HOW TO TEACH VOCABULARY

Teaching vocabulary is a big part of language learning and an important job of the teacher to set up a context for learning vocabulary easily and choosing suitable words for the students to learn.

When teaching vocabulary it is important to cover meaning, form and pronunciation. This should be done in a methodical and organized manner. That being said, one common mistake that teachers make is drilling students on the pronunciation of vocabulary words or testing understanding of the form before any kind of meaning is established. Meaning must be established properly before form, pronunciation and even appropriacy is discussed.

In order to build students confidence and help teachers decide which words need to be formally taught, it's a good idea to test students current understanding of the vocabulary. (It's good to include some vocabulary that the students are likely to already know.) Test students' understanding through eliciting from a prompt, story or pictures; matching vocabulary with definitions, pictures or opposites; or categorizing vocabulary.

When covering the meaning of unfamiliar and unknown words there are many different techniques for getting the meaning across. Depending on the word being taught certain techniques will be more effective than others. A bit of common sense and some practice will help in choosing the proper technique from the list below to utilize.

1. Pictures
2. Realia
3. Board Drawing
4. Miming
5. Context
6. Translation
7. Scale or Cline
8. Synonyms or Antonyms
9. Definitions
10. Gestures