the people looked eniocionated - from
the Spanish entocionado {excited). Whole words may be combined wrongly
to form non-existent combinations: Most of time Ijust 'watch shops' window
(for go window-shopping). Idioms and fixed expressions are vulnerable to
this kind of mix up: A strike could kill the gold eggs goose and cause the ruin of
a country.
Spelling mistakes result from the wrong choice of letter {shell for shall),
the omission of letters {studing for studying), or the wrong order of letters
{littel for little). Pronunciation errors may result from the wrong choice of
sound {leave for live), addition of sounds {eschool for school), omission of
sounds (poduk for product) or misplaced word stress {comFORTablc for
comfortable).
Meaning-related errors typically occur when words that have similar or
related meanings are confused and the wrong choice is made. Thus: I hope
... I shell not have a free time (instead of I expect ...). And I like watching
flowers and inhaling their lovely smell. While watching belongs to the set of
verbs related to seeing it is inappropriate for relatively static objects like
flowers. Similarly, inhaling tends to be used for smoke or gas, and not smell.
That is to say, inhaling doesn’t collocate with smell. Many ‘wrong word*
mistakes are in fact wrong collocates. For example: I have fifteen years
experience as a particular professor (rather than a private teacher).
Meaning-related wrong-choice errors may derive from the learner’s Ll,
where the meaning of an Ll word may not exactly match its L2 equivalent.
A common example made by Spanish speakers is: f’w live with myfathers in
Mexico city. In Spanish, the plural of padre (father) means parents.
Learners may also be unaware of the different connotations of related
words, causing wrong-choice errors such as: I have chosen to describe Stephen
Hawking, a notorious scientific of our century. Wrong choice may result in
clashing styles, as in this letter by a Japanese student to the accommodation
bureau at my place of work:

29
 How to Teach Vocabulary

J’lZar 5its/Madams,
I'm sc harry because I may leave Japan at "the end. of January.
I'm gonna stop by NY and go to Sspana. Please get busy!

Indiscriminate dictionary use may be the cause of this stylistic error by a

Russian learner: May be ГН stay here and keep on my hodiernal work (where
hodiernal is an archaic synonym for day-to-day).
Sometimes errors can be both form- and meaning-induced. Thar is, a
similar-sounding form is selected because it has a similar meaning to the
target one. For example: I went to a partyfor see myfriends. It was veryfunny.
(Instead of It was a lot offun.) Or, I have friends who speak English as their
nature language (for native language). The occurrence of this kind of error is
not surprising, given the way words are stored and accessed in the mind,
with form and meaning modules overlapping and interconnected.

What are the In this chapter we have looked at how the mental lexicon is structured and
implications the way it develops, in both first and second languages. What then are the
for teaching? implications of these findings for the teaching of vocabulary?

" Learners need tasks and strategies to help them organise their mental
lexicon by building networks of associations - the more the better.
” Teachers need to accept that the learning of new words involves a period
of‘initial fuzziness’.
• Learners need to wean themselves off a reliance on direct translation
from their mother tongue.
" Words need to be presented in their typical contexts, so that learners can
get a feel for their meaning, their register, their collocations, and their
syntactic environments.
• Teaching should direct attention to the sound of new words, particularly
the way they are stressed.
■ Learners should aim to build a threshold vocabulary as quickly as
possible.
" Learners need to be actively involved in the learning of words.
• Learners need multiple exposures to words and they need to retrieve
words from memory repeatedly.
• Learners need to make multiple decisions about words.
• Memory of new words can be reinforced if they are used to express
personally relevant meanings.
• Not all the vocabulary that the learners need can be ‘taught’: learners will
need plentiful exposure to talk and text as well as training for self­
directed learning.

Conclusions In this chapter we have surveyed the principles underlying the acquisi­
tion of vocabulary in a second language, and sketched some possible
implications for teaching. Perhaps the most important points to be
emphasised are these:
• learners need a critical mass of vocabulary to get them over the
threshold of the second language

30
 2 • How words are learned

• achieving this critical mass requires both intentional and incidental

learning
• the first language is a support but can also be a potential block to
the development of a second language lexicon
• vocabulary learning is item learning, and it is also network building
• vocabulary learning is a memory task, but it also involves creative
and personalised use, i.e. learning and using
• learners have to take responsibility themselves for vocabulary
expansion

Looking ahead Having sketched out some implications for teaching, the rest of the
book will explore these implications in more detail. One key issue is
the relation between teaching and learning. What is the teacher's role
in vocabulary development? And how useful are other possible
sources of vocabulary input? In the next two chapters we will review
and evaluate some of the main potential sources of vocabulary input,
including the teacher.

31
 assroom sources
f words
Lists
Coursebooks
Vocabulary books
The teacher
• Other students

Lists In order co achieve the kinds of learning targets mentioned in the last
chapter (i.e. a threshold of 2,000 to 3,000 words), vocabulary learning
requires a rich and nourishing diet. Some of these words will be learned
actively. Others will be picked up incidentally. So this diet will need to
consist of words that have been selected for active study (i.e. for intentional
learning) and it
will also need to be VOCABULARY
a source for glass vidrio to dress vestir, vestirse
incidental learning a student un estudianfe daily diariamenle,
through exposure. (stiiWent) (dfeili) diario
healthy saludable Ajnold Arnaldo
Where arc learners
(jelzi) (Aaniold)
going to find these a dolt una murieca Albert Alberto
words - and in (dol) (ae’IbcETf)
sufficient quantity n safety razor ana maquina
a looking- un espejo
(scW refccef) de afeitar
and with sufficient glass
a wood un bosque (Iftuking glas)
frequency? (uud)
probably probablemeti-
Traditionally, those e$os-as, aq ne- (prdbabli)
(th6us) le
llos-as
words targeted for the way el canricio
with con (uei)
active study were (Ui2)
George the police la policia
supplied to learn­ Jorge
(jdoq) (pol(S)
ers in the form of Arthur Arturo the bath-room el cuarto de
(aacicer) (baz ruum) ban о
lists. On the right,
Julia Julia a member un mieinbro,
for example, is a (Julia) (m&tibreO un individuo
list of words from to copy copiar the soap e! jabon
(copi) (sdup)
the sisfer-in- la cunada I breakfast el almuerzo
law (brtikfast)
(sister in ldo)
to shave afeilar, afcilarse dinner la comida
(sheiv) (dfarv)
(from Girau L T,
to wash lavar, lavarse supper la cetia
Metodo de Ingfa (u&h) (soe'pceQ
Coleccion Magister)

32
 3 • Classroom sources of words

the thirteenth lesson of an English course published in 1925 for Spanish­

speaking students.
Note that there seems to be no apparent rationale behind the choice and
ordering of these words. Criteria of usefulness, frequency or lexical field
membership don’t seem to apply. Lists like this one have given list learning
a bad name. As the character played by Hugh Grant in Woody Allen’s Small
Time Crooks says: ‘I’m not a hundred per cent convinced that memorising
the dictionary is the best way of improving your vocabulary
However, the value of list learning may have been underestimated. Many
students quite like learning words from lists - even such oddly assembled
lists as the one above. One reason is that it is very economical: large numbers
of words can be learned in a relatively short time (where learning is taken to
mean the ability to recall items in subsequent tests). Some researchers
estimate that up to thirty words an hour can be learned this way. Having the
mother tongue translation alongside not only deals with the meaning
conveniently, but allows learners to test themselves (from Ll to English, and
from English to Ll) as well as to test one another. Even the fact that the
words are not relate^ nor in alphabetical order may be a bonus because, as
we will see below, this reduces the chance of getting words confused with
each other. Better than lists, though, are word cards (see page 145). Having
each word on an individual card means the sequence can be varied, as a
precaution against what is called the ‘serial effect’. This occurs when one
word on a list triggers recall of the next word, and so on. This is not of much
use for real life vocabulary use, when words must be recalled independently
of the context in which they were learned.
Here are some ways of exploiting word lists in class:

В The teacher reads words from the list in a random order. Learners show
they can match the sound with the written form by ticking the ones
they hear. They can then do this with each other in pairs.

fl Learners cover the Ll translation (if they have a bilingual list); the
teacher gives translations and learners tick the English equivalents.

Both the preceding activities can be turned into a form of Bingo! Ask
learners each to write down, say, twelve words (from a list of twenty).
Read out twelve words from the master list in random order, or read out
their Ll translations. Alternatively, if the words can be illustrated, show
pictures of the words. Learners tick off each word as it occurs - the first
learner to have ticked all twelve of their words shouts out Bingo!

From a random list of words, ask learners to make connections between

words and explain them to their classmates: the more connections the
better, no matter how far-fetched. For example, using the list on page 32
where the words to copy and to shave appear, a student might produce: I
learned to shave by copying myfather.
11 Students construct a story from the list: they can do this by choosing
twelve words from a list of twenty, and working them into a narrative.
Or they take turns to make a sentence that includes the next word in
the list so as to continue the story.

33
How to Teach Vocabulary

Ask learners to make their own list from the words that come up in the
lesson (see below under Other students) and to bring their lists to class
for the next lesson. At the beginning of the following lesson, pair
students up to test each other on their word lists.

Learners can also make lists of words that have appeared in previous
units of the coursebook, and test each other by, for example, asking
Hom do you say ... in English? or What's the English for ... ? Or, they
could prepare gapped sentences to be completed by words from their
lists.

Coursebooks Coursebook treatment of vocabulary varies considerably. For example, one

study of nine beginners’ courses showed that the number of words
introduced ranged from just over a thousand to nearly four thousand.
Nowadays, it is customary to make explicit reference to the lexical content
of a course in the syllabus description. Here, for example, is an extract from
the syllabus of Look Ahead'.

UNIT TITLE PACE VOCABULARY AREAS < GRAMMAR

Welcome! € The topics in ties bock

At the weekend
1 8 Interests and hobbies
leisure activities
Housework
Present simplc/uresent progressive
Question: How often?
МѵеЛі uf frequency
Would bre «■ infinitive with to
Stativc verbs

Doing new
2 things
16 languages
Countries
Adult education classes
Going to r inhnilive
Сап/сап'І, could/couldfn't} + infinitive
Adverbs, very well. a little. not at all
Times, dates, days, manti IS Like/en/Oy * mg
Money Want/would like » infinitive with Io
Life changes Past simple

Planning a trip
3 24 /Леа«$ of transport
Travel
Comparative adjectives (♦■ erand rrfCW?
Compafative adjectives (irregular forms)
Prefer» ing
Modal, wifi for decisions
I'K + ir.6nit.vc for promises
Let's + infinitive

(from Hopkins A and Potter J, Look Ahead, Longman)

What factors determine the choice of words for inclusion in the lexical
strand of a coursebook syllabus? Briefly, they are: usefulness, frequency,
learnability and teachability.
Words are useful if they can be put to immediate use - a case for teaching
classroom vocabulary (pen, board, door, notebook, etc.) very early in an
elementary course. However, for learners studying the language but with
few opportunities to put it to use, it becomes harder to predict what words
they are likely to need. Accordingly, the notion of a core vocabulary was
devised. Core words are those that - all things being equal - are likely to be
more useful than non-corc words. Core words are typically those words used
when defining other words. For example, the definition of both giggle and
guffaw involves using the word laugh'. A giggle is a kind oflaugh, etc. But the

34
 3 • Classroom sources of words

opposite is not true: we don’t use giggle or guffaw to define laugh. Laugh,
therefore, is more of a core word than giggle.
Another test of ‘core-ness’ is whether the word collocates widely. Thus,
bright collocates with sun, light, idea, smile and child, whereas its synonym
radiant has a much narrower range of collocates. A radiant idea and a radiant
child are unlikely (although, of course, not impossible). Superordinate words
(see page 10) are also good candidates for a core vocabulary: flower being
more useful than either rose or geranium. And a word is less useful if it is
used in a narrow register. Thus spud (colloquial) is less useful than potato
(neither colloquial nor formal), medicalpractitioner (formal) less useful than
doctor (neither colloquial nor formal).
The relative frequency of a word is another key factor in determining its
inclusion in a syllabus. The argument for teaching the most frequent words
in the language is a powerful one. It is claimed that the most frequent words
express the most frequent meanings in the language - a view that will be
explored in Chapter 7 (see page 112).
In Chapter 2 we looked at factors that make some words easier to learn
than others - such as their similarity to words in the learner’s mother tongue
c.g. telephone and telefono. This is a good indicator of how learnable they are.
Choice of words to include in a syllabus, especially for beginner students,
will be determined in part by their learnability. It is now common to find a
section ar the beginning of many courses which directs attention to English
words (such as ftm, cinema, restaurant) that are likely to be loan words or
cognates in the student’s mother tongue, as in the example overleaf from
The Beginners' Choice.
Learnability' is not to be confused with teachability. Words are more
easily teachable if they can be demonstrated or illustrated - by the use of
pictures or real objects, for example (see page 78). It is easier to teach a word
like blackboard than a word like though, even though though is much more
frequent, and probably more useful, than blackboard. As a rule of thumb,
nouns arc more easily taught than verbs or adverbs, and concrete nouns are
more easily taught than abstract nouns.
How, then, is the coursebook vocabulary syllabus realised in the actual
content of the book? Normally, vocabulary input is incorporated in three
ways:

• in segregated vocabulary sections

• integrated into text-based activities
• incidentally, as in grammar explanations and exercises, task instructions,
etc.

In segregated vocabulary activities, words are often presented in the form

of lexical sets. These are a group of words that share a relation of hyponymy
(see page 9). For example, in the unit in Look Ahead called Planning a trip
(shown in rhe table on the previous page) the general topic area is travel, and
the following lexical set is provided:

boat car helicopter balloon bicycle (bike)

bus coach plane ship

35
 How to Teach Vocabulary

from Mohamed S and Acklarn R,

The Beginners' Choice, Longman

36
 3 • Classroom sources of words

Introducing words in lexical sets would seem ro make good sense. As we saw
on page 17, ir seems to reflect the wav that words are stored in the mind.
Moreover, the meanings of the words can be made clearer by contrasting
them with closely related words in the same set. And, if the words arc being
introduced to support a specific grammar structure, words belonging to the
same lexical set are more easily slotted into the structure than words chosen
more randomly.
However, evidence suggests that words that are too closely associated
tend to interfere with each other, and can actually make the learning task
more difficult. Words that can fill the same slot in a sentence are particularly
likely to be confused:

I took the car to Switzerland.

train
bus
coach
plane

One research study, by TTinkham, compared the rate of learning of words

organised into lexical sets {apple, pear, nectarine, peach, etc.) with sets of
unrelated words {mountain, shoe, flower, mouse, sky, television). The study
showed a better learning rate for the latter organisation than for the former.
What’s more, the learners themselves thought that the lexical sets were
more difficult to learn. This suggests that the fact that words are stored
together does not mean that they should be learned together. It also explains
why learners often confuse the days of the week, colours, or such seemingly
easy words as hot and cold.
Nevertheless, most coursebooks still favour a lexical set approach. It is
important, therefore, to present the sets in such a way as to reduce the
chances of confusion. One way of doing this is to emphasise the differences
(rather than the similarities) of words in a set. This means avoiding using
them interchangeably, as in it's hot, it's cold, or hot water, cold water. Better to
introduce them along with their commonly associated collocates, such as hot
coffee, hot and dry, and hot summer, but cold beer, cold and wet and cold winter.
Easier to learn are words that are thematically linked but have a looser
relation than lexical sets. In the unit on leisure activities (in Look Ahead), the
following words are introduced in order to talk about bungeejumping.

to jump bridge rope to hang boat

to wear harness ankle to help river

Because these words do not substitute for each other, there is less chance of
interference. Moreover, because they can be threaded into a narrative they
are more easily and naturally practised. Also, they may be more easily
recalled. It is easier to remember a narrative with words embedded in it,
than to recall a list of de-contextualised words. So, even if presenting words
in lexical sets, it may pay to put diem into some kind of context as quickly
as possible:

37
How to Teach Vocabulary

Piet went to Geneva by plane, then he rented a car to drive to Meiringen.

On the return journey he took the train to Geneva, flew back to Barcelona,
and caught the airport bus ...

Perhaps more important, though, than the manner of presentation is the

kind of follow-up practice that is provided. As we saw in Chapter 2, die
more decisions the learner has to make about a word, the more chance there
is of the words being remembered. Here is a sequence from a coursebook
that requires students to make several decisions about both the meaning and
form of a lexical set of character’ words:

Character adjectives

What sort of person are

1 Are you usually smiling and happy?
2 Do you enjoy the company of other people?
1C Do you gel annoyed if you
3 Do you find it difficult to meet new people? have to wait for anyone or anything?
4 Is it important to you to succeed in your career? 11 Do you put off until tomorrow what
5 Does your mood change often and suddenly for you could do today?
no reason? 12 Do you work hard?
6 Do you notice other people's feelings? 13 Do you keep your feelings and ideas to yourself?
7 Do you think the future will be good? W Do you often give presents?
8 Can your friends depend on you? 15 Do you talk a lot?
9 Is your room often in a mess? 16 Are you usually calm and not worhed by things? Q

Work in pairs.

1 Do the personality quiz above to discover what type of 4 What is the opposite of each of the sixteen adjectives
person you are. Use a dictionary to check any new in Exercise 3?
words. Write Y for Yes. N for No, and S for Sometimes Remember that the prefixes in- and un- can sometimes
be used to make negatives. Which of the adjectives
2 Ask your partner to do the quiz about you. above can use these?
Look at your ideas and your partner’s ideas about
you. Are they the same? 5 Describe someone in the class to your partner but
don’t say who it is. Can your partner guess who it is?
3 Match these adjectives with the questions in (he quiz.
I
J
a untidy 0 i lazy r
b optimistic j generous
c sociable к moody
i
d talkative I hard-working
)
e reserved m easy-going j
f shy n reliable
g impatient о cheerful
h ambitious p sensitive
Which arc positive qualities and which are negative?
Which could be both? from Soars L and J, New
Headway Intermediate, OUP

38
 3 • Classroom sources of words

Another way of dealing with vocabulary in segregated activities is to focus

on the rules of word formation (see page 5). Rather than grouping words
together because of similarities in meaning, the focus here is on their formal
properties, such as affixation or the way that words combine to form
compounds. Here, for example, is a section on adjective formation:

VOCABULARY
Adjectives 2 Complete the sentences beltiw using rhe verbs
in the box to make adjectives with -mg or ed.
Adjectives formed with -ed describe our reaction co
someone or something Example: I amuse annoy bore tire disapjxunr ,
/ terrified u ben I saw that film
I interest
Adjectives formed with -mg describe the person or
thing that causes the reaction Example: a j The him was very------------- and 1 fell tblccp.
77x? film was terrifying b) His jokes weren't very------------- and nobody
laughed
1 Match the adjectives in the box with the ci Andy said he was very in hearing about
pictures below, and then make a sentence using your trip abroad
each of the adjectives d) My sister was very with her exam
results She had expected better
amused annoved bored tired disappointed e} I fell asleep carlv It had been a day.
interested f) lie was_________ with me for noc telling him
about Jasper's birthday.

3 Adjectives can also be formed from verbs and

nouns by using suffixes. Recognising a suffix often
helps when you are trying to work out the meaning
of a new word m context Use the suffixes to form
adjectives from the nouns and verbs. Example;
attract -• attractive

SUFFIXES

Пѵ -ous -iC -ful -able -al -ive

.NOLA'S'Vt-RBS

attract colour religion sympathy

romance crime dirt hope imagine

from Bell J and Gower R,

Intermediate Matters,

Coursebooks nowadays take seriously the need to recycle vocabulary

regularly, and often build into their content periodic review stages. Similarly,
testing activities are often included; in Chapter 8 we will look at some
examples of both recycling and testing tasks.
Finally, segregated vocabulary tasks can be aimed at developing particular
vocabulary learning strategies, such as guessing words from context. In
Chapter 9 we will look more closely at some examples of strategy training
tasks.

39
How to Teach Vocabulary

Vocabulary work in coursebooks is often integrated into text-based

activities. 1 his can take the form of pre-teaching of vocabulary in
preparation for a text-based task, whether for understanding (as in listening
and reading) or for production (as in speaking and writing). Words selected
for pre-teaching arc those that are likely to be both unfamiliar to learners
and crucial for the performance of the task. Note that tills means that not
all unfamiliar words in a text need to be pre-taught. Often coursebooks
leave it up to the teacher to decide which words to pre-teach, on the
assumption that the teacher’s familiarity with the students will be the best
guide. Research has shown that, in fact, teachers generally have fairly
reliable intuitions as to which words will cause their learners difficulty.
Sometimes, however, particular words are singled out by the coursebook
writers and included in the instructions in the Teachers Book or in the
coursebook itself. For example:

You are going to read an extract from a book of fascinating facts. First .
check the meaning of the following words and phrases in your mini­
dictionary:

to ban a jury
plumbing and drains a slave
smelly traffic congestion
a vehicle welfare

(from Cunningham S and Moor P, Cutting Edge Intermediate, Longman)

The value of extensive pre-teaching of vocabulary is debatable. It is

obviously difficult to make an accurate prediction as to which words
students won’t know, or even which ones will be essential for understanding
the text. One way is to use concordancing software to identify the keywords
in the text - that is the words that occur with a significant degree of
frequency (see the next chapter under Corpus data). And teaching isolated
words out of context is time-consuming work. It may often be a better idea
to get into the text as soon as possible, and either encourage learners to
guess rhe meaning from context, or to explain words as the need arises.
Another way of preparing learners for a text-based task is to begin with
some discussion on the general theme of the text. This can have two
purposes: to trigger recall of known words, and to create the need for
learning new, theme-related, words. The assumption is that at least some of
the words elicited from such a task will help in the processing of the text.
On the page opposite, for example, are two tasks (also from Cutting Edge
Intermediate) designed to prepare learners for a listening activity:

40
 3 • Classroom sources of words

Television
Discuss the following
1
•
questions in groups.
How much television do you
watch?
• What are your favourite
programmes?
• Are there any programmes that
you particularly dislike?

Below is а list of things we

2 can watch on television. If
necessary, check the meaning of
the words and phrases in bold in
your mini-dictionary. Then mark
them as follows:
XX if you think there are too
many of these on television
in your country.
// if you think there are about
the right amount of these.
/ if you think there should be
more of these.
X if you don't have these in
your country at all.

a advertisements that use

attractive people to sell
products like cars or

b
perfume

government advertising
□
campaigns against things
like drink-driving □
c programmes with live

d
sports coverage

children's programmes
□
e
which include violence

iong complicated murder

□
mysteries or thrillers □
f interviews with politicians □
9 chat shows □
h game shows □
i soap operas □
41
4ow to Teach Vocabulary

Follow-up text-based
4 Look at the title of the magazine article. What
vocabulary tasks typi­ do you think the writer’s main points are? Now
cally include such things read the article. Were you right? Do you agree
as searching the text for with her?
words that match selec­
ted definitions or for
words that complete
gapped sentences. On FEAR OF
the right, for example, is
a reading text from Unit
3 of Look Ahead and its
FLYING
ow can anyone like flying? Il’s a crazy thing to
follow-up tasks:
H do. Birds fly, people don’t. I hate flying. You
wait for hours for the plane to take off. and It’s
often late. The plane's always crowded. You can’t
walk around and there’s nothing to do. You can’t
open the windows and you can’t get off. The scats
arc uncomfortable, there’s no choice of food and
there are never enough toilets. Then after the plane
lands, it’s even worse. It takes hours to get out of
the airport and into the city.
I prefer travelling by train. Trains are much
better than planes; they're cheaper, safer, and more
comfortable. You can walk around In a train and
open the windows. Stations arc more convenient
than airports, because you can get on and off in the
middle of cities. If you miss a train, you can always
catch another one later. Yes. trains are slower, but
speed Isn’t everything. Staying alive and enjoying
yourself is more important!

5 Read the article again and answer these

questions.
1 How does the writer prefer travelling?
2 For the writer, which of these adjectives
describe travelling by train? Which adjectives
describe travelling by plane?

from Hopkins A and Potrer J, dangerous fast safe bad slow

expensive comfortable good
Look Ahead 2, Longman
uncomfortable convenient

6 Now match these verbs from the text and their

definitions.
1 to land a) to leave the ground and go
up in the air
2 to catch b) to arrive at an airport in a
3 to miss plane
4 to take off c) to arrive too late for a plane,
train, etc.
d) to get on or into public
transport

42
 3 • Classroom sources of words

Finally, coursebooks provide learners with a lot of incidental vocabulary

embedded in task instructions, grammar explanations, and so on. This often
takes the form of metalanguage — that is, the language that is used to talk
about language. Grammatical terms such as verb, preposition, present tense
and linker are examples of metalanguage. So, too, are functional terms, such
as inviting, refusing, apologising and complaining. Understanding task
instruction language (sometimes called process language) is particularly
important for learners working without the assistance of a teacher. Here, for
example, is an activity designed to introduce distance learners to the
language they will meet in an Internet-mediated course:

ф Classrooms. SITEMAP MWL HUP

Introductory
__ .Una
Using the Internet
Back to Unit
Content*
1 Ѳ

Start

1. Here are some important words. You need to know these words before you
Study room
do the exercises.

click and drag

Library

Cafe

2. Here are some sentences about computers and the Internet.

Teachers' room

BACK TO
RECEPTION

from rhe Introductory Unit of

Net Languages, International
House, Barcelona

43
How to Teach Vocabulary

Vocabulary There is a wide selection of supplementary vocabulary books now available.

books This reflects the revival of interest in vocabulary teaching over the last
twenty years or so - coupled with the need to supplement the often
unsystematic treatment given to words in coursebooks. Sometimes
vocabulary books are targeted at specific needs, such as business or technical
English, or are designed as preparation for public examinations. Books on
phrasal verbs have been particularly popular. More often, vocabulary books
cover a wide range of general English needs.
Of course, books aimed specifically at vocabulary development are not an
entirely new thing. The tourist’s phrase book is as much a collection of
words as it is a collection of phrases. In fact, the recent recognition of the
important role of chunk learning (see page 115) suggests that the
combination of phrases and words, organised semantically - i.e. according
to meanings - may be an ideal learning aid.
Typically, supplementary vocabulary books are organised thematically,
as in this extract from the contents page of The Heinemann English
Wordbuilder.

Names
Age
Family relationships
Marital status
Countries, Nationalities
Location

Build
From the neck up
From shoulder to fingertips
From the bottom down
Inside and outside the torso
Compound adjectives about the body
etc.

Sometimes a focus on word formation (such as compounding) or on lexical

relations (such as antonyms) is interwoven into this thematic organisation,
often creating an apparently haphazard effect:

1 Things in the home 1 6 Phrases 1

2 Synonyms - adjectives 7 Things in the home 3
3 Countries and nationalities 8 Guess their jobs
4 Things in the home 2 9 Synonyms - verbs
5 Quantities 10 Name the sport
(from Watcyn-Joncs P, Test four Vocabulary 1, Penguin)

Nevertheless, such books are very popular, not least because they allow
learners to work independently on vocabulary areas that they are interested
in. As the title of this last example implies, many of these books are
designed to test vocabulary knowledge, rather than to teach it. The first unit
in Test your Vocabulary 1, for example, looks like this:

44
 3 • Classroom soirees of words

Things in the home 1

Write (he number of each drawing next la the correct word. (See example).

Used in conjunction with a dictionary, or in pair or group work, where

learners can pool their knowledge, even testing activities like this one can
have a learning outcome. Or they can be used as diagnostic exercises, to find
out what students already know in advance of their being taught a lexical
area. (A logical follow-up task for the material above might be to ask
learners to brainstorm other words they know related to the theme of things
in the home. For more on brainstorming, see page 49.)
More recently, vocabulary books with a teaching component alongside
the testing component have begun to appear. Overleaf, for example, is a
page from English Vocabulary in Use (Elementary).

45
How to Teach Vocabulary

49 Communications

■№
letter —

address —
ѣ^і .

Doh'c forget to pur a stamp

on the envelope.
stamp
Don't forget to post the letters. envelope

Juan makes a lot of phone calls. He phones his girl friend every day.

Jill sent inc a fax yesterday.

Wliar is your phone/fax number? from McCarthy I

J30718 (= double three oh seven one eight) and O’Dell F, En
Vocabulary in Use
E> A typical phone conversation
(Elementary), Ct
SUE: Two three (our six five oh.
NICK: Hello. It’s Nick here. C.an I speak to John, please.
SUE: I’m sorry, he isn’t here at the moment. Саи I take a message?
NICK: Thanks. Could you just tell him Nick called. I’ll cal) back later.
SUE: OK. I’ll tell him. Goodbye.
MCK: Bye.

E-mail

computer screen keyboard mouse

Anne gers a lot of e-mails from New York.

What is your e-mail address?

[email protected] (= Moll Handers at C-U-P dot С-Л-М dot A-C dot U-K)

Tip: If possible, gee an example of a letter and an e-mail in English. Write down any
useful words or phrases in them.

One of the problems of many supplementary vocabulary books is that often

lack of space prohibits a thorough development of a vocabulary area. Users
aren’t given more than one or two opportunities to make decisions about
words. Thus, the principle of cognitive depth (see page 25) is sometimes

46
 3 • Classroom sources of words

missing. Teachers need to think of creative ways of developing an activity to

ensure memorability. Here, for example» are some tasks that could accompany
rhe unit on Things in the home (from Test Your Vocabulary Z) on page 45:

В • Group die items into at least three different categories (of your own
devising). With a neighbour compare and explain your categories.
• Use your dictionary to add different words to these categories.
Teach your neighbour the words you have added.
• Who would you give these items to as birthday presents? Write a list
of the items and names. Explain your list to a neighbour.
• Rank the items in terms of usefulness. Compare rankings.
• Imagine you and your classmate are sharing a flat. Decide which of
the items you will buy, and in which order.
• Write definitions (or descriptions) of three of the items. Can your
neighbour guess which ones they are?
• Write die first paragraph of a story. Include at least five items in
your paragraph. Exchange with your partner. Continue vour
partners story. Can you include more items?
• Tell the story behind any of the items that you yourself own. Where
did you get it? How long have you had it? How often do you use it?
Of course, it would be a bit much to do all these activities, especially since
the list of vocabulary items includes such low frequency words as /7/g!
Nor do all groups of words lend themselves to all these activities. But the
extra speaking and writing practice students are getting justifies at least
some of these activities, even if the targeted words are of a fairly low priority.
Some vocabulary books have imaginative tasks that are directed not so
much ar cognitive depth as at affective depth - that is, the emotional
associations attached to words. As we saw on page 26, strong emotional
associations can aid memory. Here, for example, is an activity from
Vocabulary by Morgan and Rinvolucri:

E/4 Life keywords

LEVEL Elementary to Advanced

TIME 25-40 minutes

IN CLASS 1 Ask the students what date ir is today. Wnic it on the board. Ask
them what the date was seven years ago. Pul thaLon the board. Ask
three or lour people how old they yvcrc on that date, seven years ago.
2 Mow ask (he students Ю write down ten key emotional or idea words
and phrases that sum up their lives wow and a further ten io sum up
lheir lives then.
3 Ask the students to pair off and. explain (he words and rhetr
significance to their partners. Have them change partners three or fm:r
times, not more, as (his kind of talking is very tiring.
from Morgan J and
Rinvolucri M,
Vocabularyt OUR

47
How to Teach Vocabulary

The teacher The teacher is a highly productive - although often undervalued - source of
vocabulary' input. Learners often pick up a lot of incidental language from
their teachers, especially words and phrases associated with classroom
processes, such as

Let's see ...

Now then ...
Whose turn is it?
Is that clear?
What we're going to do now is ...
Have you finished yet?

The teacher is also the source of a lot of useful interpersonal language,

especially in the more conversational stages of the lesson:

Did you have a nice weekend?

Oh really?
That’s amazing!
Could you close the window?
Nice tie.
Whoops!
Never mind.
etc.

It is worth drawing learners’ attention to this language from time to time.

One way of doing this is simply to ask them: What did. Ijust say? and What
other ways are there ofsaving the same thing? And, if the class is a monolingual
one, How would you say that in (your language)?
The teacher’s own stories can also serve as a vehicle for vocabulary input.
One way of doing this is for the teacher to tell the class a short anecdote
while at the same time recording it on cassette. Having-told the story, the
teacher asks the learners to write down any words they remembered,
comparing in pairs or small groups. The teacher then replays the recorded
anecdote one or two times, each time letting the learners top up their list of
words, and asking the meaning or spelling of any unfamiliar items. Using
these words, the learners can then work in small groups to reconstruct the
story as closely as possible to the original. The teacher then replays the
cassette so that they can check, and edit, their written texts. This technique
is a good way of introducing, in context, words that are often difficult to
teach on tlieir own - such as phrasal verbs (see page 6). Here, for example,
is a story one teacher told her class (the phrasal verbs arc underlined):

‘I had to fly to Glasgow last week. As we were taking off, there was a loud
bang in one of the engines. We had hit a bird. We had to turn round and
come back to Barcelona. It turned out that the bird had damaged the
engine. So we had to get off, and hang around for three hours, while
another plane was sent out to pick us up. By this time I had missed my
connecting flight, so 1 was held up another three hours in Luton. By the
time I got to Glasgow, it had taken me fifteen hours!’

48
 3 • Classroom sources of words

Other students Other students in the class are a particularly fertile source of vocabulary
input. Learners often pay more attention to what other learners say than
they do to either the coursebook or their teacher. The researcher Assia
Slimani who studied secondary school classrooms in Algeria found that, on
the whole, the students remembered many more of the words related to the
topics that other students had raised in the lesson, than words coming from
any other source. Unfortunately, in many classrooms, the learners are not
given many opportunities to raise their own topics. Apart from any other
benefits, the vocabulary spin-off would seem to be justification enough for
allowing learners more control of the topic agenda in the classroom
It is easy to underestimate the combined strength of a class’s shared
‘lexicon. It is the nature of vocabulary knowledge that no two learners’
mental lexicons will correspond exactly. Between them they will have a
surprising number of words. One way of sharing these words is by means of
brainstorming activities. Here are a few ideas:

Organise the class into groups of three or four, and set them a time
limit to come up with as many words as they can that are related to the
theme (e.g. school, cooking, crime). When they have finished, appoint
a ‘secretary’ from each group to write their group’s words on to the
board (at the same time, if there is room). Alternatively, appoint a 'class
secretary’ to board all the words. You can make this a competition by
allocating one point for each word that none of the other groups has.
Allow groups to challenge any word that they think is ‘off topic’.

For a very large lexical field, such as food items, clothing, jobs,
nationalities or animals, choose letters of the alphabet (B, S, A, M, etc.)
for each ‘round* of the game. In their groups students have to come up
with only items that begin with that letter. Avoid infrequent letters of
the alphabet (J, Q, К, X). Play several rounds, choosing different
letters, allocating points to the group with the most words in each
round.

Set different topics (or different aspects of a topic) to different groups.

For example, if the general theme is music — set one group the task of
brainstorming musical instruments, another types of music, and
another adjectives that coUocate with music (loud, soft, etc). Re-group
the students so that they can teach one another the words that they
have brainstormed.

Provide the class with pictures to prompt brainstorming activities. A

collection of different magazine pictures (of, for example, people,
interiors, landscapes or meals) distributed amongst groups can act as a
productive focus for eliciting vocabulary. After learners have come up
with sufficient words, a representative of each group can stick their
picture on the board, and write their groups words underneath.
Encourage other students to ask each group’s representative the
meaning of any unfamiliar words, using the formula What does
mean?

49
How to Teach Vocabulary

Any of the above activities can be done with or without the use of
dictionaries (see page 60).
One way of giving learners at least temporary control of the topic agenda
is to encourage them to prepare short class presentations on a topic of their
choice. This is similar to the ‘show-and-tell’ type of activity common in
primary classrooms. As they are giving their presentation, the teacher can
keep a running record of new or interesting vocabulary that comes up. Or
the students who arc listening can note down words that they consider
worth recording. After the presentation, this vocabulary can form the basis
of a follow-up activity. For example, the teacher writes the topic-related
words on the board, and students, in pairs or groups, write a summary of the
presentation, incorporating the new vocabulary. Alternatively, the student
giving the presentation can be asked to prepare a list of keywords which are
distributed, or written up, in advance of the presentation itself.
Another way of capturing’ classroom vocabulary as it occurs is to appoint
‘word secretaries’ during group work. When students are engaged on a
group work task, the word secretary simply listens and notes down any new,
unusual, or otherwise salient words, which are then shared with the class as
a whole.
Many teachers keep an area of the board sectioned off in order to record
words that crop up during classroom talk. It is relatively easy to write up
words as they occur, without disturbing the flow of talk. At the end of the
activity - or at the end of the lesson - time should be spent in running
through these words. If the class is a monolingual one, the teacher can
challenge students to provide translations of the words. Alternatively, they
can attempt definitions, or at least try and recall the context in which the
word emerged.
With experience, teachers are often able to ‘pause’ the classroom talk long
enough to focus on words that arise naturally by means of an ‘instructional
aside’. In this example, at the points marked by an arrow, the teacher
manages to intervene without interfering, as learners attempt to explain
what ‘barrancking’ is - their ingenious coinage for canyoning’, based on the
Spanish word barranquismo".

