ELT METH C4 Teaching Vocabulary

ELT METHODOLOGY
TEACHING VOCABULARY
Pendergast, T., 1864
• ‘The words of a foreign tongue which we commit to

memory are prisoners of war, incessantly trying to
escape, and it requires great vigilance to detain
them; for unless our attention be continually directed
towards them, and unless we muster them frequently,
they steal away into the forest, and disperse. But
when they are bound together in sentences, the same
degree of watchfulness is not required, because they
escape with difficulty, a whole gang of them may
easily be traced and recaptured at once.’
Aims
• to provide student teachers with

theoretical input on teaching vocabulary
• to provide practical classroom activities
Initial questions:
• 1. How do we LEARN new vocabulary?

• 2. How do we SELECT new vocabulary to
teach?
• 3. How do we TEACH vocabulary?
1. How do we LEARN new vocabulary?
• When answering this question, we need to take into

account the following:
  we recognise and understand more words than we
actually use, i.e. our PASSIVE (receptive) vocabulary
exceeds our ACTIVE (productive) vocabulary.
  we normally hear or see a word many times in
differing contexts, before we begin to use it, i.e. there is an
INCUBATION period.
  in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) it is
essential to distinguish between receptive/PASSIVE, and
productive/ACTIVE vocabulary.
1. How do we LEARN new vocabulary?
  it is essential to give low level students

a limited active vocabulary quickly, and
from this a student can build his/her
vocabulary at a natural, unforced speed.
  to build his/her vocabulary a student
should be encouraged to read widely
outside the classroom and to invest in a
good monolingual dictionary.
2. How do we SELECT new vocabulary to
teach?
• In order to induce active production of vocabulary

we need to make our decisions about what to teach
with reference to such criteria as:
• FREQUENCY: how often the word is used;
• RANGE: number of different contexts in which a
word is used;
• FAMILIARITY: even if the word is not
frequently used, is it familiar to everyone?
• USEFULNESS: according to the students’ needs.
TASK:
• Look at the following words and:

• 1. Evaluate them using the above criteria
• 2. What level could you introduce these
words at? Why?
• soap, post-office, preach, couple, ceiling,
chest of drawers, dozen, hang-gliding,
blackboard, paper, mushrooms, fat, sturdy
2. HOW do we TEACH vocabulary for
active use?
• The way we teach vocabulary depends on:

• -the age of the students
• -the language level of the students
• -the social/cultural/educational background of the
students
• e.g.: -for beginners the teacher introduces classroom
vocabulary such as: greetings, orders, commands, and uses
various materials (pictures, charts, cards, etc.)
• -for intermediate and upwards, the teacher should develop
learner independence by encouraging students to read
more and use dictionaries.
WHEN do we teach vocabulary?
• WHEN (at what stage of the lesson) should

vocabulary be taught?
• -the teaching of vocabulary is only a part of a
lesson, a tool for students in order to be able to
solve the tasks involved in the development of
different skills
• -presentation and practice of vocabulary can be
done before, while or after speaking, listening,
reading or writing tasks.
STEPS IN THE TEACHING OF
VOCABULARY:
• The teaching/learning of vocabulary

involves several steps:
• A. PRESENTING
• B. CHECKING UNDERSTANDING
• C. PRACTICE
• D. RECYCLING
A: Techniques for vocabulary
PRESENTATION:
• use of realia (real objects)

• use of visual aids (pictures, charts, drawings, etc.)
• miming
• giving definitions or examples
• giving synonyms or antonyms
• using the new word in context
• translation
A: Techniques for vocabulary
PRESENTATION:
• drawing lexical sets (mind maps), i.e. the grouping

of words under a certain topic
• The use of this technique makes learning easier
because the words are easier to remember if they
belong to the same area; vocabulary is easier to
teach since the lexical set can be expanded as
students progress in their learning and the
vocabulary practice can be contextualised.
TASK:
• 1.Write suitable lexical sets for the following:

