Teaching vocabulary

A. Aspects when teaching vocabulary

1. Forms
- Pronunciation
- Spelling
2. Meanings
3. Grammar
4. Collocation
5. Appropriateness
6. Meaning relationships
- Synonym
- Antonyms
- Hyponyms
- Co-hyponyms or coordinates
- Superordinate
- Translation
7. Word formation (mainly for advanced learners)
You need to know between 95-98% of the words in a text to understand it.
5000 – 8000-word families.
B. Vocabulary selection.
1. Most important the criteria
- Frequency (commonly used/appear)
- Importance
- Relation to the studied text.
2. Vocabulary presentation
- Ensure understanding of meanings.
o Beginner or elementary: pictures, toys, gestures, and mimes
o Higher level or age: translation, definition, description, examples or hints,
sample uses of the item in context.
- Introduce all skills.
3. For optimized impacts:
- Using pictures ,mime, gestures, and actual objects leaves a higher impact
- Mnemonic devices, keywords.
C. Teaching implications
1. Give more attention and effort to complicated words. E.g. Focus on atmosphere more
than air
2. Link words together when teaching and reviewing -> select and present words in pairs.
3. Link vocabulary to students’ lives, feelings, experiences, or to teachers.
4. Important words first
5. Don’t teach more than ten new items at a time in intermediate classes.
6. Encourage students to think up their own keyword devices for remembering words.
7. Get students to use vocabulary notebooks
8. Teach new items early in the lesson
9. Recall at the end of the lesson
10. Go back to earlier items.
 Teaching reading
I. Definition
- Reading = reading + understanding.
II. Types of reading
1. Extensive reading
a. Definition
- Silent reading of students
b. Materials
- Authentic: Original unmodified texts for native speakers and advanced learners
- Pedagogic: created for language learners, suitable for learners with a lower
proficiency.
- Adapted: Texts changed to suit the level of students. Lower proficiency.
c. Roles of teachers
- Persuader
- Organizer and tutor
- Task-assigner
- Adviser
d. Motivation tips
- Class time
- Bring books to the class
- Provide students with some websites for extensive reading: mangahub,
librarything.com
- Ask students to keep a record of what they read
2. Intensive reading
a. Definition
- Focus on the construction of the texts
b. Materials:
- Content and language: Rich, challenging, accessible
- Potential insights: Different cultural contexts or contemporary issuses
- Incorporating vocabulary: New vocabulary for deep learning and application in
various context.
- Grammatical structures
- Comprehension questions: Understanding check and critical thinking
encouragement.
c. Roles of teachers
- Organizer
- Observer
- Feedback organizer
- Prompter
d. Motivation tips
- Language level: Comprehensible with relevant percentage of acknowledged
words.
- Content: Familiar information. If not, apply pre-reading strategies.
- Selective attention to key info.
- Vocabulary: Guess the meaning of new vocabulary.
3. Teaching implications
a. Before reading:
- Encourage learners to use background knowledge.
- Lighten students’ cognitive burden while reading with prior discussions.
- Activities:
o Direct
 Giving definition
 Pre-teaching vocabulary
o Indirect
 Mentioning
o Provide background knowledge:
 Group discussion.
 Reviewing familiar stories.
b. After reading.
o See into another mind, mesh new information into what one already
knows.
o Activities:
 Discuss the text: Written or oral
 Summarizing: Written or oral
 Making/answering questions: Written/oral
 Filling in forms/charts
 Writing reading logs
 Role playing
 Completing a text
 Listening to/reading other related materials.