Si: What about going to mountains, we can do ‘barrancking’.

[Ss laugh]
T: What’s ‘barrancking’?
S2: Is a sport.
'1': Yes, but what do you do exactly?
S3: You have a river, a small river and [gestures]
T: Goes down?
S3: Yes, as a cataract.
-♦ T: OK, a waterfall [writes it on board] What’s a waterfall,
Manel? Can you give me an example? A famous waterfall
[draws]
SI: Like Niagara?
T: OK. So what do you do with the waterfall?
S4: You go down.
T: What? In a boat?

50
 3 • Classroom sources of words

S4: No, no, with a ... ^como se dice cuerda? [How do you say
cuerda?]
S3: Cord.
—♦ T: No, rope, a cord is smaller, like at the window, look, [points]
$4: Rope, rope, you go down rope in waterfall.

In order that this emergent class vocabulary’ is not lost from one lesson to
the next, some teachers keep a word box (or word bag) in their classrooms.
New words are written on to small cards and added to the word box. At the
beginning of the next lesson, these words can be used as the basis for a
review activity. For example, the teacher can take words out of the box and
ask learners to define them, provide a translation or put them into a
sentence. The words can also form the basis for peer testing activities, in
which learners take a number of word cards and test each other in pairs or
small groups. (Further ideas for exploiting word cards can be found on page
147.) Periodically the word box should be ‘purged’ of words that the class
agree no longer need recycling.

Conclusions In this chapter:

• we have looked at five possible sources of vocabulary input for
learners:
- lists
- coursebooks
- vocabulary books
- the teacher
- other students

We noted that:
• lists are an economical way of organising vocabulary for learning,
and that it doesn't matter a great deal if they are put together in a
rather random way. It will help, though, if list learning activities are
integrated into the lesson.
• coursebooks select vocabulary for active study on the grounds of:
- usefulness
- frequency
- learnability
- teachability
• coursebook content includes both segregated and integrated
vocabulary work
• segregated activities typically present or practise lexical sets, or
word formation rules, or recycle or test words introduced
previously, or target specific vocabulary-learning strategies
• vocabulary is also integrated into skills work, typically in the form
of a pre-task or post-task vocabulary focus
• some coursebook vocabulary is incidental, such as that included in
instructions and grammar explanations
• supplementary vocabulary books are usually thematically organised,
but cover a range of vocabulary skills

51
 How to Teach Vocabulary

• coursebooks and vocabulary books cannot always provide sufficient

practice of newly introduced words, in which case the teacher may
need to devise 'multiple decision-making' tasks, to ensure an
element of 'cognitive depth' in vocabulary learning
• the teacher is a potentially fruitful source of vocabulary input, not
only in terms of incidental learning, but also as a means of
introducing vocabulary through teacher talk
• in any one class, each learner can contribute to the shared class
'lexicon' through activities such as brainstorming, and research
findings suggest that learner input is as powerful, if not more so,
than other vocabulary sources. Productive use of this resource
depends in part on allowing learners some control of the topic
agenda.

Looking ahead In the next chapter we will continue investigating sources of

vocabulary input, with special reference to texts, dictionaries, and that
more recent phenomenon, the corpus.

52
 ‘exts, dictionaries
corpora
Short texts

Books and readers

Dictionaries

• Corpus data

Short texts As we saw in rhe last chapter, vocabulary used to be offered to learners in
the form of lists. Nowadays, the tendency is to present vocabulary' in texts.
For vocabulary' building purposes, texts - whether spoken or written - have
enormous advantages over learning words from lists. For a start, the fact that
words are in context increases the chances of learners appreciating not only
their meaning but their typical environments, such as their associated
collocations or grammatical structures. Moreover, it is likely that die text
will display' topically connected sets of words (or lexical fields - see page
10). As we saw in the last chapter, evidence suggests that words loosely
connected by topic may be easier to learn than more tightly' connected
lexical sets.
Short texts are ideal for classroom use, since they can be subjected to
intensive grammatical and lexical stud)', without overtaxing learners’
attention or memory, as may be the case with longer texts. Learning to cope
with short texts is also good preparation for independent reading and
listening, including dealing with longer texts. Moreover, short texts provide
useful models for student production, in the form of speaking and writing.
A characteristic feature of cohesive texts is that they are threaded through
with words that relate to the same topic - what are sometimes called lexical
chains. This is even more likely if the text is authentic - that is, if it has not
been especially written or doctored for the language classroom. Here, for
example, is a short authentic text that contains a number of lexical chains,
the main one being a snake chain. Words in this chain are underlined.

Snake sneaks into Auckland suburb

The hunt is on for a live snake which could be on the loose in Auckland.
The reptile has left behind a freshly shed skin in the inner-city suburb of
Freeman’s Bay. Experts believe it has come from a boa or python nearly
two metres long. Ten-year-old Victor McKenney found the skin near his
home. ‘I thought it was like fish scales and then my friend pointed out it
looked like snake skin,’ Victor said. The skin is now being tested at a site
near Christchurch but experts believe it is a harmless variety' and
definitely still alive.

53
How to Teach Vocabulary

It is not the first snake to sneak into New Zealand this year. In March
a poisonous eastern brown snake was found alive in Wellington and two
others were discovered dead in Auckland and Wellington.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is worried. Although it is not
a dangerous variety, MAF points out that all reptiles could be carriers of
bacteria such as salmonella. The MAF snakecatcher team will be out
again with dogs in a bid to find the snake. Meanwhile, MAF is urging
anyone who spots the missing snake to call 0800-809 966.
(from web page at http://onenews.nzoom.com/national)

Intertwined with the snake chain is a hunting chain, which includes the
words: hunt, on the loose, snakecatcher, dogs, fvnd/found, discovered, missing. A
skin chain includes skin (x 4), shed and scales. Alive, dead and live form a
chain of their own, while harmless, dangerous and poisonous form a danger
chain, to which could perhaps be added carriers, bacteria and salmonella.
Notice how the dominant lexical chains provide a summary' of the gist of the
story: The hunt is on for a harmless live snake after its skin iuasfound.

Activities designed to exploit this characteristic of texts include setting

the students the task of identifying the lexical chains for themselves -
by, for example, underlining or circling associated words. They can
then attempt to identify the type of relationship between words in a
chain, such as collocations (live snake; shed skin; snake skin; fish scales)',
synonyms (on the loose, missing;found, discovered)', antonyms (harmless,
dangerous)', and hyponyms and their superordinates: reptile -* snake —*
boa/python/eastem brown snake. They may even note the juxtaposition
of snake and sneak ~ this time a sound relationship, rather than a
meaning one. Having done this ‘lexical detective’ work, learners can
then attempt either to reconstruct the text from memory, or write a 50-
word summary of it.

Lexical chain detection tasks offer another way of exploiting coursebook

texts, even those written primarily for a grammatical purpose. In the text
Fear of Flying on page 42, there are two dominant lexical chains: a plane
chain, and а /пли chain. Setting the learners the task of extracting these
linked items, and then using them to summarise the text, adds appreciably
to the vocabulary learning potential of the text.
Different kinds of texts (or genres) are likely to display different lexical
features. Academic writing, for example, is noted for having a higher
proportion of nouns over verbs than non-academic texts, Not only that, but
the nouns are often stacked together with adjectives or nouns (or both) to
form relatively long sequences, as in this example, in which the compound
noun phrases are underlined:

We investigate the suitability of deploying speech technology in

computer-based systems that can be used to teach foreign language skills.
In reviewing the current state of speech recognition and speech
processing technology and by examining a number of voice-interactive
CALL applications, we suggest how to create robust interactive learning

54
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

environments that exploit the strengths of speech technology while

working around its limitations. In the conclusion, we draw on our review
of these applications to identify directions of fiiture research that might
improve both the design and the overall performance of voice-interactive
CALL systems.
(from web page at http://Ut.msu.edu/vol2numl/arncle3/index.html)

On the other hand, less formal kinds of texts also have their own lexical
characteristics. Horoscopes in magazines, for example, are typically rich in
idiomatic language, including phrasal verbs. In this example, idioms and
idiomatic phrasal verbs have been underlined:

LIBRA
23 September-2.2 October

LOVE A new man on the scene sheds a fresh light on a past relationship
and you’ll wonder if you can make a fresh start with him. Give it a spin.
It won’t be the same as the last one.
AMBITION Nothing comes easy now with a project, and your instinct
is to pack it in. Don’t! You’ll get your inspiration back when Venus joins
Neptune on the 22nd.
INSIGHT You hang out with so many people that every now and again
you need to hole up and take stock. Deal with those jobs on your ‘to do’
list and you’ll feel back in control.
(from 19 magazine)

There arc a number of ways these lexical features can be exploited. Here, for
example, is a procedure that can be applied to both the academic text and
the horoscope text:

I) • Ask learners to skim the text and decide a) what kind of text it is, b)
what its purpose is, c) who it is written for and d) what style it is
written in (e.g. formal, informal).
• Learners read the text again and are asked to attempt a rough
summary of its gist - e.g. ‘what is it about?’ (in the case of the
academic text) or ‘what three pieces of advice are offered?’ (in the
case of the horoscope).
• Ask learners to find all the examples of the lexical feature that is
being targeted - e.g. long noun phrases (in the academic text) or
idioms (in the horoscope). To ease the task, you can tell them how
many to look for.
• Learners then work out the meanings of the phrases either from
their components, or from their context, or both. At this point, they
could be allowed to consult dictionaries.
• Alternatively, provide definitions, synonyms or LI translations of
the targeted words, and ask them to find the words in the text that
match. For example: 7ry it. (For Give it a spin.)

55
How to Teach Vocabulary

• Ask learners to study the targeted items and analyse them in terms
of their formal features - e.g. in rhe academic text, to separate the
noun phrases into adjective + noun, or noun + noun combinations,
or, in the horoscope, to distinguish between the phrasal verbs and
other idiomatic phrases.
• Provide the learners with the same texts, but with the targeted items
blanked out. See if they can complete the texts by replacing the
items, /liternatively, provide them with a list of the items (including
one or two extras, perhaps) to re-insert in the text.
• Ask learners to write their own texts, to include some ot the items
they have been studying.

So far, we have only been looking at written texts. But spoken language also
comprises a wealth of exploitable material. Two lexical features of spoken
language that are difficult to teach in isolation are discourse markers and
tags. Discourse markers arc words or phrases, such as ич7/, anyway, I mean,
I'll tell you what, that tend to occur at the onset of an utterance and indicate
a change in the direction of the talk. Tags, on the other hand, occur at the
end of an utterance, either to qualify what has been said (such as 1 suppose,
actually, really), or to elicit the listener’s involvement (such as isn't it? you
know, yeah?). In this extract (between a driving instructor and his client), the
discourse markers are underlined and the tags are in italics:

instructor: All right?

learner: [Sighs] Yeah [laughs]
instructor: Well done, Maria, you did well on that lesson. You can
switch off now.
learner: Yeah, great, thank you very much.
instructor: So how d’you find it okay?
learner: Yeah, it was great actually.
instructor: That’s good.
learner: I really enjoyed it. I thought I was more in control.
instructor: You’ve come on a lot on that lesson actually.
learner: D’you think so?
instructor: Yeah. Since the last one even,yaw know.
learner: I think the last one was a bad one though. I mean. 1 felt I
wasn’t patient you know.
instructor: Yeah but, you see, you had a gap before that.
learner: That’s why.
instructor: That’s what was wrong really.
(after McCarthy M, in Coupland J, SmallTalk, Longman)

Exactly the same identifying and categorising tasks, as suggested for the
academic and horoscope texts, can be applied to a transcript of real talk such
as this one. If the talk is recorded, so much the better, since learners can get
the benefit of the prosodic features of the text - that is, the stress and
intonation.
Finally, short literary texts offer multiple possibilities for vocabulary

56
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

development. It goes without saying that writers and poets choose their
words carefully, not only for their meanings but for their formal features as
well. (Someone once defined poetry as ‘the right words in the right order’.)
Seeing how writers put words to use for their expressive function can only
help enrich the network of word associations for the learner. Here, for
example, is a poem that imbues rather mundane objects with special
significance:

HANDBAG
My mothers old leather handbag,
crowded with letters she carried
all through the war. The smell
of my mother’s handbag: mints
and lipstick and Coty powder.
The look of those letters, softened
and worn at die edges, opened,
read, and refolded so often.
Letters from my fadier. Odour
of leather and powder, which ever
since then has meant womanliness,
and love, and anguish, and war.
(from Fainlight R, Selected Poems, Cassell)

The following lexical features are worth drawing students’ attention to (or
helping them discover):

• The things in the text, and their relationships, i.e. handbag which
contains letters, mints, lipstick, powder, and which is made of leather.
Students could talk about the things they carry with them, or that
they remember their mother or grandmother having.
• The complex noun phrases: My mother's old leather handbag’, The
smell of my mother's handbag ... Students could construct complex
noun phrases along similar lines to describe the things they have
talked about previously.
• The describing function of participles: softened, worn, opened, read,
refolded. Students could describe their own (or remembered) objects
using sequences of participles.
• The sensations in the text: the smell of... the look of... Other
expressions that follow this pattern are Ihe sound of and thefeel of...
Students could apply these expressions to the objects they have been
describing.
• The abstract nouns in the text: womanliness, love, anguish and the
way these are connected to concrete objects and actions:
womanliness —* lipstick, powder’, love —» letters:, anguish opened,
read, refolded. Students could search for abstract nouns which
capture their own emotional associations with the objects they have
been talking about.

57
How to Teach Vocabulary

• The pattern of two-syllable words ending in a schwa (unstressed

central vowel sound): mother, leather, powder, letter, father, odour,
ever. Students could add to this list, especially words that could fit
the kind of loose associations created by the poem (lover, brother,
feather, lighter, never, etc).
• Finally, students could attempt a ‘personalised’ version of the poem,
following a similar pattern:
an extended noun phrase
+
the smell/look/feel/sound of...
+
a list of items
+
the smell/look/feel/sound of...
+
single item from the list + sequence of participles
+
odour/'sound/appearance/feel of...
+
... which ever since then has meant + abstract nouns

The patterned nature of many literary texts, especially poems, and the
intricate ‘web of words’ that knits them together, means that the above
approach can be generalised to almost any poem. (It is important, at some
stage of the process, that learners hear the poem read aloud, in order to
appreciate its formal characteristics, such as metre and rhyme.)

Books and While coursebooks, vocabulary books and short texts are useful for focusing
readers on specific words for active study, the point has been made that the learner
needs plentiful opportunities for incidental learning to occur as well. The
best way of providing the necessary exposure is through extensive reading -
that is, the reading of long texts, and for pleasure rather than for
information.
Extensive reading provides the opportunity to meet words in their
context of use, and also supplies repeated encounters with many of these
words. Research suggests that it takes six or more encounters with a word
before learning is likely to take place. While coursebooks take the need to
recycle vocabulary seriously, words are seldom repeated up to six times. This
is partly due to the fact that, in the interests of variety' and coverage, there is
a high turnover of topics in a coursebook. This means that an area of
vocabulary, such as food and drink, or clothing, or family relationships, or
geographical terms, tends to be introduced just once, and then dropped.
Simplified readers and ‘real’ books tend to follow a topic over a length of
text, ensuring gt least some repetition of key vocabulary.
Simplified readers are widely available, and at a variety ot levels. They are
graded both in terms of their grammar complexity and their vocabulary
load. For example, the number of words used at each level of the Penguin
series of graded readers is limited according to this scale:

58
 4 • texts. dictionaries and corpora

Easystarts 200 words

Level One Beginner 300 words
Level Two Elementary 600 words
Level Three Pre-Intermediate 1,200 words
Level Four Intermediate 1,700 words
Level Five Upper-Intermediate 2,300 words
Level Six Advanced 3,000 words

Even if learners do not know all the words in a reader, the fact that the
vocabulary range is restricted means that there should be enough familiar
words to enable them to guess the meaning of the unfamiliar words from
context. Researchers estimate that if 90 to 95 per cent of words in a text are
familiar, then reading will not seem too much of a chore. Incidentally, this
suggests a very simple test when recommending extensive reading to
learners. Ask them to select any passage from the book and count out an
extract with 100 words. If, in those 100 words, fewer than five are
unfamiliar, then there is a good chance that the book will be within the
learners comfortable reading range. If more than ten words are unfamiliar,
the learner is recommended to choose a reader from a lower level, or to look
for authentic texts that do fall within the 95 per cent limit.
It is imperative that if learners are to enjoy, and get rhe most out of,
extensive reading it should not be seen as hard work. Not only should texts
be within their current competence, but, ideally, learners should have the
opportunity to choose the kinds of texts they are going to read. This could
mean having a class library of books to choose from. The teacher will need
to exercise discretion, however, as to how learners’ reading experiences are
incorporated into the classroom. It may be counterproductive to insist on
learners making formal reports or summaries of their reading, since this may
turn reading into a chore not a pleasure. Nevertheless, some discussion of
the value of free reading may help motivate those learners who do not
normally read for pleasure, even in their own language.
Free reading, as we have seen, increases the chances of repeated
encounters with words. Even better than free reading, from the point of
view of recycling, is what is called narrow reading. (Its aural equivalent is
narrow listening.) Narrow reading is reading around the same topic over
the course of a number of texts. In this way learners become more familiar
with the topic, which in turn makes reading easier. But more importantly,
when you read a number of texts on the same theme, you will come across
the same vocabulary used repeatedly. Narrow reading is in fact what most
newspaper or magazine readers do on a daily basis. That is, they follow a
particular news story over a period of time. Introducing narrow reading into
the classroom therefore meets with little resistance. One student, who had
recently been introduced to this technique, commented: ‘1 like reading one
story because, after the first day, I don’t have to use the dictionary as much,
so it makes reading more enjoyable.’
As an example, here is a follow-up story to the story ‘Snake sneaks into
Auckland suburb’ on page 53. Content words (i.e. not grammar words) that
occurred in the previous story are underlined:

59
How to Teach Vocabulary

Snake shed from coat, not python

Auckland's snake hunt has ended after experts realised a skin found on a
city street was shed from a fancy coat, and not a real live python.
The man who owns the coat has told the Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry a snakeskin sewn into his prized garment is missing.
He approached MAF last week after realising the skin was gone from
the coat, last worn to a Halloween Ball just a couple of days before school
children found the skin on a Freemans Bay street.
The October finding prompted lengthy searches of the suburb by
MAF tracker dogs and detector teams, after experts they consulted said
the skin appeared to have been freshly shed.
Today MAF admitted those experts were probably wrong.
Spokeswoman Gita Parsot said New Zealand had little experience with
snake skins, and experts were now reviewing how to identify the age of a
skin.
Ms Parsot said experts in Australia, where there are a lot of snakes,
might be consulted if skins were found in future. - NZPA
(from web page at http://www.stuff.co.nz)

Of the 108 or so content words (see page 4) in this text, 43, or nearly half,
are repeated from the previous news story. If the story had run longer, the
density of familiar vocabulary would probably have been even greater.
Both these snake stories were taken from Internet news sites, which are a
useful source of narrow reading material. But conventional newspapers and
magazines offer similar - if less conveniently accessible - material. Setting
students the task of following a story that interests them - and reporting on
it to their classmates - can be done using either electronic or print media,
according to availability. For the latter, teachers may wish to collect
sequences of news stories, filed according to topic, in order to build up a
dossier of useful material. Narrow listening activities would require a
collection of sequences of topic-based recordings, such as news stories, folk
tales, or even just pop songs.

Dictionaries For a long time the use of dictionaries in class was discouraged, generally on
the grounds that dependence on a dictionary might inhibit the development
of more useful skills, such as guessing from context. Also, it was argued that
if the dictionary is a bilingual one, learners may over-rely on translation, at
the expense of developing a separate L2 lexicon. Finally, indiscriminate
dictionary use often results in the kind of errors where the wrong word has
been selected for the meaning intended. A student of mine, for instance,
wrote a recipe for Close shave with pinenuts: the Spanish word rape has two
English equivalents in the dictionary: monkfish (the intended meaning) and
close shave (the unintended outcome).
However, the role of dictionaries in vocabulary learning has been
reassessed. As sources of words, and of information about words, they are
unequalled. Nowadays, an excellent selection of learner dictionaries is

60
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

available, and coursebooks regularly include activities designed to encourage

resourceful and efficient dictionary use.
At this point, we need to distinguish between the different kinds of
dictionary available. The first important distinction to make is between:

• bilingual dictionaries (e.g. a French-English, English-French diction­

ary), and
• monolingual dictionaries (e.g. English only)

On the whole, learners tend to favour bilingual dictionaries over

monolingual ones. They are easy to understand, and the time taken to refer
to them only minimally interrupts reading or listening. More importantly,
they are also usch.il for production - for speaking and writing. For example,
a German learner wanting to express the idea of Schlange but not knowing
its English equivalent (snake), would have no trouble finding the right word
in a German-English dictionary. But where would he start with an English-
only dictionary? Even if he had a vague idea that it began with an x, there
are a lot of words beginning with x to wade through before getting to snake.
Nevertheless, bilingual dictionaries, especially the pocket or electronic
ones that most students have, can be misleading, as we saw with close shave.
By suggesting a one-to-one match between Ll and L2 words, they often
oversimplify matters. Here, for example, is how a pocket French-English
dictionary deals with the word shed (which we met in the snake story on
page 53):

shed1 (Jed) n hangar m. remise f.

shed2 (fed) vt jeter, repandre

As it happens, if you consult the entries for /с’й?г and repandre in the same
dictionary, you will find that neither give shed bs an equivalent. So, while the
dictionary' may be of some use in helping the learner understand shed when
the word is encountered in a text, it gives no guidance that would help the
same learner produce shed when engaged in a writing task, for example.
A further distinction can be made between

• native speakers' dictionaries, and

• learners’ dictionaries

The latter use a restricted vocabulary for their definitions. Fhey also include
data that is of particular use for learners, such as grammar information - e.g.
whether a noun is countable or not, or whether a verb is followed by the
infinitive or the -ing form. The
USAGE NOTE: ACTUALLY
better learner dictionaries also WORD CHOICE: actually, currently, at present
include advice for learners that is Actually (and actual) does not mean ‘at the
present time’ in English. Compare currently and
based on an analysis of typical at present: "Haveyou ever met Simon?" "tactually
learner errors. On the right, for met him two years ago '* (=in fact). "Is the company­
doing well?" "Yes. “ "It's currently doing very well.'
example, is a note on how Il's doing very well at present."
actually is used: bi conversation, especially in British English,
actually can be used to make what you are saying
softer, especially if you are correcting someone,
disagreeing, or complaining: "Great! I /one French
from the Longman Dictionary of coffee!" "Er. it's German actually." But it can be
used with the opposite effect: I didn t ask your
Contemporary English opinion, actually.

61
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Another distinction is between dictionaries that are organised:

• alphabetically, or
• according to meaning categories

A reference book organised according to meaning categories is generally

classed as a thesaurus. For example, in the Cambridge Word Selector series,
words are organised not alphabetically but according to shared or similar
meanings. Unlike a conventional thesaurus, only a limited number of words
are included in each category, and definitions are provided in the learner’s Ll.
Here, for example, is an entry from the Catalan version of the Word Selector.

modem ac/j modem the most modern equipment I'ultim numero de la revista (mds aviat formal quan es
I'equipament modem (usades actualmenl] modem fa servir darrere de И corrent These ideas are current
languages llengdes modernes (habit, fa referenda al in certain sections of the community. Aquestes idees
segle passat] modem history/literature/art sdn corrents en alguns sectors de la comunitat.
art/histdria/litecatura modema currently adv actualment
modernize, tamb£ -i»e (brit) vti (obj: p. ex. un mdtode, topical adj (relational amb esdeveniments actuals.
un equip! modernilzar(-se) modernization ni/c Descriu: p. ex. una pregunta, un problema, una
modemitzacid al lusid] d'actualitat, d'interfcs topical talk conversa
up-to-dete adj 1 (modem. Descriu: p. ex, un equip, un sobre afers d'actualitat
mitodej modem, actual 2 (sovint + with) (que coneix о
conte I'tillima informacid. Descriu; p. ex. un llistat, un
тара] al dia fo keep up-to-date with the latest
fashion nc/i 1 moda to be in/out of fashion estar/no
developments manlenir-se al dia de les ultimes
estar de moda Pointed shoes are coming back into
novetats We must bring our records up-to-date. Hem
fashion. Les sabates amb punta tornen a estar de moda.
de posar al dia els nostres arxius.
Roller-skating is the latest fashion here. Aquf I'dltima
update vt 1 (obj: p. ex. uns arxius, una informacid, un moda ds el patinatge sobre rudes. 2 Irobal moda
model] actualitzar We're.updating all our office men's/ladies' fashions moda d'home/de dona (davant
equipment. Estem actualilzant tot I'equipament de de n) fashion designer dissenyadora de moda fashion
I'oficina. 2 (sovint + on) (donar I'ultima informacid al model model fashion show desfilada de models
posar al dia I'll just update you on the latest sales fesMonabte adj (descriu: p. ex. una roba, una persona,
figures. Em limitard a posar-vos al dia de les ultimes una opinid, un restaurant) de moda, de bon gust It's
xifres de vendes. update nc actualitzacid fashionable to live in a converted warehouse. EstA de
nowfan^od adj (for^a informal i pej.| acabat d'inventar moda viure en magatzems rehabilitate. fashionably adv
I can't cope with this newfangled machinery. No me'n (molt) a la moda
5urto amb aquesta maquinJuia tan modema. trend nc (sovint + in, towards) tencfencia The present
contemporary adj 1 (util, sobretot en la llengua escrita trend is towards products which are environment­
i ел la parla mds seriosa о intel lectual] contemporani, friendly. La tendincia actual afavoreix els productes
coetani 2 (sovint + with) (que viu en una mateixa respectuosos amb el medi ambient, to set а/the trend
ёроса о temps] coetani, contemporani contemporary imposar una/la tenr&ncia
nc contemporani -inia trendy adj (forga informal i sovint pej.) a I'ultima moda
currant adj (habit, davant de n) (que succeeix о existeix trendy left-wing ideas idees esquerranes de moda
en aquest moment) actual, corrent current affairs be wttMt vi (informal I m6s aviat obsolet] estar al dia,
actualitat the current economic climate cl clima ser I'ultim crit a with-it vicar un moss6n amb idees
economic actual the current issue of the magazine modernes

from the Catalan Word Selector, CUP

A meaning-based organisation is particularly useful for production, that is,

for preparation for speaking or writing tasks, since it allows the learner to
search for the exact word to represent an intended meaning. For example, a
learner wanting to find an appropriately idiomatic expression to express the
general idea that ‘Teachers should “be modern” in their knowledge of
teaching methods’would first look up modern (English) or modern (Catalan)
in the book’s index. This leads to the appropriate section where rhe student

62
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

produce ‘TeaXrTsWdkelp Uf~t0~date^ s° « to

A similar principle XrXkP W“ teach,nS mech°ds’
Wordfinder Dictionary /„/theorSanisatl™ of both the Oxford Learners
Activator (dubbed 'the worlds fir,X77 £a”WF°r example, the
1,ООО 'key words’ Хл Seth '• “ based on a™d
English’(or a tore vocabulary- Scc page 21) Ог^ of the core °f
IS a menu7 of words and phrases with Я S^sed under each key word
&Л-С/ОГ, the Ariw/or is monolingual Mere F^ "^T8-5' UnJjke Ле Word
deals with modern: ' ’ for examPle,ls how the Activator

forward-tookfrig і'Тл:*wal’d luktcjl willing in mar new

modern and recently developed methods and ;.tk*5 in order lo do
your X>b better (acyl
TAc training methods In this school arc very forward
which meaning? looking I Wc like to think weTe one of thoseforwardlooking
companies that isn't u/;aW to rww pteas. ?
modem pieces, -*■ • MODERN move with the time* j ,mu:v «іЛ&э ’tarmrj to change
your way of living or working so that you are using modem
methods etc ideas, methods die. even though you may not want to fu
using the newest -1 2
• *ADVANCED
phmsel I
I 'm not Keen on alt these electronic gadgets, but I suppose uv
equipment. niurimoiT with the times. I Whereas Japanese Industry has 1
technology etc mowd with ths times aur production methods haw scarcely
changed tn 20 years
go-ahead r gau >|twd( always Keen to us* modem ideas I
and methods because you want co I* successful Indi only
0 MODERN before noun;
Fortuna is а young. pv-oheud computer company based in
1 words \v oescrifrng muchines. systems Dusseldorf.
precesses etc that have been developed
using the most recent ideas ana equiomenl 3 wo>ds lor descr.Qing mtxJem an literature.
2 using. or willing to use. the meet recent ideas I muse OK '
and ways of flunking • modem avani-gerde |
3 words lor describing modorr. art. iitcroture. contemporary Muriatic
music etc
modem I'modn li 'mottbrn/ using styles that are differ ■
4 to change something m order to таке n ent from theextsting styles of art. literature. music etclodjl
moaorn Charles is a collector of modern art I Modem music can be
difficult to get used to. | The dance uos modern and quite
interesting but 1 think I prefer a traditional ballet.
1 words for describing macnines system? contemporary /кэп’сетраті, -wri | -psrenl produced
or written recently rather than a long time ago. using a
processes etc mat nave been developed I style different from the styles used in the post \ad)I
using Vie most recent ideas and aquioment Contemporary art is sometimes hard to understand and ■j
modem I appreciate. | The danairs performed to a contemporary i
up-to-date ' arrangement of ‘Srean Lake' i

modem /'mudn fj 'moidanrf ladji avant-garde gor’d- l| ftcvoiq-r extremely

Their is a modern roil system to lake passengers to andfrom modern and strange or hard to understand because It is I
the city. I In Japanese car factories they have all the mad very different from existing Ideas in art. music, literature
etc (adj I I
modern machinery 1 A sophisticated modem air defence
system can be wry' expensive Although she likes avant-garde music. Lydia also plays clas­
sical guitar and piano. | The Whitechapel Art Gallery
up-to-date I ,*p ta 'dctt-1 up-to-date mrthods/mneh- игішііу displays the work of avant-garde sculptors orul
Inery'/pqufpmcnt/facllitles etc (=bascd on the most (
painters.
recent knowledge or Ideas) lad;)
Our athletes arc trained an the most up to datefacilities tn
Europe. • ЛИ the equipment in the hospital u the most upto
futuristic /.Ouxip'nstik-/ futuristic deeign/bulldlng/
Dim etc (=one that appears so modem and strange that it
i
date there is.What ire need is a computer system that is up­ seems to belong to the future and not to the present) lod/l
to date and flexible. The futuristic spurts stadium Is the pride of the city. | We

2 using tx v.ifrng to use. (he most recent deas (

think your designs art a little toofuturisticfor our fartary.
I
ano ways of thinking
4 to change someth ng n order to make и j 1
modem lorward-tooklog
modern »
modemtie '
progressive move with the times
bring nth up to date ,
Innovative go-ahead
update I
modem I'mtxin i 'muidsny Іофі modarrilEe (also 4e4 Britisn) І'аісгімізн J 'matdsr-l
I
She wants a hospital that uses the most modern childbirth
techniques | They're a wy modern couple - he stays at home ft»T]
with the kids and she goes nut to work The school Is wr, Theauuuujn aulhoriaesurvaiiemptingtomodemizeiheair-
traffic control system.! They bought a iruditlor.nlfarmitouse i
modern in its approach to sex education.
that hod been modernized by the pmviuus owners. c
progressive fpu'gres-x.i kern to change and improve modernization (imodoui'zei/sa f, .enutdom^ In U) The I
whut you do by trying completely new methods and ideas company needs better staff training, compaterlzatton and
lad/i general modernization of equipment
Even with the mntt progressive methods in agriculture you
still cant do anything about the weather I He has a reputa­ bring sth up to date ^brii} (sth) лр u> ‘deni to make
something modern by getting rid of any old-fasbionert ■»I
tion as и social and industrial reformer with progressive
views details or features that it has and adding Hie newest ones I
Innovative /'іпл.ѵепіѵ, using new methods and ideas
that are available If phrase usually in passiwl »
All the old encyclopedias haw been renisud und brought up
that are clever and original \adj] to date. I The weathermen ought to bring their old fashioned
She has been prnised fur her inwimniv techniques tn help­ forecast models up to date
ing deaf people hi speak.1 Time ‘ magazine called the mobile
phone onr of the frn most tnnnualtw products of the year. update /(лр'ііеп/ to make something such as a design or
Innovation ),iiuScipnJ In l.l) We haw a career structure system more modem by adding the most recent informs
that relixtrds innovation and good ideas tion or parts to it so that it does not become useless, old- i
fashioned etc it' Ti

63
How to Teach Vocabulary

Picture dictionaries, because they are thematically organised, are another

kind of meaning-based dictionary, and arc particularly useful in that they
group together words of the same lexical field. Their limitation is» of course,
that they are restricted to things or actions that can be illustrated. But for
younger learners they are ideal.
Finally, there are those learner dictionaries that have specialised
functions, such as dictionaries of business English, dictionaries of idioms, of
collocations, of phrasal verbs, and pronunciation dictionaries. (See the
further reading list on page 183 for specific titles.)
What sort of information does a dictionary provide? Below, for example,
is the entry for shed from the Longman Dictionary ofContcmP^ar}'^n^^-
Note, first of all, that У Г ''
" fC| 1 a sman building. often made of
there are two homonyms f°r storing things: И'е had a tool
that have the form shed 2^^^ callle BQrden stled
vehicles bui,d,ne where work is done. large
(see page 8), and that . ‘ 2 S are keP‘or machinery is stored etc
these two different mean­ Д&С °ne/past Shed praenl

ings are listed separately as агезі™тТ<о X something sheds light, it lights the
shed1 and shed2. Pro­ 2 ► DROP/J л T№mp sheda yellowgloui onto the desk.
it to Sn°oFA,LL°FF« a) todropsomethingorallow
nunciation is supplied, h SIr<Jde across the bathroom, shedding wet
aolaSeh^^ 6 animal sheds skin or hair or
using phonemic script XX SSJeaVeS elc’they fan ofras Part of a na,ural
(fed). Grammatical infor­ DccuIl!ous trevs shed their leaves in autumn. \ As
3g^Girain^W,U re«ularly shed its skin.
mation follows, including ІОПРО! nLS D 0F * t0 gel rld of something that you no
0Г Tfle company Is planning to shed
part of speech (zr, -y), the joined th^Srter-0^‘f ^rtforce.11 shed my inhibitionsand
fact that the noun is bv iosinX?''0?’'1 Shed Pounds/stones (-get thinner
4 Sgt^!ral 1X3110,15 etc>rd like to shedafew pounds.
countable | C] and the verb \ stand hv n 1 ?? 10 make something easier to under-
Ллпй.оі^ Prov|d,ng new or better information: We're
is transitive [T], as well as
5 ► WAtS^ wirllsh^^e light on the mystery.
the verb’s inflexions {shed, PowsofTHc С.Л ^°me,hin8 Sheds water, the water

shedding). Both entries are fiX hm s “ rfaco- Instead of sinking into it

war пЛЬя^? ‘2кШ ОГ b,jurc P^P’e. «specially during a
further s jb-divided into ' T°° much blood has already been shed in
-S^OlSOHLOODSHED
their different polysemes,
e.g. shed1 ? a small building
... and 2 a large industrial 1 as
building ... In the case of
the verb shed, different meanings are signposted in capital letters for ease of
reference. Definitions are written in easy-to-understand language, and
examples are included that are chosen to display the word’s meaning as well
as its grammatical behaviour. Common collocations are included: shed light
on, shed blood, etc. Links to derived forms are also signalled, as in see also
bloodshed. Register and style information is also included, where relevant.
Thus, jW tears is marked as being literary while shed its load is British usage.
Finally, frequency information is added in the margin: S 3 means that the
noun shed is in the 2,000-3,000 band in terms of frequency in spoken
English (S = spoken). A word marked as W 1 , on the other hand, would be
in the top thousand words of written English (W = written). A word
marked W 2 would be in the next thousand, and so on.
If we compare this information with the map of what is involved in
knowing the word /<27^7 (see page 16), it is clear that all the relevant
linguistic information is supplied by the dictionary. Of course, the less

64
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

linguistic, more encyclopedic, information is missing: the iconic role of the

garden shedux suburban British culture is not even hinted at. For this kind
of information we would need to consult a dictionary of culture. For
example:

... In Britain people generally choose to sit in the back garden, out of
view of other people. The back garden usually also has a lawn and flower
beds, and sometimes a vegetable plot or fruit trees. There is often a bird
table (= a raised platform on which food is put for birds) and a shed in
which, garden tools are kept.
(from the Oxford Guide to British and American Culture, О UP)

What kind of use can learners make of dictionary' information? This will
depend on how well trained they are in using dictionaries. Ideas for train­
ing learners to become effective dictionary users are found in Chapter 9.
Meanwhile, in this section the
focus will be on the use of
2 Some words can be more than
dictionaries not so much as
reference aids (for reading or
one part of speech. For example:
writing, for example) than as cook: A cook (noun) is someone
learning aids. How can the ivho cooks (verb) food,
information in dictionaries be orange: An orange (noun) is an
exploited to promote vocabulary' orange (adjective)/nr/7.
acquisition? On the right, for
Use your dictionary to find out
example, is i coursebook activity
(from Grt enall S, Reward what parts of speech these words
can be.
Pre-Intermediate, Macmillan
Heinemann) that requires the talk head drink fiat scan
use of a dictionary. rent slice heat
In this activity, learners arc
using their dictionaries to make Write sentences showing their
at least two decisions about the different parts of speech.
targeted words: they arc He talks all the time
identifying their word classes, There's a talk on insects tonight.
and they are discriminating
between their different
meanings, both of which arc necessary if they arc to write coherent
sentences. This two-step process reflects a key principle underlying the
classroom use of dictionaries: cognitive depth (see page 25). The more
decisions the learner makes about a word, the greater the degree of cognitive
processing, and hence the greater the likelihood of retention in memory;
Every time learners consult a dictionary they have initiated a decision­
making process. And the fact that dictionaries contain such a wealth of
information makes them ideal for use in multiple decision-making tasks.
Dictionary-based activities can be designed that require students to make
decisions about a word’s spelling, its pronunciation, its meaning, its
grammar, its collocations, its derivatives, the style and connotations of the
word, and its frequency.

