Strategies for Building Vocabulary
The following strategies can be used to help students build vocabulary.
Strategy Description
Pre-Teaching To make a lesson comprehensible to ELLs, it is important to
introduce key vocabulary prior to the content lesson itself.
Providing lists of words, definitions, and explanations
beforehand can be helpful in increasing students’
comprehension of the lesson content. However, this is not
likely to result in acquisition of the vocabulary itself.
Therefore, assessments should focus on comprehension of
concepts and recognition of key vocabulary, rather than
active production.
Unplanned At times, a student will ask about a word or a word may
vocabulary appear that the teacher feels deserves some attention. These
teaching moments allow for impromptu discussions of words in
context. While this unplanned teaching should not detract
from the main focus of the activity or lesson, it can be quite
valuable.
Illustrated Appeal to visual learners by having students illustrate the
definitions meanings of words on flashcards or posters. Instead of
providing dictionary definitions, ask students to generate
illustrations to explain each word.
$10 Words When students avoid using technical terms, praise the
content of the response and then ask the class to rephrase
using key vocabulary. Say “How would a poet say that?”,
“How would a scientist say that?”, or “How would a
mathematician say that?” When a student produces the
desired technical term, add it to a chart of “$10 Words.”
Refer to this chart whenever students struggle to use the key
vocabulary. Remind students to use the chart when revising
their writing to include precise terminology.
Quiz games After students have been exposed to the definitions of key
vocabulary words, divide the class into teams and play word
games like Taboo or 20 Questions for positive reinforcement.
In Taboo, the teacher gives clues for students to guess the
word being defined. The clues may be examples, related
words, synonyms, context hints, or definitions, but may not
include gestures or any part of the word itself. In 20
Questions, the students may ask yes/no questions related to
the meaning (not the spelling) of the word. Give points for
correct responses and reward the winning team in
accordance with your classroom management style. As
students become familiar with the game rules, you can let
them play in small groups or pairs.
© 2012 Teachscape
Strategies for Building Vocabulary
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Strategy Description
Semantic This activity helps students to see the relationships between
feature analysis different but related words. Create a matrix with the names
of the words down one side (for example, names of different
vegetables). Along the top, put some features that go with
some of the items along the side (for example, “has seeds,”
“grows in the ground,” “grows on a bush,” etc.). With the
students, put a plus or a minus sign in each box to indicate if
the word has that feature or not.
Word study More advanced English learners benefit from studying root
words, suffixes, and prefixes. (See Teachscape course,
Reading and Writing for English Language Learners, Teaching
Example 3, for a demonstration of word study activities.)
© 2012 Teachscape
