Teaching vocabulary by Jeremy Harmer

Why are words so important? Words are what a language is made of. Their meaning, how they related to each other, what the other words they like to be with, how we can bend and twist their meaning to our own advantage.These are the things that make language fun, creative, humanistic. There are many vocabulary books available and being written about the topic vocabulary. But vocabulary is more than merely lists. In the first place meaning is a slippery concept. Secondly students need to know the ways words are formed, how we can change a verb into a noun, or if a word can be made into an adjective and so on. Perhaps the best vocabulary exercises are reading and listening lots and lots of reading and listening and if the students are motivated, the words they meet there are likely to be better learned and acquired. Other ways of teaching vocabulary are by showing objects or pictures, listing a number of things in categories such as vegetables, or music or matching words with definitions, fill-ins, and so on. (JH is a teacher trainer and materials writer who has worked extensively in the UK and Mexico and led training sessions all over the world.)