65
How to Teach Vocabulary

Here, for example, are mo tasks that focus on spelling and pronunciation:

В Dictate a selection of words that share the same sounds, hut may be
spelt according to different rules, such as date, great, wait, fate, eight,
late, straight, bait, hate, etc. Students use dictionaries to check spelling
and organise words into spelling groups (e.g. all the -ai- words
together). They can then draw conclusions as to which are the more
frequent spellings, and which are exceptional.

В Students are given words on cards that share the same spelling features
but may be pronounced differently. For example, the letter g in
magic, Sao^ f°& 8Ут> tift’ &ene> !arge> etc. As in the preceding
activity, dictionaries are used to sort words according to pronunciation,
and to help discern patterns.

The following two tasks target word meaning:

В Students are dictated words or given words on cards, and must sort
them into meaning categories, using the dictionary. The title of die
category can be given, or, to make the task more difficult, left to the
learners to work out. For example, the following twelve words can be
grouped into three groups of four words each: board, club, piece, net,
hole, tee, racket, queen, umpire, check, green, court. Note that many of
these words are polysemous (i.e. they have more than one meaning) so
learners will need to use their dictionaries intelligently in order to
locate the correct meaning area (in this case, meanings connected with
games).

Ш Students find the odd one out in sets of three or four words (duck,
pigeon, python, stork\, matching synonyms (poisonous - venomous),
antonyms (harmless - dangerous)', organising words into hierarchy ranks
(e.g. reptile, snake, python', fruit, apple. Granny Smith).

Here are two tasks that involve researching the grammar of words:

Д Students organise words into parts of speech, according to dictionary

information, or into countable/uncountable (nouns), transitive/
intransitive (verbs), etc.

Students use dictionaries to check the grammatical correctness of

sentences such as:

I'd like some informations about Italy.

How much potato would you like?
I prefer Californian wines to French ones.
The flat was full of furnitures.
or
I suggested him to see a dentist.
She recommended the film.
He explained me the lesson.
The doctor advised me to rest.
They apologised that they were late.

66
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

Dictionaries can also be used to raise awareness about collocation:

Students match words on cards to form collocations, checking with the

dictionary; For example:

densely injured
fatally enforced
narrowly defeated
sorely outnumbered
strictly tempted
hopelessly populated

Word derivation can also form the focus of dictionary tasks:

Ш Students use dictionaries to complete grids or ‘spidergrams’ of word

families, to show common derived forms:

person crime verb

robber robbery rob
murder
hijacker
rape
smuggling

etc.

The following three tasks focus on style, connotation and frequency,

respectively:

Students use dictionaries to decide which word or expression in a

group is the odd one out, in terms of style:

flee run away retreat turn tail

occur crop Up happen take place
supervise monitor keep an eye on oversee
bump off murder kill assassinate

etc.

В Students use dictionary information to group words according to

whether they have neutral or negative connotations. For example:

notorious famous
publicity propaganda
skinny Slim
chat gossip
childish childlike
queer gay
officious official
collaborator ally
bachelor spinster

67
How to Teach Vocabulary

В Students use frequency information in the dictionary to rank words in

terms of frequency. For example:

1 sick unwell ill

2 grill cook fry
3 ship yacht boat

(Answers: 1 sick, ill, unwell; 2 cook, fry, grill; 3 boat, ship, yacht)

Or, students underline words in a text that fall within the 2,000 (or 3,000)
top most frequent words band.
Note that any of the above activities can be used in combination with
others, thereby increasing the number of decisions about a selected set of
words. For example, a set of words can first be dictated (decisions about
spelling), then categorised (decisions about meaning), then sorted into
neutral and negative (decisions about connotation). Alternatively, a set of
words can be grouped according to part of speech (decisions about
grammar) and then matched according to collocation. (Sec Chapter 6 for
more discussion of multiple decision tasks.)

Corpus data Todays dictionaries provide accurate information about a word’s frequency
and its typical collocations, as well as supplying authentic examples of the
word in context. This information is largely due to the development of
corpus linguistics. A corpus (plural corpora) is a collection of texts that has
been assembled for the purposes of language study. Modern corpora are
stored electronically and consist of many millions of words of text, both
spoken and written. They range from academic texts through newspaper
articles to casual conversation, and include American, British, Australian,
teenager and even learner varieties of English.
The benefit for teachers and learners of corpus data is that it provides
them with easily accessible information about real language use,
frequency and collocation. Before rhe advent of corpora, teachers had to rely
largely on intuitions about the way words are actually used. To take one
example: coursebooks give the impression that adverbs of frequency {usually,
never, sometimes, always, etc.) cannot occupy two adjacent slots in a
sentence. Thus: I usually come home early on Fridays, I always come home
early on Fridays, but not I usually always come home early on Fridays.
However, a search of two corpus websites (British National Corpus:
http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html and COBUILD Corpus:
http://titania.cobuild.collins.co.uk/form.html) shows that, while not
common, such combinations do occur:

Suede's imperturbable drummer never usually says a single word in

interviews.
... the convent where we usually never set foot
Tickets are normally always available on the continent
Do you normally usually have sugar?

etc.

68
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

Because corpora consist of ‘used’ language, they can claim a certain

authorin' over invented or imagined language. This does not deny the value
of intuitions. In fact, it was an intuition that prompted me to check for
usually ♦ always type combinations in the first place. But access to corpora
now means that we can provide learners with attested, rather than invented,
examples of words in context. By this means, we can show learners not what
someone thinks they should say, but what users of the language actually do
say.
This does not mean, though, that corpus information should be used
uncritically. Corpus information is only as good as the corpus it comes from.
A corpus of teenage slang, for example, would not be of much use for
teaching business English. Likewise, a corpus of written English may not be
much use for teaching spoken English. Furthermore, just because an
instance of language use is attested (such as Do you normally usually have
sugar?) does not mean that it should be taught. In order to facilitate
learning, teachers must do as they have always done, that is, select, adapt
and supplement raw data so that it is optimally useful for the learner.
Corpora have simply provided another source of data - one that, admittedly,
reduces the need to rely on hunches.
Before the advent of corpora, frequency information was also largely
guesswork - or involved a great deal of pen-and-paper counting. Now,
learner dictionaries are able to provide statistically accurate data about
frequency. High frequency words are flagged (as we saw in the case of shed).
Sometimes, more specific information is provided. Here, for example, is a
graph showing the relative frequencies of the verbs let, allow and permit.

Frequencies tf the verbs ІеѴ. allow and pennit in

spoken and written English-

SPOKEN
j|e<
_______ J «How
J perrnrt

WRITTEN
___________ llet from rhe Longman
________ I allow
Dictionary of
I permit
Contemporary English

Ibic orach shows that let <5 much mere common m

spoken English than allow and permit Allow is more
SX, engfeb permit » a tom.l word
meaning to officially let someone do something.............

Given that one aspect of knowing a word is knowing how frequently used
it is, this kind of information is potentially useful to the learner. It is even
more useful to the teacher and coursebook writer, as it can inform their
decisions as to what words to select for active study. For example, the
following adjectives are often presented together:

69
How to Teach Vocabulary

beautiful handsome ugly attractive

good-looking pretty unattractive

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, only

beautiful, attractive and pretty fall within the top 3,000 words band (and in
that order). The absence of negative adjectives (ugly, unattractive) in the
high frequency bands suggests that speakers use other means to express the
idea of unattractiveness e.g. not very pretty, not terribly attractive, and that
maybe these constructions should be taught in preference.
A closer examination of the kinds of words that collocate with these
adjectives narrows the choice further. Ugly, for example, is used less to
describe people than in the context of ugly scenes or an ugly situation, or in
the expression Xrears its ugly head. Handsome, which is relatively infrequent,
collocates on the whole with male subjects. Beautiful collocates with woman
and girl, but also frequently with people, world, day, things and place. Pretty
and attractive, when used to describe people, also have mainly feminine
collocates. Of all these adjectives, good-looking is the only one that applies
equally to both sexes, and, what’s more, is used almost exclusively for people.
So, despite its lower frequency, as an all-purpose adjective for describing
appearance, it may be the one to teach.
This kind of information (on frequency and collocation), to which only
dictionary writers used to have access, is now freely available. I was able to
assemble the above data simply by using a learners’ dictionary and the
Collins COBUILD English Collocations on CD-ROM. Collocational
information is also available on the Internet - for example, the COBUILD
corpus at http://titania.cobuild.collins.co.uk/forni.html. With a little
training, and perhaps some guidance in the form of a task sheet, learners
themselves can access this kind of information.
Corpus information is typically presented in the form of concordances.
A concordance displays the results of a word search as individual lines of
text, with the targeted word (or words) aligned in the centre. Here, for
example, is a concordance for beautiful (from the COBUILD website).
Despite the slightly mutilated look of the sentences (necessary if they are to
fit onto one line) there is enough information for students to work out what
kinds of things and people are described as beautiful.

as much as connoisseurs: it is a beautiful abstract painting. But it is

was worn by. amongst others, the beautiful American actress Ruth Ford. This
dweller alike. We know that a beautiful and living countryside requires
inspiration for the bride-to-be. Beautiful fine bone china is not only a
In addition to being a very beautiful garden, it has great historical
in the Thirties. Now there are some beautiful houses on the outskirts, I reckon
amid the forests and lakes of the beautiful Jels countryside. He brought in
I have never forgotten this beautiful part of the world. I’ve not just
living in what is arguably the most beautiful place in the United States, as
arguably the most interesting and beautiful small city in the United States,
whioh we ate at a very solitary and beautiful spot in the Harz Mountains,
of primitive pine pews inside, a beautiful stained glass window faced into
other, that Arzfeid girl is really beautiful, with those eyes, that akin, that
was very simply a charming and very beautLful woman. A year later, Elizabeth
who dated some of the world’s most beautiful women. In 1951 Hanson Sr even

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 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

Concordances are a convenient way of presenting learners with data for

analysis, from which they can work out the regularities and patterns
associated with selected words. But they are not easy. The minimal contexts,
truncated sentences, and ungraded vocabulary, can be off-putting for all but
quite advanced learners.
However, if the concordance has been compiled from a text that the
learners are already familiar with, it may be less intimidating. Here, for
example, is the transcript of a coursebook recording from the Collins
COBUILD English Course ], in which two people talk about the busiest day
they’ve had recently.

‘Right. So the busiest day I’ve hail recently was last Monday when I had to teach.
/ 4 I taught In three different schools. So, on Monday morning I taught in one school
from nine thirty to twelve thirty. Then I went home, and on the way home I had
to do a lot of shopping. Then I had lunch. 1 just had time to have lunch. Then I went
out again I went to another school, the other side of London, where I taught from
four to six. Then I had half an hour to get from that school down to another school
In the centre of London for six thirty to eight thirty. Then I got home and I went
out for supper afterwards with friends. So that was quite a busy day.’
‘The busiest day I’ve had recently was probably on Saturday, because I drove down
from Ijondon to Sussex on Saturday morning. And. when I got home I got home
at about lunchtime. And I had lunch, and then after lunch my cousins came over.
And I took them shopping. And then we went to visit an aunt of mine who lives
nearby because they hadn't seen her for a long time. And then I came home, and
I went out to supper. And then I went home again.’

In advance of the language-focused tasks, the teacher plays the class

the cassette recording, and checks their general understanding by
asking questions such as: Which one is a teacher? Who left London on
Saturday? The teacher can then distribute the transcript of the
recording, for more detailed question-and-answer work (Hou many
schools did thefirst speaker teach in? Did the second speaker visit his cousins,
or did they visit him? etc).
Now comes the language focus. A keyword search (see below)
shows that among the significantly frequent words in this short text
•are: went, then, home, school and had. Using a concordancer (a program
that searches for words in a text and sorts them into lines), any of these
words can become the focus of a concordance. For example, here is the
concordance for home.

1 ne thirty to twelve thirty. Then I went homo, and on the way homo I had to do a
8 Then I went home, and on the way home I had to do a lot of shopping. Then
3 six thirty to eight thirty. Then I got home and I went out for supper afterward
4 Saturday morning. And, when Г got home • I got home at about lunchtime. An
5 morning. And, when I got home - I got home at about lunchtime. And 1 had lunch
6 en her for a long time. And then I came home, and I went out to supper. And then
7 d I went out to supper. And then I went home again.

Displayed like this, home is available for more focused study than when
buried in a text. For example, learners can list the verbs that collocate
with home (go, get, come}, notice that no prepositions are used in these
combinations, and find any other expressions that include home (on the
way home}. Moreover, it doesn’t need a computer to display this
information. Learners can make their own concordance lines by simply

71
How to Teach Vocabulary

writing out all the sentences, or parts of sentences, that include the
word home, and aligning them accordingly. For example:

"Then I u_cnt home, and on the way 'ноте

on the way home 1 kid to do a lot oF shopping
then I jot home
when I jot home
I got home at about lunchtime
And then I came home
And -then I went home again

The extra effort involved in compiling their own concordance may

help draw learners’ attention to salient features of the text.
Alternatively, the teacher can provide the learners with a concordance
with the target word (called the node) blanked out. The learners’ task
is to work out what the missing word is - i.e. what one word would fit
all of the displayed contexts?

Concordances are starting to appear in coursebooks. Here, for example, is an

activity from The Intermediate Choice'.

4 Key word: get

From the British National Corpus (Spoken)

1 Look at the forms of get above with another

student. Find one example where:
a) get means i Mohamed S,
• io buy • to arrive • to receive Acklam R,
• to coileci/fetch • to become Intermediate
b) get + preposition shows movement. ice, Longman
c) have + got is used to talk about
• possessions • family relations
cl) got is the Past Simple form of get.

72
 4 • Texts, dictionaries and corpora

Another useful tool when dealing with corpus material is a keyword

program. (Note that this is a different sense of keyword from that used in
Chapter 9 to describe a memory technique.) Keywords are words in the text
that are not just frequent, but significantly so. For example, the fact that the
most frequent word in a given text is the is of little significance. The is the
most frequent word in almost any text. A keyword, on the other hand, is a
word in a text that occurs more often in that particular text than it does
across a whole range of texts. A keyword program is able to plot the
keywords in a text simply by comparing the text with a large corpus of text.
For example, in the two snake stories quoted earlier in this chapter on pages
53 and 60, the word snake occurs ten times (and thirteen times if we include
snakeskin, snakecatcher and snakes). In the British National Corpus (BNC)
Sampler, a corpus of one million words of spoken English and one million
words of written English, snake occurs only eleven times. This means that
the ten occurrences of яшЖ? in the two newspaper texts is highly significant.
Even if you hadn’t read them, it would be safe to assume from this one fact
that the topic of the texts was something to do with snakes. Here are all the
keywords in the two articles, in order of significance (I used WordSrnith
Tools from OUP): snake, MAF, skin, experts, python, Auckland, shed, suburb,
coat, found.
Notice how the keywords tend to be nouns. Notice also that they provide
a kind of very condensed summary of the story. Understanding the
keywords of a text is a large part of understanding the text itself. So, when
choosing words to pre-teach in advance of reading, a teacher need look no
farther than the keywords. Also, giving learners the keywords of a text in
advance of their reading the text is an excellent way of activating their
knowledge of the topic of the text. Once activated, this knowledge allows
them to make better sense of the text.

Д These are some of the questions a teacher could ask, using the
keywords:
‘Where is Auckland?’ (New Zealand)
‘Do you associate snakes with New Zealand?’
‘Why/Why not?’
‘What is a python?
‘What do you know about snakes’ skin?’
‘What is the possible connection between snake, skin and coat?
‘What is the possible connection between suburb, Auckland and found?
‘What is the possible connection between experts and the rest of the
story?*
‘What could the letters MAF stand for?’
And, when the learners have read the text in order to confirm their
predictions, they can then use the keywords to write a summary of the
story.

Also, as we saw with the example using home, keywords can become the
focus for a concordance search, especially those words that have particular
collocational or grammatical characteristics.

73
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Conclusions In this chapter:

• we continued looking at sources, both direct and indirect, of
vocabulary input
• the value of providing contextualised vocabulary input was
emphasised, since texts display words in loose association and also
in ways that are typical of their particular text type
We noted that:
• authentic texts (including literary texts), in particular, are rich in
vocabulary learning potential, since a large part of their coherence
is due to their lexical patterning
• extensive reading of, for example, simplified readers, is a good
source of incidental vocabulary learning, particularly because of the
repeated encounters readers have with words. Narrow reading -
reading about one topic over a series of texts - offers even more
opportunities for repetition.
• dictionaries are both a tool and a resource for vocabulary learning,
since they contain a wealth of information about words,
information that can be tapped through classroom activities
involving multiple decision-making
• corpora are the latest addition to the resources available for
vocabulary input. Corpora are particularly useful for providing
attested examples of language in use, as well as frequency and
collocational information. Concordancing and keyword programs
are two of the tools that make corpus data available for classroom
use.

Looking ahead So far we have looked at sources of words. But vocabulary learning is
not just a question of finding words. It also requires active mediation
on the part of the teacher. In the next chapter we will look at ways
the teacher can make the presentation of vocabulary maximally
effective, both in terms of word form and word meaning.

74
 How to present
A*
^vocabulary
Presenting vocabulary
Using translation
• How to illustrate meaning
• How to explain meaning
• How to highlight the form
• How to involve the learners

Presenting In the last two chapters we looked at possible sources of vocabulary input,
vocabulary including vocabulary books, readers, dictionaries and corpora. A motivated
and self-directed learner might be able to acquire a large vocabulary simply
by using these resources. However, many learners sign up for language
courses in the expectation that, at least some of the time, they will be
presented with language, rather than having to go out and find it for
themselves. By presentation, we mean those pre-planned lesson stages in
which learners are taught pre-selected vocabulary items. Of course,
incidental vocabulary teaching can occur at other times of the lesson, as
when a text or a discussion throws up unfamiliar vocabulary. In this chapter,
however, we will be mainly concerned with ways vocabulary can be formally
presented in the classroom. But many of the issues are relevant to the
informal teaching of vocabulary as well.
As we saw in Chapter 2, at the ver}' least learners need to learn both the
meaning and the form of a new word. We shall deal with each of these
components in turn. But it’s worth pointing out that both these aspects of
a word should be presented in close conjunction in order to ensure a tight
meaning-and-form fit. The greater the gap between the presentation of a
word’s form and its meaning, the less likely that the learner will make a
mental connection between the two.
Let’s say the teacher has decided to teach a related set of words - for
example, items of clothing: shirt, trousers, jacket, socks, dress, jeans. The
teacher has a number of options available. First, there is the question of how
many words to present. This will depend on the following factors:

• the level of the learners (whether beginners, intermediate, or advanced)

• the learners’ likely familiarity' with the words (learners may have met the
words before even though they are not part of their active vocabulary)
• the difficulty of the items - whether, for example, they express abstract

75
How to Teach Vocabulary

rather than concrete meanings, or whether they are difficult to pronounce

• their ‘teachability’ - whether, for example, they can be easily explained or
demonstrated
• whether items are being learned for production (in speaking and writing)
or for recognition only (as in listening and reading). Since more time will
be needed for the former, the number of items is likely to be fewer than
if the aim is only recognition.

Furthermore, the number of new words presented should not overstretch

the learners’ capacity to remember them. Nor should the presentation
extend so far into the lesson that no time is available to put the words to
work (see the next chapter).
Coursebooks tend to operate on the principle that a vocabulary
presentation should include at most about a dozen items. Here, for example,
are the items listed in the presentation of clothes vocabulary in a currently
popular elementary coursebook (from Soars L and J, Headway Elementary,
OUP):

a jumper a shirt a T-shirt a dress a skirt

a jacket a suit a tie
trousers jeans trainers shoes boots

However, claims for the desirability of much higher vocabulary learning

targets have been made, especially by proponents of teaching methods that
subscribe to ‘whole person learning’, such as accelerated learning and
suggestopedia (a method first developed by Georgi Lozanov in Bulgaria).
Teachers following these methods use techniques of relaxation and
suggestion, in order to predispose the learner to massive amounts of input,
including literally hundreds of words in a session. Some of these claims may
be excessive, but it may also be a fact that conventional teaching methods
underestimate the learner’s capacity to retain new vocabulary. Incorporating
into lessons some of the basic principles of human memory (as outlined in
Chapter 2) may be a means of extending the somewhat conservative targets
set in coursebooks.
Having decided on the number of items to teach, there is then the choice
of the sequence of presentation, either:

? meaning first, then form, or

• form first, then meaning

In the first option the teacher could, for example, hold up a picture of a shirt
(the meaning), and then say It's a shirt (the form). In a ‘form first’
presentation she could say shirt a number of times, have the students repeat
rhe word, and only then point to the picture. Both approaches are valid.
There is an argument that presenting the meaning first creates a need for
the form, opening the appropriate mental ‘files’, and making the
presentation both more efficient and more memorable. On the other hand,
‘form first’ presentation works best when the words are presented in some
kind of context, so that the learners can work out the meaning for
themselves.

76
 5 • How to present vocabulary

The next set of choices relates to the means of presentation - whether to

present the meaning through:

• translation
• real things
• pictures
• actions/gcstures
• definitions
• situations

And whether to present the word in its:

• spoken form, or
• written form

and in what order (e.g. spoken before written) and how soon (e.g. delaying
the written form until the spoken form has been thoroughly learned).
There are also decisions to be made concerning the degree of learner
involvement. For example:

• should rhe teacher provide both the meaning and the form herself?
• should the teacher present the meaning and attempt to elicit the form?
• should the teacher present die form and attempt to elicit the meaning?
• should the learners repeat the form, and if so, when?

We will address all these issues in this chapter.

Using Traditionally, translation has been the most widely used means of
translation presenting the meaning of a word in monolingual classes. Translation has
the advantage of being the most direct route to a words meaning -
assuming that there is a close match between the target word and its LI
equivalent. It is therefore very economical, and especially suitable for
dealing with incidental vocabulary that may crop up in a lesson. However,
as we have seen, an over-reliance on translation may mean that learners fail
to develop an independent L2 lexicon, with the effect that they always
access L2 words by means of their LI equivalents, rather than directly. Also,
because learners don’t have to work very hard to access the meaning, it may
mean that the word is less memorable. A case of‘no pain, no gain’.
However, there are a number of different ways of incorporating
translation into the vocabulary presentation. Here, for example, are three
imaginary extracts in which the Spanish-speaking teacher is teaching her
Spanish-speaking students clothing vocabulary:

1 teacher: En inglespantaloncs se llaman trousers. Trousers. Ahora, todos

juntos ... [In English pantalones are called trousers. Trousers.
Now, all together ...J
students: Trousers.

2 teacher: Does anyone know rhe English for una camisat No? Listen,
it’s a shirt. Shirt. Repeat.
students: Shirt.

77
How to Teach Vocabulary

3 teacher: What’s this? [pointing to picture of a dress] Do you know

what this is in English? No? Listen, it’s a dress. Dress. Repeat.
students: Dress.
teacher: How do you say dress in Spanish? Marta?
marta: Falda.
teacher: That’s right.

In the first extract all the teacher’s talk is in Spanish. This effectively
deprives learners of valuable L2 input. Moreover, not much attempt is made
to involve the learners, apart from simply getting them to repeat the word.
In the second extract, the teacher uses only English (the target language),
apart from when Ll words are used to introduce meaning. They are thus
exposed to a lot more English than simply the target vocabulary items. In
the third extract, the presentation is entirely in English. Spanish is used only
to check that learners have understood.
Opinion is very much divided as to the merits of each approach. Here for
example, is an exchange on the subject of translation, between teachers
participating on an Internet discussion group (IATEFL Teacher Trainers
Special Interest Group Mailing List: ttsig^listbot.com):

[Derrin] On the Ll question. I, a native English speaker, frequendy find

myself using Ll to quickly clarify my Catalan students’ doubts as to the
meaning of unknown lexis in texts they are exposed to. I see little point
in walking around a room acting like a chicken for half an hour when you
can say ‘polio’.

[Dennis] Well, half an hour would be overdoing it (and are your students
THAT slow on the uptake?). But although there are clearly occasions
when a short, sharp translation is the most effective method of conveying
meaning, is it necessarily the most effective method of encouraging
learning? I bet if you did walk around the room acting like a chicken, even
for five minutes, saying: ‘I’m a chicken. I’m a chicken.’ your students
would never forget the English word for polio’. And if you acted laying
an egg, your fame would spread.

[Gulfem] Thanks to Dennis for his support ... Which reminds me of the
whole issue of teaching Young Learners. Surely Ll translation cannot be
acceptable in this case. I actually have become a chicken who lays golden
eggs (Jack and the Beanstalk) for the students’ benefit and much to their
delight: but that’s maybe because I’m female, middle-aged and well
rounded: call it type casting if you like!

How to An alternative to translation - and an obvious choice if presenting a set of

illustrate concrete objects such as clothes items - is to somehow illustrate or
meaning demonstrate them. This can be done either by using real objects (called
realia) or pictures or mime. The use of rcalia, pictures and demonstration
was a defining technique of the Direct Method. The Direct Method, in
rejecting the use of translation, developed as a reaction to such highly
intellectual approaches to language learning as Grammar-Translation. Here,

78
 5 • How io present vocabulary

for example, is advice for teachers from a popular Direct Method course of
the 1940s:

HOW TO TEACH THE NAMES OF OBJECTS

The usual procedure is as follows.

The teacher first selects a number of objects, in batches of say from 10

to 20. [...] 'Hie objects may be
(a) those that are usually found in the place where the lesson is given,
e.g. door, window, knife, match, book; or parts of the body or articles of
clothing.
(b) those collected specially for the purposes of the lesson, e.g. a stick,
a stone, a nail, a piece of wire, a piece of string etc.
(c) those represented by pictures, such as those printed on picture cards
or wall charts, or by rough drawings on the blackboard.
The teacher shows or points to each object in turn and names it. He
says the name clearly (but naturally) three or four times. [...] When the
pupils have had sufficient opportunity to hear the words and sentences
(and to grasp their meaning) they are called upon to say them. In the
first instance they may repeat them after the teacher ...

(from Palmer H, The Teaching of Oral English, Longman)

Such an approach is especially appropriate if teaching beginners, and with

mixed nationality classes, where translation is not an option. It is also a
technique that has been reclaimed by practitioners of Total Physical
Response (TPR), a method that promotes initial immersion in a high
quantity of comprehensible input. In making use of the immediate
environment of the classroom, and of things that can be brought into the
classroom, the intention is to replicate the experience of learning one’s
mother tongue. A TPR lesson typically involves the teacher demonstrating
actions, using real objects, and then getting the learners to perform the same
or similar actions in response to commands. Typical classroom commands
might be:

Point to the apple.

Put the banana next to the apple.
Give the apple to Natasha.
Offer the banana to Maxim.
etc.
(Plastic fruit and vegetables are ideal for this kind of activity'.)

Visual aids take many forms: flashcards (published and home-made), wall
charts, transparencies projected on to the board or wall using the overhead
projector, and board drawings. Many teachers collect their own sets of
flashcards from magazines, calendars, etc. Especially useful are pictures of
items belonging to the following sets: food and drink, clothing, house interiors
andfurniture, landscapes/exteriors, forms of transport plus a wide selection of
pictures of people, sub-divided into sets such as jobs, nationalities, sports.

79
How to Teach Vocabulary

activities and appearance (tall, strong, sad, healthy, old, etc). Not only can such
pictures be used to present new vocabulary items, but they can be used to
practise them.
The use of pictures or objects as prompts for vocabulary teaching can be
enhanced if some basic principles of memory are taken into account,
including the principle of distributed practice (see page 24). In teaching a
set of, say, ten clothing items, it is important to keep reviewing the
previously introduced items, preferably in a varying order - something like
this:

present shirt
present jacket
present trousers
review shirt
review trousers
present dress
review jacket
present sweater
review dress
review shirt
present socks
etc.

Another principle underlying effective memorisation is, as much as is

possible, to allow learners to work at their own pace. In this way they can
form associations and think of mnemonic devices that are personally
relevant, and appropriate to the degree of difficulty die word is causing
them. This is more likely to happen if they are working on their own or in
small groups. But by building pauses into a teacher-led presentation, the
teacher can provide learners with time to ‘catch up’ and to reflect.
Here, by way of example, are some activities using flashcards:

Ц The teacher shows cards one at a time, and cither elicits or says the
word it represents. As a rule of thumb, about ten unfamiliar words is
probably sufficient. Periodically the teacher backtracks and changes
the order (see above). Finally, stick all the cards on to the board, and
write the words alongside (or ask learners to come up and write them).

В Stick a collection of picture cards (e.g. clothes) on the board and

number diem. (If you arc working round a large table, place the cards
face up on the table.) Invite learners to ask you about the words they
are unfamiliar with. For example: What's number 6? Check to see if
someone else knows before giving the answer. When students are
sufficiently familiar go through them all, asking, What’s number 8? etc.
As a check, turn the cards around, one at a time, so that they can’t be
seen, and again ask What’s number 8? Finally, write the words on the
board alongside each picture.

80
 5 • How to present vocabulary

Ш Stick a selection of cards on the board and allow learners to use

bilingual dictionaries to find the words they represent. They can then
write the words adjacent to the pictures.

В Give pairs or groups of three a selection of cards each. They can use
bilingual dictionaries to find out the word for each picture. Then,
representatives from each group can ‘teach’ the rest of the class the
words they have discovered, using the visual aids.

VB Show the class a wall chart or a large picture containing many different
' items (e.g. a street scene or an airport) for a short period of time, say
ten seconds. Individually or in pairs, the learners then have to write
down as many words - in English - as they can remember having seen
represented in the picture. Allow them to use dictionaries. Show the
picture again for another few seconds, to let them extend their lists of
words. Reveal the picture for die checking stage: the individual or pair
with the most correct words is the winner.

How to explain Of course, reliance on real objects, illustration, or demonstration, is limited.

meaning It is one thing to mime a chicken, but quite another to physically represent
the meaning of a word like intuition or become or trustworthy. Also, words
frequently come up incidentally, words for which the teacher won’t have
visual aids or realia at hand. An alternative way of conveying the meaning
of a new word is simply to use words - other words. This is the principle
behind dictionary definitions. Non-visual, verbal means of clarifying
meaning include:

• providing an example situation

* giving several example sentences
• giving synonyms, antonyms, or superordinate terms
* giving a hill definition

All of the above procedures can be used in conjunction, and also in

combination with visual means such as board drawings or mime. Although
a verbal explanation may take a little longer than using translation, or visuals
or mime, the advantages are that the learners are getring extra ‘free’ listening
practice, and, by being made to work a little harder to get to the meaning of
a word, they may be more cognitively engaged. Obviously, it is important,
when using words in order to define other words, that the defining words
themselves are within the learners’ current range. Doctor Johnson’s
definition of a net in his famous dictionary is an example of what not to say
in the classroom: Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances with
interstices between the intersections!
A situational presentation involves providing a scenario which clearly
contextualises the target word (or words). Here, for example, is a situation
for teaching embarrassed!embarrassing’.

81
How to Teach Vocabulary

Catherine saw a man at the bus stop. His back was turned but she was
sure it was her brother, so she tapped him on the shoulder with her
umbrella and shouted ‘Look out! The police are after you!’ The man
turned around. He was a complete stranger.
SHE WAS TERRIBLY EMBARRASSED. IT WAS A VERY
EMBARRASSING EXPERIENCE.
(from O’Neill R, English in Situations, OUP)

Reinforcing a situational presentation with pictures, board drawings, or

gesture makes it more intelligible, and perhaps more memorable. More
memorable still is the situation that comes directly from the experience of
the people in the room - whether the teacher or students. In other words,
the teacher could tell her own story of when she was embarrassed, and then
invite the students to tell their own. Again, the extra ‘free’ speaking and
listening practice justifies the relatively long time spent on just one or two
items of vocabulary.
An alternative to the situational approach is to provide students with
example sentences, each one being a typical instance of the target word in
context. This is not dissimilar to the way concordances can be used (see page
70). From the cumulative effect of the sentences the students should be able
to hypothesise the meaning of the target word - using induction: the
mental process of hypothesising from examples. Here is a teacher giving
sentence examples for the word fancy.

t: Listen to these sentences and see if you can work out what die verb
fancy means: Number one: He's really nice, but I don'tfancy him. [pause]
Two: 1fancy eating out tonight. Don't you? [pause] Three: Do you fancy
a cup of coffee? [pause] Four: /йису a drink? [pause] Five: That guy on
the dancefloor - he reallyfancies himself [pause] And six: I never really
fancied package holidays much, [pause] OK, talk to your neighbour and
then I’ll read them again ...

Allow the students as many hearings of the sentences as they think they
need before they are confident enough to venture an answer. (For
particularly difficult words, it may help if the learners write the sentences
down.) Depending on whether the class is monolingual or not, the teacher
can then elicit a mother tongue translation of the target word, or,
alternatively a synonym or definition.
One advantage of this approach is that the learners hear the word several
times, increasing the likelihood of retention in memory. Another advantage
is that they hear the word in a variety of typical contexts (rather than just
one) so they can start to get a feel for its range of uses as well as its typical
collocations {z.’g. fancy a drink). Finally, they get information on the word’s
form and grammar - whether, for example, it is irregular or transitive (if a
verb), or countable (if a noun). It may seem to involve quite a lot of
preparation for the teacher, but consulting dictionaries and corpora for
examples of the target words in context can help reduce planning time.
Very often a quick explanation, using a synonym {fancy' - it means 'like'),

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 5 • How to present vocabulary

antonym (outgoing - it's the opposite of'shy, introverted*} or a supcrordinate

term (a herring' is a kind of fish), will serve, especially in incidental
vocabulary work. This is particularly useful when glossing (explaining)
words that come up in texts.
More elaborate definitions, such as those in dictionaries, require more
effort on the part of both teacher and learner. Lexicographers (dictionary
writers) spend a great deal of time agonising over definitions, so there is no
reason to think that teachers will find them any easier. Fortunately, learners’
dictionaries phrase their definitions in language chat offers teachers a
reliable model, should they need one. Here, for example, is the definition for
petrify from two dictionaries - first, a conventional dictionary and, second,
a learners’ dictionary.

Р«'ігіГу г. 1. £./. change into stone; (fig.) paralyse or

stupefy with astonishment, tenor, etc., {juitifud wtth
jtai etc.); deprive (mind, doctrine, etc.) of vitality. 2.
t ' turn into stone (lit. or fig.). (Г. F ptlrifier f. med. L
(■rtnjxart f. 1.1'. Gk pitta rock; sec -fy] (from the Concise Oxford
Dictionary}

petrify /pctrifai/, petrifies, petrifying, petri­

fied. I If something petrifies you, it makes you feel v.o
very frightened indeed, perhaps so frightened that
you cannot move, so The warning whistle started to ~ ernn'
blow. The sound petrified him. о petrified, во If i о лы^ишт
hadn't been alone I wouldn't have been nearly so ” lennfled
petrified.
2 When something dead petrifies, it gradually vdw
changes into stone. « petrified, to The mountain о aw xw ;
range loomed menacingly like some petrified prehis- xma
toric monster, о petrification /p€tnfiket/?n/. о kuncowi
3 If something such as a society or Institution v*>o
petrifies or if something else petrifies it. It ceases to ” «іадпаіе
change and develop; a formal use. во Militarism and
xenophobia petrified the social order. if civiliza­
tion was not to wither or petrify, о petrification, во $ nuncowt
These statements, taken too literally, lead to the “ stagnation (from the Collins
petrification of meaning. COBUILD English
Dictionary}

A variant of the definition approach is to present a layered definition - that

is, one that is segmented into several short statements, each one including
rhe target word. This is similar to the example sentences approach
mentioned above, but in this case the sentences are discrete components of
a huger definition. For example:

t: If you feel petrified you are ver}- very frightened. Someone can be
petrified by fear. Petrified literally means turned to stone. Petrified
wood is wood that has become stone. In some places you can see
petrified forests.

