- Review relevant theory related to vocabulary acquisition.
- Introduce a principled framework for teaching vocabulary.
- Explore a number of activities to address vocabulary for the following purposes:
- Initial exposure and clarification of new vocab
- Revisiting and recycling previously seen vocab
- Recording emergent vocab
How big is the average native speaker's vocabulary? - Vocabulary is simply the collection of words and phrases that a person knows. The average educated native speaker of English knows around 20,000 word families (Nation, 2001). A word family includes all of the derivations of a word. Take for example the verb "agree". Other words in its family would include:
- agreement
- disagree
- disagreement
- agreeable
- disagreeable
- etc.
That means that native speakers know tens of thousands of words and phrases. A crucial part of any English language program should be a strong focus on vocabulary acquisition.
How many words do English learners need to learn? - Experts agree that in order for a person to gain adequate comprehension of a spoken or written text, they need to understand 98% of the words they encounter. That may seem like an enormous task. Do students need to learn 98% of those 20,000 word families? No! Studies of word frequency in written and oral texts show that although native speakers know tens of thousands of words, a much smaller portion are used to create the majority of the texts we encounter. We call these words "high frequency vocab" because they make up a disproportionate amount of all texts. Consider the following findings made by Krashen and Mason (2015).
- 1,000 word families make up approximately 80% of all written texts and 85% of all spoken texts. That is still far from the 98% of words needed to gain adequate understanding of a text but it is a much more manageable number than 20,000!
- Knowledge of 6,000 to 7,000 word families make up 98% of spoken texts.
- Knowledge of 8,000 to 9,000 word families make up 98% of written texts.
What does this mean for me? - These studies of word frequency and vocabulary size prove that English learners need to acquire a vast quantity of words and phrases in order to be successful listeners and readers. However, they do not need to acquire a native-like vocabulary size of 20,000 word families to reach proficiency. With hard work and a systematic focus on vocabulary learning in their English programs, learners can reach the 98% vocabulary coverage needed to comprehend nearly any text they encounter.
How are vocabulary items stored in the brain? - Our brains are an associative network where words and concepts are saved and classified with other similar words and concepts. Vocabulary items are stored in a number of different overlapping classification systems or fields (Gairns & Redman, 1986).
- Semantic Fields: words are stored with others of similar meaning and associated concepts
- Phonological Fields: words are stored with others of similar sound
- Spelling Fields: words are stored with others that contain a similar combination of letters
Why do we forget? - We know a word when we can recall it from our memory in order to produce it is speech or writing or to understand when we hear it or read it. The only way a word can be learned is when it moves from our short term memory into our long term memory and that only happens when we are able to make strong and meaningful associations with it. Several theories exist to explain why we forget (Gairns & Redman, 1986).
- Trace Theory of Memory: We trace out new neural connections whenever we learn something. The more those connections are traced, the stronger they become and the easier it is to retrieve memories.
- Decay Theory of Forgetting: Memory traces fade over time when they are not accessed and they are eventually lost forever and the item is forgotten. We can think of this as the use-it-or-lose-it hypothesis.
- Cue Dependent Forgetting Hypothesis: This hypothesis states that nothing that has been learned ever disappears from memory but the cues or prompts that we use to access that information fades over time. This explains why you can struggle for hours to remember a word that is on the tip of your tongue and suddenly a thought or word can cause you to remember the word you have been searching for.
Regardless of the specific psychological mechanism behind the action of forgetting, we can say that we need to take active steps as teachers to help students commit new words to memory and recall them when appropriate.
What are some principles of vocabulary teaching?: In his article "V for Vocabulary" (2013), author Scott Thornbury outlines five principles for teaching vocabulary that are in line with what we know about memory and how lexical items are stored in the brain. Keep these principles in mind when designing vocabulary activities for your students.
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Initial Exposure and Clarification: You can use the following six strategies to create activities to help students learn new vocabulary for the first time.
1) Defining Using Lexical Relations: A common task to introduce new vocabulary is to ask students to look up the new words in a dictionary and write the definitions. However, how do you know that the students have actually understood the definition in a meaningful way and not just copy/pasted the definition without analyzing it? One way to make definitions more meaningful is to have student write their own definitions using phrases that represent lexical relationships. Share this collection of phrases with students so they can use them to create their own definitions.
