The document discusses effective strategies for teaching vocabulary. It defines vocabulary as all the words in a language. Key principles for teaching vocabulary include introducing words in context, focusing on useful words, teaching learning strategies, repetition, and spacing practice. Knowing a word involves understanding its meaning, form, and use. When introducing a word, teachers should address some combination of its meaning, pronunciation, spelling, grammatical functions, and other aspects. Good vocabulary activities focus on useful words, teach a learning concept, involve active engagement, and avoid interference from unknown related words.

1. Teaching Vocabulary Effectively
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November 29th, 2016
The Provincial Inspectorate, Agadir

2. • Concept Defining
• The Importance of Vocabulary
• Key Principles
• What is Involved in Knowing a Word
• How to Introduce Word Aspects
• Criteria for a Good Vocabulary Activity
• Summary of Learning
Learning Intentions

3. Concept Defining
• Vocabulary ….“refers to all the words in a language, the entire
vocabulary of a language” (Barcroft, Sunderman, & Schmitt,
2011, p. 571).
• Vocabulary can be defined as the words of a language, including
single items and phrases or chunks of several words which covey
a particular meaning, the way individual words do. (Alali &
Schmitt, 2012) (Lewis, 1993).

4. The Importance of Vocabulary
“. . . while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without
vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (Wilkins 1972, pp. 111–112)
“lexis is the core or heart of language” (Lewis 1993, p. 89).
“learners carry around dictionaries and not grammar books”
,Schmitt (2010)

5. KEY PRINCIPLES

6. Key Principles
• Introduce New Vocabulary in Context
• Focus on the Most Useful Vocabulary First
• Teach learners strategies for vocabulary acquisition so that they can
continually add to their repertoire
• Pay Attention to Repetition and Spacing
• …
(David Nunan, 2015)

7. What Is Involved In Knowing A Word?
• Meaning
• Form
• Use
The Learning Burden
The purpose of working out the learning burden is to find what
aspects will be difficult when learning a particular word and thus
where the teacher can give useful help.

8. Explicit Vocabulary
Teaching
Incidental Vocabulary
Learning
« The main problem with vocabulary teaching is
that only a few words can be dealt with at any one
time. » (Teaching Vocabulary, Paul Nation)

9. Meaning
using an L1 translation,
using a known L2 synonym or a simple definition in the L2,
showing an object or picture,
giving quick demonstration,
drawing a simple picture or diagram,
breaking the word into parts and giving the meaning of the parts and the whole
word (the word part strategy),
giving several example sentences with the word in context to show the meaning,
commenting on the underlying meaning of the word and other referents.

10. Form
showing how the spelling of the word is like the spelling of known words,
giving the stress pattern of the word and its pronunciation,
showing the prefix, stem and suffix that make up the word,
getting the learners to repeat the pronunciation of the word,
writing the word on the board,
pointing out any spelling irregularity in the word.

11. Use
quickly showing the grammatical pattern the word fits into
(countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc),
giving a few similar collocates,
mentioning any restrictions on the use of the word (formal, colloquial,
impolite, only used in the United States, only used with children, old
fashioned, technical, infrequent),
giving a well known opposite, or a well known word describing the group
or lexical set it fits into.

12. Meaning Form Use
using an L1 translation,
using a known L2 synonym or a
simple definition in the L2,
showing an object or picture,
giving quick demonstration,
drawing a simple picture or
diagram,
breaking the word into parts
giving the meaning of the parts
and the whole word (the word
strategy),
giving several example
sentences with the word in
to show the meaning,
commenting on the underlying
meaning of the word and other
referents
showing how the spelling of the
word is like the spelling of known
words,
giving the stress pattern of the
word and its pronunciation,
showing the prefix, stem and
suffix that make up the word,
getting the learners to repeat
the pronunciation of the word,
writing the word on the board,
pointing out any spelling
irregularity in the word.
quickly showing the
pattern the word fits into
(countable/uncountable,
transitive/intransitive, etc),
giving a few similar collocates,
mentioning any restrictions on
the use of the word (formal,
colloquial, impolite, only used in
the United States, only used with
children, old fashioned, technical,
infrequent),
giving a well known opposite, or
a well known word describing the
group or lexical set it fits into.

13. CRITERIA FOR A GOOD
VOCABULARY ACTIVITY
A good vocabulary exercise
• focuses on useful words, preferably high frequency words that have already
been met before.
• focuses on a useful aspect of learning burden. It has a useful learning goal.
• gets learners to meet or use the word in ways that establish new mental
connections for the word.
• involves the learners in actively searching for and evaluating the target
words in the exercise.
• does not bring related unknown or partly known words together. It avoids
interference.
• …

15. Thank you