In this way, the meaning - and shades of meaning - of a word are built up
piece by piece, with the added advantage that the learners hear the target
word not only in context, but repeated (in the above example five times).

83
 How to Teach Vocabulary

In reality, most teachers draw on a range of techniques - situations,

synonyms, example sentences, etc. - in their presentations of word meaning.
Here, for example, is an extract from a lesson in which the teacher uses a
variety of means - including words that the students are already familiar
with - to introduce petrified:

t: OK is anyone very frightened of ghosts? Would you be frightened if

you saw a ghost? Frightened. OK, I know if I saw, for example, if I saw
a ghost, there is one feeling I would feel. I would feel frightened.
[writes] But even more thanfrightened, how would you feel if you saw
a ghost? More than frightened, stronger, than frightened.
s: Terrified.
t: Good, terrified, [writes] Terrified. Anything even stronger than
terrified? A word in English. Even, really, you're so frightened you’re ...
s: Scared?
t: That's not, that’s the same as frightened. There’s something that’s
stronger.
s: Astonished.
t: Astonished. Astonished is a little bit more like surprised. I think -
terrified', there’s an even stronger word, which would be petrified.
[writes] And it means when you are so frightened that you can’t speak,
you can’t think, and you can't move. You’re absolutely/ѵ/п/W. And I
think if I saw a ghost 1 would probably be [laughs] probably be
petrified, being the rather pathetic soul that I am.

Finally, it’s worth emphasising that learning the meaning of a word - or

learning anything, for that matter - is a process of gradual approximation.
Even in our first language, it may take a long period of‘fuzziness’ before we
feel comfortable about using certain words. It is probably asking too much
of teachers to expect them to clarify every nuance of a word’s meaning at
first encounter. Better that they orientate their learners in the general
direction of a word’s meaning, while equipping them with the skills and the
motivation to continue exploring the further reaches of that word’s
‘semantic space’.

How to In Chapter 2 we noted rhe fact that the sound of words, as much as their
highlight the meaning, determines the wav they are stored in rhe mental lexicon. The fact
form that like-sounding words are often confused (tambourines for trampolines, or
chicken for kitchen, for example) is evidence of this. This suggests that
highlighting the spoken form of a word is very important in terms of
ensuring it is appropriately stored. This in turn means drawing learners’
attention to the way the word sounds.
Words seem to be stored and accessed primarily according to their overall
syllable structure and stress. Hence it is easy to confuse tambourine and
trampoline because they have the same general shape, despite some
differences of individual sounds. This suggests that highlighting the stress
and general shape of the word is a useful aid to retention and deserves as
much attention as the individual sounds.

84
 5 • How to present vocabulary

There are a number of ways of highlighting t he spoken form of the word.

Essentially these arc:

• listening drills
• oral drills
• boardwork

Having established the meaning of a new word, the teacher can model it
using listening drills. A drill is any repetition of a short chunk of language.
In this case, it is the teacher who does the repeating, so as to accustom the
learners to the phonological features of the word. Customarily, this takes the
form ol a clear but natural enunciation of the word (or words), usually
preceded by some sort of cue, such as ‘Listen ...’. This is repeated two or
three times. To draw learners’ attention to the syllable structure and stress of
the word, this modelling process can be accompanied by some kind of visual
stimulus, such as using the fingers of one hand to represent the different
syllables.
The teacher can also ask the class to identify the stressed syllable. The
question Where's the stress? is a good one for learners to get used to. One wav
of introducing the idea of stress - in rhe first lesson, for example - is to ask
the learners to say how man}’ syllables there are in their own names, and
which of these syllables is stressed. (Of course, if it’s a one-svllable name,
the stress will be on that one syllable.)
In drill-and-repeat type methodologies, such as audiolingualism, it would
then be customary for learners to repeat the new word, both in chorus and
individually, in order to reinforce it in memon' More recently, the value of
simply repeating newly introduced language - especially grammatical
structures - has been questioned. Some writers argue that the requirement
to ‘get one’s tongue round it’ may distract from the cognitive work involved
in getting one’s mind round it’. As we saw in Chapter 2 (sec page 23), we
forget words quickly if there is any interference or interruption of the
articulatory loop (the process of subvocal repetition on which working
memory depends). This suggests that allowing learners two or three seconds
‘processing’ time between hearing a new word and saying it might have
benefits in terms of retention in memory. One way of encouraging
subvocalisation is sometimes known as a mumble drill. At a cue from the
teacher, learners mumble or mutter the word to themselves ar their own
pace. Evidence suggests that subvocalisation is a technique that successful
learners use naturally (see page 161), so it may be one worth establishing as
standard classroom practice.
However, to withhold production indefinitely is likely to frustrate
learners, whose instinct is often to have a go at repeating a new word
themselves. And nothing gives learners a better feel for the shape of a word
than saying it - even if the teachers intention is to teach the word for
recognition only. It may be appropriate, therefore, to get learners to vocalise
the new words, after they have first sub vocalised them, by means ot choral
or individual repetition, i.e. drilling.

85
How to Teach Vocabulary

Features of rhe words pronunciation can also be highlighted using the

board. Many teachers use some kind of symbol - such as a small box - to
indicate where the primary stress is placed.

pe+n-Ficd
Providing learners with a transcription of the word using phonemic script
is another wav of highlighting the pronunciation visually. The phonemic
transcription offrightened is /fraitond/.
Use of phonemic symbols also avoids the potentially negative effects of
sound-spelling mismatches (but see below). Of course, this assumes learners
are familiar with phonemic script. If they are not, they may find the extra
learning load daunting, especially if they are still getting used to Roman
script (as may be the case for learners whose mother tongue uses a different
script). On the other hand, there is no great mystery to phonemic script,
especially reading it (as opposed to writing it). Most of the consonant
sounds are easily decipherable so it is mainly a task of getting to know how
the many English vowel sounds are represented - a task that can be spread
over a number of lessons, if necessary. Also, the fact that all good learner
dictionaries use a standardised form of phonemic script means that further
reinforcement can be provided by dictionary' activities that focus on
pronunciation (see page 66). (For a detailed reference chart of English
sounds and the way they are produced, see Appendix A in Gerald Kelly’s
How to Teach Pronunciation, in this series.)
How soon should learners meet the written form of a new word?
Traditionally, it was felt that meeting die written form too soon would
interfere with correct pronunciation habits. This is specially the case in
English (it was argued), where sound-spelling matches are notoriously
unreliable. Learners who are pronouncing words like cupboard, suit, and
island perfecdy correctly, having only heard them, often regress to ‘cup­
board’, ‘sweet’ and ‘is-land’, once exposed to the written form. On these
grounds, presentation of the written form used to be delayed until learners
were thoroughly familiar with the spoken form.
However, the counter argument runs diat - since learners are going to
meet the written form eventually ~ it may be better to deal with any
sound-spelling mismatches head on, and get these difficulties out of the way
sooner rather than later. After all, learners are likely to form a mental
representation of the probable spelling of new words as soon as they first
hear them, so it is better that this mental representation is an accurate one.
Moreover, the sound-spelling irregularities in English are often overstated.
It is true that there are some extremely unreliable spellings (the -ougb family
being the most commonly cited). But the vast majority of words in English
conform to a fairly small set of rules. Avoiding die issue by withholding the
written form may deprive learners of die opportunity of observing these
regularities for themselves. A useful strategy, therefore, might be to ask
learners, soon after hearing a new word, to attempt to spell it. (Or, if the first

86
 5 • How to present vocabulary

meeting is with the written form, to attempt to pronounce it.) If they are
having trouble doing this, the teacher can prompt them by reminding them
of familiar words with a similar pronunciation or spelling. In Chapter 9 we
will look at some useful spelling rules that can be taught to learners.
But there is an even more important reason for being introduced to rhe
written form as soon as possible. Crucial clues to meaning are often much
easier to identify in the written form than in the spoken form of the word.
In speaking, sounds tend to merge, or are even dropped entirely, such that
even in carefully articulated speech a word like handbag sounds like harnbag,
and police station comes out as plee station. In the absence of key
morphological information (like hand- and police) learners have nothing to
attach the new word to - or nowhere to ‘file’ it - and therefore find it
difficult to understand and remember. So the effort involved in learning it
is that much greater. Many experienced teachers will be familiar with rhe
surprised look of recognition on students’ faces once they see the written
form of a word they have been labouring to make sense of. Depriving them
of this form may be counterproductive.

How to involve The word ‘presentation has connotations of teacher as transmitter, and
the learners learners as passive recipients, of language facts. But, as was pointed out in
Chapter 2 (page 30), ‘learners need to be actively involved in the learning of
words’. How can learners be given more involvement in the presentation
phase of word learning?
One technique that has already been mentioned in this chapter is
elicitation. A standard elicitation procedure is for the teacher to present the
meaning of a word (e.g. by showing a picture) and asking learners to supply
the form:

t: (showing picture of waterfall) What’s this? Tomas?

s: Cataract?
t: Not exactly. Elena?
s: Waterfall?
t: Good.

Alternatively, the teacher can supply the word, and elicit a definition,
synonym or example:

t: What’s a waterfall? Anyone?

s: Like Niagara?
t: Yes, exactly.

This second procedure, going from form to meaning, is typical of text-based

vocabulary work. It also occurs when words come up naturally in classroom
talk (see, for example, the extract of classroom talk on page 50).
The rationale underlying elicitation is that:

• it actively involves the learners in the lesson

• it maximises speaking opportunities
• it keeps the learners alert and attentive

87
How to Teach Vocabulary

• it challenges better learners who might otherwise ‘turn off’

• it acts as a way of checking the learners’ developing understanding
• in the case of form-first presentations it encourages learners to use
contextual clues

If overused, however, many of the advantages of elicitation may be lost. First

of all, only the better learners may be involved in the process, while the
others remain passive bystanders. The use of names (or nominating) when
eliciting is one way round this: /Ttor a ‘waterfall? Etsuko? or Sylvia, how do
you say 'kolega' in English?
Prolonged elicitation sequences can end up being very frustrating for
learners if they simply don't know rhe answers die teacher is seeking - a
cross between a quiz show and a police interrogation. Finally, if all or most
of the teacher’s questions are elicitation questions, the quality of
teacher-student talk can become compromised. After all, in the outside
world, we seldom spend a lot of conversational time asking questions for
which we already know rhe answer (like What's a waterfall?) There are times
when learners need exposure to ‘real’ questions, such as What's the biggest
waterfallyou've ever seen?
This suggests that another important way of involving learners is to have
them personalise the new words. Personalisation is simply the process of
using the new word in a context that is real for the learner personally. The
point was made, in Chapter 2 (page 30), that ‘memory of new words can be
reinforced if they are used to express personally relevant meanings’. There
are many ways of doing this. Here are some ideas:

B- Ask learners to write a true sentence using the new word, preferably
Z appbring it to themselves or someone they know - more easily done
with words like frightened and embarrassed than perhaps words like
waterfall. To help, provide a sentence frame, such as 77л? last time Ifelt
frightened was when ... Or The biggest waterfall I have ever seen ...

В Learners write questions for other learners, incorporating the new

word. For example: What makes you embarrassed!frightened? They
exchange questions, write the answers, and then report to the rest of
the class.

Ё Ask learners to make an association network centred on the new

word. That is, they connect the word to other words that they associate
with it, however far-fetched, drawing a diagram in the manner of the
example opposite. They then compare their networks with those of
other students, asking about, and explaining, the associations. Here, for
example, is the association network produced by one student for the
word zr$n:

88
 5 • How to present vocabulary

© If teaching a lexical set such as food items, or forms of transport, or

jobs, or kinds of film, ask the learners to rank the items in order of
personal preference - from most preferred to least preferred. For
example, drama., thriller, musical, western, costume drama, horror movie
... Then, in pairs, they compare and explain their rankings.

Finally, an alternative to teacher presentation - and one that maximally

involves learners - is peer teaching, i.e. learners teaching each other
vocabulary. One way of doing this is through an information gap activity
This is an activity in which information is distributed between students in
pairs or small groups. In order to complete a task, students must exchange
information in order to ‘fill the information gap’. If the information also
includes words whose meaning is known only to individual members of the
group, the information exchange will require members to teach each other
those words.

89
How to Tench Vocabulary

Vi For example, imagine each member of a pair has one of the following
pictures:

cooker

dishwasher

90
 5 • How to present vocabulary

The aim is to exchange information about the pictures in order to find

the ten differences. At some stage this will involve students using the
words that have been glossed at the bottom of their picture - for
example jug in Picture A. Because their partner does not have the word
for jug, (and in all likelihood will not know it) he or she will have to
ask for an explanation. A probable sequence might go like this:
student 1: Is there a jug on the table in your picture?
student 2: A what?
STUDENT 1: A jug.
student 2: What is jug’?
student 1: A jug is a thing for keep water or milk,
STUDENT 2: Ah. Yes. I have one - what is called - judge?
student 1: Jug. J-U-G.
student 2: Yes, there is one jug on the table in my picture,
etc.

The extra effort put into negotiating the meaning and form ol the
unfamiliar words pays off in terms of learning. Note, for a start, how
many times the word jug was used. Research suggests that negotiation
of word meaning in this way is a very' powerful learning tool, and is
more memorable, on the whole, than teacher presentation. In order to
maximise its usefulness, it may help if learners have been taught some
simple defining expressions, such as It's a thing you use for ... Its made
of... It looks like ...

Other ways of setting up peer teaching tasks include:

Give each student in a group a card (or cards) with a different word on
it, the meaning of the word being provided in the form, for example,
of a translation, synonym or picture. Students have to study their
card(s) silently and learn their words. Then the group is given a task
which involves using the words. For example, it might be a storv-
construction activity, in which students have to order sentences, each
of which contains one of the targeted words. To do the task, each
student would have to explain to the other members of the group the
words that they have just studied.

R Alternatively, they are asked to categorise the words on the cards into
groups, or to rank them according to some criteria. They might, for
example, be objects which are ranked according to their usefulness on
a desert island. In order to do this task, students will first need to teach
each other the words they have learned individually.

® Each student is given a list of six to eight words, with their translations
or definitions. For example, one student may get the following: check
in, boarding pass, duty f ee, luggage, security check, departure gate, etc.
Another may get: camp Jire, frying pan, pocket knife, matches, backpack,
etc. They have to work these words into a short narrative. They then
tell each other their narrative, explaining any unfamiliar words as the)’
go along.

91
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Conclusions In this chapter we looked at techniques and procedures which involve

direct teacher intervention in the teaching of pre-selected items of
vocabulary. Among the choices available to the teacher when
planning a vocabulary presentation are the following:
• how many words to present at a time
• whether to present the meaning of words first or the form first
• whether to use translation as the means of presenting meaning, or
• whether to use some form of illustration, such as realia, visual aids,
or mime, or
• whether to use a verbal means of presentation, such as an example
situation, example sentences, synonyms, or definitions
• how to present the spoken form and whether this should involve
student repetition
• how soon to present the written form
• how, and to what extent, to involve the learners in the
presentation, through the use of elicitation, personalisation, and
peer teaching, for example
Some of the conclusions reached include the following:
• the number of words that can be learned is constrained by factors
such as word difficulty, but need not be limited to only a few words
• establishing the meaning of a new word first and then presenting
its form is a standard approach
• translation is an economical way of presenting meaning but may
not be the most memorable
• illustrating meaning is effective, but is limited to certain kinds of
words
• explaining meaning verbally is time-consuming but can be effective
if explanations are kept clear and simple
• the spoken form can be highlighted through the giving of clear
models, the use of phonemic script, and repetition
• the written form should not be withheld too long
• learners should be actively involved in the presentation

Looking ahead Presenting words is only the tip of the iceberg. To ensure that learners
get to 'know' these words to the extent outlined in Chapter 2, they
will need plentiful opportunities to engage with these words in a
variety of contexts, and to 'put these words to work' - the theme of
the chapter that follows.

92
 How to put words
-Уг
id work
• Integrating new knowledge into old
• Decision-making tasks
• Production tasks
• Games

Integrati ng Traditionally, the presentation ol new language items would swiftly be

new followed by the practice of these items. This practice would typically take
knowledge the form of some of kind of oral repetition, such as a drill. This notion of
mechanical practice underlies the popular belief that ‘practice makes
into old
perfect’. However, as we saw in Chapter 2, simply repeating newly learned
words is no guarantee that they will move from the short-term memory
store into permanent memory. New knowledge - i.e. new words - needs to
be integrated into existing knowledge - i.e. the learners’ existing network of
word associations, or what we called the mental lexicon. As we also saw in
the discussion on memory', there is a greater likelihood of the word being
integrated into this network if many‘deep’ decisions have been made about
it. In other words, to ensure long-term retention and recall, words need to
be ‘put to work’. They need to be placed in working memory, and subjected
to different operations. Such operations might include: being taken apart
and put back together again, being compared, combined, matched, sorted,
visualised and re-shuffled, as well as being repeatedly filed away' and recalled
(since the more often a word is recalled, the easier recall becomes). In this
chapter we will look ar a range of activity types designed to do just that.
They might best be thought of as integration activities, rather than ‘practice
activities’ or ‘reinforcement activities’, since both these latter terms have
associations with a more mechanical, less cognitive, approach to language
teaching.

Decision­ There are many different kinds of tasks that teachers can set learners in
making tasks order to help move words into long-term memory. Some of these tasks will
require more brain work than others. That is to say, they will be more
cognitively demanding. Tasks in which learners make decisions about words
can be divided into the following types, roughly arranged in an order from
least cognitively demanding to most demanding:

• identifying
• selecting
• matching

93
How to Teach Vocabulary

• sorting
• ranking and sequencing
The more of these task types that can be performed on a set of words the
better. In other words, an identification task could be followed by a
matching task, which in turn could be followed by a ranking task.
Identifying words simply means finding them where they may otherwise
be ‘hidden, such as in texts.

B. Here, for example, are some identification tasks relating to the text
Fear ofFlying (on page 42). Give the learners the text and ask them to:
• Count the number of times plane(s) and occur in the text.
• Find four words connected with flying in the text.
• Find five phrasal verbs in the text.
• Find eight comparative adjectives in the text.
• Underline all the words ending in in the text.
Ask them to read the text, then turn it over, and then ask:
• ‘Did the following words occur in the text?’
busy crowded fast dangerous uncomfortable
dirty convenient inconvenient noisy

• ‘Now check the text to see if you were right.’

Listening out for particular words in a spoken or recorded text is also a form
of identification activity. Below is a selection of identification tasks based on
this text:
Д OK, that’s Mr Brown. He’s wearing a jacket and trousers, no tie, and
he’s talking to the woman with the long dark hair - she’s wearing a
black dress. Now Mrs Brown is over there. She’s wearing a skirt and a
blouse, and she’s talking to a tall man with fair hair. And their son,
Richard ... yes, there he is, he’s over in the corner. He’s wearing jeans
and a T-shirt - he’s the one with very short hair.
(from Doff A and Jones C, Language in Use (Beginner Workbook), CUP)

• List all the clothes items that you hear.

• Raise your hand when you hear a clothes item.
• Put these items in the order that you hear them:
blouse tie skirt jeans jacket T-shirt dress trousers

• Tick the items that you hear:

blouse shoes tie shorts skirt socks jeans jacket hat
T-shirt dress trousers suit shirt

• Listen for clothes words and write them in the correct column:

Mr Brown Mrs Brown Richard

94
 6 ♦ How to put words to work

Identification is also the process learners apply in tasks in which they have
to unscramble anagrams (such as и/м, snajc, eti - for suit, jeans, tie), or when
they have to search for words in. a word soup’, such as the following (also
from Language in Use):

1 What arc these cloches in English?

The answers art all in the wordsquare.

Selecting tasks are cognitively more complex than identification tasks, since
they involve both recognising words and making choices amongst them.
This may take the form of choosing the ‘odd one out’, as in this task (again,
based on the lexical set of clothes):

95
How to Teach Voca salary

Choose the odd one out in each group:

1 trousers socks jeans T-shirt
2 blouse skirt tie dress
3 T-shirt 5uit shorts trainers
etc..
Note that with this kind of activity, there is no ‘right’ answer necessarily.
What is important is that learners arc able to justify their choice, whatever
their answer. It is the cognitive work that counts - not getting the right
answer.
Here is another open-ended selection task, with a personalised element:

1 Work in pairs. Choose five words 2 Think of three people you

to describe yourself. Use a admire very much. They can be
dictionary if necessary, politicians, musicians, sports
personalities etc. or people you
careful interesting clever cold
know personally. Choose the
confident fit funny imaginative
person you admire most and
intelligent kind lazy nervous
think of three adjectives to
optimistic patient pessimistic
describe this person.
polite quiet calm rude sad
sensitive nice serious tidy Then choose the second and
thoughtful third person you admire and
think of three more adjectives
Think of other words you can for each person to explain why.
use.
honest, friendly...

Discuss your choice of words with

your partner.
I think Гт usually optimistic.
And Гт always polite!
from Grcenall S, Reward
Does he/she agree with you? Pre-Intermediate, Macn dllan
Heinemann

Another useful selecting task that can be applied to any vocabulary lesson
is:
Choose five (or ten or twenty) words from this lesson to learn. Think
of how you will demonstrate - in the next class - that you have learned
them.

The same kind of task can be applied to any text that the learners have read
or listened to. And, as a way of recycling vocabulary items from previous
lessons, learners can select words from their notebooks to ‘test’ their
classmates at the beginning of each lesson.

96
 6 • How to put words to work

A matching task involves first recognising words and then pairing them
with - for example - a visual representation, a translation, a synonym, an
antonym, a definition, or a collocate. As an example of this last type, here is
a verb-noun matching task:

WORD PAIR RACE

In five minutes, write as many correct pairs of verb +
noun phrases as possible.

Ьоо^

do fait win

VERBS
take
6° 'oofcfike

s/»Oot

put on

nlm

a seat-belt NOUNS
3/1 exam
a photo reseaf'ch

a match

your father
from Oxenden C and
Latham-Koenig C,
English F ile
Intermediate, OUP

Pelmanism is a memory game which involves nothing but matching. Word

pairs (or picture-word matches) are printed on individual cards which are
placed face down in a random distribution. Players take turns to pick up a
card and then search for its partner. If they correctly locate the partner
(initially by guesswork, but, as the game progresses, by remembering where
individual cards are located), they keep the pair, and have another turn. If

97
How to Teach Vocabulary

not, they lay the cards face down where they found them, and the next
player has a turn. The player with the most pairs at the end of the game is
the winner. Typical pairs might be:

" antonyms (tall - short, thick - thin, dark - light, etc.)

• British and American equivalents (bill- check, pharmacy - drugstore, lift -
elevator, etc.), or
• collocations (wide + awake, stark + naked,fast + asleep, etc.)

Sorting activities require learners to sort words into different categories.

1 he categories can either be given, or guessed. Here is an example of the
former (from Thornburv S, Highlight Pre-Intermediate, Heinemann):

Word field: characteristics

2 Put these adjectives into two groups - positive and negative.

emotional friendly good-humoured outgoing

confident ambitious rude self-centred
offensive kind selfish nice

Ь Here is an activity in which learners (at a fairly advanced level) decide

the categories themselves:

Put these words into four groups of three words each. Then, think of
a title for each group.

goal net piece club racket shoot board green

court hole pitch referee check serve tee move

Now, can you add extra words to each group?

Finally, ranking and sequencing activities require learners to put the words
into some kind of order. This may involve arranging the words on a cline:
for example, adverbs of frequency (always, sometimes, never, occasionally,
often, etc). Or learners may be asked to rank items according to preference:

F Imagine you have just moved into a completely empty flat. You can
afford to buy one piece of furniture a week. Put the following items in
the order in which you would buy diem:

fridge bed desk dining table sofa

wardrobe chair dishwasher bookcase cooker
washing machine chest of drawers

Now, compare your list with another student and explain your order. If
you were sharing the flat together, would you agree? If not, make a new
list that you both agree about.

Here is an example of a ranking activity (from Morgan J and Rinvolucri M,

Vocabulary, OUP) that can be adapted to different levels by changing the
selected words:

98
 6 ■ How to put words to work

D/13 Classifying knowledge

LEVEL Intermediate to Advanced

TIME 20-30 minutes

IN CLASS 1 Put the students in threes and ask them to rank the following types
of skill/knowlcdgc (a) for their usefulness in everyday life; (b) in terms
of the value of qualifications that might be gained through acquiring
such knowledge.
tooth care soil chemistry surgery psychiatry arithmetic
micro-computing knitting geometry plain cookery
darning league football literary criticism music
nuclear physics cordon bleu cookery pop music
servicing a motor car ancient Greek carpentry
road safety filling in tax forms
2 Ask the threes to come together into nines and compare their
rankings.

Ordering items chronologically is another way of getting students to make

judgements about words. For example:

Put the following words in the order in which they typically happen in
your country:

graduate get married be born get divorced get engaged

die retire leave home have children re-marry start school

Any sequence of activities - from starting a car to buying a home - lends

itself to the same treatment. Here, for example, is a task that focuses on the
language of air travel (from Garton-Sprenger J and Greenall S, Flying
Colours 2y Heinemann):

Work in pairs. Think about what people do when they travel by plane.
Put the actions below in the correct column.

before the flight after the flight

chexJc cn the pkisiz

leave the plane check in

land collect your baggage
unfasten your seatbelt go through passport control
go into the departure lounge listen to the safety instructions
go to the departure gate go through customs
fasten your seatbelt board the plane
go through passport control go into the arrivals hall

Number the actions in the order people do them.

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How to Teach Vocabulary

Note that there may not be a ‘right answer’ in a ranking or sequencing task,
but that the exercise of making the choices and - even better - comparing
them with a classmates choices, is good ‘brain work’.

Production The decision-making tasks we have been looking at are principally

tasks receptive: learners make judgements about words, but don’t necessarily
produce them. (Of course, they can then become production tasks by the
simple expedient of inviting the learners to talk about these judgements.)
However, tasks that are productive from the outset are those in which the
learners are required to incorporate the newly studied words into some kind
of speaking or writing activity. These can be classified as being of two main
types:

• completion - of sentences and texts

• creation - of sentences and texts

Sentence and text completion tasks are what are more generally known as
gap-fills. They arc usually writing tasks and they are often used in tests (see
Chapter 8) as they are easy to design and mark. They have many different
formats, but a basic distinction can be made between open and closed gap-
fills. The open type is one where the learner fills the gaps by drawing on
their mental lexicon. (There may be a clue, though, such as the first letter of
the word.) In a closed gap-fill, on the other hand, the words are provided,
in the form of a list at the beginning of the exercise, for example. It is simply
a matter of deciding which word goes in which gap.
Here are some example instructions for open and closed gap-fill tasks:

• Complete the text by writing an appropriate word in each space:

‘Greta Garbo, the Swedish-born film , was born in 1905. She won
a scholarship to drama school, where she learned to . In 1924 a
film director chose her for a in a Swedish film called ...’
• Choose the best word from the list to complete each sentence. Use
each word once ...

• Select words from the list to complete these sentences. Note that there
are more words than sentences ...
• Choose words from the text you have just read to complete these
sentences ...
• Choose the best word to complete each sentence:
1 When 1 feel tired, I can’t stop .
a sneezing
b yawning
c coughing
d weeping
etc.

Note that the last example is a multiple choice task. These are very popular
with designers of vocabulary tests (see Chapter 8).

100
 6 • How to put words to work

In completion tasks, the context is provided, and it is simply a matter of

slotting the right word in. Sentence and text creation tasks, however,
require learners to create the contexts for given words. Here are some typical
task instructions:

• Use each of these words to make a sentence which clearly shows the
meaning of the word.
• Choose six words from the list and write a sentence using each one.
• Use each of these words to write a true sentence about yourself or
someone you know.
• Write a short narrative (or dialogue) which includes at least five words
from the list.

Tasks such as these lead naturally into speaking activities - either reading
aloud or performing dialogues to the class, or comparing and explaining
sentences in pairs or small groups. These activities involve many of the
processes that serve to promote retention in long-term memory, such as
rehearsal, repetition and explanation.
Not all creation activities need start as writing tasks. Here is a speaking
task (also from Flying Colours 2) which requires learners to create sentences
using pre-selected vocabulary:

Work in pairs. Ask and say how you feel about your town or village.

I love it. It’s all right. I can’t stand it.

Which of the following adjectives can you use to describe your town or
village?
interesting boring annoying depressing frightening marvellous
beautiful peaceful noisy lively

Can you explain why?

I find it boring because there’s nothing to do in the evenings.

The use of questionnaires is a good wav of putting vocabulary to work in the

form of question-and-answer exchanges. Many areas of vocabulary' lend
themselves to some kind of questionnaire or survey. The same vocabulary
items in the preceding example could be used as the basis of a questionnaire
or survey.

if Students can prepare a survey - using these examples as a model:

1 Is your hometown boring or interesting? Why?

2 Do you find big cities: depressing, interesting, lively or noisy? Why?
etc.

They then ask each other their prepared questions, and report rhe
results to the class, using Rill sentences, such as Mario thinks bis
hometown is interesting because it has a lot ofhistorical monuments.

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How io Teach Vocabulaiy

Games While the title of this chapter is ‘How to put words to work’, it would be
wrong to suggest that vocabulary learning has to be all work and no play.
Language play, including word games, has a long history. Children of all
cultures seem to enjoy games of the 'I spy or 'Hangman type, and there
is a long tradition of adult word games, a number of which have been
adapted for television. Most first-language word games transfer comfortably
to the second-language classroom. The most useful will be those that are
consistent with the principles of learning outlined on pages 24 and 25. For
example, the more often a word is successfully retrieved from memory, the
easier it becomes to recall it. Therefore, useful games art those that
encourage learners to recall words and, preferably, at speed. Or, consistent
with the principle that learners need to make multiple decisions about
words, a useful game would be one like a ‘dictionary race’, where students
first sort words into alphabetical order, then into parts of speech, and then
into lexical sets - the first group to complete all three tasks correctly being
the winner.
However, since many word games deal solely with isolated - rather than
contextualised - words, and often require only shallow processing on the
part of the learner, they should be used judiciously. The time spent on a
single de-contexmalised word in a game of‘Hangman, for example, has to
be weighed up against the more productive, contextualised and cognitively
deep activities outlined earlier in this chapter. Too often games are used to
plug holes in lessons which could more usefully be filled with language-rich
talk. Nevertheless, the fun factor may help make words more memorable,
and, like it or not, a competitive element often serves to animate even the
most lethargic students.
So, here are some word games to try:

В Word clap: Students stand or sit in a circle, and, following the teachers
lead, maintain a four-beat rhythm, clapping their hands on their thighs
three times (one-two-three ...) and then both hands together (four!).
The game should start slowly, but the pace of the clapping can
gradually increase. The idea is to take turns, clockwise, to shout out a
different word from a pre-selected lexical set (for example, fruit and
vegetables) on every fourth beat. Players who either repeat a word
already used, or break rhe rhythm - or say nothing - are ‘out’ and the
game resumes without them, until only one player is left. The teacher
can change rhe lexical set by shouting out the name of a new set at
strategic points: Furniture! Nationalities!Jobs! etc.

В Categories: Learners work in pairs or small groups. On a piece of

paper, they draw up a number of columns, according to a model on the
board, each column labelled with the name of a lexical set: e.g.Jrtiit,
transport, clothes, animals, sports. The teacher calls out a letter of the
alphabet (e.g. Bl), and to a time limit (e.g. three minutes), students
write down as many words as they can beginning with that letter in the
separate columns (banana, berry’, bus', bikini, blouse, bear, bat', baseball,
basketball ...).The group with the most (correct) words wins.

102
 6 • How to put words to work

Noughts and crosses: Draw two noughts and crosses grids on the
board:

food
тле
and clothes
dr<rk

TaC
jd>5 cdcurs
ujeather

parts
sports transperi’ of the
bedy

One is blank. In the other each square is labelled with a category, or

with nine different phrasal verb particles (///>, on, off, in, back, etc), or
nine different affixes (un-, non-, -less, -tion, etc). Prepare a number of
questions relating to each category. For example (if the class is
monolingual): How do you say 'tamburo in English? Or, What is the
opposite of'shy? Divide the class into two teams: noughts and crosses.
The object is to take turns choosing a category and answering a
question in this category correctly so as to earn the right to place their
team’s symbol in the corresponding position in the blank grid. The
winning team is the first to create a line of three (noughts or crosses),
either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.

Coffeepot: This is a guessing game. One learner answers yes/no

questions from the rest of the class (or group) about a verb rhat she has
thought of, or that the teacher has whispered to her. In the questions
the word coffeepot is used in place of the mystery verb. So, for example,
students might ask Do you coffeepot indoors or outdoors? Is coffeepotting
easy or difficult? Can you coffeepot with your hands? etc. If the verb that
the student has selected isjrntw the answers would be: Both indoors and
outdoors; It's easy; No, you cant, but you might use your hands... To make
the game easier a list of, say, twenty verbs can be put on the board and
the person who is ‘it’ chooses one of them. This can also be played in
pairs.

Ш Back to board: This is another guessing game, but this time the
student who is ‘it’ has to guess a word by asking the rest of the class
questions. The student sits facing the class, back to the board; the
teacher writes a recently studied word or phrase or idiom on the board,
out of sight of the student. The student asks different students yes/no
or either/or questions in order to guess the word. For example: Helga,
is it a verb or a noun? (A verb.) Dittmar, is it an action? (No.) Karl-
Heinz, is it something you do with your mind? (Yes.) ... etc. To make the
game easier, the words chosen can be limited in some way - e.g. all
phrasal verbs; all character adjectives, and so on.

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How to Teach Vocabulary

Уб Pictionary®: Based on the commercialised game of the same name,

this involves students guessing words or phrases from drawings. They
work in teams, each member of the team taking turns to be the ‘artist*.
If there are three teams, for example, the three artists’ go to the front
of the class where rhe teacher shows them a word (or phrase) on a card.
At a cue, they quickly return to their group and try to get their group
to correctly guess the word by drawing it with pen and paper. The first
team to guess correctly earns a point, and three new ‘artists’ have a turn
with another word. This is good for reviewing idiomatic expressions,
such as green with envy, down in the dumps, under the weather, in the
dark, over the moon. At the end of the game, groups can use the pictures
as memory prompts in order to recall and write down the expressions
that came up in the game, and then to put them into a sentence to
show what they mean.

Ш Word snap: Using word cards - e.g. from the class word bag or word
box (sec page 51) - students work in small groups, with the aim of
collecting as many word ‘pairs’ as possible. One player ‘deals’ two word
cards, face up, so that everyone can read them. The first player to think
of a way the words are connected gers to keep the pair, and two more
words are laid down. A connection could be: same part of speech;
synonyms or antonyms; same lexical set; or, simply, a meaningful
sentence can be made using both words. If no connection can be made,
the two cards are shuffled back into the pack. The teacher will need to
be available to decide in the case of connections being ‘challenged’.

§4 Word race: The class is divided into teams and each team is given a
board marker pen (or piece of chalk). The board is divided into as
many sections as there are reams. The teacher (or a specially appointed
student) says a word in the students’ language, and the first team to get
the correct English translation on to the board earns a point.The game
continues for as many words as it is felt necessary to review. The game
is suitable for a monolingual class, but a variation of it, which would be
suitable for multilingual classes, would be to read out definitions of
words, or give synonyms or show pictures, rather than give translations.

U Spelling race: The board is divided in two halves, and a representative

from each of two teams stands at the board with a board marker pen
or chalk. The teacher shows the rest of the class a word on a card. The
teams must simultaneously spell (not say) the word to their
representative, who cannot see the word. The first team to get the word
on to the board with its correct spelling earns a point. The game
continues with different students taking turns to be the team
representative. This game is more difficult than it sounds, especially if
words are chosen that include letters which are frequently confused -
such as i and e, v and b, j and g. Lots of variations of this game are
possible. The word could be displayed as a picture, so that the teams
have to decide what the word is before spelling it.

104
 6 • How to put words to work

The above is by no means an exhaustive list of word games, but is

representative of some generic game types, guessing being one of the most
favoured. Used with discretion, putting words to play is a valid and
enjoyable way of putting words to work.

