Activating Vocabulary 2

ICELT DISTANCE UNIT 7
Activating vocabulary

ICELT distance unit 7 Activating Vocabulary

Contents

Introduction 3
Aims .. 3
Reading 4

Section A Reflection . 5
Section B Approaches to teaching grammar 8
Section C Presentation techniques .. 19
Section D Practice techniques .. 29
Section E Grammar in the young learner classroom 34

References 35
Feedback on unit . 36
British Council, Bogot 2006
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Introduction

In many traditional language classrooms, grammar was viewed as the most
important aspect of language learning. Methodology was concerned almost
solely with ways of having learners practise the grammar with vocabulary and
pronunciation slotted in. Nowadays most teachers would not recognise that
situation there has been a growing acceptance that there is much more to a
language than grammar. In the 1970s, the communicative approach mostly
abandoned this emphasis on grammatical form in favour communicating the
message successfully, despite inaccuracies. More recently, however, the
importance of focussing on form has been addressed again.

In this unit we will be considering different approaches to teaching grammar and
whether we need to make form (or structure) rules explicit to learners. We shall
evaluate a number of presentation and practice techniques.
A Aims and Objectives

In this Unit we look at what it means to teach vocabulary and how we can help
learners to learn vocabulary effectively.
There are 3 sections:
1. Section 1 - Reflection. This purpose of this section is to get you to think
about what is involved in teaching and learning vocabulary.
2. Section 2 - Input. This section looks at
active and passive vocabulary
memory and why we forget things
ways of presenting vocabulary in a meaningful way
different activities through which learners can practise and recycle
vocabulary.
3. Section 3 - Storing vocabulary, looks at ways of helping learners record
vocabulary in a personally meaningful way
ims
By the end of this unit you should:
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Have a clearer understanding of deductive, inductive and guided discovery
approaches to grammar teaching
Have analysed lessons in relation to these approaches
Have analysed the learning process within a guided discovery lesson
Have planned a sequence of activities using a guided discovery
framework
Have evaluated a number of presentation techniques
Have a clearer understanding of the notion of controlled and free practice
activities
Have planned controlled and free practice activities for particular language
points
Have considered the place of grammar in younger learner classrooms
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Essential Reading

Cameron, L. 2001 Teaching Languages to Young Learners. CUP
Chapter 4 Learning Words

Nunan, D. 1991 Language Teaching Methodology. Longman
Chapter 7 Teaching Vocabulary

Recommended Further Reading
ELT Forum Teacher Development Pack: Vocabulary

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Section A Reflection

Task 1 (taken form Thornbury, 2004)

Try to match the first half (1-5) with the second half (A E) of each extract.
They are all on the subject of learning vocabulary.

Then, think about the implications of these statements in terms of teaching
vocabulary. Try to do this task with a colleague.

1. The human lexicon is believed to
be a network of associations, a
web-like structure of interconnected
links.

A. That is, if the words occur in new
sentences contexts in the
reading text, learning will be
helped. Similarly, having to use
the work to say new things will
add to learning. Nation, 2001
2. The act of successfully recalling an
item increases the chance that the
item will be remembered.

B. In the case of vocabulary, the
more one engages with a word
(deeper processing), the more
likely the word will be
remembered for later use.
Schmidt, 2000.
3. The more one manipulates, thinks
about, and uses mental
information, the more likely it is that
one will retain information.

C When students are asked to
manipulate word, relate them to
other words and to their own
experiences, and then justify their
choices, these word associations
are reinforced. Skmen,
1997.
4. When words are met in reading
and listening or used in speaking
and writing, the generativness of
the context will influence the
learning.

D. That is, learners might be able to
recognize a given lexical item
when it is presented to them to
they may be able to infer its
meaning, but this is not at all the
same thing as recalling items for
use. Carter, 1998
5. A learners active/productive
vocabulary is always smaller than
his or her passive/receptive
vocabulary.
E. It appears that the retrieval route
to that item is in some way
strengthened by being
successfully used. Baddeley,
1997.

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Commentary

KEY: 1 C; 2 E; 3 B; 4 A; 5 D

Some of the implications of these statements are:

It is important to provide activities for learners that require them to
retrieve words form memory.
It is important to provide task that require learners to make decisions
about words involving increasing degrees of cognitive depth, such as
manipulating them, relating them to words they know, and
personalising them.
The more and the deeper the the decisions, the more likely it is that
the words will be learned.
It is important to provide activities that require the learners to produce
words rather than just recognise them, if the words are to become
part of the learners active vocabulary.
It is important that learners meet and re-meet words frequently and in
different contexts in order for learning to take place.

