Unit 8 Teaching Vocabulary
“If language structure makes up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary
that provides the vital organs and the flesh. An ability to manipulate grammatical
structure does not have any potential for expressing meaning unless words are used.”
(Harmer, 1991:153). Vocabulary often forms the obstacle to language learning. The
study of vocabulary is thus seen as the basis for language acquisition(Rivers,
1983:125). Important as it is commonly held to be, little attention has been paid to
how vocabulary instruction should be conducted. For most learners, the learning of
vocabulary is repetition and memory. And for most teachers, vocabulary instruction
consists of mainly the presentation of meaning, structure and so on. Actually, as with
other content of language instruction, vocabulary teaching also consists of
presentation, practice, application, production and evaluation. Classroom instruction
should be focused on the development of vocabulary.
I. Vocabulary instruction: where should it go?
1. It can be conducted before listening, speaking or reading;
2. It can be conducted after listening, speaking or reading;
3. It can be conducted in the course of listening, speaking or reading;
4. It can be isolated.
II. The content of vocabulary instruction
1. meaning:
What meaning concerns is not only that presented in the dictionary, but rather that in
context and its relations.
2. word use:
As far as word use is concerned, metaphor, idiom, collocation, style and register
should all be included in classroom instruction
3. word information
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Word information concerns parts of speech, prefixes and suffices, spelling and
pronunciation and so on.
4. word grammar:
When teaching nouns, it is necessary to be clear about whether it is countable or
uncountable, when it is a verb, it is necessary to know its complementation, phrasal
verbs, and so on. If it s an adjective or adverb, it is important to know its position in
the sentence. And this we call word grammar.
5. vocabulary learning strategies
Apart from the meaning, use, information and grammar of vocabulary, vocabulary
learning strategies also constitute an important part of vocabulary instruction. By
learning strategies, it means vocabulary memory strategies, learning strategies and
application strategies. It should constitute an important part of classroom instruction.
III. The selection of vocabulary
There may be many words in a new lesson, but not all need to be dealt with in
class. Even so, the approaches to them vary. Therefore, the teacher should be clear
about what words to include in classroom instruction. Here are several principles to
follow:
1. frequency: select words with high frequency
2. coverage: select words with wide coverage
3. topic: select words central to the topic
4. teachability: select words that are teachable
5. strategy: select words that are relevant to the strategies that you are to train.
The decision about what vocabulary to teach and learn will be heavily influenced
by information we can get about frequency and use. But this information will be
assessed in the light of other considerations such as topic, function, structure,
teachability, needs and wants. (Harmer, 1991:156)
There is a difference between passive vocabulary and active vocabulary.
Native speaker of a language can understand many more words than they
actively use. Some people have a passive vocabulary up to 100,000 words, but an
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active vocabulary between 10,000 and 20,000. In a foreign language learning, an
active vocabulary of about 3000 to 5000 words, and a passive vocabulary of about
5000 to 10,000 words is regarded as the intermediate to upper intermediate level of
proficiency.
So the job for the teacher is to guide the students to those words which will help
them to add to their active vocabularies, and to distinguish those words from the much
larger number of passive items. At the beginning of language learning, all the words
that are taught must be acquired for active use, later, at intermediate and advanced
levels, most of the words students meet will only be needed for passive use.
IV. Teaching of vocabulary
The teaching of vocabulary should consist of at least three parts: presentation,
practice and evaluation.
1. presentation
Different teachers have different ways to present new words. Whatever methods
are used, the following suggestions may help teachers:
1) Prepare examples to show meaning. Examples are best if they are created by
the teachers themselves rather than taken from the dictionaries. Students look up
words in dictionaries. if they students find that most of the teacher’s examples are
from the dictionaries, they tune out when the teacher talks.
2) Ask students to tell the meaning first. Teachers should always elicit meaning
from students before they offer the meaning.
3) Think about how to show the meaning of a word with related words such as
synonyms, antonyms etc.
4) Think about how to check students’ understanding.
5) Think about the context in real life where they words might be used. Relating
newly learned language to real life promotes high motivation.
