Teaching vocabulary

Introduction

Vocabulary is essential to convey meaning. A student can't convey all that much without grammar, but can't convey anything without the use of vocabulary. A tourist visiting an English speaking country will be able to effectively communicate a request for directions by merely saying to a person "train!" or 'station!" A tourist with limited vocabulary yet with a good command of language structures will have difficulty getting their message across by saying 'I'm looking for the........' and not finding the correct word.

It is widely known that vocabulary learning is only one aspect in mastering a foreign language. While grammar is important for meaning, without vocabulary no message is conveyed.

Undoubtedly, a rich vocabulary makes the skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing easier to perform. Students need to develop their vocabulary base to state their viewpoint and comprehend a speech. As they learn how to use more vocabulary properly, you will see an improvement in their writing and speaking.

In addition a very important factor in learning is the quality of mental activity in the brain of the learner at the moment of leaning new words. If this activity is at a deep and thoughtful level, the learning will remain for a long time. If the activity is shallow and mechanical, learning will be less effective. Thus working with vocabulary, a teacher should consider the following important factors, new words should be:

· related to previous knowledge;

· used in context;

· used in a goal oriented activity like solving problems.

Vocabulary needs to be taught from “natural” environment and exposure must occur in various ways (such as speaking and writing), before students will be able to remember the words. The following exercises illustrate this point:

Ranging tasks. The use of ranging tasks is a popular activity to encourage interaction between students, practice vocabulary that is relevant to the needs of particular learners and cover part of a given syllabus. Students are given a list of words that they should rank according to a certain criteria and explain their decision. They can choose words they like / dislike (e.g., based on the way they are spelled or pronounced, or the words they think will be easy / difficult to remember, and why). Doing these tasks students will make an effort to clarify unfamiliar words and then after using them to complete the tasks, these words are likely to be learned.

Sorting and ranking activities. In the case of learning a list of animals, for instance, learners can separate the new animals by dangerous / not dangerous, or eat / don’t eat meat. For a list of food, learners can rank the food items from those they like most to those they like least. For a list of human feelings and emotions, learners can rank words by positive / negative. For a list of sports, learners can rank them by indoor / outdoor. For a list of job, learners can rank the titles by manual / professional and so on.

Synonyms / Antonyms. These can be effective since this activity is based on words and phrases that students already recognize. So students can be given a dialogue or a text with bold words or phrases. They should read the dialogue and replace the words in bold with their synonyms / opposites from the list. Then they can act a similar dialogue using the given adjectives.

Prefixes and Suffixes. A group of three or four students is given a set of prefix and suffix cards. They have to write every word they can think of with that prefix or suffix. Each group is given 3-4 minutes.

Matching exercises. Students are given a list of words from a text and a list of definitions that need to be matched.

Association. Showing students how words are connected helps them to digest the vocabulary and see how relate to each other.

Pictorial representations. Small drawings in context (a picture of a room labeled with freezer, dishwasher, sink, cooker, oven, kettle, saucepan, frying-pan, food processor etc.) can aid retention of new words. Imaging, where learners use the way a word looks to associate it with its meaning, also helps.

Drawing: For visual students, drawing can be a fun medium to explain new vocabulary. For doing this task you do not have to be a perfect artist, basic sketches will often work well. This activity helps to strengthen students’ understanding of the vocabulary.

Individualized tasks – one more sentence. A teacher gives a sentence with a new word and asks a student to continue it logically (e.g. A restaurant is a building. People can buy a lot of delicious dishes there).

Guess the meaning. Students read a text and try to explain highlighted words.

Read and retell. This is an enjoyable activity in which use of new vocabulary is integrated with reading, speaking, listening and cooperative group work. The steps in the activity provide learners with the resources and the practice to expand their productive vocabulary use and to speak more fluently and for longer than they would otherwise be able to.

Idioms in popular music. Both old and new kinds of music can be used for this, as long as they use English-language idiom and understandable vocals. Teacher can make a copy of the lyrics (with some words that are missed) and ask students to listen to the recording, complete the idiom and make their own illustration of the given idiom. Songs are one of the most enchanting and culturally rich resources that can easily be used in language classrooms. Songs offer a change from routine classroom activities. They are precious resources to develop students’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. They can also be used to teach a variety of language items such as sentence patterns, vocabulary, pronunciation, rhythm, adjectives, and adverbs.

Vocabulary quizzes. Using quizzes with students on vocabulary keeps them constantly learning words.

Conclusion

English vocabulary is tremendous and grows steadily with technological and cultural assimilations. While students read, they should pay close attention to unknown words, trying to figure out their meanings from context and then look the words up. Teacher should provide opportunities for reading and listening to challenging material so that students will be exposed to many new words. After a time students have learned new vocabulary on a particular topic, go back to that theme. Firstly, language teacher should remind the vocabulary. It can be achieved by means of reading or listening (learners need to “meet” the words in a variety of contexts). Secondly, make situations where students are forced to use those words (learners best remember words when they have manipulated them in multifarious ways, so variety is essential for vocabulary teaching). Learning a word won’t help very much if you promptly forget it. Make up as many associations and connections as possible. Say the word aloud to activate your auditory memory. Relate the word to words you already know. Play with words. Play linguistic games like Scrabble, do crossword puzzles.

References:

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