Teaching Vocabulary Guidance Notes

Atlas Language School has developed a series of know-how leaflets for teachers. These guidance leaflets are available to all teachers in display racks in our Teachers’ Rooms. We select one leaflet each term as the focus for bite-size chunks of digestible CPD for teachers.

The Teaching Vocabulary leaflet provides teachers with easy to access teaching ideas and suggested things to be aware of as well as quick references to our top 3 resource book suggestions and web resources.

Download the guidance notes here. To choose three of the ‘top teaching tips in the leaflet…

1. Whatever you do, don’t board single words. Demonstrate how a word or phrase is used by boarding COMPLETE sentences. Show students how words and phrases behave in a sentence.
2. Encourage students to consult the www.ldoceonline.com online dictionary in class to see how words are patterned in sentences. Train and encourage them to consult it outside class instead of using a translation dictionary. This dictionary is also extremely useful for complicated vocabulary questions that arise in class. For example, if a difficult word comes up, get the whole class to look it up in the dictionary. After looking at a few examples, board one a student gives you. Alert students to the grammar and patterns around the word. Choose a few students to use that sentence and personalise it. Each student writes their own sentence and then shares it. Do this often. It’s excellent training.
3. Keeping a vocabulary notebook is essential for all students. See Atlas’ own Keeping a Vocabulary Notebook study guide for students. To get some ideas for how to notice and record vocabulary, how to train students to organise their notebooks, and also suggestions for how students could best use their notebooks or revision.

As a plus one to this leaflet, why not also try using scatter sheets to review and revise vocabulary. See the Fast Fashion Vocab Revision – Scatter Sheet we’ve developed as part of a class we deliver in our Future Skills: Sustainability and the Environment course. How many of the words and expressions are the students familiar with and can use in conversation?

The teacher models describing a word from the sheet in any way they want. If the learners recognise the word, they signal which one it is. If they are correct, get all learners to circle the word and ask them to use the word or expression in a sentence that highlights its meaning. Establish a good example model sentence on the board.

Students in pairs then go through the scatter sheet, choosing a word which they think they can use comfortably in conversation. They describe the word to their partner. Each word is described in turn until as many words on the sheet as possible are circled. The remaining words / expressions are left and put to the whole class and teacher to define.

This review of the words and expressions, their meaning and how to use them, is followed by an extended discussion session based on a set of questions. Ask the students to discuss the questions in pairs. Monitor and feed in vocabulary and repair when needed. Make a note of interesting output that can be expanded upon after the discussion phase.

When in Dublin, students already do lots of speaking outside class. However, they don’t get explicit instruction on lexis when they are outside in the ‘wild’. In class, ensure that the speaking activities have that lexical focus.