• a. furniture - Beginners (6 items); Intermediate
(12 items)
• b.physical description adjectives - Beginners (6
items); Intermediate (12 items)
• c. driving a car - Intermediate (12 items)
• 2. Think of suitable ways of presenting the items.
B: Ways of CHECKING
UNDERSTANDING of the new vocabulary
• a. techniques of vocabulary presentation

• b. concept questions. These are yes/no
questions which refer to the features of the
new lexical item.’They can be formed by
specifying the crucial, defining components
of meaning in terms of statements, and then
turning these statements into questions’.
(Parrot,M, 1993).
B: Ways of CHECKING
UNDERSTANDING of the new vocabulary
• Example for b.:

• if you want to check the understanding of the word
ANT, you could ask such questions as:
• -Is it small?
• -Does it live in the garden? etc.
• By the way the students answer, the teacher can
see if they understood the meaning of the word.
C: Practice
• the practice stage involves a wide range of

activities such as:
• gap filling
• matching words with their definitions or
synonyms
• multiple choice
• true/false
C: Practice
• the odd word out (in a group of related words one is

unrelated)
• vocabulary games
• information-gaps (especially by using pictures, e.g.:
two different pictures representing the same room;
in pairs, students have to find the information
missing in their picture by talking to their partners)
• personalisation (whenever possible the Ss should be
asked to talk about themselves using the new
vocabulary)
C: Practice
• role-plays (e.g. role play ‘buying clothes in a shop’ to

practise vocabulary referring to clothes and colours; one
student is the shop assistant and the other is the customer)
• story telling (students make up their own stories starting
from the new vocabulary)
• discussions (students discuss around a theme, e.g.
‘Unemployment in Romania’)
• writing tasks (e.g. students are asked to write a letter of
application for a job, for the use of vocabulary connected
to jobs, and writing formal letters)
D: Recycling
• Recycling refers to the revision of

previously taught vocabulary by using any
of the practice techniques.
Ideas for tasks to be used in the classroom
• 1. Example of multiple choice activity:

• Choose the word which is the nearest in
meaning to the one in bold type:
• He was reluctant to answer.
• a) unprepared b) unwilling c) refusing d)
slow
• 2.Example of matching activity:

• Draw lines connecting the pairs of opposites:
•
• A B
• brave awake
• female
expensive
• cheap succeed
• asleep coward
• fail male
• 3. Example of Odd Word Out:

• Say which is the odd word out and say
why:
• goat, horse, cow, spider, sheep, dog, cat
• 4. Example of vocabulary game: ‘Make a

sentence’
• Students write sentences on separate strips of
paper for each word. Then all the words are
collected and mixed and the students pick out the
same number of words they produced originally.
Finally they co-operate in the making up of as
many new sentences as possible.
• 5. Example of discussion practising the use of

‘character’ vocabulary.
• Students are asked to place in order traits of
character that they dislike most in a partner.
• Then they could do the same thing with qualities
they find most important in a partner.
• Finally, they discuss in pairs what personal
characteristics (good or bad) they expect to find in
people doing various jobs (nurse, teacher,
politician, etc.)

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ELT METHODOLOGY

• ‘The words of a foreign tongue which we commit to

• to provide student teachers with

• 1. How do we LEARN new vocabulary?

• When answering this question, we need to take into

  it is essential to give low level students

• In order to induce active production of vocabulary

• Look at the following words and:

• The way we teach vocabulary depends on:

• WHEN (at what stage of the lesson) should

• The teaching/learning of vocabulary

• use of realia (real objects)

• drawing lexical sets (mind maps), i.e. the grouping

• 1.Write suitable lexical sets for the following:

• a. techniques of vocabulary presentation

• Example for b.:

• the practice stage involves a wide range of

• the odd word out (in a group of related words one is

• role-plays (e.g. role play ‘buying clothes in a shop’ to

• Recycling refers to the revision of

• 1. Example of multiple choice activity:

• 2.Example of matching activity:

• 3. Example of Odd Word Out:

• 4. Example of vocabulary game: ‘Make a

• 5. Example of discussion practising the use of

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