Teaching vocabulary
Sebastian Calisto Miranda
Magister en Innovación de la Enseñanza, Aprendizaje y Evaluación de
Inglés
Universidad de Concepción
Introduction
Deliberate • One of the less efficient ways of developing
learners’ vocabulary knowledge
vocabulary • It is an important part of a well-balanced
teaching vocabulary programme
• What needs to be known about a word can’t
Main problem be dealt at one time
• Cumulative process
• Teaching can provide just a few encounters
Learning a word • The other meetings should be through
deliberate study
Positive effect of
• It provides help when students face message-
teaching focused activities
vocabulary
Ways of quickly giving
attention to words
First decision: Is the word
worth spending time on?
• Nation (2005) states:
• High frequency words are worth spending time
on as they meet the needs of the learners.
• Low frequency words should be dealt as quickly
as possible unless they are useful for the
learners.
What is involved in knowing a
word?
• When deciding how to spend time on a word, we
should consider the learning burden of the word.
• Learning burden: What needs to be taught about a
word.
1. It differs from word to word according to the
ways the word relates to the L1 and L2
knowledge.
Teachers have to work out the learning burden
considering each aspect of what is involved in
knowing a word
Consequently…
• The learning burden of a word helps a teacher
make the second important decision about
teaching words.
• What aspects of the word should I spend time
on?
• As well as providing direct teaching on those
aspects of the word, the teacher can also set the
learners to work on some of these aspects.
Exercises
• Vocabulary learning exercises that require
little or no preparation
• Prepared vocabulary exercises
Little or no preparation exercises
Word Word form Word use
meaning
• Find the core • Spelling • Suggested
meaning dictation collocates
• Word card • Pronunciation • Word
testing • Word parts detectives
• Guessing from
context
Many of these activities involve learners working together in pairs or
small groups.
Prepared vocabulary exercises
Meaning
• Word and meaning matching
• Labelling
Advantage:
• Sentence completion They can be made to
• Crossword puzzles systematically cover an area of
• Semantic analysis vocabulary and learners can do
• Completing lexical sets them independently.
Form
• Following spelling rules
• Recognizing word parts Working them in pairs or groups
• Building word family tables add the opportunity for learners to
Use learn from each other
• Sentence completion
• Collocation matching
• Collocation tables
• Interpreting dictionary entries
Getting repeated attention to
vocabulary
• Useful vocabulary needs to be met again and again to ensure it is
learned.
• Early stages: meetings need to be reasonably close together.
• Later stages: meetings can be very widely spaced with several weeks
between each meeting.
• Four strands of a course
1. Meaning-focused input
2. Meaning-focused output High frequency vocabulary
needs to be met across all
3. Language focused learning four strands of a course
4. Fluency development
This approach to vocabulary is
based on the following
guidelines
• High frequency words
1. Give it attention, preferably focusing on its learning burden
2. Make sure students will come back to the word again
• Low frequency words
1. Pass over them without comment or give some brief
attention to it focusing on what is needed in that instant
• Direct teaching should be clear and simple. Rely on repeated
meetings to develop an understanding of the complexities of a
word.
• The deliberate teaching of vocabulary is only one part of the
language-focused learning strand of a course.
Personal reflection
• My practice
• Deliberate vocabulary teaching
• Learning burden
• Retention and usage of words rather than memorization.
References
• Nation, P. (2005). Teaching vocabulary. Asian EFL Journal, 7(3),
47-54.
