Teacher training presentation for in-service teachers of English

1. Teaching Vocabulary
Learning Strategies
David Norton
English Language Fellow
Alecu Russo State University
Balti, Moldova

2. The Importance of Vocabulary
 “In order to speak a language you
must first know the words”
(Zimmermann, 2009).

3. Types of Vocabulary
◦ Vocabulary is classified into two types
 active vocabulary – which learners are able to
use freely
 passive vocabulary – which learners recognize
when they come across it, but are not ready to
use
◦ Because vocabulary is so important for
language development, teachers must
encourage students to develop their own
passive and active vocabulary inside and
outside of the classroom.

4. Passive Vocabulary
 Encourage students to develop their
passive vocabulary knowledge in the
following ways:
◦ read, read, read
 native speakers and learners alike pick up new
words which they encounter while reading
◦ listen, listen, listen
 to radio, film, music
◦ notice, notice, notice
 learners should proactively take notice of new word
forms and use - always have a pen handy?

5. Active Vocabulary
 The best ways to improve learners’
active vocabulary are by means of
◦ In-class vocabulary building activities
◦ Instruction in vocabulary learning
strategies

6. In-Class Vocabulary Activities
 Pre-teaching (“Frontloading”)
◦ in a reading class, the most important new
vocabulary in a text should be pre-taught.
◦ The teacher can illicit or explicitly teach
new vocabulary before distributing the
text.

7. In-Class Vocabulary Activities
 Glossing
 a common strategy in textbooks and
teacher-generated texts is to highlight,
or gloss new vocabulary.
 usually, these glosses are
accompanied by some focus on
meaning in the margins

8. Example Glossing
At the Portsmouth event,
the gun was not
brandished or even
touched. The president
was never in danger, and
neither was anyone in the
crowd. But I believe the
large man moved on
because of the power of a
firearm to stave off
confrontations.

9. Teaching Vocabulary in the
Reading Classroom
 Glossing -
◦ At the Portsmouth
event, the gun was not
brandished or even
touched. The
president was never in
danger, and neither
was anyone in the
crowd. But I believe
the large man moved
on because of the
power of a firearm to
stave off
confrontations.
 Marginal
Translations
brandish –
выташить (оружие)
напоказ
stave off –
предотвращать,
отбрасывать
(противника)

10. Teaching Vocabulary in the
Reading Classroom
 Glossing -
◦ At the Portsmouth
event, the gun was not
brandished or even
touched. The
president was never in
danger, and neither
was anyone in the
crowd. But I believe
the large man moved
on because of the
power of a firearm to
stave off
confrontations.
 Multiple choice
brandish –
a) to provide
b) to pull out
c) to distill
stave off –
a) to march
b) to be very
hungry
c) to prevent

11. Learner Strategies
 Identifying vocabulary worth learning
◦ Ss should pay more attention to words
which
 occur frequently (not obscure, rare words)
 they are likely to use often
 are important to the subjects they are studying

12. Learner Strategies
 How to learn vocabulary
◦ After identifying useful vocabulary, students
could write new vocabulary in a vocabulary
journal
◦ journals can be organized in different ways,
but should include
• spelling
• meaning (and/or translation)
• part of speech
• pronunciation
• example sentence
• how it is used
• collocates*

13. Learner Strategies
sample vocabulary journal entries
Annoying (adj.) досадно,
надоедливый
[ə'nɔɪɪŋ] The child’s
behavior was
very
annoying.
development
(noun)
развитие [dɪ'veləpmənt] The global
community is
concerned
about the
development
of a nuclear
program in
Iran.

14. Learner Strategies
 Flash cards
◦ Great for single words
◦ TL/L1, TL/photo

15. Learner Strategies
 Using a dictionary
◦ dictionaries are a great source of word
meanings, use, collocations, etc.*

16. Learner Strategies
 Data from corpora
◦ Corpus linguistics gives us the ability to
show learners
 how language is actually used (descriptively)
 which words are the most common*
 collocates – what words are used together
 Actual corpora
◦ COCA http://www.americancorpus.org/
◦ BNC http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/

17. Learner Strategies
 READ, READ, READ

18. Learner Strategies
 Encourage Students to talk to
successful learners. Everyone has
their own strategy.
 How did they learn the language?
 The single best resource in your
classrooms is YOU!
 Does anyone have a unique strategy
that worked for them?

19. Graphic Organizers
 Another way we can encourage
learners to build their vocabulary
knowledge is with graphic organizers.
people
movement
DUCK
нагнуться...
SLIP
поскользнуться
SKIP
прыгать,
скакать,
сбежать
вприпрыжку
BOW
нагибаться

20. Thank You!
 Thank you for attending my presentation
on teaching vocabulary learning
strategies
 Please do not hesitate to contact me if
you should have any questions or would
like to collaborate on future projects.
David Norton
English Language Fellow
Alecu Russo State University,
Balti, Moldova
david.michael.norton@gmail.com