Unit 2: What is involved in
teaching vocabulary?
Reviewed
✦ What do we mean by ‘vocabulary’?
As teachers, it’s essential to understand not only the definition, spelling, and
pronunciation of words, but also to know how words are categorised. This
helps us teach vocabulary clearly and effectively.
When it comes to teaching English, there are eight parts of speech to
remember.
1. noun(s)
2. verb(s)
3. determiner(s)
4. adverb(s)
5. pronoun(s)
6. adjective(s)
7. preposition(s)
8. conjunction(s)
To really know a word, a student needs to:
understand its context as a part of speech or word class
understand the role it plays within a sentence
Unit 2: What is involved in teaching vocabulary? 1
, recognise this role can change depending on how the word is used.
✦ Lexis
You may come across the word ‘lexis’ used in place of vocabulary.
Technically, lexis refers to all the words and phrases in a language, whereas
vocabulary is a specific set of the lexis, for example, medical vocabulary, the
vocabulary in this course, the vocabulary for this lesson, etc.
Meaning is not the only thing a learner needs to know about new vocabulary
items. Understanding the different aspects of vocabulary will help us be more
effective when teaching vocabulary to our students. An awareness of these
different aspects helps learners comprehend a word fully.
A few relationships between vocabulary items which are important for
teaching and learning:
Cognates
Collocations
Word families
✦ Def inition : C ognates
The term for related words across different languages is cognates. These are
words which have the same historical origin. Often the meaning is still the
same and this is very helpful for students. For example, anniversary in English
has the same meaning as anniversaire in French.
Sometimes words look familiar because there is a related word (cognate) in
the student’s own language, but the meanings in the two languages have
Unit 2: What is involved in teaching vocabulary? 2
teaching vocabulary?
Reviewed
✦ What do we mean by ‘vocabulary’?
As teachers, it’s essential to understand not only the definition, spelling, and
pronunciation of words, but also to know how words are categorised. This
helps us teach vocabulary clearly and effectively.
When it comes to teaching English, there are eight parts of speech to
remember.
1. noun(s)
2. verb(s)
3. determiner(s)
4. adverb(s)
5. pronoun(s)
6. adjective(s)
7. preposition(s)
8. conjunction(s)
To really know a word, a student needs to:
understand its context as a part of speech or word class
understand the role it plays within a sentence
Unit 2: What is involved in teaching vocabulary? 1
, recognise this role can change depending on how the word is used.
✦ Lexis
You may come across the word ‘lexis’ used in place of vocabulary.
Technically, lexis refers to all the words and phrases in a language, whereas
vocabulary is a specific set of the lexis, for example, medical vocabulary, the
vocabulary in this course, the vocabulary for this lesson, etc.
Meaning is not the only thing a learner needs to know about new vocabulary
items. Understanding the different aspects of vocabulary will help us be more
effective when teaching vocabulary to our students. An awareness of these
different aspects helps learners comprehend a word fully.
A few relationships between vocabulary items which are important for
teaching and learning:
Cognates
Collocations
Word families
✦ Def inition : C ognates
The term for related words across different languages is cognates. These are
words which have the same historical origin. Often the meaning is still the
same and this is very helpful for students. For example, anniversary in English
has the same meaning as anniversaire in French.
Sometimes words look familiar because there is a related word (cognate) in
the student’s own language, but the meanings in the two languages have
Unit 2: What is involved in teaching vocabulary? 2