As an EFL teacher you have probably had a great deal of experience in learning
new words in a foreign language especially if your mother tongue is not English.

Task 2

Think about these questions and make a few notes:

1. Do you have any systems for learning new words?
2. When you wee learning English (or another foreign language), did the
teachers give you any help with learning vocabulary? What kind of help?
3. Have you ever compared the way you learn new words with the way someone
else learns them (e.g. a friend or a colleague)? If so, did you notice any
differences?

If you answered YES to question 3 then you are probably already aware
that people learn words, just as they do everything else, in their own
personal way. Our aim as teachers should be to give learners as much
chance as possible to:

understand new words when they first meet them,
remember new words and
use them efficiently, that is,
make them part of their active vocabulary.

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Section B Knowing words

Task 1

Look at the question in the box below and list as many different points as you can
think of. Try to do this task with a colleague and when you have finished
compare your ideas with those in the commentary.

What does it mean when you say you know a word?

For example,
knowing how to spell it

Commentary

1. What the word means in context. That is to use it with the correct meaning.
(Context). e.g. He spent the afternoon reading. Ive spent all my money.
2. How to spell it correctly. (Spelling).
3. How to pronounce the word correctly with the correct stress (Word stress
and pronunciation). e.g.record (n) record (v)
4. How to use it with other words. (Collocation). e.g. we tell a lie/a joke/the truth
but we recite a poem. We make a cup of tea but we do our homework.
5. The associations that a word has, i.e. does it have positive or negative
associations. (Connotation). e.g. spinster v single. Both words are used to
describe a woman who is not married but spinster has negative connotations
and implies that a woman has not married for some reason or other, whereas
single implies that the woman has not married out of choice.
6. When to use it, whether the word is polite or rude or formal or informal. To
use it in the right situation. (Register). e.g. With your family or friends you
could say Do you fancy a drink? whereas in a more formal situation e.g. to a
visitor in an office it would be more appropriate to say Would you like a
drink?
7. To understand it when it is written and/or spoken.
8. To recall it when you need it.
9. To use it in a grammatically correct way. e.g. news in English is an
uncountable noun even though it appears to be in a plural form, so you
cannot say Are there any news? but need to say Is there any news?

All the above points may not be equally important. Their importance will depend
on whether you need to recognize a word passively or whether you need to use
it actively.

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Now that you have looked at what it means to really know a word do the following
short task.

Task 2

1. Write down five or more words or phrases that you have recently learnt in a
foreign language or that you remember learning in a particular situation in the
past. Words which you have really learnt and always remember.

2. Write down the reasons you learnt those particular words, and perhaps not
others that were introduced to you at the same time. What made the
experience memorable and effective?

3. Ask some of your colleagues or friends or learners(!) for similar experiences
and compare them with your own.

Commentary

Here is what some other teachers said:

Seamus
I always remember the Italian word for stupid (scemo) because it sounded a lot
like my name

Ricardo
I remember chickenshit. We learnt it when we were doing a song in class and I
remember it because it sounds rude.

Betty Jo
I always remember the Greek word for 'yes' , which is 'nai' because, in English, it
sounds like the opposite of yes - nay.

Bronwen
I always remember the word for up/upstairs in Hindi because it sounds so similar
to English - ooper (phonetic spelling) and because I liked the sound of it I used it
as often as I could.

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Task 3
Look at the account of the classroom vocabulary teaching below and consider
the following;

why the learner was having problems
how you think the teacher could help the learner more

Every lesson the teacher drew a white line down one side of the board and
wrote 'Vocabulary corner at the top of the space. When we came across a new
word the teacher translated it for us and wrote it, in English, with its translation
next to it in the box. At the end of the lesson we copied down all the words into
our notebooks in alphabetical order, like a dictionary. I never seemed to
remember many of the words except from the ones that sounded funny or rude.
Learning vocabulary was a real effort for me.

