Vocabulary Strategies

Vocabulary is challenging especially for beginners. Lack of sufficient vocabulary cause difficulties in understanding and producing the target language. Gaining and practicing more vocabulary is a must for any foreign language learner.

Semantic Maps:
 
Semantic maps or graphic organizers strategy concentrates on connecting semantically related words. Since beginner students have many vocabulary items to learn, this strategy is suitable for organizing those items.  After reading or listening lesson, students organize related words using a concept map. For example, words related to “weather” are hot, cold, wind, rain, snow, etc. In the same way, it is very beneficial before writing or speaking exercises. Before starting the exercise, students with the help of their teacher gather the related words about the subject. This encourages students to write or speak especially non-native students who do not know how to express certain ideas in the targeted foreign language.

Word Detective:
 
This strategy allows students to depend on their prior knowledge to guess the meaning. It is very helpful for their future learning. Remembering all words they have studied is challenging, let alone unfamiliar ones. Students divide themselves into groups. Each group read a certain part of a reading passage. They find out what are unknown words for all of them. First, they look in the context and try to guess the meaning. They may benefit from suffix and prefix of the unfamiliar word. They write the word and its guessed meaning in their own words or by drawing. After that, they check what they guess using a dictionary or by discussing with their teacher. If they guessed wrong, they go again to the context and see what misled them. When all groups finished, they share what they have learned with the whole class. More importantly, they highlight the clues helped them to guess the meaning in the context. This helps in deepening their learning and not to be forgotten easily. Also, it shows how the words being used in context.



Word Hunt:
 
This strategy depends on spelling pattern, word roots, or patterns of sound. It draws students' attention to how a word is spelled or pronounced. Therefore, it contributes to their language development. For example, students look for any word in a selected reading passage that ends in '-tion'. They list them and try to find the similarity among all of them. Also, how they are spelled and pronounced. It helps in simplifying spelling and pronunciation in their future learning. This strategy can be applied individually, in pairs, in groups or as a whole class. One of its advantages is simplicity; a teacher selects a reading passage that is suitable to meet lesson aims and students list the intended words.