Vocabulary Development

In order to understand a text written in English it is necessary to understand the majority of the words in the text.

Encourage students to identify the types of words that are useful to learn – the ones that appear in many different texts – and to distinguish these from words that have low usage. Remind them that the meaning of very low frequency words which are central to the comprehension of the text will be given in a glossary.

Encourage students to experiment with different ways of expanding their vocabulary. They can create their own vocabulary book and organise it either alphabetically or functionally. They should not only write the meaning of words in their own language, but write many examples of its usage in English. They can also write synonyms and antonyms as well as words representing bigger categories to which this word belongs.