Commentary

Lets think about whats involved in learning and teaching vocabulary. Three
aspects that need to be focussed on are;
context
activation
personalisation

1. Context. This is probably the most important aspect of any vocabulary
teaching. All words take their meaning from the other words around them and
the situation in which they are used. If you look back at task 2 you will see
that points 1,4, 5 and 6 all relate to context. In this class the learner cant
remember the words easily because the way that they have been recorded
does not provide any context. Words that have connections (e.g. car, drive,
traffic lights, traffic jams, roundabout etc.) are not recorded together but in
alphabetical order. The words are not put into sentences to remind the learner
how they were used in the lesson, they do not have pictures next to them to
stimulate memory. The words are simply a list with nothing to help recall.
2. Activation. This is the process of helping the learner to guess the meaning of
a new word (from the context), putting her brain into action, stimulating
learning and remembering.
In this lesson the learners were not activated at all. They were not invited to
try and guess the meanings of the words, everything was given to them, like
spoon-feeding a small baby. Consequently the information went in one ear
and straight out of the other!
3. Personalisation. All learners are different, as you may have seen if you did
Task 1. Some learners respond to visual stimuli, others to audio and others
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to kinaesthetic stimuli. They also have different techniques for remembering
and recording vocabulary and in our classes we should aim for a variety of
presentations to help different kinds of learners.
The teacher in this situation did not allow the learners the chance to use their
own techniques in class, but used the same system every week for every new
word. The vocabulary notebooks were all the same and the format was
dictated by the teacher, so they were not personalised.

Task 5

Here is a list of terms describing how words relate to each other. Match each one
to its definition. Can you think of examples for any of them?

superordinate Words that are spelt the same way but have different
meanings.
hyponym A word that has the same or nearly the same meaning as
another word.
homophone Items that are members of a general concept,
synonym A letter or a group of letters that are added to a word and
change the meaning or function of that word.
antonym Words that sound the same but are spelt differently.
affixation A combination or two or more words that function as a
single word.
compound A general concept that covers specific items.
homonym A word that is the opposite of another word.

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Task 5

superordinate A general concept that covers specific items. e.g. animal
is the superordinate of dog, mouse, elephant, lion, cat etc.
hyponym Items that are members of a general concept, e.g. dog,
mouse, elephant, lion, cat etc. are hyponyms of the
superordinate animals
homophone Words that sound the same but are spelt differently e.g.
know/no knew/new to/too
synonym A word that has the same or nearly the same meaning as
another word. e.g. He hid the money in his shoe. He
concealed the money in his shoe. It is important to note
that there are sometimes differences between words. In
the above example conceal is more formal than hid.
antonym A word that is the opposite of another word. e.g. hot/cold
poor/rich
affixation A letter or a group of letters that are added to a word and
change the meaning or function of that word. e.g. kind:
kindness, kindly, unkind
compound A combination or two or more words that function as a
single word. e.g. headphones, teapot, car park,
toothache etc.
homonym Words that are spelt the same way but have different
meanings e.g. you should lie down. Don't lie to me!

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Section C Presenting and Recycling Vocabulary

Learning Styles
It would be useful for you to look again in Unit 1 in which we introduced the brain
and learning styles. If we accept that everyone has their own style of learning:
that is, some prefer to see information written down; others prefer to hear the
information; and others prefer to do something with the information, then in our
presentations we should aim to accommodate different learner styles.

Task 1
Thinking about the above, can you think of what different methods of presenting
vocabulary we could use to help different kinds of learners

Commentary

To help the different kinds of learners we should aim to include different ways of
presenting vocabulary so associations can be made:
With a mental image or picture
With a situation, topic or story
With some kind of need (personal significance)
With another word (of the same language)
With a positive or negative feeling
With a smell, sound or movement
By the specific word being memorable in itself for some reason

Memory - why we forget things.

There are several different theories about why we forget some things and
remember others, but below are some that are useful to bear in mind as
language teachers:
The decay theory. This states that unless we periodically activate and
revise information stored in the brain, it will gradually disappear.

The fish tank theory. Sometimes the information is in the brain but we
are unable to retrieve it. However, if we find the right association and link
we can catch any information that is stored somewhere in our memory!
Our brain is like a computer in lots of ways. We can categorise things that
we need to learn and file them according to the topic, order of events,
place where we first heard it, the person we first heard it from, etc. If we
think of our brain as a fish tank full of different coloured and different sized
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fish, then we should know how to catch them using the right associations.
The garden path theory. Activities done before OR after a period of
learning can also affect the quality of both the learning and retention.
Therefore, associations, links and the order of events may help us to
remember things. We can start from the last situation and trace them back
to the first point - the thing we have forgotten.

Task 2

Now close your eyes and try to remember what you were wearing last
Wednesday afternoon.
Which theory best fits the process you went through to remember?
Perhaps you used another method. What was the trigger? Share this activity with
your students and see what made them remember.
Maybe it was the weather, or where they went or what they were doing or who
they were with.

