Enhancing Student Vocabulary

 One day in my class, I asked students if it was possible to speak without words. The answer was yes, sign language. I rephrased “ apart from sign language, is it possible to speak without words? The answer was just NO. 

Language is for use, as a Linguist used to say. We use it as a tool of communication. How can we enhance student vocabulary? 

Enhancing student vocabulary works in diverse ways and aims at enabling students with the necessary skills to effectively communicate in both writing and speaking. Reading is a very important way of developing student vocabulary. We read what is written, and what is written is a message which is a combination of words. For example when reading, students get familiar with words in their morphology as well as in how they sound. At any level, reading is very important. It also nurtures the student’s curiosity as he can be asking questions on words. Another strategy that looks similar is word detective. This consists of reading and trying to use the word in a sentence. That exposure to words can enable them as I mentioned curiosity to question some aspects of the language such as words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and words that are the same and mean different in some contexts.  

Another way to develop student vocabulary is through semantic maps. This strategy deals with the meaning of a given word and correlated words that are more likely to fall in the same category. To some extent, it can be the relationship between pieces of information or words. For example we have the word “take”: “retake”, “intake”, “taker”. We can clearly see that these words are different but have a main meaning in common which enables us to indirectly understand the others. If a student knows what “take” means, from that he can reach the other words. Once more, that strategy is an exposure to the language. 

The strategy called concept cube is another way to develop student vocabulary through an exposure to the language. It gives students abilities to really know words in the sense of being able to know the grammatical category of a given word. For example verbs, prepositions, antonyms or synonyms. A preposition does not vary while some verbs vary according to tenses and pronouns etc. 

These strategies can be in printed form as in electronic format. We can conclude that all the aforementioned strategies are a kind of exposure of the student to the language. It is almost the same with human beings with whom you need to have some interactions to get to know them better or some information on them.    


Reference:
  1. Tom, T. (2020). Teaching Strategies: 5 ideas for instructing vocabulary. TeachHUB. https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies/2019/10/teaching-strategies-5-ideas-for-instructing-vocabulary/ 

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