*In a virtual context students can do this individually in their notebooks or they can work together in a shared Google Doc.
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2) What is it: This simple strategy can be used to explain the meaning of a new word in a meaningful way. To introduce the new word the teacher tells the class a series of sentences containing the word. The sentences start in a general way and gradually give more specific context allow students to get a clear idea of what the word means. While the teacher is saying the sentences, the students raise their hands individually when they think they understand what the word means. When the majority of the students have their hands raised, the teacher asks for a few students to define the word.
For example: Nightstand
- I have a nightstand in my house.
- My nightstand is about one meter tall.
- The nightstand is in my bedroom.
- The nightstand has four legs and it's made of wood.
- The nightstand is next to my bed.
- I have a small lamp on the nightstand and I also put my cellphone and wallet on the nightstand.
- Who can tell the class what a nightstand is?
This technique encourages students to generate meaning for the word from context and the repetition of the word in each sentence reinforces pronunciation features of the word.
*This technique can be used in the classroom or in a virtual meeting.
3) Class Definitions: In order to help students get a deeper understanding of a new word, they can work in small groups to create a class definition. Break students into small groups and give each group a large piece of paper with a word at the top. Each group should have a different word. The members of each group write one sentence to help define the word then they pass the paper to another group who will write a second sentence adding more detail about the word. The papers should be passed to all groups so that at the end of the activity, there is a whole class definition for each word.
For example: Hydroelectric Dam
- A hydroelectric dam uses water to generate electricity.
- A hydroelectric dam is made of cement and metal.
- Costa Rica has many hydroelectric dams.
- There is a hydroelectric dam in Cachí near my home.
- Etc.
This activity is similar to the "What is it?" technique but in this case, it is the students who create the sentences rather than the teacher.
*In face to face contexts this activity works best with posters or newsprints. In a virtual context, a shared Google Document with a section for each word will be needed.
4) Ranking Tasks: In this task you break students into groups and give each group the same list of new vocabulary words. Students need to look for the meaning of any unfamiliar words in the dictionary and then rank the words in terms of their usefulness for a given situation. For example, you can tell students to put the words in order of most useful to least useful for the following situations:
- In a restaurant
- At the mall
- When meeting someone
- When traveling
- On a desert island
- etc.
I suggest that you only give one scenario. When students have found the meaning of the words and ordered them, they can share their list and their justification for why they ranked them in that order. This activity ensures that students have a purpose for finding the meaning of the words. The justification they give for ranking the words will also let you know as the teacher if they have understood them.
*In a face to face context students can write their ranked list in their notebook or you can give them the words on slips of paper for them to order on their desk. In a virtual context they will need to work in a shared Google Doc.
5) What is the mystery word?: A common way to help students learn new words is to show them the words in the context of a sentence. This activity raises the level of challenge by giving students a list of definitions. Around the room, the teacher tapes sentences that have a missing word. The missing word in each sentence goes with one of the definitions in their list. Students need to analyze each sentence and decide what definition from their list most likely describes the missing word. After students have matched the sentences and definitions, the teacher writes the mystery word in space in each sentence. Students can copy the word next to each definition on their paper.
For example: Students are given this list of definitions of phrasal verbs.
- 1) V. - The way you travel from place to place.
- 2) V. - Get together with another person at a particular place and time.
- 3) V. - To relax.
They match them with these sentences.
- A) I don't have any plans for this weekend. I just want to ______ at home and take it easy. I had a really stressful week at work.
- B) The bus is too slow. I use my motorcycle to ______ the city.
- C) So, where do you want to have lunch tomorrow? I was thinking we could ________ at the park at 12 pm and decide where to go from there.
Then the teacher reveals the mystery words and the answers to the matching activity.
- A) I don't have any plans for this weekend. I just want to kick back at home and take it easy. I had a really stressful week at work. (3)
- B) The bus is too slow. I use my motorcycle to get around the city. (1)
- C) So, where do you want to have lunch tomorrow? I was thinking we could meet up at the park at 12 pm and decide where to go from there. (2)
This technique encourages students to make and test hypotheses about the language. By giving students the definitions first, they have to really analyze the way the example sentences are constructed and look for context clues.