Active and Passive vocabulary

It's important to remember that each person's active and passive vocabulary is
different.

Task 3

What is the difference between active and passive vocabulary.
Think about the differences between the active vocabulary of a doctor,
a six-year-old boy and a language teacher.

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Commentary

ACTIVE vocabulary is the vocabulary we need to use and PASSIVE vocabulary
is what we may need to recognise, but do not really need to use.

It is obvious why this varies between individuals.
Look at the active vocabulary of:
a doctor,(symptoms, dosage, antibiotic)
a six year old boy, (chicken nuggets, Mummy, bedtime story)
and a language teacher (noun, lesson plan, pairwork)
As teachers it is important that we direct most of our vocabulary teaching towards
words that the students need to use and they will come across very often (these
are also called high incidence words). This does not mean that we pick out the
words from the text, make a list and translate them, like our teacher in Task 4!
J ust that we try to direct our tasks or activities towards useful words.

Ways of Presenting Vocabulary.

Task 4

Write down as many different ways as you can think of to present new
vocabulary. Discuss with your colleagues, did they have any that were new to
you?

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Task 4

Below are some ways of presenting vocabulary that the teachers here came up
with.
Realia and visuals. By realia we mean the actual object itself. So, for
example, if you were introducing different kinds of fruit and vegetables
to an elementary class, you could bring in actual examples of apples,
oranges, pears, plums etc.
Visuals would include pictures, flash cards or video images.
Matching. If you look back at Task 5, this is an example of a matching
exercise. The students are given the words and their definitions and
asked to match them up. In a classroom situation it can be quite a
good idea to have the words and definitions cut up onto separate
pieces of paper or card (especially suitable for kinesthetic learners).
Word-building. Use parts of words and affixes to help learners build
words or to guess their meaning.
Guessing from context. Use the context surrounding a word to help
learners to guess its meaning. This is a very important skill and as
teachers we should do all we can to help learners to develop it. There
is nothing more frustrating than reading a text in a second language
and having to stop and check the meanings of every other word in a
dictionary.
Pictograms. Draw the words to represent their meaning. Example:

huge
hot

tiny

cold

a. Name two things for each adjective
b. How many more adjectives do you know. Write a list.
c. Draw two of these adjectives. Give them to your partner. Can he or

she say what they are and draw their opposites?
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6. Demonstrating. Act out or mime words.
Example.

The class is going to listen to a song where they have to act out the following verbs:
clap shake snap your fingers swing wiggle

As an introduction the teacher acts out the words and asks the class to act too. As the
words occur in the song the learners act out the words.

7 Synonyms. Use words learners already know to teach them similar words. However,
be careful with synonyms because few words are truly synonymous. For example:
antique and old collate differently, that is you can use antique with furniture but
not with house, you would say an old house.
They often have different grammar, for example:
leave the station but depart from the station
they may be particular varieties of English. For example the difference
between American and British English, e.g.
rubber (UK) / eraser (US)
trousers (UK) / pants (US)
handbag (UK) / purse (US)
flat (UK) / apartment (US)
They may be of a different style, formal (child) /informal (kid), archaic
(wireless)/modern (radio), or
different connotation skinny/thin, skinny is not very complimentary etc.

8 Situation/story. As it is not always possible to use realia or visuals, you
might need to use a situation or story to contextualise the word. For example
if you wanted to explain a concept, such as honesty,
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9 Categorising words. For example if you wanted to introduce vocabulary
connected with people you may ask the learners to do the following:

People around you.
Categorise the following words under the headings below.
acquaintance neighbour stranger colleague best-friend mother-in-
law boss pupil niece flat-mate great-grandparents ex-wife
partner head-teacher relative

family friends work school other
niece

10. Labeling a picture. For example, learners are given the picture of a human body
and label all the different parts, arm, leg, back etc.

11. Call my Bluff. This is a game that used to be on British television but can work well
in the classroom, especially with more advanced classes. The teacher divides the
class into three groups of three. Each group is given some words that the teacher
wants to introduce and a dictionary. Each group then has to check the definition of
each word but also has to find two false definitions. When the groups have finished
their definitions it is time to play the game. One group shows their word to the other
two groups and then each member of the team gives a different definition of it. The
other two groups then have to decide who is telling the truth and who is bluffing. If
the other teams guess correctly they get a point. If not the team who gives the
definitions gets a point.

Ways of re-cycling/revising vocabulary.

Task 5
There are many fun ways of recycling vocabulary in the classroom. How many different
activities do you use at the moment? Compare your ideas with your colleagues and then
check the Commentary for some of our ideas.

