Linguists argue that on average students have to do something with a new word 20 times before they ‘know’ the word.

‘Knowing a word’ is actually a complicated matter and it is not as simple as one might think. This article deals with the following questions.

• What does passive and active vocabulary mean?
• What does knowing a word really mean?
• What is the Finnish way to introduce new words?
• What can you do if you do not remember the right word?

Words are more important than grammar. Why? Because true communication is possible without grammar, but not without words.

A: ” I yesterday eat park hotdog.” B: Hyde Park, was it? Tasty?

Words are the building blocks of communication and we can communicate by using words only, with no knowledge of grammar. If someone says to you : “I yesterday eat park hotdog.” we can understand it with just a little thought even if the grammar is all wrong. “Yesterday I ate a hotdog in the park.”

Passive and active vocabulary

Our vocabulary can be divided in two:

• Passive vocabulary – means that you recognize the word from English into your mother tongue – and it is much bigger than active vocabulary.                                              
• Active vocabulary – means that you can use the word both in writing and orally (you remember the word from mother tongue to English, too).

So, as a teacher do not hesitate to spend a lot of time in practising and repeating the use of new words in various kinds of exercises.

No-one knows how many words there are in English but it is estimated to be close to a million now. The best students at the age of 15 know about 6000 words and at A-level about 15 000 words. An ordinary person gets by daily with 3000 words.

Of course, sometimes we ‘learn’ new words instantly because we use a nearly similar word in our mother tongue or we make a funny association link to the word.

Knowing a word

You know a word …

• if you know its meaning; i.e. know the meaning of the word in your mother tongue, you can link the new word with a picture or the sentence helps you to guess the meaning
• if you know how it is pronounced; i.e. you can recognize the word in isolation or within a sentence and can pronounce it yourself
• if you know how the word is written; i.e. you know the spelling of the word in isolation and recognize it in a text
• if you know how it is used in speech and writing; i.e. you know its grammatical function and where to place it in the sentence
• if you know words that mean nearly the same; i.e. if you know its synonyms (and opposites)
• if you can recognize its secondary meanings, connotations; i.e. in poetry, for example, ‘sea’ can imply ‘freedom’ or ‘danger’ or ‘desire to go away’

The Finnish way to introduce new words

In the Finnish system the students study the new chapter in advance at home translating the text into their mother tongue if needed with the help of ‘English – mother tongue’ word lists of the chapter (or with the help of a dictionary).

This system means that the students have already done something with the new words maybe 5 times even before they come to the lesson. They have also seen how the words are used in a sentence context. This idea of flipped learning (studying the content in advance at home) has been a standard in the Finnish style of teaching languages for decades.

This system combined with new methods, styles, strategies, assessment and modern technology has made it possible for our students to learn and master several foreign languages instead of studying reluctantly only one.

I strongly recommend that when teaching a new chapter, teachers first make the students repeat the new words in isolation after them because it will remind the students of the content of the chapter and they will learn how the words are pronounced. Then the new words are used in an oral pre-task.

N.B. I discussed my vocab learning philosophy in the previous article.

What if you do not know or remember a word?

There are sometimes situations where you do not come up with a word. What can you do? Use one of the Compensation strategies below and hope for the best.

• Use pantomime, acting out a word
• Use hands and body or show a picture or point at the target
• Explain and describe the word
• Give a home-made definition
• Draw a picture of the word / idea
• Use a synonym or opposite                             
• Use a word from another language

We are all different and learn words in a different way. Visual learners prefer photos and videos, auditive learners need to hear the words spoken and kinesthetic learners like to get active with their hands. That is why all of us need to experiment and find our own style or strategy of learning new words.

• What strategies and learning styles are best in learning new words?
• What kind of exercises and activities are best in learning words?
• How can we activate students to make vocabulary exercises themselves?

I will present 22 strategies in the next vocab article and you can try to identify them in an exercise. In the next two posts after that I will clarify the strategies in Points 1 – 10 and Points 11 – 22 in more detail, what to do in class.

All in all, in addition to the traditional workbook exercises I have three main arguments in teaching new words:

1. There should be a lot of oral activities, not only written ones, and the new words should be used in discussions.
2. We should teach various techniques or strategies to our students how to learn new words. As a result, they can start using the ones that appeal to them.
3. The students should be taught how to make exercises of their own; while making them they will learn the words subconsciously.