*In a face to face context this can be done with strips of paper. It is a bit more challenging to do in a virtual context since the teacher would need to create several shareable documents using Google Docs.
6) Supplementary Jigsaw Reading: Include new words in a reading and speaking activity. Break your students into four or five groups. Give each group a short paragraph that you wrote about the topic of the lesson (sports, hobbies, vacation, etc). The text for each group should be different. Make sure you include three or four new vocabulary words in the text. Mark these words in bold so that students notice them. Have students read their text and look for the meaning of the new words that they don't know. Then tell them they will make new groups with members of the other groups. They need to explain the information from their reading to their new partners in their own words and also teach their partners their new vocabulary words. At the end of the activity, you can ask the students questions to test their understanding of the new words. For this to work, you need to be sure that the new vocab words you include in each text are vital to understand the text so that students have a reason to explain them to their new partners when they summarize their text.
Revisiting and Recycling: It is important for students to have opportunities to review words that they have seen earlier in the unit or course so that they don't forget them. You can use the following eight strategies to design vocabulary recycling activities for your students.
7) Word Cloud Taboo: Use an internet program to make a wordcloud with vocabulary words students have seen during the course. You can also just write the words randomly on the board on in a PowerPoint slide. Have students work in pairs or small groups. One person in each group should sit with their back to the board so they cannot see the wordcloud. The other students should choose one of the words from the wordcloud to explain for the other student to guess. To make it more challenging, the teacher can choose the word they need to explain and add some "taboo" words, or words that students are not allowed to use in order to help their partner guess.
For example: The student has to guess the word "atmosphere" but his partners are not allowed to use the following taboo words in their explanation.
- Space
- Climate
- Environment
- Weather
- Earth
*This is a little difficult to do in a virtual context because all students will be able to see the wordcloud at the same time. If you are using a video conferencing platform like ZOOM, you can send a private message to some students with the word and taboo words so that the students that need to guess cannot see it. However, you will probably have to find a creative way to make this activity work for you.
8) Derailed: This is a fun fluency activity that has students make creative use of previously seen vocabulary. Put students in small groups. Tell them that one student will need to talk for one minute without stopping about a given topic. The group members can decide what that topic will be. It can be anything (pets, sports, jobs, etc). When the student starts talking, his/her partner will say a word and he/she must incorporate that word into his/her talk without deviating from the original topic of conversation. In other words, they must try to stay on track and not get derailed. Every time the student successfully adds the word into his/her talk, the partners give another word. The winner is the person who successfully integrated the most words into their talk without getting distracted. The words that they integrate should be vocabulary words they are reviewing.
*In a face to face context you can give students a set of cards or slips of paper with the vocabulary words on them. In a virtual context you can give them the list of words or you can create a word generator like the wheel below.
9) Strip Stories: Put students in groups of 5-8 people and give each student a strip of paper containing one sentence of a story. Each sentence also contains one of the vocabulary words they are reviewing. Each student must memorize his/her sentence. Students need to figure out the order of the sentences to tell the story correctly. They are not allowed to show each other their strips of paper. They can only repeat their sentence orally. When the students think they have put the sentences in order, they recite the story for the other groups in the class.
The fact that students cannot read each other's papers forces them to listen carefully to the sentences their partners say and there is plenty of meaningful repetition of the target vocabulary in new contexts. A variation of this activity would be for students to work in groups to create their own sentences to give to another group to organize.
*This is very challenging but not impossible to do in a virtual context. You will have to get creative here. In a classroom students can stand in a line to say their sentences in different orders but that is not possible in a virtual class.
10) Connect the Dots: This is an association task where you show students a group of unrelated words. The first student chooses two words and draws a line to connect them then explains how the two words are related or the association he/she can make between them. The next student needs to draw line from the second word the previous student mentioned and connect it to a third word and say how they are connected. The game continues until the students cannot make any more meaningful connections. Consider the example below.
This activity encourages students to make creative associations between vocabulary words that do not seem to have much in common on the surface level. This kind of interaction helps make mental connections between concepts and strengthen storage of these vocabulary items in long term memory.
*In a classroom you can write or project the words on the whiteboard and have students use markers to connect them. In a virtual context you can have students use the screen annotation tool in ZOOM to draw lines on your presentation. You can also use a collaborative virtual whiteboard like Google's Jam Board.