Conclusions In this chapter we looked at classroom activities designed to integrate

newly acquired words into the learner's mental lexicon. Key principles
underlying such activities are the importance of:
• making successive decisions about words
• productive as well as receptive tasks
• the judicious use of highly engaging activities such as games
Decision-making tasks include the following types:
• identification
• selecting
• matching
• sorting
• ranking and sequencing
Production tasks can be divided into those that require:
• completion of sentences and texts
• creation of sentences and texts
Games that draw attention to newly learned words often encourage
recall through guessing and categorising.

Looking ahead In Chapter 1 we established that words both ‘contain’ other words (as
head is contained in ahead), and that a word-like unit may in fact
consist of several words (as in head and shoulders or a head start). In
fact, there seems to be a continuum of 'wordiness', from individual
syllables, up to what are now commonly called lexical chunks. This
expanded notion of what a word is - and how it impacts on teaching
- is the subject of the next chapter.

105
 broaching word parts
i|d word chunks
Teaching word formation and word combination
A lexical approach
Teaching lexical chunks
• Teaching word grammar
• Teaching phrasal verbs
• Teaching idioms

Teaching word In Chapter 1 we looked at some of the principles of word formation in

formation and English. We noted that words can be formed by the addition of prefixes and
word suffixes - a process called affixation. (The word affixation is itself an
example of the result of adding affixes to the rootfix.) We also saw how, by
combination
compounding, two or more words can join up to make one. Thus: black +
board - blackboard. Or, new words can be created by a process called
conversion, when a word that in one context is one part of speech (such as
a noun), in another context can be enlisted to serve a different function
(such as a verb). Hence, you may have heard the relatively recent term to
board as in The teacher boarded the new words and the students wrote them
down.
Then again words can cluster (but not join up) to form multi-word units
- loosely called chunks - that behave as if they were single words. For
example, alongside black, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
lists: black and white, black and blue, black sheep, in the black and to black out.
(This last is an example of a phrasal verb.) Many chunks have an idiomatic
meaning - that is to say the meaning of the chunk as a whole is not directly
inferrable from the individual words: He's the black sheep of thefamily; you've
introduced a red herring, etc.
The way bits of words combine, and rhe way words themselves can be
combined, is a constant source of difficulty for learners. Errors of the
following types are common:

• Affixation errors
There are uncountless ways to bring happiness to my life thanks to the
internet.
After finishing the paragraph and reading it again, I felt unsatisfy.
I think that my real and only knowledgements are in the vocabulary.

106
 I • Teaching word parts and word chunks

• Compounding errors
In London I took a two floor bus and of course crossed the city in the highest
floor.
I saw my dog died in a box's shoes.
• Errors of multi-word units
We have also a buses network.
Sometimes dog isn't the best man's friend.
• Collocation errors
I don't like when I do mistakes.
Some teachers are strict they put us a lot of homework and exams.

• Phrasal verb errors

She used to go to school with her maid, and a maid was picking up her from
school.
There are some days that the better it's stay in bed and don’t get up you.

• Idiom errors
I have no more money. So most of time I just watch shops' window.
I don't like to blow my own horn, but my grammar knowledge and my
vocabulary are quite good.

In responding to these kinds of problems, there are mo possible approaches.

You can either
• teach rules, or
■ expose learners to lots of correct examples

A rule-based approach starts by isolating and highlighting any relevant

patterns or regularities. Take word formation, for example. In a rule-based
approach, words can be grouped and presented according to the manner
of formation (affixation, compounding, conversion, etc). Within these
categories finer distinctions can be made. So, of the words formed by
affixation we can select those formed by die addition of prefixes, and this
group can be narrowed down further to those that have a negative meaning.
The way these words are formed can then be described in general terms in
the form of a rule - or ‘rule of thumb’. Here is an example of such an explicit
rule statement (from Gude К and Duckworth M, Proficiency Masterclass^
OUP):

В Negative prefixes. The prefixes mix-, dis-, ig-, and un- can all be used to give a word a rather
negative meaning. The prefix may help you to guess the meaning of the word.

mis- — ‘wrongly, badly’ or ‘not done’ (mismanage)

dis- = ‘away from, the opposite of. lack of’ (distaste)
ig- = ‘not. lacking in’ (ignorant)
un- = ‘not, lack of. the opposite, reversal or removal of’ (undo)

Here is some advice to help you choose the correct prefix.

• dis- can be used to form verbs, eg dissatisfy, adjectives, eg dishonest; and nouns, eg disability.
• The prefix ig- appears only before the letter n.

107
How to leach Vocabulary

I Ierc, on the other hand, is a table which suggests - but doesn’t explicitly
state - a rule about noun and verb endings:

1 Now you can strengthen the. thia ADJECTIVE NOUN VERB

green line.
wide
Strengthen is a verb which is formed
strong
from the adjective strong. Work in pairs
and complete this table. deep
weak
short
high
from Naunton J, Think First
Certificate, Longman

A similar approach i$ used with word collocations (see page 7), wherever a
general tendency can be identified. Here, for example, is a coursebook
extract that focuses on the difference between make and do combinations:

VOCABULARY from Beil J and Gower R,

Intermediate Matters, Longman
Make or do?
1 Read the following sentences carefully.
Last night I tried to do my homework. However, I
kept making mistakes because tl)e man upstairs
was doing his exercises and making a noise.
Make usually means to create, bring into existence,
or produce a result.
Do usually means to perform an action. However,
there are exceptions to this ‘rule’, as you will see in
Exercise 3.

One problem with a rule-based approach is that the scope of the rule is not
always clear. How many, and which, adjectives can be turned into verbs by
the addition of -en, for example? Sweet and fresh - yes, but wet and z/ry?
There is the added problem of the lack of one-to-one match between forms
and categories. For example, in- and un- both express negation (uncertain,
inactive), but in- can also be used with the meaning of xn, or within (as in
inclusive). And when do we use in-, as opposed to un- or non- or dis-, to
convey negation? How, for example, does the learner know whether to use
unsatisfied, dissatisfied, insatisfiedor nonsatisfied^
One advantage of knowing the meanings of different affixes, however, is
that they may help the learner unpack tlie meaning of unfamiliar words
when reading and listening. So, a reader coming across dissatisfied for the
first time should have no trouble understanding it if they know satisfied and

108
 7 • Teaching word parts and word chunks

are familiar with different negative prefixes. However, even when applying
the rules to reception there arc problems. Outline does not mean out ofline\
research does not mean search again\ nor does inflammable mean non­
flammable. Some teachers therefore recommend using word formation as a
guide to meaning only if all other means (such as using context clues) fail.
The alternative to a rule-based approach is an item learning one. In other
words, rhe learning of complex words (like indisposed or dissatisfied) would
simply involve the same processes as the learning of simple ones (like or
sad). That is, it is basically a memory task, with each word learned as an
individual item. And, as with any memory task, the quantity' of encounters
with the items is a critical factor. According to this view, learners need
exposure, and plenty of it, rather than rules.
There are good grounds for favouring an item learning approach. For a
start, this seems to be the way words are acquired naturally. They are first
learned as items, and then gradually re-categorised according to rules. That
is, once a critical mass of separate items (such as widen, strengthen, deepen,
weaken, etc.) has been learned, the mind starts to sort them according to
their shared regularities (adjective or noun + -en = verb). This seems to be
the case not only for the learning of patterns of word formation but for the
learning of grammar as well. Learners may have to learn a lot of separate
instances of a structure (I am going ... are you coming? ...he was saying ...)
before these items coalesce into a rule (subject + to be + -ing). In fact, item
learning may be a prerequisite for rule learning generally. (This doesn’t
mean, of course, that the process always results in correct inferences.
Learners can over-generalise from their own rules, so as to produce He's a
good cooker, for example.)
The main disadvantage of an item learning approach is that it is very
gradual and requires a great deal of exposure. But the good news is that the
process can be speeded up by consciousness-raising. Consciousness-raising
means drawing the learners’ attention to rhe patterns and regularities of the
language - helping them to notice these regularities. In this way, the teacher
can facilitate the development of a feel (as opposed to a cast-iron rule) for
what is the best interpretation of a word, or the most acceptable production
of one. This does not necessarily mean reaching rules, but simply making
patterns stand out. In a way, it is a compromise position between rule
learning and item memorisation.
One writer, Anita Sokmen, provides a good example of how the teacher
can guide learners to work out meaning, while at the same time integrating
new knowledge with old:

A less-structured approach to word parts is to sporadically ask students to

analyze words. For example, in one course I have taught for several years,
the word innate routinely comes up and students rarely know the
meaning of the word, or its root, 'nat\ However, once we review what the
prefix 'in means, and I elicit other words containing the root'naf’ (native,
natural, nation, nationality, pre-natal), someone in the class can infer the
meaning, birth, from their understanding of the brainstormed words. In
this way, word unit analysis asks learners to compare the new word with

109
How io Teach Vocabulary

known words in order to get to their core meaning. Because it demands

a deeper level of processing and reactivation of old, known words with the
new, it has the potential of enhancing long-term storage.
(from Schmitt N and McCarthy M (Eds.), Vocabulary, CUP)

Other pattern-highlighting techniques involve the use of texts and include

the following:

learners are given a text and asked to search for and underline all
compound nouns, negative prefixes, multi-word units, etc.
Ш learners find words in a text that are derivations. For example, ‘Find
' three words in the text that are derived from sense ...’

В learners classify these derivations according to which part of speech

they are
В learners categorise underlined words in a text according to a common
affix, or according to the word formation principle they exemplify
(compounding, conversion, etc.)

The more of these kinds of operations the learner does the better, since (as
we saw in the last chapter) the more decisions the learner makes about a
word the greater the depth of processing.
great advantage of working from texts is that the words that are to be
focused on are already in context, hence their meanings may be clearer than
if presented as isolated words in a list (see Chapter 4). Also, and perhaps
more importantly, the shared context will bring words together that are
commonly associated. In the following text, for example, there arc a number
of words associated with time, crime and the law:

TIME LIMITS
There are strict time limits on the detention of persons without charge.
An arrested person may not be detained without charge for more than 24
hours, unless a serious arrestable offence has been committed. If a serious
arrestable offence has been committed a superintendent can extend the
period to 36 hours to secure or preserve evidence by continued
questioning. Where a serious arrestable offence has been committed and
the suspect needs to be held in custody beyond the 36 hour period, the
police must bring the suspect before a magistrate to extend the time limit
to a maximum of 60 hours.
(from McCarrick-Watson, Essential English Legal System, Cavendish)

As well as words associated with the legal process {detention, arrested, charge,
offence, commit, superintendent, questioning, etc.) there are words of the same
derivation {detention, detained', arrested, arrestable', person, persons). There are
also a number of examples of collocation and chunking. Some relate to time:
time limits, extend the period, 36 hours, the 36 hour period', and others to
crime: commit an offence-, without charge-, hold in custody. These words and
combinations are found nor only in close association, but in their typical
grammar contexts. For example, the crime language occurs in passive
constructions: to be detained without charge, and [ля] offence has been

110
 7 • Teaching word parts and word chunks

nwwz/Vta/. This particular text has the added advantage that a number of kev
words and phrases are repeated (e.g. a serious arrestable offence has been
committed) thereby increasing the likelihood of retention in memory.
An approach to focusing on these features might be:

U • Ask students to read the text and to answer comprehension

questions to gauge level of understanding. For example:
1 The maximum time you can be detained without charge is:
a 24 hours b 36 hours c 60 hours
2 You can be detained for 36 hours only if:
a a serious arrestable offence has been committed,
b a magistrate gives permission,
c further questioning is necessary.

• Ask learners (working together and using dictionaries) to underline

all words relating to legal processes, and to categorise these
according to a) people, b) processes.
• Ask them to use dictionaries to make verbs for these nouns: limit,
detention, charge, offence, questioning, suspect, and to make nouns of
these verbs: arrest, detain, commit, extend, secure, preserve. Which of
the verb forms can take -able to form an adjective?
• Ask them to circle all time expressions with numbers and note the
prepositions used in each case.
• Ask learners to identify the verbs that fill these slots: a person
without charge', an offence', a suspect in custody,
a suspect before a magistrate', a time limit.
" Ask learners to rewrite the passage in 'plain English', e.g. as if they
were explaining it to a friend. Alternatively, ask them to translate it
into their own language.
• Learners then use the rewritten (or translated) passage as a basis for
reconstructing the original text from memory. They then compare
the reconstruction with the original.
• A follow-up activity might be to ask learners to research and
summarise this aspect of the legal system in their own country
(respecting, of course, their cultural sensitivities).

Note that this text, although short, is difficult and the tasks would be
achievable only by quite advanced learners. Nevertheless, the same tasks
could be adapted to much easier texts, and used at lower levels.
To summarise, then: the teaching of the grammar of word formation and
word combination can be approached from two directions: early instruction
in the rules, or the learning of a quantity of vocabulary items from which
these rules are slowly distilled. We have looked at the case for a midway
position that recognises the need for early exposure but at the same time
accepts that consciousness-raising through focused attention can speed up
the process of‘getting a feel for it’. Plentiful exposure plus consciousness-
raising is a key principle underlying what has come to be known as a lexical
approach.

Ill
How to Teach Vocabulary

A lexical A lexical approach to language teaching foregrounds vocabulary learning,

approach both in the form of individual, high frequency words, and in the form of
word combinations (or chunks). The impetus for a lexical approach to
language teaching derives from the following principles:

• a syllabus should be organised around meanings

• the most frequent words encode the most frequent meanings
and
• words typically co-occur with other words
• these co-occurrences (or chunks) are an aid to fluency

A syllabus organised around meanings rather than forms (such as grammar

structures) is called a semantic syllabus. A number of theorists have
suggested that a syllabus of meanings - especially those meanings that
learners are likely to need to express - would be more useful than a syllabus
of structures. For example, most learners will at some time need to express
such categories of meaning (or notions) as possession orfrequency or regret or
manner. Simply teaching learners a variety' of structures, such as the present
simple or the second conditional, is no guarantee that their communicative
needs will be met. The present simple, for example, supports a wide range
of meanings (present habit, future itinerary, past narrative, etc), some of
which may be less useful than others. Wouldn’t it be better to start with the
more useful meanings themselves, rather than the structure?
A semantic syllabus - i.e. one based around meanings - is likely to have
a strong lexical focus. The following sentences, for example, all involve the
present simple, but they express different notions. These notional meanings
are signalled by certain key words (underlined):

Does this towel belong to you? (possession)

How often do you go to London? (frequency)
I wish I'd done French, (regret)
Exercise is the best yvay of losing weight, (manner)

Words like belong, often, wish and way carry the Lion’s share of the meaning
in these sentences: the grammar is largely padding. A lexical approach
argues that meaning is encoded primarily in words. This view motivated
two coursebook writers, Dave and Jane Willis, to propose that a lexical
syllabus might be the best way of organising a course. The Willises believed
that a syllabus based around the most frequent words in the language would
cover the most frequent meanings in the language. Accordingly, they based
their beginners’ course around the 700 most frequent words in English.
They used corpus data (i.e. computer banks of naturally occurring text - see
page 68) to find out how these words ‘behaved’ - that is, the kinds of words
and structures that were associated with these high frequency words.
For example, an extremely common word in English is way. According
to COBUILD corpus data, it is in fact the third most common noun in
English (after time and people). An analysis of corpus data shows that way
is used to express a variety’ of meanings:

112
 7 • Teaching word parts and word chunks

1 method or means It's a useful way of raising revenue.

The cheapest way is to hire a van.
2 manner, style, behaviour He smiles in a superior way.
Play soccer Jack Charlton's way.
3 what happens, what is the case That's the way it goes.
We were so pleased with the way
things were going.
4 degree, extent, respect She's very kind and sweet in lots of
ways.
In no way am I a politically effective
person.
5 location, movement, direction, space A man asked me the way to St Paul's.
Get out of the way.
(after Willis D, The Lexical Syllabus, Collins)

Using corpus data, they then studied what kinds of grammatical structures
way was typically found with - i.e. its syntactic environment. For example,
the first use of way in the table above (meaning ‘method or means’) is
commonly found in association with this pattern:

way + of + -ing a useful way of raising revenue

the different ways of cooking fish

The next step was to devise teaching materials that illustrated these
meanings and patterns, bearing in mind that the starting point was not the
pattern itself, but the meaning {method, means), and its frequency, as
evidenced in the high frequency of the word way.
Here, for example, is how Willis and Willis summarise this use of way in
The Collins COBUILD English Course 2.
Similar treatment is given to other high way
frequency words in the language, such as There are different ways of
thing, so, do, place, get, like, look, and would. writing 'colour' - the American
Note that some of these words - like do way (color) or the English way
and would - are traditionally associated (colour).
with specific grammatical structures, such How many ways are there of
saying this number?
as the present simple or the second
Practise these ways of agreeing
conditional. However, in a lexically and disagreeing.
organised course, they are dealt with in I like the way he sings.
much the same way as words like way and Do it this way. Look.
like. That is, first their principle
meanings, and then their typical syntactic
environments, are identified. Interestingly, when the syntactic environment
of would (to talk about hypothetical situations) was examined, it was found
that the combination of would if, as in the ‘second conditional’ (Id do an
МЛ iflhadthe money) occurred relatively infrequently. Much more common
was would on its own, as in

It would be nice to keep bees.

Opening the beaches would not be a solution.
'Would she make a deal like that?' she wondered.

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How to Tt*ach Vocabulary

The Willises argued that would should be dealt with as just another word,
rather than as part of a syntactic structure. A lexical view of language, then,
starts to dissolve the distinction between function words and lexical words.
In so doing, it starts to dissolve the distinction between grammar and
vocabulary.
The second major development underlying a lexical approach was the
recognition of the important role played by multi-word units, or chunks
(sec page 6). A number of researchers have noticed that a lot of early
language learning takes the form of chunks (such as this-is-mine, give-me,
and leave-me-alone). These are acquired as single, unanalysed units. The
capacity to use these chunks in conversational exchanges seems to be an
important factor in developing fluency. Using ‘pre-fabricated’ language,
rather than using grammar rules to fabricate language from scratch, saves
valuable processing time. These chunks are then stored away and only at a
later stage of development are they analysed into their component parts. So,
this-is-mine is eventually broken down into:

determiner (this/that, etc.) + to he + possessive pronoun (mine, yours, etc.)

This analysis allows the production of other combinations using the same
pattern, such as That is yours or Those are hers.
This chunking’ process serves two purposes in early language production:
it enables the child to have chunks of language available for immediate use,
while at the same time it provides the child with language patterns to hold
in reserve for later analysis. Not only that, some of the new creations (e.g.
that is yours, those are hers) can in turn be ‘re-chunked’ - i.e. memorised as
wholes, and stored for later retrieval. The researchers Pawley and Syder
proposed that adult language users have at their command a repertoire of
literally hundreds of thousands of these memorised chunks. For example:

How are you?

Long time no see.
So anyway ...
Don't mention it.
There you are, you see.
Speak of the devil.
It's got nothing to do with me.
Hang on a minute.
If you ask me ...

It seems that the mental lexicon is not so much a dictionary as a phrase

book.
It is this ‘phrase book’ view of language that prompted Michael Lewis to
propose his version of a lexical approach (called the Lexical Approach).
Lewis argues that ‘language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised
grammar’. In other words, he challenges the traditional view that language
competence consists of having a foundation of grammatical structures into
which we slot individual words. Instead, we store a huge assortment of
memorised words, phrases and collocations, along with their associated
‘grammar’. In order to maintain conversational fluency, we select from this

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 7 • Teaching word parts and word chunks

vast phrase book the chunks we need, and then fine-tune for grammar.
Thus, to make a request, we might select the chunk D'you think you could...
and tack on to it another chunk - turn the volume down?- while at the same
lime making any appropriate grammatical adjustments to ensure the two
chunks stick together neatly. (Compare that with: Would you mind + turnJNG
the volume down?) /\ccording to a lexical approach, language learning is
essentially a process of item learning, as opposed to rule learning. In fact,
Lewis is very sceptical about the value of studying traditional grammar rules
at all.
It should be clear that the lexical syllabus of Dave and Jane Willis and
Michael Lewis’s Lexical Approach share a number of features. Both
acknowledge die important meaning-making function of vocabulary, and
both question the traditional distinction between vocabulary and grammar.
In their view, words are really ‘small grammar’ and grammar is ‘big words’.
Where these writers differ is in their classroom approach, the Willises
favouring a task-based approach to learning the semantic syllabus, while
Lewis argues for a more analytic, text-based approach, in which texts are
examined for the kinds of chunks embedded in them.

Teaching So far we have been talking about lexical chunks as if they were a single
lexical chunks undifferentiated category'. But, as we saw in Chapter 1 (page 6), there are
different types of chunks and different degrees of chunkiness’. Of the
different types, the following arc the most important for teaching purposes:

• collocations - such as widely travelled; rich andfamous; make do with; set

the table
• phrasal verbs - such as get up; log on; run out of; go on about
• idioms, catchphrases and sayings - such as hellfor leather; get coldfeet; as
old as the hills; mindyour own business; takes one to know one
• sentence frames - such as would you mind if... ?; the thing is ...; Id... ifI
were you; what really gets me is ...
• social formulae - such as see you later; have a nice day;yours sincerely
• discourse markers - such as frankly speaking; on the other hand; I take your
point; once upon a time; to cut a long story short...

Within these categories further distinctions can he made in terms of

fixedness and idiomaticity. Fixed chunks are those that don’t allow any
variation: you can say over the moon (to mean ea/a/ic) but not under the moon
(to mean not ecstatic). Nor over the full moon, over the sun, etc. Many chunks
are semi-fixed, in that they allow some degree of variation. Nice to see you is
semi-fixed in that it allows lovely, good, wonderful, etc. in the nice slot, and
meet, talk to, hearfrom, etc. in the гл? slot.
Some chunks are transparent in that the meaning of the whole is clear
from their parts, as in the case of as old as the hills and to knock down. Others
are much more idiomatic: to spill the beans and to knock off (meaning to steal).
Neither fixedness nor idiomaticity' are absolute values, however. Rather
there is a cline from very fixed to very free, and from very idiomatic to very
transparent. Phrasal verbs are a case in point. Some phrasal verbs are

115
How to Teach Vocabulary

syntactically flexible: I'll bring up the paper or I'll bring the paper up. Others
are not: I can't tell the twins apart but not I can't tell apart the twins. Moreover,
the combination bring up has a range of meanings, some literal (Z7/ bring up
the paper), some semi-idiomatic (Don't bring that subject up again) and some
very idiomatic (They brought their children up to speak Italian).
The ability to deploy a wide range of lexical chunks both accurately and
appropriately is probably what most distinguishes advanced learners from
intermediate ones. How is this capacity developed? Probably not by learning
rules - as we saw with word formation, the rules (if there are any) are
difficult to learn and apply. A lexical approach is based on the belief that
lexical competence comes simply from:
• frequent exposure, and
• consciousness-raising

To which we could perhaps add a third factor:

• memorising

Classroom language provides plentiful opportunities for exposure to lexical

chunks. Many learners are familiar with expressions like I don't understand
and I don’t know long before they have been presented with the ‘rules’ of
present simple negation. By increasing the stock of classroom phrases,
teachers can exploit the capacity of chunks to provide the raw material for
the later acquisition of grammar. Many teachers cover their classroom walls
with useful phrases and insist on their use whenever an appropriate
opportunity arises. A sampling of phrases I have noticed on classroom walls
includes:
What does X mean?
How do you say X?
What's the (past/plural/opposite, etc.) of X?
Can you say that again?
Can you write it up?
How do you spell it?
I'm not sure.
I've forgotten.
I left it at home.
I haven't finished yet.
It's (your/my/his) turn.
You go first.
Here you are.
Pass me the ...
Let's have a break.
etc.

The repetitive nature of classroom activity ensures plentiful exposure to

these chunks. This is vital, because occasional and random exposure is
insufficient. Many learners simply aren’t aware if a combination is one that
occurs frequently (and is therefore a chunk) or if it is a ‘one-off.
Nevertheless, there is more chance of encountering instances ot chunking in
authentic text than in text that has been ‘doctored’ for teaching purposes.

116
 7 • Teaching word parb and word chunks

This is yet another argument for using authentic texts in the classroom,
despite the difficulties often associated with them.
Mere, for example, is an extract from a fairly well-known authentic text:

Yo, I'll tell you what I want what I really really want,
So tell me what you want what you really really wanr
I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want,
So tell me what you want what you really really want
I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna really really really wanna
zigazig ha
If you want my future, forget my past,
If you wanna get with me, better make it fast
Now don’t go wasting my precious time
Get your act together we could be just fine ...

If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends

Make it last forever, Friendship never ends
If you wannabe my lover, you have got to give.
Taking is too easy but that’s the way it is.
What d'va think about that? Now you know how I feel.
Say you can handle my love, are you for real?
1 won't be hasty, I’ll give you a try
If you really bug me then I’ll say goodbye

(from Wannabe by the Spice Girls)

Like many pop songs, the lyrics of this song are rich in lexical chunks,
including sentence frames (J7Z tell you what 1...; what I really [really] want
[is ...]; If you wanna ... better ...; If you really, then ГН ...), collocations
{wasting my precious time; last forever; taking it... easy; give you a try), and
catchphrases {better make it fast; gel your art together; that's the way it is; are
you for real?).
How could you use the above song text? Essentially, the approach need
not be very different from the approach to the legal English text on page
110. That is:

• check understanding of text (for example, by eliciting a paraphrase or

translation of the text)
• using transcript, set tasks focusing on features of words in combination

Examples of such tasks might be:

Ш • Underline all contractions. Decontract them (i.e. wanna = want to)

• Find examples of these sentence patterns in the song:
... tell... what...
Ifyou ... imperative ...
Ifyou ... you have got to ...
Ifyou ... then I'll...
• Write some more examples, using these patterns, that would fit the
theme of the song.
• Use examples from the song to show the difference between tell and

117
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Find the verbs that fill these slots: /7 fast} my precious

tune\ your act together} forever} it easy} goodbye.
1 heir repetitiveness, combined with their tendency to incorporate a lot of
spoken chunk-type language, make pop songs’ a useful resource for
vocabulary work. And not only do they recycle many current idioms and
catchphrases, they are often responsible for introducing new ones into the
language, such as What 1 really really want ... Advertising has a similar
effect: think offinger-licking good, it's the real thing and it reaches parts that
other [.. .]s don't reach.
But it is not just informal language that is rich in lexical chunks. As we
saw earlier, legalistic language is richly patterned in this way. And so is the
language of business. In fact, increasingly the teaching of business English
recognises the importance of raising awareness about collocation.
Here, for example, is an exercise on collocations related to the word sales’.

The word in the centre of the diagram is the keyword. There are different kinds of words in
the background words. Use different coloured pens to underline the background words so
that you divide them into groups. Find some two-word and three-word partnerships. Look
for some partnerships which include the keyword and a verb from the background words.
Write four sentences about your own situation. Use coloured pens or highlight the word
partnerships so you can check them easily later.

present irylujr.e
area representative Іаило/ drirt
fiorwast

target itcorcase
a

uca/Ktair. pay.
boost s/ш j SC/t
prospect

fa™ киііцр
potential
call
сомміввіок
assess utitc/losc
I reach
oaota wtotd
adopt
cottok

from Wilberg P and Lews M,

Business English: An Individual
Learning Programme, ЕГР

118
 7 • Teaching word parts and word chunks

Notice that the focus is not just on noun + noun collocations {sales volume)
but on verb + noun + noun combinations (e.g. boost our sales volume).
Chunks of this size require the addition of only a little real grammar to
provide much of the substance of typical business text: We need to boost our
sales volume.
Here are some more ideas for teaching collocation:

® Learners sort words on cards into their collocational pairs (e.g. uv/rm
+ welcome, slim + chance, golden + opportunity, lucky + break, mixed +
reception, etc). Use the same cards to play pelmanism (see page 97). Or
they sort them into binomial pairs (pairs of words that follow a fixed
sequence and often have idiomatic meaning such as hot and cold, to and
fro, out and about, sick and tired). Or into groups, according to whether
they collocate with particular ‘headwords’: e.g. (business, day, round,
return, boat), holiday (summer, family, public, one month, working) and
weekend (long, every, last, next, holiday). Follow up by asking learners to
write sentences using these combinations.

Read out a list of words: learners in groups think of as many

collocations or related expressions as they can. Set a time limit - the
group with the most collocations wins a point. Good words for this
include parts of the body (face, head, back, foot, hand), colours (red,
green, blue, black, etc.) and opposites, such as weak/strong, narrow/wide,
safe/dangerous, old/young, etc.

R Fill in a collocational grid, using dictionaries, to show common

collocations. For example, here’s a very simple (and completed) one for
wide and broad'.

wide broad

• door

• • street

• • river

smile

shoulders

nose

• gaP
• accent

world
• range

variety

apart

awake

119
How to Teach Vocabulary

p In preparation for writing or speaking activities, learners can spend

some time searching databases for useful collocations. Ask them first
to brainstorm any nouns and verbs they are likely to need, and then
to check for common collocates, using a concordance program (see
Chapter 5) such as the COBUILD corpus on the Internet or a col­
location dictionary (such as the LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations),
or simply a good learners’ dictionary. Here, for example, are collocates
and compound words for keywords selected in preparation for a
composition on the subject offlying. They were all found using entries
in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English'.

fly: fly direct, fly on to, fly economy class, fear of flying
flight: an hour’s flight, my flight’s been called, charter flight, flight
attendant, flight path, flight recorder
air: by air, airborne, airbus, aircraft, aircrew, airfare, air hostess, airline,
airplane, airport, airsick, air traffic controller
travel: travel by train, car etc, travel widely, travel around, travel light,
travel the world; well-travelled, widely travelled

ft Ask learners to prepare collocation maps’ of high frequency words and

their collocates. Words like have, take, give, make and get lend
themselves to this kind of treatment. They are often used in
combination with nouns to form an expression which has a meaning
of its own, as in have a look, take a break, give advice, make an
appointment, so that the verb itself has little or no independent
meaning. For this reason, they are called delexical verbs. Here, for
example, is a collocation map for have, which shows its range of
collocations organised into meaning categories:

The diagram behw shows the most important uses of have. Write
2 the phrases with have from Exercise 1 into the correct section.

/hive bath
have tt break.

Іи.
tf tUC

heive a drink /
a widk/it Ituujh from Cunningham S and Moor
P, Cutting Edge Intermediate,
Longman

120
 7 • leaching word parts and word chunks

Learners can either create their own maps using dictionaries (or con­
cordance programs - see page 70), or add to an existing map, as this task
(also from Cutting Edge Intermediate) suggests:

2 a) Add the phrases below to the correct section of the diagram.

have a broken leg have a party have fun have a lot of energy
have a holiday have a meeting have a strange feeling have a wash

b) With which uses can you also use hove got? What do you notice?

Teachers can exploit the fact that many film and book titles and names
of pop groups are common collocations. Think of Fatal Attraction,
Desperate Measures, Deep Impact, The Usual Suspects (all films) or Dire
Straits, Take That., Primal Scream and Public Enemy (all names of
groups). A search of the Internet quickly revealed that all the following
collocations of last are names of bands: Last Call, The Last Dance, Last
Free Exit, Last in Line, Last Laugh, The Last Resort, Last Supper and
Last Tuesday. Learners can do the same - search for band names and
check, using a dictionary, if they are common collocations or not.
Alternatively, they could consult a dictionary, or a dictionary of
collocations, in order to invent band names or film titles of their own.

Ж Because of the two-part nature of collocations, any matching activities

lend themselves to work on them (see page 97). Similarly, odd one out
tasks are useful. For example:

What is the one word in each row that does not usually go with the
word on the left?
win match war salary election race lottery
earn money degree living salary interest place
gain weight advantage access support wages experience

But there is a limit to the number of collocations that can be dealt with in
activities like the ones above. The amount of time spent on targeting
particular isolated collocations has to be balanced against time spent
engaged in real language use, such as reading and speaking. It may, in fact,
be in the context of real language use that the best learning opportunities
will occur. A lot of work on collocation (and vocabulary generally) may
happen in response to learners’ errors. This reactive approach is described by
Morgan Lewis:

Imagine a student produces Ues а strong smoker. You could simply supply
the student with the standard collocate - heavy - and move on. But an

121
 How to Teach Vocabulary

ideal opportunity ro activate language on the edge of rhe student’s lexicon

has been missed. It requires very little extra time or explaining to add:
occasional, chain and non as more collocates of smoker.
(from Morgan Lewis in Teaching Collocation, LTP)

Finally, as a general approach to the teaching of lexical phrases and

collocation, the following advice is sound:

• Become more aware of phrases and collocations yourself.

• Make your students aware of phrases and collocations.
• Keep an eye on usefulness and be aware of overloading students.
• Feed in phrases on a ‘little but often basis.
• Introduce phrases in context, but drill them as short chunks.
• Point out patterns in phrases.
• Be ready to answer students’ questions briefly.
• Keep written records of phrases as phrases.
• Reinforce and recycle the phrases as much as you can.
(from Cutting Edge Intermediate Teachers' Book, Longman)

Teaching word It may seem out of place to be talking about grammar in a book on
grammar vocabulary. However, there is only a thin line - if indeed there is a line at all
- between these two areas of language. As we saw in Chapter 2, knowing a
word means knowing its associated grammar. What exactly is the associated
grammar ol a word? It is those patterns of words that typically co-occur
with it. For example, a word like say has a different grammar from a word
like tell. You can tell someone something but you can’t say someone something.
The grammar of say and tell can be represented like this (where V means
verb, and n means noun group):

say: V that (as in She says (that) she is cold)

tell: V n that (as in He told me (that) he was broke)

Words that are related in meaning to either say or tell tend to fall into one
of these two patterns. Thus, verbs following the Fthat pattern and having a
similar meaning to say include admit, explain, report, state and suggest. Verbs
like tell, on the other hand, which follow a F n that pattern, include:
convince, inform, persuade, promise, remind and warn. Confusing the two
patterns results in errors like the following:

My friend suggested me to go to Madrid for a weekend.

The agency said me it wasn't their problem.
I want to explain you something about the tour.

Helping learners identify word grammar is basically the same as helping

them identify collocations: a case of providing them with rich data and
focusing their attention on the patterns. As an aid to teachers, reference
books are now appearing which organise words according to their
grammatical characteristics. Here, for example, is an extract from one such
book:

177
 7 • Teaching word pans and word chunks

2 Some verbs are followed by о noun group and a

that-dause. For example, in / told her that there had been
an accident, the verb tell is followed by the noun group
her and the that-dause that there had been an accident.
This pattern is V n that.
After most of these verbs, the word that is often left out,
especially in speech.

Active pattern i ИѵЛд; Patterns

Verb group noun group lhul-clou.se Practice,
he loved me.
sroom Edition*
He told me
They had warned me that it would hurt ins COB (.fill)

Passive pattern
Vi'.rb group that-dause

He was Informed that he bod been disqualified,

He was told that It could never happen.

Verbs with this pottero are concerned with cousing

someone to know or think something.

assure guarantee promise satisfy tell

bet inform reassure show warn
convince persuade remind touch

We are pleased to inform you that we have been able to

accept your application.
I reminded her that on several occasions she had
remarked on the boy's Improvement.

Teaching Phrasal verbs arc another instance of the fuzziness at the boundary between
phrasal verbs words and grammar. They are particularly problematic for learners both
because of their lexical meanings (which are often idiomatic) and their
grammatical form. Here is how phrasal verbs arc often grouped, according
to their grammar:

A There arc four types of phrasal verb.

Type 1: intransitive e.g. come to (recover consciousness)
These don’t take an object.
Type 2: transitive inseparable e.g. look into (investigate)
These must take an object which always comes after
the verb. from
Type 3: transitive separable e.g. off (postpone) Naunton J,
The object can either come between the verb and the Think
particle or after rhe verb. If we use a pronoun then it Ahead to
must go between. First
Type 4: three-part, e.g. put up with (endure) Certificate>
These are always transitive inseparable. Longman

123
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Traditional approaches to the reaching of phrasal verbs have tended to focus

on these rules. Hence, when phrasal verbs are presented they are categorised
according to whether they are Type 1, Type 2, etc. They arc also often
grouped according to their lexical verb (that is, the word that carries the
major share of the meaning): get up, get back, get off, get over, etc, and
exercises arc designed to test the learner’s knowledge of the difference. For
example:

Ш Use phrasal verbs with get to complete these sentences:

1 1 can’t how much Julia has changed: it’s amazing!
2 Excuse me, I want to at the next stop.
3 The concert was cancelled so Fm going to see if I can
my money .

