Teaching Primary
Aged Students

Vocabulary

What and Why?

Vocabulary is probably the most important part of the language learning process for moving into independence. Pupils can communicate reasonably effectively with a large vocabulary even if their grammatical competence is still weak. One problem of vocabulary learning is that pupils learn new words from one unit by rote which are quickly forgotten during the next unit.

Practical ideas

• There are new words in each story. It may be more involving for the pupils if you let them hear or read the story first before focusing on new vocabulary.
• As far as possible, allow time for the pupils to ask about new vocabulary after they have tried to work out the meaning rather than offering it to them first. You can do this with a 'traffic light' system in which each child has a red, green and orange crayon. They underline or write in their exercise books any new words in green which they can guess from the story; then they underline or write in orange any new words which they can guess but which they are still unsure about; finally, they underline or write in red any words which they don't understand at all. Get them to compare the words on their lists with a partner or in small groups. Pupils can often help each other at this stage. Ask pupils then to look at their orange words and to ask you I think this means X in MT. Am I right? You can then check their suggestions. Pupils then look at the words in red and ask the rest of the class first and then, finally, you can help them. The process of thinking about the meaning of the words allows time for pupils to understand rather than to learn them by rote.
• Pupils can write vocabulary puzzles for each other in pairs or groups.
• Pupils can test themselves or a partner on vocabulary using their Language Bag, perhaps keeping words in topic sets within their bags.
• Try to use as many of the new words in your own classroom language so that pupils hear them in other contexts and not just in the stories and texts in the book.
• Spend a few minutes at the beginning of each lesson asking pupils what they remember from the previous lesson.