Some thoughts, a bit of theory and some practical ideas on teaching vocabulary to English language learners. For more like this visit elt-training.com

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Some thoughts on
teaching vocabulary
Jo Gakonga

2. Free monthly webinars
For a free voiced over version
of this presentation, go to elt-
training.com
Jo Gakonga

3. What factors affect
vocabulary development?

4. Age

5. Personality

6. Motivation

7. Language
aptitude

8. Prior knowledge

9. These are fairly
fixed…..

10. …but other
factors…

11. ..are within
our control..

12. The context

13. The task

14. Learner strategies

15. These, we can change…

16. A bit of theory….

17. How many times must
we meet a word…

18. …to remember it?

19. Paul Nation – 5 – 16 exposures necessary
Paul Meara – 1 uptake for 100 exposures
It also depends on the conspicuousness of it
in the text and number of contextual clues

20. Note that L2 learners just don’t get the exposure
that L1 do – so they do need explicit teaching.

22. What about
dictionary use?
What kind?

23. Research shows that repeating
aloud helps retention – ear assists
eye

24. Mnemonics and word associations
– any problems?

25. What other strategies do you
encourage?

26. Teaching
Vocabulary

27. Words
taught in
lexical
sets may
‘stick’
better

32. Rods here

33. Make sure they record it properly

34. What do they need to know?

35. Recycling is vital!

36. Vocabulary box

37. Vocabulary box activities
• Stick up words on walls
• Group/ categorise the words
• Make a sentence with two/ three/ all?
• Word search
• Pictionary.
• Discussions/ role play using the vocab.

38. Recycling outside class