Typical exercise types used in the teaching of phrasal verbs include:

• sentence gap-fills (as the example above)

• re-phrasing: e.g. changing the verb in the sentence (e.g. depart) to a
phrasal verb that has a similar meaning (e.g. set off)
• matching: e.g. matching the phrasal verb with its synonym

More recently, exercise types have focused on the meanings of the particles
- a particle being the adverb or preposition component of the phrasal verb
(/;?, back, off, around, etc). A focus on particles aims to sensitise learners to
the shared meanings of a group such as лигу on, drive on, hang on, go on and
come on. Here, for example, is an exercise sequence that deals with the
particle dowrr.

Phrasal verb study

Down

I drank down my double Scotch eagerly.

Down is an adverb and a preposition. The basic
meaning of down is to do with movement from The (id of the box was nailed down.
a higher position or level to a lower one. In the 1 he water floods their homes or breaks down the
text on page 36 of the Students' Book you read: walls.
In 1948 Tennessee Williams and I drove down in Co and lie down on your bed.
his jeep from Rome to Naples ...
If the firms failed to make enough money, they would
close down.
a Match these descriptions of down phrasal verbs They ask me the date and flight number: 1 always write fl

1 1
with the sentences below.

Movement and position

down so I’ll remember.
It's obit hot in here-* turn it down.
2 Decreasing, lowering and reducing
3 Fastening and fixing b Here are five mote down phrasal verbs. Check their
4 Collapsing and attacking meaning in your dictionary' and write a sentence for
5 Completeness, ending and change each one.
6 Eating and drinking
7 Writing and recording drive down -
cool down -
stick down -
kick down - from Radley P and Milleichip C,
note down Workout Upper Intermediate,
Longman

124
 7 • Teaching word parts and word chunks

The systematic approach to rhe teaching of phrasal verbs reflects the rule-
driven approach to the teaching of word formation. But there is no reason
to believe that a rule-driven approach is any more effective with phrasal
verbs than it is with composite words. Often the rules are so daunting that
learners tend to avoid using phrasal verbs for fear of making mistakes - not
a good basis for mastering an important area of language. It may be the case
that phrasal verbs arc best learned on an item-by-item basis, and preferably
in short contexts that demonstrate their syntactic behaviour. The following
passage, which comes from a guide to the Cambridge First Certificate in
English examination, offers some good advice to students:

1 Whenever you read a book, newspaper or text in English, get into rhe
habit of identifying and underlining phrasal verbs ...
2 Write down in a special notebook the sentences in which they appear.
3 Use your English-English dictionary to look up the meaning, and
write this after your sentence.
4 Try to write your own sentence using the same phrasal verb in a
different context.
5 Get an English teacher or friend to check that your sentences are
correct.
6 Limit the number of new phrasal verbs you collect to, say, two or three
each day; if you do five or ten minutes’ good work with each, you will
quickly build up a useful stock of words which you have actually seen
used in the English you have read.
(from Naylor H and Haggcr S, First Certificate Handbook, Hulton Educational)

This approach is self-directed and text-based, and, admittedly, assumes a

high degree of motivation on the part of the learner. Nevertheless, the
approach can be adapted to the classroom. For a start, the teacher can
increase the probability of learners coming across phrasal verbs by providing
texts that are likely to have a high frequency of phrasal verbs in them.
Because phrasal verbs are often idiomatic they tend, like other idioms, to
cluster together - where you find one, you are likely to find others. Here, for
example, is a short text from a magazine with the phrasal verbs underlined:

Next time you go rushing oft to sign up for an exercise class, consider first
what you want to get out of it. [...] If you really want to de-stress, set an
hour or so aside afterwards to go home, listen to music and have a
leisurely shower or bath. Working out, having a shower and then dashing
back to work or rushing on to meet friends just doesn’t allow you enough
time to benefit fully from the relaxing after-effects of exercise,
(from New Woman magazine)

Some books on phrasal verbs present theme-related sets of verbs in specially

written texts. Thus, a text about relationships may include such phrasal
verbs as go out with, get on with, fall out, split up, make up, get back together,
etc. As with lexical sets (see page 37), however, there is a danger that words
of too similar a meaning will interfere with each other - especially if they

125
How to Teach Vocabulaty

have a similar form (e.g. go out with, get on wi/Л). A looser and more natural
relationship may be more effective, such as the way words occur in a text, as
in this example:

1 In the listening exercise on page 31 you will hear six new phrasal verbs 'They arc in bold
type in this paragraph. From their context, work out which ones mean:

to leave to recover consciousness to finish

to arrive to begin suddenly to escape

War had broken out in the desert

kingdom and we realized that we had to
get away. Amanda turned up at my
apartment three hours late, so we
immediately got the car and set off
across the desert. Soon, our petrol
supply ran out, but we managed to beg
some from a passing lorry. We were
within sight of the border, when there
was a sudden, loud bang and everything
went black. When I came round, night
had fallen and Amanda was watching
over me with a worried expression It
was then that I realized we had driven
over a landmine.

2 Complete these sentences by using each phrasal verb once.

1 He is still unconscious; I’ll call you when he

2 She was so unhappy at home that she just had to
3 If you lace, you won't be allowed into the concert.
4 We'll have to really early to catch the ferry.
5 Just use a cheque if your cash
6 A flu epidemic has at work; I hope 1 don't catch it.

from Naunron J, Think Ahead to First

Certificate, Longman

Note that the occurrence of phrasal verbs in the text is fairly natural and that
they are highlighted in order to promote noticing. Moreover, the tasks in
this sequence move from recognition to production and the exercise is not
encumbered with complex explanation or categorisation. All of these
ingredients are conducive to successful vocabulary learning.

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 7 • Teaching word parts and word chunks

Finally, teachers should also try and include phrasal verbs in their
classroom language as much as possible — and draw attention to these from
time to time. Common classroom expressions incorporating phrasal verbs
are sit down,put your hand upу turn your papers over, write this down у cover the
page up, look it up, hurry up and calm down! By this means, exposure to a rich
diet of phrasal verbs can begin on Day 1 of the course.

Teaching We’ve seen that many phrasal verbs are idiomatic - in that their meanings
idioms are not easily unpacked from their component parts. Knowing the meaning
ofput and up allows us to interpret the sentence I put up a shelfin the kitchen.
But this knowledge is not much help in unpacking either I put Luke up for
the weekend or I put up with Luke for the weekend. Both these last examples
are idiomatic. Idiomaticity exists at both the single word and multi-word
level. Individual words can be used figuratively, as in This plan doesn't grab
me\ The kitchen is a pigsty; I can’t unpack the meaning of this idiom. More
typically, idioms are formed from collocations, and vary from being both
very fixed and very idiomatic (smella rat; the coast is clear) to being both less
fixed and less idiomatic (explode a myth/theory, etc; run a business/tbeatre, etc).
Idioms present problems in both understanding and in production. They
arc difficult to understand because they are not easily unpacked, and they
are difficult to produce because they often allow no variation. Few errors
sound more comical than an even slightly muddled idiom (e.g. I don't want
to blow my own horn, instead ot I don't want to blow my own trumpet).
Moreover, many idioms have a very narrow register range, being used only
in certain contexts and for certain effects. They therefore need to be
approached with a great deal of caution, and most teaching guides
recommend teaching them for recognition only.
Traditional teaching approaches tend to group idioms together according
to some category, and present them in sets. But, as with phrasal verbs,
teaching a set of idioms that are notionally related - such as idioms
associated with parts of the body (down at heel, put yourfeet up, foot the bill,
toe the line, etc.) - would seem to be a sure recipe for confusion. It’s not
difficult to imagine what could go wrong: put your heels up, toe the bill, etc.
More typically, idioms are grouped by theme. For example, the expressions
under the weather, off colour, run down and out of sorts are all synon ymous
with ill. But again, if these are being taught for production, the potential for
confusion is high.
As with phrasal verbs, a more effective and less perilous approach might
be simply to teach them as they arise, and in their contexts of use. That is,
to treat them as individual lexical items in their own right, without making
a song and dance about them. Since idioms tend to cluster together, certain
text types are often very rich in them. In this extract (from Sugar) idioms
(including idiomatic phrasal verbs) are underlined.

Eastcnders
Martin gets a big wake-up call this month when Mark is taken seriously
ill. How will he cope knowing his big bros days could be numbered and
will Nicky stick by him through thick and thin?

127
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Home and Away

Tom offers to pay for Justine’s courses in the city with the money he
earned from acting in the commercial. What a sweetie, eh? However,
Justine isn’t that impressed, and feels that Tom’s cramping her style. How
can she let him down gently?
Coronation Street
The Mike, Mark and Linda triangles still going strong, and sparks are
beginning to fly between Linda and Mark’s new girlie, Claire. Eeek!
Things aren’t too good over at the Platts either.
Emmerdale
Mark is annoyed when neither of his parents make it to the parent’s
evening ... how embarrassing! Richie lends Sarah a shoulder to cry on
after yet another bust-up with Jack. Will those two ever get on?

To use a text like this in class, learners could be set the task of working out
the underlined idioms from either their form or their context. For example,
going strong is easily unpacked from its components. Sparks are beginning to
fly is less obvious, but its negative connotation can be deduced from what
follows (Eeek! Things aren't too good ...). Showing learners how to work out
idiomatic meaning from these kinds of clues can not only contribute to
passive vocabulary knowledge but can improve reading skills as well.

Conclusions There is more to words than simply 'words'. In this chapter we have
seen:
• how parts of words combine in systematic ways to form whole
words
• how whole words combine in systematic ways to form chunks
But, the fact that these combinations are systematic does not mean
that the teaching of word formation or of word combination should
necessarily be rule-based. The systems may be too complicated or too
irregular to be of much use to learners, either for receptive or
productive purposes.
Instead, an approach that combines frequent and contextualised
exposure with consciousness-raising may work best. This is
recommended for the teaching of:
• composite words
• collocations
• phrasal verbs
• idioms

Looking ahead So far we have been concerned with teaching and learning. But, for
various reasons and at various stages in the process, the learning of
vocabulary needs to be measured. In the next chapter we look at ways
of testing vocabulary knowledge - both before, during and at the end
of instruction.

128
 cabulary
Why test vocabulary?
What to test
Types of test
• Measuring word knowledge
• Assessing vocabulary size
• Doing action research

Why test Why test anything? The obvious answer is that, without testing, there is no
vocabulary? reliable means of knowing how effective a teaching sequence has been.
Testing provides a form of feedback, both for learners and teachers.
Moreover, testing has a useful backwash effect: if learners know they are
going to be tested on their vocabulary learning, they may take vocabulary
learning more seriously. Testing motivates learners to review vocabulary in
preparation for a test. It also provides an excuse for further, post-test, review
- when, for example, the teacher goes over the answers in class. In this way,
testing can be seen as part of the recycling of vocabulary generally. In fact,
die only difference between many recycling exercises and tests is that only
rhe latter are scored. Here, for example, is a review activity from a
coursebook that could just as well form an item in a test:

4 Vocabulary
a) Make six lists of the words in the box: 1 The
body; 2 Travel-, 3 The country: 4 Illness-, 5 Jobs-.
6 Food.

field hurt luggage builder steak rice from Bell 1

electrician cough face delay wood and Gower R,
fish businessman path mushrooms toe Elementary
(light finger platform arm mountain Matters,
aspirin backache Longman

b) Mark the stress on the correct syllable of words

of more than one syllable.

129
How io Teach Vocabulary

Informal testing of this type is best done on a regular basis. Ideally, in fact,
vocabulary covered in the previous lesson should be tested at the beginning
oi the next one. If not, the chances of retaining the new vocabulary are
greatly reduced. The principle of distributed practice (see page 24) argues
that the spacing of these review phases should gradually be increased. This
requires a certain discipline on the part of teachers to keep track of their
vocabulary input, and to schedule tests at the optimal times. One informal
way of testing is to get the learners to test each other, using their vocabulary
notebooks (see Chapter 9) or the class word box (see page 51).
More forma] testing may be required at certain strategic stages in a
course. Tests of vocabulary knowledge sometimes form a part of placement
tests, or as a component of a diagnostic test in advance of planning a course
programme. Such tests usually involve some attempt to measure extent of
vocabulary knowledge. Tests of achievement at the end of a course, and of
overall proficiency, as measured by external examinations such as the
Cambridge First Certificate or TOEFL, typically include a vocabulary
testing component. Vocabulary knowledge is sometimes targeted in tests of
reading ability, since there is a strong correlation between the two. Finally,
learners’ developing vocabulary knowledge, and their use of vocabulary
learning strategies, may be the subject of testing for research purposes -
especially the kind of research that teachers themselves can carry out in their
own classrooms.

What to test In Chapter 2 we concluded that knowing a word means knowing:

• the word’s form - both spoken and written

• the word’s meaning (or meanings)
• any connotations the word might have
• whether the word is specific to a certain register or style
• the word’s grammatical characteristics - e.g. part of speech
• the word’s common collocations
• the word’s derivations
• the word’s relative frequency

Furthermore, all these aspects of word knowledge can be realised receptively

(in listening and reading) or productively (in speaking and writing). Any
vocabulary test, therefore, needs to take into account the multi-dimensional
character ot word knowledge.
Most vocabulary tests target only one or two aspects of word knowledge.
For example, the following items (1-3) focus on spelling, meaning and
collocation respectively:

1 Teacher: ‘Write down these words. Number 1, confident. Number

2, independent. Number 3, expectant. Number 4, reluctant', etc.

2 Write the English word that means: 1 a place where you go to buy
meat, 2 the person who repairs your kitchen tap if it leaks; 3 the
thing that you buy at a post office it you want to post a letter; etc.

130
 8 • How to test vocabulary

3 Choose the best word to complete each sentence:

1 The flight attendant asked rhe passengers to attention
to the safety demonstration.
a give b devote c pay d lend
2 A severe hurricane in the South Pacific lias many lives,
a claimed b taken c killed d destroyed
3 The delegates blamed each other when the peace talks broke

a off b up c on d down
etc.

Note that in tests 1 and 2 no context is provided, whereas in the third the
targeted language is (minimally) contextualised. Of course, contexts can be
added. In the case of test 1, the teacher could dictate whole sentences. In the
case of test 2, learners could be asked to put the words into sentences.
Note also that tests 1 and 2 require learners to produce the correct form
- i.e. to recall them from long-term memory. On the other hand, the
collocation test (test 3) is receptive in that it simply tests the learner’s ability
to recognise the correct form. This is a limitation if the aim is also to test a
learner’s ability to produce these forms. However, it could be made
productive if the multiple choice answers were removed:

Choose the best word to complete each sentence:

1 The flight attendant asked die passengers to attention to the
safety demonstration.
2 A severe hurricane in the South Pacific has many lives.
3 The delegates blamed each other when the peace talks broke .
etc.

Whether to test with or without a context, or to test for recognition or for

production, are issues that are best resolved by taking into account the
purpose of the test and also its likely effect on teaching. If the purpose of
the test is to predict the learner’s reading ability, tor example, then a
receptive test will be sufficient. But it should also be a contextualised text,
because reading involves using context clues to help work out word
meaning. /\ de-contextualised word rest might not be a valid test of reading
ability. Moreover, it has been argued that de-contextualised tests encourage
learners simply to learn long lists of words. On the plus side, de-
contexualised tests are usually easy to compile and mark, so they are
therefore very practicable.
To sum up, there is bound to be a trade-off between issues of validity
(does the test assess what I want it to assess?), of practicality (is it easy to
administer?), and of backwash (will the test have a positive effect on
learning?). Also at issue is the question of the test’s reliability. For example,
will it give consistent results, regardless of who marks it, and will it give the
same result for students of the same ability? The following test task assesses

131
How to Teach Vocabulary

productive, contextualised word knowledge, so it is a valid rest of the

learner’s command of vocabulary for a ‘real life' purpose. But, since it is
scored somewhat impressionistically, it may not be a very reliable test:

Write a letter of about 200 words to a friend, explaining that you have
recently moved house and why, and inviting the friend to a
housewarming party.
Scoring: Rate the range and accuracy of the writer’s vocabulary
knowledge on a scale from 4 (excellent) to 1 (very poor).

The reliability of the test cart be improved by providing more explicit criteria
for marking (see page 135). Nevertheless, applying such criteria effectively
is liable co slow marking down, and thus reduce the test’s practicality.
Considerations of validity and reliability are less of an issue in informal
testing, however, where the main objective is to motivate review and
recycling. More important, perhaps, is that the learners accept it as being a
valid test - that it has what is called face validity. Beyond that, it doesn’t
really matter what the test is like, so long as it encourages review.

Types of test We have already seen an example of a multiple choice test (in the
collocation example at the top of page 131). Multiple choice tests are a
popular way of testing in that they are easy to score (a computer can do it),
and they are easy to design (or seem to be). Moreover, the multiple choice
format can be used with isolated words, words in a sentence context, or
words in whole texts. Here, for example is a ‘word only’ example:

tangle means a a type of dance

b a tropical forest
c a confused mass
d a kind of fruit

Here, on the other hand, is a contextualised multiple choice test:

CANCER 22 June-22 July

Someone else is [a playing; b calling; c singing] the tune and for the
moment you’re quite happy to go [a along; b around; c away] with
what seems like a reasonable idea. Hobbies [a make; b use; c take] up
far too much time and children could need support with a new
activity. Peelings are [a going; b running; c climbing] high so ensure
you’re getting the affection you need ...

(from ME magazine)

On the negative side, multiple choice tests have been criticised because
• learners may choose the answer by a process of elimination, which hardly
constitutes ‘knowing’ the right answer
• depending on the number of possible answers (called distractors), there
is a one-in-threc (or one-in-four) chance of getting the answer right
• they test recognition only - not the ability' to produce the word

132
 8 • How to test vocabulary

• they are not as easy to design as might appear. On what basis are the
distractors chosen, for example? Synonyms? Words commonly confused?
Words of a similar sound or spelling? False friends?

An alternative to multiple choice is some form of gap-fill. Gap-fill rests

require learners to recall the word from memory in order co complete a
sentence or text. Thus they test the ability’ to produce a word rather than
simply recognise it. The best-known example of this test type is the cloze
test. In a cloze test, the gaps arc regularly spaced - e.g. every' seventh,
eighth, or ninth word. In this wav, knowledge of a wide range of word types
- including grammar words as well as content words - is tested. Moreover,
the ability' to complete rhe gaps depends on understanding the context, as
in this example, in which every sixth word has been deleted:

Tumbu fly
In Africa south of the Sahara, another (1) the traveller may
encounter is (2) tumbu or mango fly, which (3) its eggs
on clothing laid (4) on the ground to dry. (5) larvae
hatch and burrow their (6) into the skin, causing boil-like
(7) . These can be avoided by (8) that clothes, bedding,
etc., are (9) spread on the ground to dry.

(from Dawood R, Travellers' Health, OUP)

The succesfi.il answer to item (9) above depends on learners having

understood the gist of the passage. Is it always or never, for example? In fact,
cloze tests were originally designed as tests of reading. It is arguable,
therefore, whether they are really vocabulary tests at all.
A variant of the cloze test is one in which, rather than every ?/th word,
specifically chosen words are deleted. In this way, the test can be steered
more towards content words, and hence become a more valid test of
vocabulary. Most teachers will be familiar with tests of this selective (or
open) cloze type, although it is more often used to test grammar than
vocabulary. The problem with gap-fills, however, is that there is often more
than one possible correct answer, which makes scoring difficult. Thus, for
item (1) above, the words problem, parasite, danger or even thing are all
acceptable. One way of controlling this is to provide the first letters of the
word:

Tumbu fly
In Africa south of the Sahara, another problem the traveller may
e is the tumbu or mango fly, which 1 its eggs on clothing
laid out on the ground to dry: The larvae h and burrow their
way into the s , causing boil-like s . These can be a
by ensuring that clothes, bedding, etc., arc not s on the ground
to dry.

A variety of this approach is called the C-test In a C-test, the second half
of every second word is deleted as shown overleaf:

133
How to Teach Vocabulary

Tumbu fly
In Africa south of the Sahara, another prob the trav may
encou is t tumbu о mango fl , which la its
eg on cloth laid о on t ground t dry. T
larvae hat and bur their w into t skin, caus
boil-like swel . These c be avoi by ensu that clot ,
bedding, et , are n spread о the gro to dr .

At first sight, this looks even less like a vocabulary test than does a cloze test.
However, researchers have shown that success at doing C-tests correlates with
success at other kinds of vocabulary test. Hence, it has been argued that C-
tests are valid tests of overall vocabulary knowledge, and thus can usefully
serve as placement tests. They are not, however, of much use to teachers as
informal tests of progress, since they cannot be tailored to test specifically
targeted words.
Another variety of gap-fill tests learners’ knowledge of word formation, by
asking them to convert words from one form to another so as to fit a context.
Here is an example:

Change the word on the left into a suitable form to fill the gap:
1 cem/w On one occasion the opera was conducted by the .
2 place. Have you seen my keys? I seem to have them.

This kind of task tests learners’ knowledge of derivations (composer and

misplaced as opposed to, say, the incorrect compositor or deplaced}. It also tests
their ability to interpret the surrounding context, in order to make the correct
choice among several possible derivations (not composure or displaced^ for
example).
Even if sometimes the contexts arc only a single sentence, one of the
strengths of gap-fills is that they provide contexts for the words that are being
targeted. This is consistent with the view that language should be both taught
and tested in context. In fact, words like compose or place would be difficult to
test out of context, given that they have multiple meanings. However, gap-fills
require only minimal production on the part of the learner, and so it is
arguable whether they really test the learner’s ability to use the targeted words
in contexts of their own creation. The following test types attempt to remedy
this weakness.
One way is simply to ask learners to write sentences of their own that show
the meaning of targeted words. However, as experienced teachers know, it is
often difficult to assess learners’ word knowledge on the basis of their own
sentences. For example, while three of the following five sentences are well-
formed, only the last displays a sound grasp of both the form and meaning of
the word sleep-.
Tony slccped.
Tony slepT.
Tony slept Ter 7€n hcurs.
Tony ujas so Tired he was slepd" Scr ten hours.
Tony was so tired he slepT tor ten hours.

134
 8 ♦ How to lest vocabulary

A more revealing test of productive vocabulary knowledge is to set learners

the task of writing a whole text that includes the selected vocabulary items.
This is feasible only if the words themselves are likely to co-occur. Here is
an example where this is the case:

Write a paragraph of about 100 words to include at least six of the

following ten words. You can change the form of the word, if
necessary — e.g. work -*■ worked :
voucher stain sale unwrap
store rug couch refund
torn complain

When scoring such a test, marks can be allocated for both correct form and
appropriate use of each of the selected words.
The above tasks target pre-selected words - words that may have been
covered in preceding lessons, for example. A more global assessment ot
learners’ vocabulary knowledge can be gained from an evaluation of their
writing and speaking overall. Many tests of learners’ production, such as the
writing component of the Cambridge First Certificate examination, include
an assessment of the candidate’s vocabulary knowledge, both its range and
its accuracy. Usually this is assessed qualitatively - that is, a general
impression is made of the learner's vocabulary knowledge according to
criteria such as the following:

Wide range of words appropriately and accurately used; good

use of idiom and collocation; appropriate style 4
Adequate range, with only occasional errors of spelling, word
form, style, collocation, or word choice; meaning clear overall 3
Limited range of words, with some repetition; frequent errors
of spelling, style, collocation, or word choice, leading to
occasional difficulties in understanding meaning 2
Very narrow range, highly repetitive; frequent spelling and
word form errors; little or no awareness of collocation or style;
meaning frequently obscure 1

However, without considerable standardisation, such criteria are often

difficult to apply. Different examiners will have different opinions as to
what constitutes an ‘adequate range’ of words, for example.

An alternative approach is to evaluate the data quantitatively - that is,

using objective and measurable criteria. Three aspects of vocabulary
knowledge that are measurable quantitatively are:

• lexical density
• lexical variety
• lexical sophistication

135
How to Teach Vocabulary

Lexical density is a measure of the proportion of content words in a text.

Content words - as opposed to function words - are words that carry a high
information load, such as nouns, adjectives and verbs (see page 4). Written
text that contains a high proportion of such words is characteristic of
proficient writers. Lexical variety, on the other hand, is a measure of the
different words in the text. Again, a high proportion of different words is an
indicator of an extensive vocabulary knowledge - what is often called range.
Finally, lexical sophistication is assessed by counting the number of
relatively infrequent words in a text - such as the number of words that fall
outside of a list of the top 2,000 most frequent words.
Mere, for example, is a text written in response to the task on page 132:

I'm wri+tirg to you. as I have just Finished mevinq tc a new house, it

was very tirinq days. I left my old i--ou.se because there were some
things I didn’t like, such as it had quite so little reams. Not only
were there little and dark rooms but there were also little sunlight, it
was always in the s’.-ade. Moreover, I asked tc the owner or the
house tc paint it, as it was very dirty, but he turned down wkat I
had asked sc I deeded tc leave the house.
I have moved to a brand-new building sc there are no problems with
the painting and otner things at all. That 'nouse >s very comfortable
and it fas also large windows to pass through tne sunlight. By the
way, my new neighbours are very nice, they helped me with mcv>nq my
Furniture and all my things.

I have moved tc an area rear lots of parks, it is a beautiful place.

well, to sum up I’d like you to come tc- my housewarming party tc
open that pretty place I’ve got. 5o wishing to hear from you soon

The lexical density of this text - i.e. the number of content words as a
percentage of the total number of words - is something like 35 per cent. For
the purposes of this calculation, content words are considered to be nouns,
verbs (but not auxiliary or modal verbs), adjectives, and adverbs derived
from adjectives (e.g. quickly). The lexical variety - the number of different
words as a proportion of the total number of words - is almost exactly 50
per cent (94 out of 189). For this calculation, the different forms of a verb,
such as left and to leave, are counted as one word type, while lexical chunks,
such as phrasal verbs {turned down) and discourse markers {to sum up) are
counted as single items.
Finally, the number of words falling outside the top two frequency bands,
as indicated in the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary, is exactly ten:
tiring, sunlight, shade, moreover, dirty, brand-new, comfortable, neighbour,
furniture and housewarming. This represents about 10 per cent of the total
number of different word types, and provides a measure of the lexical
sophistication. To sum up, the student has a score of 35,50 and 10 for lexical
density, variety and sophistication respectively.
Of course, such a calculation needs to be balanced against a measure of
the accuracy of vocabulary use. However, this is notoriously difficult to
measure using quantitative means. Some errors are less serious than others

136
 8 • How to test vocabulary

(is my old house an error?). Others spread over more than one word (e.g. to
pass through the sunlight). Still others are difficult to distinguish from
grammar mistakes {quite so little rooms). An assessment of accuracy is likely
to be somewhat impressionistic, therefore.
By contrast, here is how a native speaker responded to the same task:

Just а поте +c let you. know that at last I've moved (see address
above). You. probably remember that I was having a miserable time in my
last flat because of the noise, particularly From tine bar downstairs
which used to stay open to three in the morning. I tried all sorts cF
things, including lodging a Formal complaint u>th the local council, but
nothing worked, sc Finally I decided to quit. I never really liked tl-at
neighbourhood much anyway. It was also a long way From work.

“Through a Friend cF a Friend I was lucky enough to Find somethina

almost straightaway. It's m a much quieter area, only ten minutes
From the oFflce and there's even a view oF the river From the terrace
It's more expensive than the other place, and <t needs quite a lot oF
work but it’s _gcinq to be lovely. I’ve already met the neighbours and
they seem pleasant enough - no dogs or loud music so Far! Anyway,
once I've had it done up, I’m planning to throw a little housewarming
party, so this is by way oF an invitation, i’ll let you knew the details
nearer the event.

In this case, the lexical density was 42 per cent and the lexical variety
roughly 65 per cent. The number of low frequency words was 16,
representing 13 per cent of the different word types. This provides a point
of comparison with the 35 per cent, 50 per cent and 10 per cent of the
student composition.
Clearly, this is a fairly laborious way of going about assessing vocabulary
knowledge. Moreover, any assessment of the density, variety and
sophistication of a learner’s use of vocabulary in a text needs to take account
of the kind of text it is. For example, academic writing is usually
considerably more lexically dense than fiction. Spoken text is a lot less dense
than written text. But at least these three measures provide an objective way
of assessing vocabulary knowledge, and may be helpful as a means of
evaluating a learners progress over time. And, with practice, teachers can
become fairly proficient at making an impressionistic but reasonably
accurate assessment of these criteria without the necessity' of totting up
every word.

Assessing Sometimes it is useful to assess the size of a learners vocabulary'. For

vocabulary size example, as a factor in determining a learner’s readiness to sit a public
examination, the number of words they know may be crucial. It is estimated
that a recognition vocabulary of at least 4,500 words is necessary for the
Cambridge First Certificate examination. There is little point in a learner
entering for the exam if his or her vocabulary size is barely 2,000. How,
then, do you go about assessing vocabulary size?
One fairly crude measure is to use a dictionary and choose a random

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How to Teach Vocabulary

selection of words - say every tenth word on every tenth page - and
incorporate these into a test. The rest could take the form of multiple choice
questions, or a multiple matching task, such as the following (which, has the
advantage of testing several words at once):

Match the following words with their meaning (there are more
meanings than words):
1 tall narrow building
crowd 2 annoy
gull 3 type of artist
pester 4 small sailing boat
sculptor 5 sea bird
6 a lot of people

Or learners could simply be asked to translate the words into their first
language. The proportion of words correctly known represents the
proportion of words in the whole dictionary. So, if the learner knows thirty
out ot a hundred words randomly chosen (i.e. 30 per cent), and there are
10,000 headwords in the dictionary; then a very rough estimate of the
learner’s vocabulary size is 30 per cent of 10,000, or 3,000 words.
Another approach is to ask learners themselves to assess the number of
words they know by giving them a representative sample of words in the
form of a list and asking them to tick the words they are familiar with. A
more sophisticated self-assessment test takes into account the fact that word
knowledge involves varying degrees of depth. Rather than I know this word
vs I don't know this wordy candidates can be asked to rate their knowledge
according to the following categories:
I don’t remember seeing this word before.
I recognise this word but I don’t know what it means.
I think this word means .
I can use this word in a sentence. For example: .

The test can be made more accurate still by selecting the words to be tested
from different frequency bands. This can be fairly easily done, using the
coding system in the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary, for example,
which discriminates between five different frequency bands:
• the 700 most frequent words. For example: other, family, week, start,
available
• the next 1,200 most frequent words. For example: imagine, justice, reform,
cash, agreement
• the next 1,500 most frequent words. For example: sensible, fancy, lucky,
weigh, beauty
• the next 3,200 most frequent words. For example: relevant, intake,
neutral, hockey, drawer
• the next 8,100 most frequent words. For example: pickled, congregation,
jut, craftsman, scourge

This gives a sample from a total of nearly 15,000 words overall. If, say, thirty
words are tested at each level (using, for example, the multiple matching

138
 8 * How io test vocabulary

task illustrated above), the results should give a fairly accurate indication of
the learner’s vocabulary size. Thus, if the test demonstrates that the test
taker knows twenty-eight first band words, eighteen second band words but
only four third band words, it is safe to assume that their vocabulary’ size is
within the first two bands, that is to say, within 1,900 words.
Other, often ingenious, ways of assessing vocabulary size have been
devised. However, given die complexity and intricacy of the mental lexicon,
and the difficulty of establishing what exactly constitutes a word, any
estimate of vocabulary size is only ever going to be approximate, at best.
Nevertheless, even an approximate measure may be better than none, when
it comes to deciding, for example, how much preparation may be necessary
tor an exam.

Doing action Testing, we have said, is a way of getting feedback on the teaching-learning
research process. In that sense, it is a form of small-scale research. Research itself is
part of a cycle of inquiry and experiment that characterises the working life
of professional practitioners. Most teachers are in a constant state of'trying
something out’, to see if it has anv noticeable effect on learning outcomes.
It may be a new book, or a new technique, or simply a new way of
organising the classroom furniture. Vocabulary’ teaching lends itself to this
kind oi experimentation, since, unlike grammar, vocabulary knowledge is
more readily itemised, and hence more easily measurable. It is easier, for
example, to assess whether twenty words can be recalled a week after they
have been introduced, than assess a learner’s command of the present
perfect over die same period of time.
Small-scale classroom research implemented by teachers and directed at
improving learning outcomes is called action research. Action research docs
not need to meet the same rigorous standards as, for example, the more
elaborate ‘scientific’ research carried out by academics. This does not mean
that it lacks rigour entirely. The same principles that relate to effective
testing - such as validity and reliability - apply equally to action research.
But above all, action research should be practicable - it should not place
undue demands on either teachers or students, and it should have practical
outcomes.
Below are detailed some possible lines of inquiry regarding the teaching
of vocabulary that practising teachers could pursue in their own classrooms.
They are directed nor so much ar measuring learners against each other (as
in an examination), as assessing the effectiveness of rhe learning-reaching
process in general. They all involve some kind of experimental teaching
and/or learning activity (the treatment) and then a post-test of vocabulary
recall. Strictly speaking, the results of rhe post-test are only valid if some
kind of pre-test has been conducted in advance of the treatment, although
this is not always practicable.

• To investigate different learning styles: Some learners prefer to see new

words instantly, others are happy simply to hear them and run them
through their articulatory loop (see page 23). To find out what works best
with vour own learners, teach the class ten new words by repeating and

139
11. )w to loach Vocabulary

drilling, but not writing, them. In a subsequent lesson, teach another ten
words, by writing them on the board, and repeating them, but not drilling
them. Allow the same time interval (e.g. a week) between each
presentation before testing each batch of ten words to see which batch is
recalled best. Note any major differences between different learners. You
can vary this procedure by adjusting the order and combination of
hearing, seeing, and repeating the words. You could also combine this
experiment with a short questionnaire about learning styles: Do you prefer
to see a new word instantly? Do you prefer to hear a new word before you see
it? etc. Note any correlations between learners' preferred styles and the
results of the experiment.

To investigate the effectiveness of different mnemonic techniques:

Explain to learners that you are going to present, say, twenty' new words,
and that you will test them on their recall of these words in a week’s time.
Suggest that they think of ways of remembering these words. Present the
words - using any of the approaches suggested in Chapter 5. Test the
learners a week later ~ using any of the testing methods suggested in this
chapter. Compare results and then ask learners to report on the wav that
they went about remembering the words, paying particular attention to
any memory techniques that rhe more successful students used. Then
present another set of new words, asking learners to apply the memory
techniques used by the successful learners, lest again in a week’s time,
and see if there is any overall improvement in recall. A variation of this
experiment might be to teach one half of die class a mnemonic
technique, such as the keyword technique (sec page 145), reach all the
class a set of words, and see if the experimental group (i.e. those
instructed in the keyword technique) show noticeably better recall. They
can then explain to their classmates how they applied this technique.

To investigate different ways of selecting words for presentation: In

Chapter 3 it was suggested that presenting words in closely related lexical
sets might be counterproductive, as the similarities in meaning might
cause cross-interference. To test this view, teach three batches of, say, ten
words in successive lessons, and in subsequent lessons test for recall. The
first batch of words should all belong to the same lexical set; the second
should be randomly chosen; and the third should have a loose relationship
- e.g. words that might co-occur in the same text. (One way of compiling
this last batch is simply to select ten words from one or two paragraphs of
an authentic text.)

To investigate the effect of extensive reading on vocabulary acquisition:

Provide learners with a graded reader or, at an advanced level, an
authentic novel or book of short stories. Set regular tasks to encourage
out-of-class reading, and programme discussions of the reading material
during class time. Meanwhile, select words from the material that are
likely to be unfamiliar to learners. If possible, try to note how many times
rhe selected words are repeated in the reading material. Do not draw any
special attention to these words before the testing stage. Ar the end of the

140
 8 • How to test vocabulary

reading phase, test learners on their recall of the words by, for example,
using the four 'word famihrity* categories mentioned earlier in this
chapter (see page 138). See if the results of this rest correlate in any way
with the number of times the words were repeated in the text.

To investigate vocabulary recording strategies: Ask learners to let you

borrow their vocabulary notebooks overnight. Note down the way they
record vocabulary' - whether they simply list words randomly, whether
they gloss them with translations, or definitions, whether they include
contextualised examples, etc. Choose a selection of words that are
common to all notebooks (if possible) and test the class on these words
in a subsequent lesson. Compare individual results to determine whether
there is any correlation between vocabulary recording strategies and
recall. Use the results of this experiment to discuss the best ways of
recording vocabulary (sec the next chapter for more on ways of recording
vocabulary).

