This document discusses how to teach vocabulary in English language courses. It defines vocabulary as the words taught in a foreign language. There were historically low priorities placed on vocabulary teaching, but interest grew in the late 20th century with computer research on word patterns. Vocabulary can be taught explicitly through activities focusing on words, or implicitly through extensive reading. Key aspects in teaching vocabulary include denotative and connotative meanings, as well as horizontal and vertical relationships between words. Effective learning strategies include guessing meanings from context, using mnemonic devices, and maintaining vocabulary notebooks.

1. UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLÓGICA DE PEREIRA - LICENCIATURA EN LENGUA INGLESA
COURSE: Basic English
PEDAGOGICAL COMPONENT: How to Teach Vocabulary
Vocabulary can be defined as the words we teach in the foreign language. Besides, it is all the
words used by a person or all the words that exist in a particular language or subject. There are
words made up of two or three words and multi-word idioms.
BACKGROUND
The low status of vocabulary study and vocabulary teaching was in large part due to language
teaching approaches based on American linguistic theories. Vocabulary was taught mainly as
support for functional language use. Although vocabulary was evolving through methods and
approaches, it was generally assumed that it would take of itself until the late 1970s and early
1980s. And also by the late 1980s and early 1990s when the computer-aided research appeared
providing vast amounts of information about how words behave causing interest in researches.
This is the way in which foreign language learners began to take into account COLLOCATIONS and
IDIOMS. These patterns consist of pairs of groups of words that co-occur with very high
frequency. Idioms are multiword units that are completely fixed.
EXPLICIT & IMPLICIT LEARNING

Explicit Learning: students are engaged in activities that focus attention on vocabulary.
Key Principles (Sökmen, 1997)
Teaching Techniques and Activities
- Large recognition vocabulary
building.
Vocabulary learning is better by making
words association lists, focusing on
highlighted words in texts and playing
vocabulary games.
- New words with old words
integration.
-

Many encounters with a single word.
Deep level of processing.
Facilitating imaging.
The use of a variety of techniques.
Independent learning strategies.
-
Activities:
Word association
Semantic mapping
Pair matching
Word families
Language games (Scrabble, Word
Bingo, Concentration, Crossword
Puzzles, etc.)
Implicit or incidental vocabulary Learning: learning occurs when the student’s mind is
focused elsewhere, such as on understanding a text or using language for communicative
purposes. Multiple exposures to a word are essential for incidental learning through
extensive reading (“book flood” approach).
(Beginners)
Narrow Reading
(Intermediate)
Wide Reading
(Advanced)
Graded Readers
Authentic text reading on
Authentic texts reading
Access to a large amount
the same topic.
It expands what is known
of input.
It provides multiple exposures about a word, improves quality
as topic-specific vocabulary
of knowledge and helps to
consolidate it in memory.

2. VOCABULARY ASPECTS OF MEANING
1. Denotative and Connotative Meaning: It concerns the link between meaning and the world
to which word refers. A word can have many different meanings according to the context where
it is used.

Denotative or referential meaning: The primary or basic meaning of a word.
Example: Heart (organ): The organ that sends the blood around your body.
He’s got a weak heart.

Connotative Meaning: The secondary meanings of a word.
Example: Heart (emotion): used to refer to a person’s character.
She has a good heart.
2. Meaning relations among words: The second aspect involves the sense relations that exist
among words. These relations have two dimensions or axes:

The Horizontal axis represents syntagmatic relations, those between items and
sentences. It has to do with grammatical collocation or lexical collocation.
Grammatical collocations are those in which noun, verb, or adjective frequently co-occur with a
grammatical item, usually a preposition.
Example: reason for, rely on, afraid of, account for.
Lexical collocations include combinations of all lexical items such as: nouns, verbs, adjectives
and adverbs.
Example: verb + money = spend money, save money, steal money.

The Vertical axis represents paradigmatic relations, the complex relationship that
exists between items in the whole lexical system. Learning English means acquiring
knowledge of synonyms, antonyms, and other relations in its semantic structure.
VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES
Strategies should aid to discover the meaning of a new word and to consolidate a word once it
has been encountered.
Guessing Meaning from Context: this strategy focuses mainly on context rather than looking
at word parts.
Mnemonic Devices: the learner chooses a word from the first language (keyword) which
sounds like the new word in L2. The learner can make an association between the two of them.
Vocabulary Notebooks: Students write word pairs and semantic maps to relate the new and
familiar words.
References:
Based on the article Vocabulary Learning and Teaching, written by DeCarrico, J.S.