6) Think about possible misunderstanding and confusion that student may have.
Here are more ways to present and explain vocabulary:
a. Draw pictures, diagrams and maps to show meanings or connection of meanings.
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b. Using real object to show meanings.
c. Mime or act to show meanings, e.g. brushing teeth, running, swimming etc.
d. Use synonyms or antonyms to explain meanings.
e. Use lexical sets, e.g. cook: fry, boil, brake, grill;
f. Translate and exemplify, especially with technical words or words with abstract
meaning.
g. Use word formation rules and common affixes.
Words are best taught in groups.
Language is a system and each word has its meaning defined in relation to other
words. This insight leads to an easier, more effective and sounder way of explaining.
It is helpful to explain difference of meaning rather than meaning itself.
An individual word in a language acquires a meaning because of the relationship
between it and other words. Awareness of certain kinds of relationship makes
explaining vocabulary easier for the teachers, and learning it simpler for the students.
Here are some relationships.
a. Synonyms. These are by no means as frequent as people think. Though words
may have similar denotative meaning ( they represent the same concept) their
convocational meanings may differ. Sometimes, it is possible for the teacher to say
‘ enormous means the same as large.’
b. Antonyms. These are often thought as “ opposites” such as hot/cold. It is
important for the teacher to remember that not hot, does not always mean cold;
sometimes it is question of degree. In these cases students usually start by learning the
extremes and later learn intermediate words:
Hot—warm—cool—cold
c. Complements.
Here
two
words
exist
and
one
excludes
the
other---single/married. In this case it is possible to explain by saying: single means
not married. This idea may be extended to groups of incompatible words---each is
defined by being not the other, for example, morning—afternoon—evening—night. It
is best to teach these words in groups, as the meaning of one depends directly on the
meaning of the others.
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d. Converse. Each of a pair of words implies the other; parent/child, employer
/employee. Such words are best explained together.
e. Hyponyms. Car, van, bus, lorry are hyponyms of vehicle. Often such words
are difficult to handle without translation.
III. Consolidating vocabulary.
It is too often that we hear students complain that they keep learning vocabulary
and forgetting them. When students study vocabulary individually, it is rote learning
whose effectiveness is seldom guaranteed, particularly when they do not fully
understand the meaning of the vocabulary. But when the students study vocabulary
together, say in groups, through various activities and under the teacher’s supervision,
vocabulary learning becomes more fun and effective. Learning is also more effective
when students understand the meaning of the new vocabulary.
Below are some vocabulary consolidation activities that can be done in class.
(1) Labelling. Students are given a picture. They are to write the names of the
objects indicated in the picture. A competitive element can be introduced by making
the first student to finish the winner.
(2) Spotting the differences. Students are put into pairs. Each member of the pair
receives a picture which is slightly different from his partner’s. Students hide the
pictures from one another and then, by a process of describing, questioning and
answering, discover what the differences are.
(3) Describing and drawing. Students are put in pairs. One student has a picture,
the other a blank piece of paper and a pencil. The student having the picture must tell
his partner what to draw so that the drawing ends up the same as the original picture.
The student must not show the picture until the drawing is completed.
(4) Students are shown a picture or a tray with many objects on it, or a series of
different flash cards or magazine pictures. They have one or two minutes to memorize
as many of the objects as they can. The cards, pictures, or tray are then taken away
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and the students have to tell what they saw, or write everything they can remember
seeing, then compare their answers with the rest of the class.
(5) Using word thermometers. These are useful for indicating different degrees
in size, speed, age, distance, emotion etc. Students are given a list of words in jumbles
order. They have to place these words in the correct place on the thermometer.
(6) Using word series. Students construct the series following the example.
Cutlery: knife, fork, and spoon.
(7) Word bingo. The teacher thinks of an area of language (e.g. shopping) that
the students have recently learnt. Students draw nine squares on a piece of paper and
put nine words connected with shopping in the squares. The teacher then calls out,
one at a time, words connected with shopping. If the students have the word in the
square, they cross it out. The first students to cross out all the words in the square is
the winner.