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Commentary

1 Backs to the board - useful as a warmer at the start of the lesson or before an
activity where the students are going to be needing the vocabulary. The class is
divided into half and one half of the students sit with their backs to the board and
their partner sits opposite them facing the board. The teacher then writes a word on
the board and the students facing the board have to explain the word to their partner
for them to guess. When one pair gets the correct answer they put up their hands.

2 Pictionary - divide the class into two teams. One person from each team comes to
the blackboard and the teacher shows them a word or expression. Each person then
has to draw the object on the board for the rest of their team to guess. The first team
to get the right answer gets a point. It's best to give them a time limit for each guess.
30 or 60 seconds is usually enough.

3 Crosswords - this is a great favourite with our students. Crosswords can also be
used to present vocabulary in which case they are used in conjunction with a class
set of dictionaries. Each student gets a crossword with half the words filled in. The
students work in pairs and they have to explain the words that they have to their
partner to enable their partner to complete the crossword. It is usually a good idea to
have students with the same words work together first to write definitions of their
words.

4 Flash cards/pictures. As a quick revision of words previously introduced. Show the
students the picture or flash card and they give you the word.

5 Vocabulary bag. At the beginning of the term introduce the students to the
vocabulary bag. The teacher and he students write any new words/expressions they
come across during the lesson on pieces of card or paper and put them into the bag.
Periodically during the term the words/expressions are picked out by the teacher or
the students for revision. This can take any form, perhaps some of the ideas here!

6 Find someone who. There are many published versions of this activity. Each
student gets a sheet of paper with different words/definitions of words or pictures of
objects and they then go round the rest of the class to find someone who knows the
meaning. This is an excellent form of peer teaching.

7 Mime. Similar to pictionary but the students mime the word rather than draw it.

8 Walking round the room - there are two possible ways to do this activity:
Students are given a number of post its or slips of paper on which they write the
names of objects found in the classroom and then stick the pieces of paper on
the objects. Afterwards they go round checking if the objects are labelled
correctly or not.
In the other the students walk around the room and as they pass another student
they point to an object and name it.

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Section D Storing Vocabulary

Finally, let's look briefly at the written storage of vocabulary and at different ways
that learners can record vocabulary in their notebooks. How you store vocabulary
may not be the way your learners wish to store vocabulary. Therefore, it is
important that the storage of vocabulary involves learners in the process.

The following are examples of how this can be done.

A Special Place
With the aim of recording the following words:

Comfortable warm soft bright cosy
old hidden round slippery wet
alone exciting dry high delicate
secure imaginative noisy dangerous cold
clear quiet dream

1. Provide the learners with a large piece of white paper and ask them to
draw a place that they were happy in when they were children.
2. Give them a few minutes to think about this. Tell them that it doesn't
matter if the drawing is not great. Encourage them to produce this
drawing.
3. Now dictate the words in the above list and ask the learners to place the
words on their drawing according to how they felt about the different parts
of the place.
4. Ask the learners to now write in any other words of their own on their
drawing.
5. Follow-up: ask the learners to do one of the following:
write a short description of the place that they were happy in when they
were a child
talk to each other about the place
ask each other about their drawings and why they have put the words
in the places that they have.

Word Webs
This is another very useful way of recording vocabulary in that the associations
are made on paper just as they might be made in the brain. For example:

1. Write the word POLITICS in the middle of the board and ask your learners to
write the word in their note-books.
2. Make several balloons around the word POLITICS
3. Ask learners to think of all the different words that they associate with politics
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and write them in the balloons.
4. They now have a visual record of politics and the words associated with it..

E.g.

Polling station
president
politician to vote

election
ballot
senator

politics

Word Groups
This is a useful activity to revise and record recently learnt vocabulary.

Ask your learners to draw three columns in their notebook as shown:

Nice Words Neutral Words Horrible Words

Explain what nice, neutral and horrible mean if needed.

Now dictate a list of about 40 words. These can be words that you have taught
them over the past few weeks. Ask the learners to put the words under one of the
headings in the columns. Tell them that it is their choice which column they put
them in. There is no right or wrong answer.

After the dictation, ask them to compare their words and discuss in pairs or
groups their reasons for seeing a word as nice or neutral or horrible.

While the learners are discussing walk around listening to your learners'
comments.