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11) Associations: (Virtual & F2F) For this speaking activity, you can print a worksheet similar to the picture below. It contains circles with random words and ideas in them. Choose anything to go in these spaces. Put students in small groups and give each group one worksheet. Say a vocabulary word you want students to review and students have to quickly point to one circle that in their worksheet that they associate with that word. The first student to point to a circle claims it an other students cannot choose that one. Each student has to justify why the word is related to the idea in their circle. After each student explains their justification, they mark an X through their circle and the teacher reads a new vocabulary word. Students have to choose a new circle to associate with the word and they cannot choose a circle marked with an X.
This game encourages students to make associations between potentially unrelated concepts and this creative association can strengthen connections between items stored in their memory.
*This is a paper-based game in a face to face context but for virtual classes, you can share the picture of the worksheet with students.
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12) Grouping Strategies: In our face to face classes we often put students in small groups to have them work on a given activity. You can incorporate previously seen vocabulary items into your grouping strategies. For example, write words on strips of recycle paper and pass them out to students. Then say, "I want all people with sports related words to make a group in this corner and students with adjectives to describe feelings in this corner and..." This simple idea allows students to encounter words that they have previously learned and helps keep them fresh in their memory.
*Unfortunately, this strategy only seems to work in face to face classes.
13) Topic Collage: At the end of a unit or before an evaluation period, you can create a collage of screenshots from your class presentations and worksheets. Then show students this combination of images from previous classes and ask them to identify topics and activities they can remember from the classes and any vocabulary words they associate with those topics and activities. Alternatively, you can mention activities, vocabulary words, and topics and have students try to find images in the collage that represent them. See a sample collage below.
*In the classroom, you can project on the wall for students to examine. In virtual classes, you can send the photo to them or share your screen.
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14) Bananagrams: Bananagrams is a fun and low-tech game to help students remember previously seen vocabulary. Make different stations in the classroom. In each station put pictures that represent three or four vocab words. Also put the words they need to guess on colored paper but cut the words so that there is only one letter on each paper. For an extra challenge you can take away some letters so that students have to combine the papers in a way similar to a crossword puzzle so that certain words share a letter. Look at the example in the picture below.
*Unfortunately, this activity works best in a face to face class.
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Recording Emergent Vocabulary: Students ask the question, "Teacher, how do you say...?" every class. Even though they are not part of your official syllabus, these vocabulary words are very important for learners because they represent words that they really want to say. The following two activities can help students remember this emergent vocabulary.
15) Whiteboard Gallery: Anytime a student asks how to say a word, write it in a list on the whiteboard. At the end of the class, take a picture of the whiteboard and send it to students by email or Whatsapp. You can also create a class blog with a picture for each class or combine the pictures in another creative way so that students have a record of all the new vocabulary words that they learned in addition to the course content. You can also use these images to play games like Word Cloud Taboo in the section above.
*In a face to face class, you write the words on the whiteboard and take a picture. In a virtual class, you can write the words in the chat and share the chat with students at the end of the lesson or you can create a shared Google Doc where you write all the new words.
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16) Class Graffiti Wall: Put a large poster on the wall in your classroom at the beginning of each unit. When students ask how to say a word related to the topic of the unit, have them write the word on the poster or "graffiti wall". Keep the paper on the wall during the whole unit. You will probably have to take it down and save it in your locker so the cleaning staff doesn't throw it away. At then beginning of each class, put the poster on the wall and review the words with students. By the end of the unit, students will have created a large list of new vocabulary words. You can keep all of these papers to do vocabulary building activities throughout the year or you can take a picture of the finished product each time you finish a unit and then share the photos with your students.
*In a face to face class, this is best done with large papers or posters. In a virtual context, a shared Google Doc is far more practical.
References
Gairns, R., & Redman, S. (1986).
Working with words: A guide to teaching and learning vocabulary. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Krashen, S., & Mason, B. (2015). Can Second Language Acquirers Reach High Levels of Proficiency Through Self-Selected Reading? An Attempt to Confirm Nation´s (2014) Results. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 10 (2), 10-19
Nation, P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge University Press.
Read, J. (2000). Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