The game can be played for more than one round.
Shopper customer
Bargain
client
seller
pay
Shop
buy
money
Store
sell
sale
Market
price
Supermarket goods
discount
receipt
A different version of word bingo is that the first student who cross out a line
of three words either horizontally, vertically or diagonally should shout out “ Bingo”
and he or she will be the winner.
(8) Word association. The teacher says a key word, e.g. traveling. The students
have to write down all the words they can think of connected with the traveling. They
have a time limit. When time is up the person with the highest number of acceptable
words is the winner
(9) Odd man out. The teacher writes a set of words on the blackboard and asks
students to find the “odd man out”. For example, in the set: cheese eggs oranges,
bread soap and meat, the word “soap” is the “odd man out”.
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(10) Synonyms and antonyms. The students are given a list of words and ask
students to find pairs of words, either synonyms or antonyms. The words in the box
below are six pairs of synonyms and six pairs of antonyms. Can you find them?
Full
jumper
Awake
select
Clean
continue
optimistic
go on
wait a minute
Awful hard-working
hang on
choose
dirty
pullover pessimistic
empty
impolite
asleep
terrible
thin
rude
lazy
thick
(11)Using word categories. Students put the jumbled words in the middle into
the box marked with different categories. Below is an example:
(12) Using word net-work. Students fill in the blanks in a network with words
that are under the same category or sub-category.
IV. Developing vocabulary building strategies
Due to the limitations of time, students cannot learn all the necessary vocabulary
in the class. We need to help students develop their own vocabulary building
strategies so that they can effectively acquire more vocabulary on their own.
1) Review regularly. Evidence shows that regular review helps students to
maintain largest amount of recall. Look at the following figure.
2) Guess meaning from the context, especially using sentence hints for word
meanings.
(a) Some sentences tell the definition for a difficult word by means of
punctuation or certain help words. For example, dashes (---- ),parentheses (
),
brackets [ ], commas , words like that is, meaning, such as, or is called.
Origami---- Japanese paper folding--- is family fun.
Mary felt perturbed ,that is, greatly disturbed, by her sister’s action.
(b) Some sentences tell the opposite of what a new word means. From its
opposite you can figure out the meaning of the word.
A frugal person would never spend money so freely.
If you are frugal you do not spend freely, Frugal must mean “to be careful about
spending money.
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(c) Use your own experiences to figure out the definition of a word.
Feeling depressed, Carl frowned.
You know from your experience that a frown usually means “unhappiness” So
“unhappy” should be a good guess for the meaning of depressed.
(d) Sentence before or after a sentence containing a difficult word sometimes
explains the meaning of the word.
Mary had a bubbling personality. Her enthusiasm, her lively actions, her
excitement at new ideals always attracted people. I never knew such as ebullient
women.
These sentences help you put together a definition of ebullient---overflowing
with excitement.
(e) Some sentences are just written to give definition of difficult words--- words
readers need to know in order to understand what they are reading.
Impediments are objects that stand in the way of some goal.
This sentence defines the difficult word.
(f) Because some sentences gives examples for a new word, you can build a
definition.
Select any one of these periodicals: Playboy, Time Magazine, Reader’s
Digest.
The sentence doesn’t say that a periodical is a magazine, but you can figure that
out easily from the examples.
(g) some sentence use a word you do know to help explain a word you don’t
know.
A formidable enemy is one to be feared.
Formidable---through the clues in this sentence—means “fearful” or dreadful.
3) Organize vocabulary effectively:
If information is organized and stored in a special way, e.g. related information
is stored together or new information is related to previously stored information, it is
more likely to be retained and easier to retrieve. So with a conscious attempt at
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vocabulary organization it is likely that a student’s word store will increase
significantly.
4) Use learned vocabulary:
Students should be encouraged to use active vocabulary items in real language
use. By trying to use the words or expressions correctly and appropriately, students
can get a deeper and better understanding of the meaning and the use of the
vocabulary. Successful attempts at word use definitely help vocabulary consolidation.
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