There can be other headings for the groups eg sad words/ happy words, words I don't
like in English/ Words I like in English etc.
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This activity involves the whole person. The learner has feelings towards certain words
perhaps because of the sound of the word, mother tongue associations etc. The learner
may like a word because of who used it, perhaps a favourite teacher or a singer, or
because of where it was said and how the learner was feeling at the time. It is effective
to tap into these emotions and help learners to use these associations to remember
words.

Notebooks
MAKE SURE that from time to time you collect your learners' notebooks and
have a look at them.

WHY?
Because the way they record words will tell you:
Whether they prefer looking or listening (listeners make more spelling
errors)
What their systems are for grouping words
How much they rely on translation and if the translations they write are
correct.
If they are recording the lessons accurately.

Why not collect the notebooks tomorrow!

Dictionaries
And lastly a word about the biggest vocabulary storage of all.

The Dictionary

Learners love dictionaries. They hide them under the table, keep them in their
pockets and believe everything they say about English rather than what you say.
The kind of dictionary you can keep in your pocket is not detailed enough. They
may even give one word translations which are often WRONG!

You cannot tell your students never to look in the dictionary. But you can make
sure that they are encouraged to:
Guess from context
Be suspicious about one word translations
Listen to the teacher's explanations
Use their ears, eyes and bodies in the classroom and
Use monolingual dictionaries of a suitable level.

So if you have a book budget at the place where you work, make your first
priority a set of good English dictionaries that students can have access to both
during and between lessons. We can find context in a good dictionary.
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Students can activate their brains working out meanings and comparing words in
good dictionaries and there is a personal element in choosing which words they
need to know and how to write down what they find out. So, dictionaries are very
valuable but should be handled with care!

Reading and note taking

Read:

Cameron, L. 2001 Teaching Languages to Young Learners. CUP
Chapter 4 Learning Words

Nunan, D. 1991 Language Teaching Methodology. Longman
Chapter 7 Teaching Vocabulary

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Peer Observation 4 Dealing with Lexis (from Wajnryb, 1992)

In this task you are ask to research the different perceptions that teachers and
learners may have about which lexis or vocabulary is difficult.

Before the lesson

1. Arrange to observe a lesson, preferably one which includes a
reading or listening text.
2. Meet with the teacher before the lesson to discuss which words the
teacher thinks will be difficult for the learners (difficult here means
that the learners do not know the words and they will hinder
comprehension of the text).
3. Add the words that the teacher mentions to column one of the table
on the next page.
4. Tell the teacher that you want to ask the learners to make a list of
the words they found difficult and that this will take approximately
10 minutes. Confirm that the teacher aggress to this.
5. Analyse the text your self and write down which words you think
the learners will find difficult. Write these in column two of the table.

During the lesson

1. Monitor the learners carefully during the lesson and not down in
column three which words they seem to have difficulty with.
2. At the end of the lesson, take ten minutes to ask the students to
write a list of the words they thought were difficult.

After the lesson

1. Collate the students list so that you can compare these better.

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Words perceived as difficult by:
The teacher You The learners

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Observer .. Candidate number

Date of observation Level of class
You should write between 100 and 200 words.
This piece of writing is not assessed but it is an essential part of your portfolio.
Use the following questions to help you evaluate the observation in terms of you own
professional development.
Continue on the other side of this page if necessary

1. How great were the differences between the teachers, the learners and your
perceptions of difficult words. How do you account for this
2. Do you think we should ask students directly which words they find difficult
and then focus on those instead planning which words to work on in
advance?
3. How useful do you think it is to pre-teach vocabulary before a reading or
listening text?
4. Are there any areas of your won teaching of vocabulary that you may
consider changing in light of this observation?
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26

References

Baddelet, A. (1997) Human memory: Theory and Practice. Psychology
Press

Carter, R. (1998) Vocabulary: Applied Linguistic Perspectives.
Routledge

Nation, ISP. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language.
Cambridge University Press

Scmidt, N. (2000) Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge
University Press

Skmen, AJ ., in Schmidt, N & McCarthy, M (Eds) (1997) Vocabulary: Description,
Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge University Press.

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FEEDBACK on Grammar practice & presentation unit

1. How long did it take you to work through this unit?

Less than 6 hours About 6 hours More than 6 hours

2. In general, how did you find the unit?

Good OK Poor

3. Was the level of the material?

Too challenging About right Too easy

4. Please assess the overall presentation of the unit.

Good OK Poor

5. Please assess the clarity of the writing in the unit.

Good OK Poor

6. Please write any other comments you have here.

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Thank you for taking time to complete this form.
We appreciate your comments.
28

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