To investigate the effect of guessing-from-context: Prepare a reading

text for the class that includes a number of words known to be (or likely
to be) unfamiliar. For one half of the class, provide a gloss of these
difficult words, e.g. in rhe form of a translation or definition. For
example, here is part of a text with glosses in Spanish:

/X DAY IN THE LIFE OF CABIN CREW

4.00am
I’m on early shift1 today, so it’s still dark when the alarm2 goes off.
When you’re getting up at the crack of dawn3, you need to be
organised, so I checked my rosters4 and prepared my uniform and
cabin5 bag last night. Today I’m doing what’s known in the trade6 as
a double Amsterdam’...
1 turno
2 despertador
3 al romper el alba
4 listas, programas
5 cabina
6 oficio

(from Easyjet In Flight magazine)

The other half of the class have no such help, and have to guess the
meaning of the unfamiliar words from context. Ask comprehension
questions about the text that require learners to engage with rhe
unfamiliar words. Allow them to collaborate on answering the questions,
but avoid giving any definition or translation of the unfamiliar words.
Simply encourage them to try to work out the meaning from the context.
In a subsequent lesson, test recall of the words in the text. See if there is
any difference between the two halves of the class - those that did not
have to do much cognitive ‘work’, and those that did.

141
How io Teach Vocabulary

• To investigate the effect of dictionary use: Follow the same steps as in

the previous experiment, but this time allow the group with no glosses to
consult dictionaries (rather than relying on context). Again, see if recall
is enhanced by the decision-making involved in consulting a dictionary.
A further variant of this experiment would be to allow one half of the
class to look up unfamiliar words in a dictionary, while restricting the
other half to using context clues, and then comparing the results of a
recall test.

The above list of research ideas by no means exhausts the possible lines of
inquiry open to the teacher when exploring the teaching of vocabulary.
Even if the results of these experiments are inconclusive, sharing your
findings with the class can generate discussion of different vocabulary
learning strategies. This in turn will raise awareness as to how vocabulary
might best be learned and this can only be of benefit to all.

Conclusions In this chapter we have looked at different ways vocabulary learning

can be tested. Testing needs to take account of factors such as:
• validity - are you testing what you want to test?
• reliability - will the test give consistent results?
• practicality - is it easy to administer and mark?
• face validity - will the learners take it seriously?
Testing can be both informal (as in regular progress tests) or formal
(as in end-of-course achievement tests). Sometimes, e.g. for placement
purposes, it is useful to test for vocabulary size.
Good tests have a positive backwash effect - for example, they
encourage good learning strategies.
Vocabulary tests can be divided into tests of:
• recognition
• production
They also divide between tests where words are tested:
• out of context
• in context
Finally, vocabulary knowledge can be assessed:
■ qualitatively - by using assessment scales, for example
• quantitatively - by doing word counts to test for lexical density, for
example
Testing is one way of assessing learning outcomes - the products of
learning. One way of assessing the processes of learning is by means
of action research. An action research cycle typically includes:
• a pre-test
• an experimental treatment
• a post-test

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 8 • How to test vocabulary

Looking ahead One of the benefits of action research is that it can help raise
awareness, on the part of both teacher and learner, of the best ways
of going about learning vocabulary. In the next and final chapter, we
explore the subject of vocabulary learning strategies in more depth.

143
 ow to train good
abulary learners
Learner training
75,
Ч* Using mnemonics
Word cards
• Guessing from context
• Coping strategies for production
• Using dictionaries
• Spelling rules
• Keeping records
• Motivation

Learner Some years ago a leading authority on second language learning, Wilga
training Rivers, wrote:

Vocabulary cannot be taught. It can be presented, explained, included in all

kinds of activities, and experienced in all manner of associations ... but
ultimately it is learned by the individual. As language teachers, wr wzr/
arouse interest in words and a certain excitement in personal development
in this area ... We can help our students by giving them ideas on how to
learn, but each will finally learn a ven* personal selection of items,
organized into relationships in an individual way.
(from Communicating Naturally in a Second Language, Cl.JP)

The unique quality of each person's mental lexicon, and the idiosyncratic
wav it is acquired, have been recurring themes in this book. This does not
mean, however, that the teacher is redundant. On the contrary, the teacher
can play a major role in motivating learners to take vocabulary seriously, and
in ‘giving them ideas on how to learn. That is the theme of this chapter:
learner training.
Learner training - i.e. training learners to learn effectively - has been
informed bv research into the strategies that successful learners use. Studies
have shown that good learners do the following things:

• They pay attention to form - which, in vocabulary terms, means paying

attention to the constituents of words, to their spelling, to their
pronunciation and to the wav they are stressed.

144
 9 • How to tram good vocabulary learners

" They pay attention to meaning - which means they pav attention to the
way words are similar or different in meaning, to the connotations of
words, to their style and to their associations.
• They are good guessers - which means they work out the meanings of
unfamiliar words from their form and from contextual clues.
• They take risks and are not afraid of making mistakes - which means
they make the most of limited resources, and they adopt strategies to cope
when the right words simply don’t come forth.
• They know how to organise their own learning — by, for example, keeping
a systematic record of new words, using dictionaries and other study aids
resourcefully, using memorising techniques, and putting time aside for
the ‘spade work’ in language learning, such as repetitive practice.

"This last point suggests that good language learners have achieved a
measure of autonomy and have developed their own techniques - rhat they
don’t need to be trained how to learn. Nevertheless, less self-directed
learners might benefit from guidance - by, for example, being shown a range
of vocabulary' learning techniques, and choosing those which best suit their
preferred learning style. Particularly useful are techniques for remembering
words, since, as we saw in Chapter 2, a great deal of what is involved in
acquiring a functioning lexicon is simply a memory' task.

Using Techniques for remembering things are called mnemonics. In Chapter 2

mnemonics (page 25) we saw that the best mnemonics are those that:

• have a visual clement

• are self-generated - i.e. not ‘borrowed’ from another learner or the
teacher
The best-known mnemonic technique is called the keyword technique.
This involves devising an image that typically connects the pronunciation of
the second language word with the meaning of a first language word. For
example, when I was learning the Maori word te aroha (love) the word
sounded a little like the English word arrow + -er, so I pictured Cupid with
a bow and arrow.
Devising keywords takes time, and a certain amount of training. Indeed,
it can take more time and training than some practitioners think it is worth.
However, the research evidence is compelling: there seems to be no other
single technique that works as well. Therefore, when teaching new
vocabulary items, it may be a good idea to allow learners a few minutes to
silently and individually devise keywords. Then, if you ask them to tell their
neighbours about their keywords it will not only reinforce them, but it may
help train learners who are having trouble adopting this technique.

Word cards Apart from rhe keyword technique, there is probably no vocabulary learning
technique more rewarding than the use of word cards. In fact, it is arguably
more effective than the keyword technique, since there are some learners
who find ‘imaging’ difficult, but all learners can be trained to prepare and
use sets of word cards.

145
How to Teach Vocabulary

The word card technique involves these steps:

• Learners write a word to be learned on one side of a small card

(about the size of a business card) and its mother tongue translation
on the other.

• Depending on the difficulty' of the words (see page 27) a hill set at
any one time should consist of between 20 and 50 cards.
• Words do not have to belong to lexical sets - in fact it is probably
better that they don’t, so as to avoid the interference effect of words
ot similar meaning being learned together (see page 37).
• Learners test themselves on the words by first recalling the meaning
of the new words - i.e. looking at each new word and then checking
their understanding of each one by looking at the word’s translation.
• They then reverse- the process, using the translation to trigger the
form of the new word.
• Words that cause difficulty' should be moved to the top of the pile.
In any case, the cards should be shuffled periodically to avoid ‘serial
effects’ - that is, remembering words because of the order they come
in and not for any other reason.
• The sequence of learning and review should become increasingly
spaced (according to the principle of spacing - sec page 24).
• As words are learned they should be discarded, and new word cards
made and added to the set.

To train learners to adopt this technique - and to always carry around with
them a set of cards - it pay's at first to supply' students with blank cards until
they get into the habit of obtaining their own. Hand out the cards after a
vocabulary-rich stage of a. lesson and demonstrate how to prepare half a
dozen cards, letting individuals choose which words they want to learn.
(Discourage learners from making cards of words they are already' familiar
with.) It helps if you have a set of cards of your own as examples, with which
you can demonstrate a simple sequence of activities. It is not important
what language you choose for your own L2. The purpose is simply' to
demonstrate the method. This is the basic procedure:

1 Look at the L2 word first (/<? aroha) and then check the meaning (love).
Repeat this with the whole set.

146
 9 • How to tram good vocabulary learners

2 Look at the Ll word first (love) and try to recall the L2 word (te aroha)\
check and continue through the whole set.
3 Repeat this sequence two or three times.
4 Shuffle the cards so that they are in a different order, and repeat steps 1
to 3.

In subsequent lessons, ask learners to produce their word card sets, and
invite them to comment on their usefulness, how many words thev have
learned, and how often they reviewed them. Some learners, of course, will
not have used their cards at all. Others will already be in the habit. Continue
incorporating word card activities into lessons, until the ma jority of learners
are using them on a regular basis.
Here are some other activities that can be done in class to encourage the
independent use of word cards. Note that some of them depend on learners
sharing the same Ll:

Peer teaching and testing: At the beginning of the lesson, pair

students off, and ask them to compare their current word card sets.
Encourage them to teach each other the words in their sets that they
do not share, and to test each other.

Association games: For example, each learner lays down one card ar
the same time, with the L2 word face up. The first to make a coherent
sentence incorporating both words gets a point. (The teacher may have
to adjudicate the coherence of some of the sentences.) If no association
can be made by either player, put the cards aside and deal two more.
Continue in this way until all the cards are used.

Guess my word: When learners are already familiar with each other’s
word cards, each takes a word at random, and the other has to guess
which word it is by asking yes/no questions, such as Is it a noun/
verb/adjcctive ...? Does it begin with • Has it got опе/two/three
syllables ... ? etc.

De-vowelled words: Each of a pair selects a word from their word

cards and writes it down without its vowels - their partner has to work
out what the word is.

й Ghostwriting: Each of a pair takes turns to write the word in the air,
or on their partners back. Their partner has to work out what the word
is.

Categories: In pairs or small groups, learners organise their words into

categories, e.g. according to whether the words have hot or cold, or
masculine or feminine, or good or bad, or sweet or sour, associations.

Learners can use the cards as material for other word games such as Word
Race, Back to Board, and Pictionary® (see Chapter 6).

147
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Guessing from In Chapter 2 it was argued that learners need a threshold vocabulary of at
context least 2,000 word families, and that this would provide familiarity with
roughly nine out of ten words in a non-specialist text. Increasing the core
vocabulary to 3,000 or even 5,000 would further reduce the ratio of
unknown to known words in a non-spccialist text, but not greatly. In fact,
no matter how many words learners acquire, they will always be coming
across unfamiliar words in their reading and listening. This is why they will
always need to be able to make intelligent guesses as to the meaning of
unknown words. Guessing from context is probably one of the most useful
skills learners can acquire and apply both inside and outside the classroom.
What’s more, it seems to be one that can be taught and implemented
relatively easily. It is also one that we all already use - perhaps unconsciously
- when reading and listening in our mother tongue. So it is probably less a
case of learning a new skill than transferring an existing one. The problem
for most learners when guessing the meaning of words in a second language
is that they are less confident about their understanding of the context than
they would be in their LI. They therefore tend to rely on the context less.
For this reason, vocabulary ‘guesswork’ should be integrated as often as
possible into text-based activities, such as reading or listening for
comprehension, and will be most effective after a global or gist
understanding of the text has been established.
Recommended steps for guessing from context are these:

• Decide the part of speech of the unknown word - whether, for example,
it is a noun, verb, adjective, etc. Its position in the sentence may be a
guide, as might its ending (e.g. an -cd or -ing ending might indicate it is
a verb).
• Look for further clues in the words immediate collocates - if it is a noun,
does it have an article (which might suggest whether it is countable or
not)? If it is a verb, does it have an object?
• Look at the wider context, including the surrounding clauses and
sentences - especially if there arc ‘signposting’ words, such as but, and,
however, so, that might give a clue as to how the new word is connected
to its context. For example: We got home, tired but elated', the presence of
but suggests that elated is not similar in meaning to tired. Compare: We
got home, tired and downhearted.
• Look at the form of die word for any clues as to meaning. For example:
downhearted is made up of down + heart + a participle affix (-«/).
• Make a guess as to the meaning of the word, on the basis of the above
strategies.
• Read on and see if the guess is confirmed; if not - and if the word seems
critical to the understanding of the text - go back and repeat the above
steps. If the word does not seem critical, earn' on reading. Maybe the
meaning will become clearer later on.
• When all else fails, consult a dictionary.

Many useful exercise types have been devised to train learners in these
strategies. It is a particular focus of instruction for students preparing for
examinations, where they will not have access to dictionaries. Here are two
coursebook exercises which target guessing from context strategies:

148
 9 • How to tram good vocabulary learners

Guessing vocabulary in context

Part A
Іхюк at rhe sentences below All the words in italics are nonsense
words Work out what those words mean from the context of the

sentence. Example:
Tribbet must mean scarf, because it is something you put round

your neck when it’s cold.

a.) it was a very cold day so I put a tribbet round my neck,
bj 1 was sofliglive that I drank a whole bottle of Coke.
с) I did three rra/ers yesterday but 1 failed diem all because 1 hadn’t

studied enough.
dj I did the exam very trodly because I had a headache
e) 1 sacked very' late at work because I overslept.

Part 8
In tlic sentences above decide whether the nonsense words arc:
adverbs, verbs (past tense): nouns, adjectives
Example: Tribbet must be a noun, because a comes before it

from Bell J and Gower R,

intermediate Matters, Longman

Exercise 6
Read the following text once, and then look carefully at each of the
words printed in italics. Remember when looking at each word (if its
meaning is unknown to you) that you should decide:
(a) what kind of word it is
(b) what information is given in the sentence or the whole passage
which can help you to work out the meaning.
We got in a little blue car heavily decorated with shining brass and
upholstered in deep red plush: we were the only ones in a car made to
take six. As we waited to start, I tried to make myself comfortable on
the seats, but they were so high and vast that 1 could only sit on the
edge with my legs dangling and my hands tightly clutching the brass
safety гл/7in front: 1 felt like a pea in a pod (...)
(from 77v Only Child by James Kirkup)
When you have done this, look at the questions which follow and in
each case write down from the four choices given, the word which
seems closest in meaning to the word quoted from the passage.
1 brass
A cloth В wood C paper D metal
2 vast
A small В hard C big D soft
3 dangling
A running В hanging C moving D standing
(etc.) ,________________ _ (
from Naylor H and Haggar S, First Г
Certificate Handbook. Hulton Educational

149
 How to Teach Vocabulary

Coping Guessing the meaning of unknown words from context is a strategy that
strategies for helps learners cope when reading and listening. But how can they make up
production for gaps in their word knowledge when speaking or writing? Do coping
strategies exist for production?
Even in our first language we use strategies to get round the problem of
not knowing a word, or nor being able to recall it in time. Vague terms such
as thingy, thingummy and whatsit are enlisted to fill the gap, as in this
example (from a conversation):

Oh the whole glass is blue 1 thought it was the liquid that was blue
(laughter). I thought it was erm that whatsit pina colada or whatever it is
- it s bright blue - Curasao or something.
Vague language is equally useful for learners of a second language. Words
and phrases like a sort of, a kind of stuff, thing, etc. can be usefully taught at
even quite low levels. Here, for example, is a coursebook extract that targets
vague language and is directed at low intermediate learners:

5 Here arc some ssays tu ask for something

when you don’t know the word.

Useful words:

a thing
л machine
□ rool powder
maren.il

Useful structures:

a thing with a hole / with a handle

a machine for making holes

a tool for cutting ss'ood
a thing for putting pieces of paper together

some material for making curtains

some liquid for cleaning windows
some powder for washing clothes
some stuff for killing insects

Example:
A: Excuse me. I don't speak English very well.
What do you call the round glass m a camera?
ft: The kns.
A: fhc lens. OK. I need some material for
cleaning the lens.
B: A tans cleaner. Yes, we have . . .

New look at the pictures and ask for one of

the things.

from Swan M and Walter C,

The New Cambridge English
Course 2, CUP

150
 9 • How to train good vocabulary learners

Other ways of getting round gaps in vocabulary knowledge include:

• paraphrasing - as in ‘a bed for carrying sick people’ (for stretcher)
• describing - as in ‘it’s like a chair, it’s got four legs, you sit on it, but it
hasn’t got a back’ (for stool)
• using a rough synonym - as in ‘the car is broken’ (for the car won't start)
• ‘foreignising’ the equivalent Ll word - as when a Spanish speaker
correctly omits the final -o in tranquillo to produce tranquil, or, less
successfully when a student of mine asked for carpet' in an English
stationery shop, reasoning (incorrectly) that the word for folder might be
the Spanish word {carpcta) minus the -a.
• using gesture and mime - for example, if trying to buy a saw or a hammer.
• using the Ll word - in the hope that the listener will know it, or that it
won’t be very different in the L2.

Learners can first be exposed to these strategies (on tape, for example) and
then apply them - through role plays. Buying tools and gadgets from a
hardware store is a productive scenario. When talking with learners, it
sometimes pays to resist supplying them with the words they are looking for,
in order to encourage them to integrate coping strategies into their talk.
Reminding learners that proficient speakers also suffer from gaps in their
vocabulary knowledge can be helpful: teachers can draw attention to the
language they themselves use when experiencing word retrieval difficulties.
Exposing learners to ‘defining’ language, as used in dictionaries, is another
way of providing them with the means to cope with vocabulary gaps. Some
learner dictionaries deliberately use an informal, spoken style in their
definitions, as in this example (from the Collins COBUILD English
Dictionary)'.

A corkscrew is a device for pulling corks out of bottles. It has a spiral -

shaped metal rod with a point that you push into the cork and a handle
which you pull to remove the cork.

Examples like these can serve as useful models for learners to write their
own definitions - using language such as a device for -ing\ it has ...;
X-shaped', ... that/whichyou ... etc. As well as trying to learn the names of
relatively infrequent items (as in the example from Test your Vocabulary 1 on
page 45), learners might also write definitions of them. As further practice,
they can then exchange their definitions and guess which definition matches
which picture.

Using Dictionaries - as we have seen - can be used as a last resort when ‘guessing
dictionaries from context’ strategies fail. But they can also be used productively, both for
generating text and as resources for vocabulary acquisition. Their usefulness
depends on learners being able to access the information they contain both
speedily and accurately. Training learners in effective dictionary use is
particularly important since many learners may not be familiar with
dictionary conventions, even in their own language. Such training also
provides them with the means to continue vocabulary acquisition long after
their course of formal study has been completed.

151
I low io Tc-ach Vocabulary

Key skills involved in effective dictionary use are the following:

• Recognising features of dictionary layout, such as use of alphabetical
order, headwords, grammar and pronunciation information, definitions,
etc.
• Understanding die way dictionary entries are coded - particularly the use
of abbreviations such as adj (adjective), (something), ScotE (Scottish
English), etc.
“ Discriminating between the different meanings of a word, especially a
word with many polysemes (see page 8) such as course or fair, or words
that are homonyms such as bill, bat and shed or homographs such as
windy, live and lead (see page 8).
‘ Cross-checking (when using a bilingual dictionary) that the translation
equivalent that is offered is rhe best choice for the meaning that is
required. For example, a French learner wishing to express embrasser (as
in je t’embrasse) in English may find several different equivalents in their
dictionary7:1 embrace. 2 hug. 3 kiss. 4 include. Only by checking‘backwards’
(e.g. by' looking up the entry for kiss} will they discover that some of the
English words may have a more restricted meaning and may not be
appropriate for their purpose.
• Using synonyms, antonyms and other information to narrow the choice
of best word for the meaning intended. For example, a learner wanting to
convey the meaning carefree but knowing only careless could use this as
the starting point in a dictionary' search. Similarly, the learner who wants
to correct the sentence 'They told everyone their engaged' will find both the
noun engagement and the correct verb announced under the entries
alongside engaged in any good learners’ dictionary. Or a learner
wondering if steed substitutes for horse will find that it has poetic
connotations and is generally only used in a literary7 context.
• Inferring the spelling of an unfamiliar word from only7 having heard it, in
order to check its meaning in the dictionary7.

Ways of training learners in the above skills include the following:

В Direct attention to rhe dictionary’s layout information, as displayed in

a typical entry. Such example entries can usually be found in the
introductory matter at the front of the dictionary7. You could prepare a
wallchart or overhead transparency that displays this information.
Then prepare a quiz that learners can answer in groups, using their
dictionaries. The words should be obscure because, if the learners
already know the words, there would be no incentive to use their
dictionaries. For example:

1 Which one in each of the following lists are not English words?
a terrapin b termagant c terkle d /er/z
a wede b wedlock c weenie d wedge
a caterpillar b cattery c catism d caterwaul
2 What part of speech are
a gaggle b parch c barring d peaky

152
 9 • How to train good vocabulary learners

3 What is the past tense of

a abide b rend c rid d strive
4 Find the words from which these words are derived:
a shies b racily c begotten d gravelly
5 What preposition usually follows each of these words?
a believe b ashamed c opposed d consist
6 In terms of pronunciation, which is the odd one out in each group?
a incise b concise c precise
a death b breath c sheath
a rude b feud c lewd
7 What is the American equivalent of
a dinnerjacket
b pavement artist
c holiday maket
d spare tyre

Design a similar set of activities based on just one page of a learners’

dictionary.

Set learners the task of identifying which of different headwords

matches a given meaning. A headword is any word which has an entry
of its own. In the case of homonyms and homographs, most
dictionaries give separate entries, and number the headwords
accordingly. Thus:

spar1 to practise boxing with someone

spar2 3a thick pole, especially one on a ship to support sails or ropes

(adapted from rhe Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

Here is an exercise aimed at sensitising learners to this dictionary feature:

1. Find (he entries for post in your dictionary.

2. Notice that there are 5 separate entries, each with a
numbered headword. from
3. Write the number of the headword used in these sentences. Underhill A,
Use Your
Headword Dictionary,
eg /7/ post the tetter tomorrow
number OUP

post has the meaning of headword number M-

a The soldier stood at his post.

b There are two large gateposts in

front of the house.

c At sunset, bugles blew the last post.

d Is the post delivered to each house?

153
How to Teach Vocabulary

Set similar tasks that require learners to discriminate between the

different meanings (or polysemes) under one headword, or the
different phrasal verbs associated with one headword (e.g. get up, get
on, gel over).

Д With groups of students speaking the same mother tongue and using
bilingual dictionaries, set translation tasks involving words with
multiple meanings in both the Ll and L2. Encourage them to cross­
check the words to ensure that the translation matches the meaning
required by the context. English words which could be targeted in such
exercises because their translation is problematic include: country, to
meet, way, to spend, to stay, to stand, to get, trip, home, fun, to join, mind,
and virtually all common prepositions.

V. Set learners the task of devising word chains using dictionary entries.
Different pairs can be given a starting word, and then ten minutes to
produce as long a chain as possible, choosing only words that are
related in some meaningful way with the immediately preceding word.
They can then explain their word chains to other pairs. Here, for
example, is a word chain that started from the word horrid in the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English'.

horrid -» unpleasant —* (not) enjoyable —* pleasure happiness

feelings —* anger -» offensive —> insulting -♦ rude -♦ annoy —*
unhappy worried —♦ anxious

Encourage dictionary' use when learners are self-correcting their

written work. Indicate, for example, where a mistake is due to the
wrong spelling (wich for which), the wrong choice of word (nervous for
tfwgry), or rhe wrong form of the word chosen (argues for arguments).
As preparation, distribute examples of vocabulary errors collected from
homework, and ask learners to work in pairs or small groups, using
dictionaries, to correct them.

t' Encourage learners to guess the spelling of unknown words that occur
when they are listening to a recorded cassette, for example. Pause the
cassette afterwords known to be unfamiliar, and allow learners time to
work in pairs to work out the spelling. They may then check the
spelling in the dictionary, looking up die meaning at the same time.

It was pointed out (on page 148) that the first line of attack on meeting
unfamiliar words in a text is to use ‘guessing from context’ strategies and
that dictionaries should only be consulted as a last resort. If learners are
shortcutting die guessing stage, one way of reducing their dependence on
dictionaries is the following:

u Hand out a text that has a number of words in it that you expect will
be unfamiliar to learners. Ask them individually to choose just five
words that they are allowed to look up. Before handing out
dictionaries, ask them to compare and revise their ‘shortlists’ in pairs.
If one student thinks they know a word on their partner’s list (through

154
 9 • How іо train good vocabulary learners

having worked it out from context, for example) they can explain it to
them and delete that word from their list. They continue in the same
way in successively larger groups, before submitting the words to a class
vote. Only when the class agrees on a definitive short-list of five words
can the dictionaries be consulted. In this way, learners can negotiate
which words are most important for an understanding of the text, and
which cannot be deduced from context. The activity also requires
learners to make repeated decisions about words, which - as we have
seen - is an aid to memorisation.

Spelling rules Dictionaries are often used to check spelling, and spelling in English is
somewhat problematic. This is because there is often more than one way of
spelling a sound, and more than one way of pronouncing a letter (or
combination of letters). Think of the way the /i:/ sound can be spelt in
words such as me, Jlea, free, Pete, ceiling and believe. Or (famously) the
different pronunciations of the letters ough as in rough, though, thorough and
hough. The situation is complicated by the existence of many words that are
spelt rhe same but pronounced differently (homographs), and many that are
pronounced the same but spelt differently (homophones - see page 8). On
top of which, there is a small set of words that have alternative spellings:
gaol/jail; judgement/judgment; skill'ful/skilful; alright/all right', etc. This can
give the impression that English spelling is totally capricious.
However, if English spelling really is so irregular, how is it that competent
speakers of the language can usually make a reasonably good guess as to how
to spell an unknown word? In fact, English spelling is surprisingly regular.
Research studies have shown that as many as eight out of every ten words
are spelt according to a regular pattern and that only three per cent of words
are so unpredictable that they have to be learned by rote. This three per cent
includes many of the most common words in English - such as онг, two,
you, were, would, said - which, because of their frequency, don’t cause
learners many problems.
This suggests that it may be worthwhile teaching some of the more
productive rules of English spelling. These rules will equip learners with a
handy tool when writing. Familiarity with spelling regularities will also help
them predict the pronunciation of a new word when they meet it in their
reading. It is vet another way of making learners less dependent on either
their teacher or their dictionary.
Four such highly productive rules have been identified by researchers.
They are:

• Use i before e except after c or when pronounced like the e in bed. This
rule accounts for: chief, piece, relieve, receipt, ceiling, their and Z>«r.
• If the word ends in a consonant + y, then you change the у to i when
adding a suffix. This accounts for: happier, relies, beautiful, pitiless and
married.
• If the word ends in a syllable formed by a combination of a single
consonant, a single vowel and a single consonant, such as wet, run, travel,
stop, you double the final consonant when adding an ending that begins

155
How to Teach Vocabulary

with a vowel, such as -er, -ing, -est, giving wetter, running, traveller,
stopped, beginner and biggest.
• If there is an unpronounced e at the end of the word, and if the suffix
begins with a vowel, then you drop the r: loving, liked, nudist, writer.

These rules can be taught and practised deductively - that is, the rule is
given and then it is applied to examples. Or the rules can be discovered
inductively - that is, learners can study examples and work our the rules for
themselves. One such way of guiding learners to discover for themselves
rules of spelling, including sound-spelling regularities, is the following:

Й • Dictate a number of words that have a common sound - such as /аі/

as in fly. Alternatively, if learners are familiar with it, write up the
words in phonemic script. Try to include only words that learners
are likely to be familiar with. For example (at elementary level): fly,
my, drive, high, like, sky, night, fine, try, white, fight, nine ...
Encourage them to have a guess at the spelling, if they are not sure.
• Allow them to use dictionaries to check the spellings.
• Ask them to group the words into three different patterns,
according to spelling. They should be able to identify the patterns:
-y, i_e, and -igh. Ask them to see if they can see any possible rules
for choosing any of these spellings. (The -y spelling occurs only at
the end of words.)
• Point out that these are the three commonest spellings of the /аі/
sound, and that by far the most frequent is i_e. (In fact, this spelling
is used in nearly 75 per cent of words that contain this sound.) Less
common are -y and -igh.
• Dictate some more words - this time words that are likely to be
unfamiliar to the learners, e.g. sty,flight, hive, chime, blight,pry, dime,
spite, dine. Ask them to try to write these words, to compare their
attempts, and then to check their dictionaries. If they can’t find their
first guess (e.g. blite), suggest they try another spelling (blight).
• Ask learners to write sentences using as many /аі/ words as possible.
Give them an example: e.g. My shy bride likes nice white wine. Ask
them to read their sentences aloud. This will help reinforce the
sound-spelling relationships.

Keeping The point has been made that the learning of a new word is not
records instantaneous, but that it requires repeated visits and conscious study. Much
of this revisiting and studying of words will have to take place outside class
time, since there simply isn’t time enough in class for review and recycling.
This means that learners will have to depend to a large extent on their own
vocabulary records. However, few students are so organised that they
automatically record the content of vocabulary lessons in a way that will
provide a useful reference for later study. As an example of how not to
record vocabulary, here is how one student took notes on a lesson on the
theme of description:

156
 9 ■ How to train good vocabulary learners

Tts red.
Idkcd: crCtz&K is l£ ?
А/Аф6 sAcu/e i&isb. ~

Inv&jnQI^ Д
^0/ГГЦП<37 {---- ]

Like other vocabulary learning skills, the keeping of vocabulary notebooks

is a skill that usually requires some classroom training. At the same time, as
with any mnemonic system, it is probably best if learners develop their own
preferred method of recording vocabulary. But some exposure to different
systems might help raise their awareness of the options available. Here arc
some ideas as to how to go about this:

W Advise learners to have a special notebook solely for vocabulary.

Ideally, it should be of a size that they can carry round with them.
Alternatively, recommend that they keep a part of their class notes
separated for the purposes of recording vocabulary only.

Й From previous classes, save examples of‘bad’ vocabulary records - like

the example above - and use these as a springboard for discussion on
the best way to organise vocabulary. At the same time, look out for
good examples of vocabulary note-keeping, and contrast these with the
less effective examples. Many coursebooks now include ideas for
organising vocabulary. Here, for example, is advice on making ‘mind
maps’:

157
I low to Teach Vocabulary

1 With another student, put the words below into these different
groups.
1 breakfast food and drink 4 family members
2 numbers 5 continents and countries
3 days of the week 6 interests
tea father reading twenty-five coffee
ham Monday sport hot chocolate Sunday
cheese Europe music grandmother two
baby sugar (oast Thursday films
son Friday daughter Wednesday seventy
Dutter eggs eight Australia brother
Asia Africa forty-five Greece France

2 Add other words you know to each group.

3 Work with another student. Organise the continents and

countries like this:
post office tzajchzr
dnctna, ——Q placcT) — szAztp/
/ \
student
from Mohamed S and Acklani R,
The Beginners’ Choice, Longm sun

’?й Ask learners regularly to compare and comment on their vocabulary

notebooks. Elicit any useful tips. Possible issues that may arise are:

• the organisation of words - are they recorded chronologically, as

they came up in class, or are they organised alphabetically, or into
themes?
• the forms of words - is there any indication as to pronunciation, for
example? Are derivations included?
• the meanings of words - is translation used to supply the meaning,
or are definitions, synonyms, and/or examples given?
• chunks - are multi-word units and idioms recorded separately?
• mnemonics - is any mnemonic information included, e.g. using the
keyword technique (see page 145)?

£ Set an example yourself, by planning board work in such a way that it

is easy for learners to copy and organise their own vocabulary record.
If possible, reserve one section of the board for new words. Mark word
stress and any other problematic features of pronunciation, e.g. using
phonemic script. Here is an example of well-organised board work:

158
 9 • How to train good vocabulary learners

Cloths patterns:

checked /tjekt/

5ІПІГ+
striped. Дігалрб/
pullover Ш
jacket plain о

materials:

cotton

woollen

leather

® Allow time in the lesson for learners to record vocabulary and to devise
mnemonics. Often the disorganised nature of learners’ notebooks is
simply the result of being rushed. Use rhe beginning of subsequent
lessons for a period of quiet review.

Й Check students' vocabulary notebooks from time to time. This provides

an incentive to learners to maintain a record of their vocabulary
learning, and is also a useful resource for choosing words that may need
to be reviewed and recycled later on.

Motivation At the beginning of this chapter, we quoted Wilga Rivers, to the effect that:
As language teachers, we must arouse interest in words and a certain
excitement in personal development in this area’. How is this worthy aim to
be achieved? One way is simply to rimetable plenty of time for vocabulary-
focused activities. Teachers can take heart from recent developments in
research that seem to suggest that a heavy concentration on vocabulary
acquisition, especially in the early stages of learning, is a prerequisite for

159
How to Teach Vocabulary

later proficiency in the language. It may be the case that mastery of the
grammar system depends on there being a critical mass of vocabulary to
work with. Teachers need not fear, therefore, that they are ‘wasting time’
teaching vocabulary.
It is also important not to short-change learners by depriving them of
vocabulary learning activities that arise during the course of the lesson, even
if these might seem to be peripheral to the main focus of the lesson. Л lot
of the vocabulary that surfaces during teacher-student, and student-student
conversation may in fact be more useful - and more memorable - simply
because it has arisen out of the students’ own needs and interests. Similarly,
classroom texts, whether in the coursebook or prepared by the teacher, offer
a rich source of words. There has been a tendency in recent classroom
practice, in dealing with texts, to focus on superficial reading skills such as
skimming and scanning. Students are cautioned ‘not to try and understand
every word’. It seems a wasted opportunity, though, not to exploit such texts
to the full, especially since many students feel that they would like to
‘understand every word’ in a text. To deny them this satisfaction may be
counterproductive.
As a teacher, possibly a learner, and definitely a user of words yourself,
you should share your sense of the excitement and fascination of words with
your students. Vocabulary learning never stops, even long after the grammar
system is firmly in place. New words are being coined daily, and old words
are assuming new meanings. Here are just a few of the thousands of words
and phrases that have entered the lexicon in the last ten years: bad hair day.
canyoning, cone off, dadrock, dumb damn, internaut and spamming. Talking
about words like these, and even coining new ones, can sensitise learners not
only to the rules governing word formation, but also offer an insight into
aspects of the cultures that produce such coinages.
Finally, share your own learning experiences - and those of other learners,
both successful and unsuccessful - with your learners. Here, for example, is
how one successful language learner - the nineteenth-century explorer Sir
Richard Burton - describes the learning strategies he developed. Burton is
alleged to have mastered around 30 languages, and could learn a new one in
just two months. This is an annotated description of his technique, in his
own words. (The numbers refer to the strategies listed below.)

1 got a simple grammar and vocabulary, marked out the forms and words
which I knew were absolutely necessary1, and learnt them by heart2 by
carrying them in my pocket and looking over them at spare moments
during the day2.1 never worked for more than a quarter of an hour at a
time, for after that the brain lost its freshness4. After learning some three
hundred words3, easily done in a week, I stumbled through some easy
book-work (one of the Gospels is the most come-atable6), and
underlined ever}' word that 1 wished to recollect', in order to read over
my pencillings at least once a day8 ... If 1 came across a new sound like
the Arabic Ghayn, I trained my tongue to it by repeating it so many
thousand times a day9. When I read, I invariably read out loud, so that
the ear might aid memory10 ... whenever I conversed with anybody in a

160
 9 • How to tram good vocabulary learners

language I was learning, 1 took the trouble to repeat their words inaudibly
after them, and so to learn the trick of pronunciation and emphasis11.

These are the strategies Burton scents to have employed:

1 He concentrated initially on what was necessary - presumably in order

to achieve a minimum level of effective communication.
2 He used item memorisation, at least at the early stages of learning,
rather than the learning of rules.
3 He constantly reviewed what he had learned, perhaps using the
principle of distributed practice.
4 He reviewed in short bursts, taking advantage of periods of optimal
attention.
5 He acquired a critical mass of words to start with, sufficient to provide
a core vocabulary for the reading of texts.
6 To reduce the strain on this limited vocabulary, he chose texts whose
content he was already familiar with in his own language. He seems to
have recognised the need for comprehensible input.
7 He made conscious decisions about which words he would intentionally
learn, and highlighted these on the page.
8 Again, he constantly reviewed the targeted words.
9 He drilled spoken features of the language that required neuro-
physiological (as opposed to cognitive) control.
10 He exploited rhe sound of words to facilitate storage in memory.
11 He used subvocalisation techniques to assist memor}'

All of these techniques have been vindicated in subsequent research into

vocabulary acquisition. What is significant, though, about Burtons account,
is the determination with which he went about learning languages, a
determination driven by his fascination for other peoples and other cultures.
If something of this fascination can rub off in the classroom, maybe
vocabulary learning will assume a momentum of its own.

161
 Task File

Introduction
• The exercises in this section all relate to topics discussed in the
chapter to which the exercises refer. Some expect definite

answers, while others only ask for the reader's ideas and
opinions.
• Tutors can decide when it is appropriate to use the tasks in this
section. Readers working on their own can do the tasks at any
stage in their reading of the book.
• An answer key (pages 178 to 182) is provided after the Task File
for those tasks where it is possible to provide specific or
suggested answers. The symbol beside an exercise indicates
that answers are given for that exercise in the answer key.
• The material in the Task File can be photocopied for use in
limited circumstances. Please see the note on the back of the
title page for the restrictions on photocopying.

