Teaching Vocabulary What is vocabulary ? Vocabulary can be defined as the words we teach in the foreign language. Vocabulary is the glue that holds stories, ideas, and content together making comprehension accessible What needs to be taught? Meaning. Form: pronunciation and spelling. Grammar. Collocation. Aspects of meaning (1): denotation, connotation, appropriateness

Aspects of meaning (2): meaning relationships. -Synonyms -Antonyms -Hyponyms -Co-hyponyms or co-ordinates -Super-ordinates -Translation Word formation

Presenting new vocabulary Ways of presenting the meaning of new items -concise definition ( as in a dictionary; often a super-ordinate with qualifications: for example, a cat is an animal, which…) -detailed description (of appearance, qualities) -examples (hyponyms) -illustration (pictures, objects) -demonstration (acting, miming) -context (story or sentence in which the item occurs) -synonyms -opposites (antonyms) -translation -associated ideas, collocations

Practicing and testing techniques Identifying words we know Multiple choice Matching Odd one out Writing sentences Dictation-translation Gap-filling Gap-filling with a pool of answers

How to teach vocabulary to make it interesting keep it relevant set achievable goals