Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T18:32:39.055Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Teaching vocabulary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2024

Get access

Summary

What is vocabulary?

Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words in the language. However, it may include items that are more than a single word: for example, post office and mother-in-law. There are also longer multi-word expressions such as call it a day, in any case, which express a single concept and are stored in the memory as a whole chunk. A useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary items rather than words.

The term vocabulary is also sometimes taken to include grammatical items: pronouns such as she, someone, or determiners such as the, that, any. These are contrasted with lexical items (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs). Grammatical items do not have much meaning on their own, but are used to show the relationships with other words within meaningful utterances. They are closed sets (it is unlikely that the language will acquire a new pronoun, or another demonstrative to add to this/that), whereas lexical items are an open set: items are constantly being added, lost or changed.

What students need to learn

The most important things the students need to know about a lexical item are its written and spoken form and its meaning, or meanings. However, there are additional aspects which also need to be learnt at some point: its grammar, collocational links, connotations, and appropriate contexts for use.

Form: pronunciation and spelling

The learner has to know what a word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like (its spelling). Many people assume that meaning is more important than form: but remember that knowing a meaning is pretty useless without knowing the form it is attached to. In most cases, the learners will encounter a form before they know its meaning, not vice versa – which is why it is put first here.

You may stress either pronunciation or spelling when teaching a particular item: ultimately, students will need to know both. Most English words are pronounced and spelt according to a set of reliable rules (see 11 Teaching writing, Section 5), but where they are not, you will need to teach the irregular form.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Teaching vocabulary
  • Penny Ur
  • Book: A Course in English Language Teaching
  • Online publication: 15 March 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009417594.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Teaching vocabulary
  • Penny Ur
  • Book: A Course in English Language Teaching
  • Online publication: 15 March 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009417594.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Teaching vocabulary
  • Penny Ur
  • Book: A Course in English Language Teaching
  • Online publication: 15 March 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009417594.007
Available formats
×