162
 How to Teach Vocabulary ♦ Task File

UiHHi What's in a word?

A Lexical relations Pages З-10
What is the relationship between the words in the following groups?
1 a big loud oval green sensitive involuntary
b make surrender understand grab belong
2 a feminine femininity feminist feminism
b ease easy easily easiness uneasy uneasily
3 a strange odd funny peculiar weird
b help assist aid lend a hand
4 a like dislike
b freezing boiling
C turn on turn off
d friend enemy
5 a goldfish trout sole eel shark
b boil fry bake roast grill braise
6 lean bank tender tap plain mean flounder
7 a log on monitor download browser
b hand luggage gate number check in boarding pass

Ы В Lexical relations Pages 3-10

In the text below, find examples of the following:
1 two synonyms 5 three words belonging to the same
2 two antonyms lexical field
3 two co-hyponyms 6 a root word and its derivative
4 a hyponym and its superordinate term 7 two words derived from the same root

Sculpture
Making models and figures, or statues, is a form of art called sculpture. Sculpture is done
in two ways: by carving and moulding. In carving, the sculptor cuts into a block of wood
or stone with sharp tools. In moulding, he makes a model in soft clay, then bakes the clay
to harden it. From the hard model he makes a mould, and pours into it wet concrete or
hot, liquid metal (such as bronze). When this hardens, a perfect 'casting' of the model is
left.
Today sculptors also use materials such as pieces of glass, metal and cloth, as well as
wood and stone.
(from Jack A, Pocket Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Books)

C Word formation Page 5

The following words are recent coinages in English. Match each with its definition - and
then decide what principle(s) of word formation each one is an example of.
twigloo sport that involves descending mountain streams at high speed
internaut freely distributed computer software
dumb down a small computer application
canyoning very large place serving alcoholic drinks and food
applet make something less intellectually demanding
trainspotter habitual user of the Internet
deciuttering a tree-house made of branches
shareware getting rid of unnecessary things
superpub a collector of information about train movements

Scott Thornbury How to Teach Vocabulary © Pearson Education Limited 2002

PHOTOCOPIABLE 163
TASK FILE How to leach Vocabulary • Task file
Chapter
2 How words are learned
or* A Knowing a word Pages 15-16 sfc oc-cur /э'кзф'кт.і.' v occurred, occurring UJ/ornjo/
1 la happen: Many accidents occur in the home. | Climatic
This dictionary entry for the words changes have occurred at intervals throughout the
occur and occurrence comprises differ­ millennium 2 (always * adv/prepj lo happen or exist in
в particular place or situation- (♦ In/among etc]
ent aspects of what knowing these Whooping cough occurs mainly tn young children
occur to sb phr и |T not in passive] if ari idea or
words means, Identify the different thought occurs to you. it suddenly comes into your mind:
aspects of word knowledge and match it occurs to sb that Didn't it occur to you that your hus­
band might be late?] The possibility that she might be
them with these categories: meaning, wrong never occurred to her | it occurs to sb to do sth I
spoken form, grammar, derived forms, suppose it never occurred to you to phone (he police?
collocations, register, frequency. oc-cur-rence/э’клггпіЦэ’кзі-і'л
1 (CJ something that
(from the Longman Dictionary happens: a common/rare/regular occurrence:
Flooding under this bridge is a common occurrence. |
oj Contemporary English) Laughter uns a rare occurrence in his classroom. 2 [U]
the fact of something happening: the frequent occurrence
of violent storms Ln the area

9" В First language vocabulary learning Page 18

Here are two extracts of mother and child talk. In the first, the child, Kathryn (C), is
aged one year and nine months; in the second she is a year older. What evidence can you
find of the development of her lexicon?
1 C: (picks up red bean bag in shape of a bicycle) Santa Claus.
M: Santa Claus? that's a bicycle, honey, that's not Santa Claus, that's a bicycle, red bicycle.
C: bicycle, (puts bicycle on car) sits.
M: yes, he's sitting down, that's right.
2 C: (looking under her skirt) I just have see. I'm gonna get some rubber pants.
A: why?
C: because then J won't go tinkle in these pants so I'll get some rubber pants ... I have
to go get some of those rubber pants, (going into her bedroom) i'll be right back, the
door is open so I can get in.
(from PecceiJ, Child Language, Routledge)

C Learners' vocabulary errors Pages 28-29

In this extract of student writing, identify the lexical errors according to whether they
are form-related (e.g. mis-selections, misformations, spelling mistakes), or meaning-
related (e.g. wrong word choice).

I never have done para-gliding in my life, because I have a little of giddness. Consequently
I like the sports that I stay at the floor. For example, I has been skating for many years from
I was eight years old until threeten. During this time I went to the club all Saturdays
morning, but I never have participated in competitions. One day when I was skating I failed
and I did hurt my uncle. This failed didn’t permite me to return at the skate.

List the errors:

mis-selcction
m information
wrong spelling
wrong word choice

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Chapter
3 Classroom sources of words
A Selecting words to teach Pages 34-35
The following words are introduced for active study in three successive levels of a
coursebook series (Bell J and Gower R, Elementary Matters, Intermediate Matters, Upper
Intermediate. Matters, Longman). Can you group them according to the level at which
they were introduced, i.e. Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate? (Ten words
have been selected from each level.) On what grounds did you make your choice? For
example, usefulness, frequency, learnability', teachability'?
stylish cheque glimpse uneventful
afford intelligent coat windscreen
run out of awful crocodile village
flight be fond of incredibly fantastic
plead guilty split up with terrified tissues
carrots squeak stockbroker overtake
showers try on September balding
strenuous heart attack

В Exploiting coursebook material Pages 3&-42

Here are two vocabulary exercises from a coursebook. Can you devise ways of extending
the exercises, so that learners make several decisions about both the form and meaning
of the words?

Build your vocabulary

Word field: biography You study.

You get divorced.
What is the usual order of
You do military service.
these events in your country?
You die.
You retire. You get married.
You get engaged. You find a job.
You graduate. You have children.
You are born. You leave home.

7 Match the verbs with the

(from T'hornbujy S, Highlight Pre-Intermediate, Heinemann)

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C T^n9 Wjth W°rds ,n «Rebook texts p

The following text enm^c г ГТ- K Texts page 40

Jamaica There is parliamentary democracy in

Jamaica but the country is right of
centre due to economic pressures. The
POPULATION

LANGUAGES
RELIGIONS
main export is sugar and tourism is POLITICS
The history of Jamaica is one of important, but very little money CLIMATE
colonialism. English is the official reaches the poor.
LIFE EXPECTANCY
language, but there is also a Jamaican However, more than 55% of the 2.5
patois. million
The weather is generally sunny and Jamaicans
warm, the temperature varies by only now live in
three or four degrees whatever the towns and.
season. on average,
Reggae music is everywhere and people live
nearly always has a political and/or until they
religious message. Different Christian are seventy-
religions exist, but Rastafarianism is three.
particularly popular with young
people. It stresses the spiritual unity of ' Harvesting
Africa and looks for political change. • sugar cant

Scott Th0,nbury Hon to {/оМу @

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Chapter
4 Texts, dictionaries and corpora
V A Short texts Page 53
Identify and list any lexical chains of three or more words in die following text. Give
each list a tide. A lexical chain can consist of repeated words, synonyms and antonyms,
hyponyms, or simply words that belong to rhe same lexical field.
Squeaky Clean
Birds caught in oil spills could soon be cleaned using iron powder and magnets. Unlike
detergents, the technique removes oil without destroying the waterproof properties of
feathers.
John Orbell and his colleagues at the Victoria University of Technology in Melbourne,
Australia, found that oil sticks to fine iron powder in preference to birds' feathers.
Combing the feathers with a magnet removes the oil as well as the iron. 'We were quite
amazed by the efficiency of the cleansing process,' says Orbell.
Magnetic cleaning is also much quicker than existing treatments, which involve gently
scrubbing feathers before rinsing and drying. 'The dry cleaning process takes a matter of
minutes,' says Orbell. As less handling is required, the procedure should be less stressful
for the birds and allow more to be treated per hour.
(by Jon Copley, from New Scientist)

В Literary texts Page 57

Identify any lexical features of the following poem that you could guide your learners to
notice and manipulate:
Wild Iron
Sea go dark, dark with wind
Feet go heavy, heavy with sand
Thoughts go wild, wild with the sound
Of iron on the old shed swinging, clanging:
Go dark, go heavy, go wild, go round,
Dark with the wind
Heavy with the sand
Wild with the iron that tears at the nail
And the foundering shriek of the gale.
(.Allen Curnow, Collected Poems, Carcarner Press)

O'" C Corpora Pages 68-70

What grammatical and semantic information about the word iron is revealed by this
extract from the COBUILD corpus? For example, what different parts of speech does
iron function as? What different meanings does it have?
I mean the Earth is made mainly of iron and silicon and things like that
a super-family of enzymes that use iron and oxygen to do interesting
as well as plenty of vitamins, iron and potassium, and lots of fibre,
There’s a coin laundry, complete with iron and ironing board, in the pool area
being beaten over the head with a 3ft iron bar by a boy outside the school, who
he learned two things: the value of iron discipline, and the inequities and
building materials, such as steel and iron, in shortage, Iran may have to turn
to hold a preliminary meeting to iron out their differences and present a
calls for ruthlessness, hardness, and iron resolution, the behavior of an
and 127 tonnes of granite. No steel or iron was used; the slabs and pieces of
[p] [h) Daly produces display of Iron will Golf Heineken Classic |/h| [b|
the green. If you normally hit a 3-iron 180 yards, take a 4-lron, or even a

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Chapter
5 How to present vocabulary

A Ways of presenting words Page 77

Consider how you would present each of the following six secs of words. What do you
think would be the most appropriate means of presenting them? (E.g. visual aids, a
situation, real objects, etc.)

В Anticipating problems Pages 75-76

Look at the following words. What problems of meaning (including style and use) or
form (either spoken or written) might they present to learners? Discuss what you could
do in class to help learners with these problems.

stomachache actually
lawyer gentleman
thorough crisps
comfortable remind
furniture invaluable
get on with chuffed

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C Presenting a lexical set Pages 75-76

fhe following activities come from a coursebook presentation (Bell J and Gower R,
Elementary Matters, Longman) but they are out of sequence. Can you organise them
into a logical sequence? What factors did you consider when ordering the activities?
Note that some of the activities refer to the photograph (in colour in the original) and
the box of words below.
cap socks coat jacket jeans sweater trousers skirt hat
cardigan trainers dress T-shirt shoes

1 What are Alex and Jim wearing?

2 Match the words in the box with the clothes in the photograph.
3 Work with a partner and sit back to back. What's your partner wearing? If you can’t
remember, ask a question. Example: Лгсдю// wearing black (socks) or blue socks?
4 Match the words in the box with the parts of rhe body (A or В or A and В). Д
Use a dictionary to help you. Example: cap = A, socks - B, coat = A and B. Ijp ь
5 Correct these sentences: к
1 Steve's wearing black jeans, a white T-shirt and a grey sweater, lies got red socks
and green trainers. Ide’s wearing a black cap.
2 Pauline’s wearing a short red skirt, a blue cardigan and a black hat.
6 Which clothes are red, yellow, white, black, brown, blue, green or grey? Examples:
Alex's dress is green. Steves jeans are blue. Jim's wearing grey trousers.

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TASK FILE How to reach Vocabulary • Task File
Chapter
6 How to put words to work
A Exploiting coursebook material Pages 93-101
Here is a vocabulary activity from a beginners* course (Mohamed S and Acklam R, The
Beginners' Choice, Longman), consisting of two stages. Devise at least three further
stages which would require learners ro ‘put the words to work* - both receptively anti
productively.

7—^l^pic^below and number the

parts of the body-
nose... eye • •
hair 2 head .. loot.
mouth- hand..
leg knee ... finger ...
arm • back .
shoulder., face...
toe
ear stomach ...

Listen and check your answers.

3

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V' В Cognitive and affective depth Pages 93-101

Research suggests that tasks with depth have a greater learning pay-off than tasks that
lack depth. Rate the following tasks according to rhe amount of depth - either affective
(emotional) depth or cognitive (intellectual) depth. For example: cognitively demanding
vs cognitively undemanding; affectively engaging vs affectively unengaging. Place the
number of each task on this grid:

cognitively demanding

affectively affectively
unengaging engaging

cognitively undemanding

All eight tasks relate to the following set of words:

doing housework watching TV playing music
babysitting going for a drink going for a walk
eating out reading swimming
working out gardening going to the movies
going shopping going for a drive
redecorating surfing the net

1 Put the words in alphabetical order.

2 Listen and repeat the words.
3 Prepare questions using at least six of these words, and ask your classmates. Report
their answers to the class.
4 Rank these words in the order of personal preference.
5 Categorise these words into three groups. Then identify the odd one out in each
group.
6 Make true and false sentences about yourself using eight of these words, beginning
I really like ... or I don't like ... very much. Can your partner guess which are true and
which are falser
7 Look these words up in the dictionary and check you know their meaning.
8 Translate these words into your language.

C Word games Pages 102-104

There have been a number of popular television programmes based around word games,
such as (in the UK) Call my Bluffand Blankety-Blank. What TV and radio word games
arc you familiar with - and how might these be adapted for classroom purposes?

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Chapter
7 Teaching word parts and word chunks
СГ" A Combinations Pages 106-107
Look at coursebook extracts 1 -5 below. What combining principle (e.g. compounding,
affixation, collocation) docs each of these coursebook activities target?

a You can make hair and eye into adjectives, e.g. dark-haired, blue-eyed.
Can you make more adjectives like this?
left- fair- green hot- narrow- broad- short-
blooded shouldered haired sighted handed eyed minded
b Check the meaning. Which adjectives describe personality?
Which ones describe you or someone you know?

(from McGowen В and Richardson V, Clockwise Pre-Intermediate, OUP)

2
1 Work with another student. Put the opposites of
2 How many sports can
you make by using
the adjectives below in one of the columns. Are
the words in the columns generally negative or
words from column I
positive in meaning? and column 2?

1 2
hand polo
1 1 i i horse skiing
attractive friendly sensitive loyal water ball
experienced caring ambitious adaptable ice racing
reliable obedient polite tolerant basket hockey
patient selfish decisive faithful motor skating
romantic lucky fair intelligc.nl net
base

(from Mohamed S and Acklam R, Intermediate Choice, (from Thornbury S, Highlight

Longman) Pre-Intermediate, Hcineman n)

4
I. Complete the text.

in a small village ourselves retiring

In different countries • travelling golf

My parents are diplomats, and they've worked all over the

world It was strange tor me and my sister growing up

1 bul it made us very independent - we can look

after : . My lather's looking forward to >

now I think ne’s had enough of living abroad, and he wants to

settle down ♦ and take up •• ' it'll be harder

for my mum. I don't think she ll ever give up1

2 Write sentences about yourself with the multi-word

(from McGowen В and
verbs in the rext. Richardson V, Clockwise
Pre-Intermediate, OUP)

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Walk around the classroom

and find one person who:
a sometimes goes on holiday
alone.
b hates going shopping,
c usually goes for a drink / coffee
after class.
d usually goes home as soon as
the lesson finishes,
e is going out on Saturday night,
f is going away next weekend,
g goes jogging regularly,
h likes going for a walk in the
countryside.

(from Cunningham S and Moor P, Cutting Edge Intermediate, Longman)

В Word grammar Page 122

Sort these verbs into three groups according to their associated grammatical patterns.
Can you find any similarities of meaning within each group?
manage develop proceed show
disappear advise fail emerge
teach attempt ask arrive

Ы C Idioms Pages 127-128

Identify any idioms - including phrasal verbs used idiomatically - in this text.
1.40 Neighbours
Navy girl Janine finally comes clean and admits to her mother Cheryl that she has been
the victim of domestic violence. No wonder she was so terrified when her ex-boyfriend
Ross turned up in Ramsay Street.
7.30 Coronation Street
Behind-the-scenes investigations mean things look grim for Vicky and Steve. The syndi­
cate looks forward to its first race. Reg's flat goes up for sale - is he finally moving on?
And Don has an idea that could put the garage back on its feet. Teenage sweethearts
Kelly and Ashley are going great guns with their romance, and it continues apace. And
at last, Judy gets the job she wanted.

(from the Radio Times)

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Chapter
8 How to test vocabulary
A Vocabulary tests Pages 129-132
Here are two tests of vocabulary. Discuss ant! evaluate them according to criteria of
validity, reliability, practicality and backwash. Tick the categories in the box for each rest.
1 Put more words in these lists.
Example: uncle, aunt, cousin, father
1 arm, nose
2 breakfast, dinner,
3 triangle, cross
4 knife, cup
5 fly, walk
etc.
(from Swan M and Walter C, The Cambridge English Course 7, CUP)

validity low medium high

reliability low medium high
practicality little average a lot
backwash negative average positive

2 Read the following text and use the word given in capitals at the end of each Line to
form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning
(0). Write your answers on the answer sheet.

Media career opportunities

Nowadays there is a (0) ..уагіе+у_ of career opportunities VARY

in the media. It is possible to study (1).................. at JOURNALIST
most universities, many of which offer (2).................. OPTION
courses in reporting on sports and (3).................... Newer ENTERTAIN
degrees in media studies, which were (4).................. as AVAILABLE
reccntlv as ten vears ago, attract (5).................. ENTHUSIASM
students front all over the country.
Some graduates prefer to work in (6)................... as it ADVERTISE
etc.

validity low medium high

reliability low medium high
practicality little average a lot
backwash negative average positive

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 How to Teach Vocabulary • Task File

Measuring word knowledge Pages 135-137

Read the following piece of student writing and rate it in terms of the word knowledge
the writer displays, using the scale on page 135. Check your intuition against a more
quantitative measure, by evaluating the text’s lexical density, variety and sophistication
(see page 136) (To measure its lexical sophistication, you will need access to a dictionary
that provides word frequency information, e.g. the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary

English.)

Living longer is the dream of many people because

they don’t want to separate from their family and
friends. But scientists are making researches to
increase the life span. Technology is used to extend life
span. For example, ten years ago the average span, of
life in Turkey was fifty to sixty but today it increases
to sixty to seventy with the help of technological
improvements. Many people believe that this is very
big advantage for human life. They believe that It
prevent many illness and by this way improves the
quality of life. But I don’t agree with them because
technology has many negative effects such as human'я
nature, environment and human health. To sum up,
we are damaging lots of things including human being
while trying to lengthen life span. So that we must
think twice before doing something to human being
whether it is useful or harmful ,

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TASK FILE How *.o T«dch Vocabulary • Task File
Chapter
9 How to train good vocabulary learners
A Learner training Page 144
Here is some advice for learners from coursebooks. Discuss and assess it in terms of the
principles outlined in Chapter 9. Is it good advice? Is it practical? Is it likely to give
results?

0L<5A AMP MldUEL Do '(йи rriean <ou build

1 Not always Somciirncb I barn whok phrases
srrtenc« «fled bi vOrA? b< htart for watr-pk ’I think -{ou dxwU’,
LE AR NI NG -T IP S

Dkp .itid Miqurl arc IMUinq ‘I think <(cu shouldn’t’ or Tm ftd up Hh

about лосзКіпд activities. Then. >htn I ьреак to oihtcs I only riitd to
think of the- ntcttwq vocabulary to
complete the sentences

To hr continued ..
S'then 1 speafc to other people in
class. I find it very difficult to
I ’build’ -nhotb sentences in frelish.

(from Palencia R and Thornbury S, О-Der to Us! 4, Students' Hock, Longman')

• Develop an efficient means of storing vocabulary which you can

easily refer to later. Experiment with the following.
- Alphabetical card indexes with definitions or translations of
words.
- A special note-book with new words listed by topic area.
- An alphabetical note-book (e.g. an address book) which you can
keep with you at all times. (from Radley P and
■ An alphabetical list on your home computer. (This has the Millerchip C, Workout
Upper Intermediate,
advantage over the others as it will be easier to update.)
Longman)

Expression Organiser
This section helps you to record and translate some of the most important expressions from each unit It
is always best to record words in phrases, rather than individual words. Sometimes you can translate very
easily. Sometimes you must think of an equivalent expression in your own language.

la 2a
Whai rJo your patent do? Vi'rat shall wo do lorugnt? ..................................................
He гцлі his «мп business ........... ... . . So w.a! HxiJ oi ііііпдз are you «Moresied >n? ............................ .. ..
S-ne «oiks m nitverttsinu Won. I'm really mto music. .. ...................... .............
To ne •чуівеі ... . . Jazj and blues ard that s-ут o’ thing. ..................................
nt sounds гееву interesting. ........... im іеаііу IninioMt-d In an. ........................ ..............
She 'onks reany rmh’4»y i ante hhe raaifino too

(from Dollar H and Hocking D, Innovations, LTP)

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 How to Teach Vocabulary • Task File

ar' В Self-correction Page 154

Read this text written by a student and identify lexical errors. Devise a coded marking
scheme that will encourage the learner to self-correct, using a dictionary, for example.
What general advice would you give this learner?

during thanksgiving day, 1 went to American

family for 4 days. 1+ was very interesting.
First > I was amazed about my host and
hostness they have 7 children. In my country,
most of families have X. children. Then I went
to my hostness's parents had thanksgiving dinner.
This was another surprised. There were RS. people
in this family. This is real big family. I also did
something that I never did it before. I rode a
horse, made pizza, baked cookies, and decorated
Christmas's tree. Finally, my home stay made a
big chocolate cake that is my favorite cake for
me to give a farewell dinner. I was really missed
them, and I hope I can go home stay again.

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Chapter 1
Л 1 same word class, i.c. all adjectives (a), all verbs (b)
2 same word family, i.c. a root (Jemin-) and its derivatives
3 synonyms, i.e. words or phrases of similar meaning
4 antonyms, i.e. words of opposite meaning
5 co hyponyms, i.e. kinds of fish (a)» ways of cooking (b)
6 homonyms, i.e. all of these are words that have at least two totally
different meanings
7 words belonging to the same lexical field, i.e. computers (a),
air travel (b)
В 1 synonyms: models,figures
2 antonyms: soft, bard
3 co-hyponyms: wood, stone, concrete, clay, glass, metal, cloth (all materials')
4 hyponym and superordinate term: woo/etc. and material’, bronze and
metal; sculpture and art
5 lexical field: virtually all the content words belong to the lexical field
of sculpture, e.g. art, carving, cuts, block, tools, clay, bakes, mould, casting,
sculptor
6 a root and its derivative: Zwn/ and harden’, mould and moulding
7 two words derived from the same root: sculpture and sculptor (from
sculpt)
C mig/w: a tree-house made of branches - a blend of twig and igloo
internaut: habitual user of the Internet - a blend of Internet and astronaut
dumb down: make something less intellectually demanding - conversion
of dumb (from adjective to verb) plus adverb particle {down) to form, by
compounding, a phrasal verb
omyewng: sport that involves descending mountain streams at high speed
- formed by conversion from noun to verb and affixation: canyon + -ing
applet: a small computer application - formed bv a combination of
clipping and affixation: application + -let
trainspotter: a collector of information about train movements - formed
bv compounding of train + spotter, spotter being formed by affixation:
spot ♦ -er
deciuttering: getting rid of unnecessary things - formed by conversion
from noun to verb {clutter) and affixation: de- + clutter + -ing
shareware: freely distributed computer sof tware - formed by affixation:
share + -ware (bv analogy with hardware, software)
superpub: very large place serving alcoholic drinks and food - formed by
affixation: super + pub. Pub itself is a dipping of public house.
 Task File Key

Chapter 2
A

frequency spoken form grammar derived forms grammar

register

\jwW 1j(to happen^Manyaccidents occur in the hornefClimatic

^changes have occurred at intervals throughout the
meaning millenniu ([always 4- adv/prep]) to happen or exist in grammar
icular place or situation: [+ in/amon
collocations Whooping cough occurs mainly in young chi
foccurto)(sb phr pJT not in passIveD/iTan idea or)
(thought occurs to you, it suddenly comes mto your mind:P^ meani
it occurs to sb that Didn 't it occur to you that your hus-
band might be late?\ The possibility that she might be
wrong never occurred to her. | it occurs to sb to do sth I
spoken suppose it never occurred to you to phone the police?
form ‘
ос*сиг»гепсе(/з7клгэп8||а|кз:-/п) 1 (C](something that
happens!) (a common/rare/regular occurrence^
Flooding under this bridge is a common оссиггепсеД^^-
meaning Laughter was a rare occurrence in his classroom. 2 [U] evocation
the fact of something happening: thefrequent occurrence
of violent storms in the area

В Apart from her very limited vocabulary at age 1:9, the child over-generaliscs
the meaning of words, so that Santa Claus refers to anything large, red and
rounded, perhaps. A year later, however, words are used precisely {pants) and
modified so as to match exactly what is being referred to {rubber pants).
Words are also used in their correct combinations {go get, right back, get in).
There is also evidence of some chunk’ learning: gonna, some of those and I'll be
right back. Notice, also, the use of linkers {because, so) to make logical
connections across utterances.
C Mis-selection: uncle (for ankle). Misformations: threeten, Saturdays, (I) failed,
(this)failed, (the) skate. Wrong spelling: giddness, permits. Wrong word choice:
floor (for ground), from (for since), all (for every), {return) al (for to).

Chapter 3
A The words were presented at these levels:
Elementary: cheque, intelligent, coat, awful, village,flight, tissues, carrots, try on,
September
Intermediate: stylish, afford, crocodile, befond of, incredibly, fantastic, terrified,
showers, balding, heart attack
Upper Intermediate: glimpse, uneventful, windscreen, run out of, plead guilty,
split up with, squeak, stockbroker, overtake, strenuous
Note that this is how one coursebook series graded the words. Other books
might introduce them at different levels (or not at all), according to factors
such as the choice of coursebook themes and texts.

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Task File Key

Chapter 4
A There are at least four main lexical chains running through this text: birds, oil.
iron and cleaning. (Unsurprisingly, these tour rhemes sum up the gist of rhe
text: Iron cleans birds ofoil.) Words in the bird chain are birds and feathers
(repeated frequently). 0//chain words are oil (repeated) and spill; iron-related
words include magnet and (irow) powdery cleaning words include cleaned,
detergents, combing, cleansing, scrubbing, rinsing, drying, dry cleaning. There are
also a number of words connected ro the theme of process {process, treatments,
procedure).
В Salient features of rhe poem include:
adjectives (many repeared): dark, heavy, 'wild
go + the above adjectives: go -wild, etc.
adjective + with + noun: wild with the sound, etc.
and rhe larger pattern: noun ♦ go + adjective, adjective + with + noun
participles: swinging. clanging, foundering
onomatopoeic words (words that sound like the thing they are describing):
c/znzipng, shriek
preponderance of one-syllable, Anglo-Saxon (as opposed ro Latinate) words:
dark, feet, sand, shed, ere.
C The corpus data reveals that iron can be used as both a countable and
uncountable noun (/? d-iron and no steel or iron, respectively), that it can
modify other nouns (e.g. iron bar), that it can be used figuratively with nouns
like discipline, resolution, and will (meaning ver у strung), and it forms a phrasal
verb with out {to iron out}.
Chapter 5
A Some appropriate ways of presenting these groups of words might be:
1 through mime; 2 through a story; 3 through recorded examples of music,
or by reference to known musicians; 4 bv means of visual aids, or definitions;
5 through a situation, or a number of situations, related to work; 6 through
realia (i.e. real examples of materials).
Note that - according to the available visual or technological aids, the
ingenuity of the teacher, the learning styles of the students - other means of
presentation might be just as effective.
В stomachache: pronunciation and spelling
lawyer: pronunciation and spelling; meaning (different cultures classify people
who work in law differently)
thorough: spelling ami pronunciation; meaning (confusion with through)
co/nfortable: (specifically a tendency to stress the second
syllable)
furniture: meaning (the fact that furniture is uncountable - somefurniture, not
furnitures) also pronunciation
get on with: meaning (idiomatic phrasal verb)
actually: meaning (in many languages the equivalent words mean at the
moment’)
gentleman: meaning (its use is restricted to certain contexts - e.g. ladies and
gentlemen-, it lias connotations associated with class); form (the plural is
irregular)
crisps: pronunciation; meaning (confusion with chips)

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 Task File Key

remind: (he form of rhe grammar that accompanies it {remind someone to do

something, remind someone ofsomething)} meaning (confusion with remember)
invaluable: meaning (the negative prefix suggests it means ‘not valuable’)
chuffed: meaning (colloquial, typically spoken, style); pronunciation
C The actual coursebook order is the following: 4, 2, 6, 5,1, 3.

Chapter 6
В
cognitively demanding

3,5 6
affectively _______________ affectively
unengaging engaging
1,2, 7.8

cognitively ling

Chapter 7
A 1 compounding; 2 affixation; 3 compounding; 4 multi-word compounds
(phrasal verbs); 5 collocation.
В Group 1: manage, proceeds fail, attempt', all arc followed by Го-infinitive and are
associated with actions and processes.
Group 2: develop, disappear, emerge, arrive: all arc verbs that take no object (i.e.
intransitive verbs) and their shared meaning is one of things changing state or
moving.
Group 3: show, advise, teach, ask: all these verbs can be followed by a direct
object and /^-infinitive (as in I advised her to see a doctor). Note that only three
{show, teach, ask) can be used with an indirect object: I showed him the way. All
four verbs imply that someone influences someone else, often through words.

C Idioms are underlined:

1.40 Neighbours
Navy girl Janine finally comes clean and admits to her mother Cheryl that
she has been the victim of domestic violence. No wonder she was so terrified
when her ex-boyfriend Ross turned up in Ramsay Street.
7.30 Coronation Street
Behind-the-scenes investigations mean things look grim for Vicky and Steve.
The syndicate looks forward to its first race. Reg’s flat goes up for sale - is he
finally moving on? And Don has an idea that could put the garage back on its
feet. Teenage sweethearts Kelly and Ashley are going great guns with their
romance, and it continues apace. And at last. Judy gets the job she wanted.

Chapter 8
В A pcncil-and-paper count of the text’s lexical density gives a figure of 47%
(71 content words out of 150); its lexical variety is 61% (92 different words
out of 150), and its sophistication is 4% - the relatively infrequent words
being span, improvements, illness, negative, lengthen, harmful.

181
Task File Key

Chapter 9
В One simple way of coding lexical errors might be to use the abbreviations:
WF (for wrong form), WC (for wrong collocation), and WW (for wrong
word). WF and WC errors arc relatively easily corrected by reference to a
good dictionary. WW errors arc less easily self-corrected, unless the learner
has access to a thesaurus-type lexicon. Here is the student’s text, coded for
the three types of errors:
During (WW) thanksgiving day, I went to American family for 4 days. It
was very interesting.First, I was amazed about (WC) my host and hostness
(WF) they have 7 children. In my country, most of families have 2
children.Then I went to my hostness's (WF) parents had thanksgiving
dinner. This was another surprised (WF). There were 42 people in this
family. This is real big family. I also did something that I never did it before. I
rode a horse, made pizza, baked cookies, and decorated Christmas's tree
(WF). Finally, my home stay made a big chocolate cake that is my favorite
cake for me to give a farewell dinner. 1 was really missed them, and I hope I
can go home stay (WC) again.

182
Further reading

The following books are recommended if you would like to follow up

some of the topics discussed in this book:

Aitchison J (1994) Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental

Lexicon. Blackwell.
Carter R (1998) Vocabulary: Applied Linguistic Perspectives (2nd edition).
Routledge.
Gairns R and Redman S (1986) Working with Words. Cambridge
University Press.
Lewis M (1993) The Lexical Approach. Language Teaching Publications.
Lewis M (1997) Implementing the Lexical Approach. Language Teaching
Publications.
Lewis M (Ed.) (2000) Teaching Collocation. Language Teaching
Publications.
McCarthy M (1990) Vocabulary. Oxford University Press.
Nation ISP (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge
University Press.
Read J (2000) Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge University Press.
Schmitt N (2000) Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge University
Press.
Schmitt N and McCarthy M (Eds.) (1997) Vocabulary: Description,
Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge University Press.
Sinclair J (1991) Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford University Press.
Stevick E W (1996) Memory, Meaning and Method (2nd edition). Heinle
and Heinle.
Willis D (1990) The Lexical Syllabus. Collins COBUILD.

The following reference books, CD-ROMs and websites are also useful:
Cambridge Word Selector. (1995) Cambridge University Press.
Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns: 1 Verbs. (1996) HarperCollins.
Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns: 1 Nouns and Adjectives. (1998)
HarperCollins.
Collins COBUILD English Dictionary. (1995) HarperCollins.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (3rd edition). (1978, 1995)
Longman.
Longman Language Activator. (1993) Longman.
WordSmifh Tools [concordancing software] (Version 3.0, 2001) Oxford
University Press.
British National Corpus Sampler CD-Rom (1999) BNC Consortium.
British National Corpus: http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html
COBUILD Corpus: http://titania.cobuild.colhns.co.uk/form.html

183
Index

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 ind

lexical sets, 35-38 using translation, 77-78 reliability, 131-132

advantages and disadvantages, 37 word selection, 75-76 for research, 130
lexical sophistication, 136 pre-teaching, 40 spelling, meaning, collocation,
lexical syllabus, 14, 112-113 pre-test, 139 130-131
lexical variety, 136 principles for vocabulary' learning, 30 validity of, 131-132
lexicon process language, 43 test types
size of, 20-22 production tasks, 100-101 achievement. 130
literary texts, 56-58 productive knowledge, 15, 22, 131 cloze, 133
loan words, 27 pronunciation, 27, 29,66 C-tests, 133-134
long-term memory; 24-26 diagnostic, 130
effective techniques. 24-26 questionnaires, 101 multiple choice, 132-133
placement, 130
malapropism, 16 range, 28, 136 proficiency, 130
meaning. 15, 28 reactive approach, 121-122 thematically linked words. 37
meaning-based lexicon. 17 readers, 58-59 thesaurus, 62
memory of vocabulary, 23-26 realia, 78-80 Total Physical Response. 79
mental lexicon, 16-17. 93 receptive knowledge, 15. 22 translation, 77-78
meronymy, 10 record keeping, 156-159 treatment, 139
metalanguage. 43 recycling, 129
mistakes register, 11-12 usefulness, 34-35
See errors repetition, 24
mnemonics, 23, 25, 145 retrieval practice effect, 24 varieties of English, 11
morphological organisation, 17 roots, 4 visual aids, 79-80
motivation, 25, 159-161 rote learning, 24 vocabulary' depth. 22
multi-part verbs. 6 rule-based teaching. 107-108, 125 vocabulary' levels, 5‘>
multi-word units. 6, 106. 114 rules vocabulary size. 20-22, 59, 137-139
See also lexical chunks deductive teaching of, 156 vocabulary books, 44-47
inductive learning of, 156 for teaching, 45-46
narrow reading, 59-60 for testing. 44-45
network building. 18 semantic svllabus, 112 vocabulary sources, 32-74
nominating, 88 sentence frames, 6 corpus data, 68-73
noticing, 109 sets, teaching idioms in, 127 coursebooks, 34-43
notions, 112 short-term store, 23 Internet, 53-54, 60
short texts. 53-58 students, 49-51
pacing, 24 spelling, 27, 29, 66 teachers, 48
particles, 124 rules, 155-156 word lists, 32-34
pattern-highlighting techniques, 110 strangers, 20
peer teaching, 89-91 strategics, 39 word box, 51
tasks, 91 for production, 150-151 word cards, 33. 51,145-147
pejorative uses, 12 style, 11-12, 67 using as learning tools, 147
personalisation. 25, 88 suffixes, 4 word classes, 3-4
phonemic script, 86 suggestopedia, 76 word families, 4-5. 20, 21
phrasal verbs, 6. 106, 115-116, superordinate terms won! formation. 5-6, 39
123-127 See hyponyms teaching, 106-111
phrase books, 44 synonyms, 9, 152 word knowledge, 15-17
polysomes, 8-9,152, 154 measuring, 135-137
post-test, 139 rags, 56 organisation, 16-17
practising vocabulary task-based approach, 115 word lists, 32-34
distributed practice, 24, 130 teachability. 35, 78 exploiting, 33-34
prefixes, 4 testing, 129-142 words
presenting vocabulary', 75-92 backwash effect, 129, 131 as items, 14
elicitation. 87 face validity, 132 definition of, 2-3
induction, 82 global assessment, 135 form of, 15
involving learners, S7-91 practical i tv, 131-132 grammar of, 28, 66,122-123
means of. 77 qualitative v. quantitative, 135-136 meaning of, 15. 66
sequence of, 76, 86-S7 reading ability, 130 working memory, 23, 93
situational presentation, 81 82 reasons for, 129-130

185