HOW TO DEAL WITH ESP VOCABULARY
EVELINA MIŠČIN, CROATIA
In teaching ESP there are lot of problems both for a student and for a teacher. Students often
say that they have no problem with specialist vocabulary, but their knowledge mostly means
just recognising vocabulary. It means they find it difficult to remember a word when it is
needed for speaking or writing. They also frequently use the word incorrectly, there may be
grammatical problems, questions of collocations, etc. On the other hand, a teacher, apart from
knowing English, has also to become familiar with the particular field (e.g. medicine, law,
business, catering industry…). The most frequent problems I have encountered when teaching
my students ESP are: word formation, pronunciation, spelling, collocations, and words with
various meanings. Therefore, the aim of my workshop was to show some of the activities that
might be used in dealing with these problems. They are divided into the following groups.
1. ACTIVITIES FOR WORD FORMATION
2. ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING SPELLING
3. ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING PRONUNCIATION
4. ACTIVITIES FOR COLLOCATIONS
5. SEMANTIC ACTIVITIES
6. COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES
1. ACTIVITIES FOR WORD FORMATION
a) The first game is NOUGHTS AND CROSSES. I think that everybody is familiar with that
game. It can be used for different vocabulary. Here, I wanted to practise medical roots with
their meaning – so students open the field, a teacher reads a medical root and they have to
provide the English definition (e.g. rhin – nose). For each correct answer they get either a
cross or a nought.
b) OPPOSITES – students get the list of words and have to classify them in the appropriate
column depending on the prefix they use for opposite (e.g. UN, IN, IM…)
c) WORD FORMATION – students get a list of nouns and sentences where these nouns have
to be filled in, but as another part of speech (e.g. patient – patience…).
2. ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION
a) SPELLING – a teacher chooses some words which are complicated to students. He/she
dictates the words to students. Students have to put them into three columns: I KNOW NOT
SURE
DON’T KNOW. The next stage is to discuss in pairs/groups the spelling and the
teacher gives the key.
b) PRONUNCIATION – groups of words are given to students where only one differs in
pronunciation and they have to find out which one.
c) GUESSING WORDS WITH MISSING LETTERS –words are given with missing letters
and students have to guess the words. Depending on your student’s competence, only one
letter can be missing, or, with more advanced students, several letters can be missing.
d) FINDING ANOTHER SYLLABLE – student get only one syllable of a word and they
have to guess which word it is. I did that with food vocabulary. With beginners you can give
both syllables in two columns and they have to match them.
ACTIVITIES FOR COLLOCATIONS
a) GUESSING THE WORD – a teacher puts dots in place of letters for a word. I did it with
two words before and two words after the main word. Students say just one letter and try to
guess the words. The final aim is to guess the word in the middle which connects words
before and after it. (e.g. BIG
PIE
APPLE
RED
TREE)
SEMANTIC ACTIVITIES
a) CONFUSING WORDS – students get sentences with two words which are easily confused
and they have to choose the appropriate one.
b) WORD GROUPS – students get list of words and categories. They have to put words into
the correct list (e.g. business terms – they have to classify them if they belong to the office,
job, etc.)
c) PHRASAL VERBS – a teacher reads sentences with missing preposition/adverb. Students
have to shout/show the missing word. Later, they have to match phrasal verbs with their
meaning.
d) JEOPARDY – playing jeopardy with various ESP vocabulary. I did it with medical
vocabulary – I divided columns into GI system, Cardio system, Urinary tract. Each column
has rows with the amount of points they can win (100, 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000). When
they say, e.g. Urinary for 200 – they get the answer and they have to ask a question to that
answer. If the question is all right, they get the points.
The above-mentioned exercises can also be used for secondary level students and some of
them even on lower levels, since they are all very useful in teaching and practising
vocabulary.