Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman is an associate professor of TESOL in the Department of

Modern Languages and Literatures at California State University

PhD in International Education, specializing in second language vocabulary acquisition

Teaching and learning vocabulary for second

language learners

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary for LL2

Knowing a word

Word count

Historical look

GT approach

Reformapproach

DM

Readingapproach

ALCLTchanges

Intentionalincidentallearning

Conceptual underpinnings

Incremental nature of WL

Role of material

Selecting the words

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary for LL2

Word level

activities

Discourse

level activities

ranking

Word parts

Phrasal verb

Word learning activities

Classroom Applications

Word learning

strategies

Beyond the planned lesson

Sentence

level activities

Picture stories

Strip stories

Story re-

working

dictation

games

Vocabulary notebooks

Dictionary

use

Memory aids: word cards

reflectionDefining

words

Answering questions

about words

Strength

of words

strength

Word level

activities

RankingWord parts

Phrasal verb

Strength

of words

* Easy to difficult in spelling, pronunciation or grammatical form

Ranking 5 to 8 words according to:

* Frequent to infrequent

* Importance for work, study, personal relationship, travel, etc.

* Their relation to specific topic (e.g. Affordability, practicality, dependability, entertainment value, etc.)

Line Resist Adumbrate Zephyr Vociferous

Day Important Knowledge Scarce Periodical

Goodbye Lost Request Destination Voyage

Word level

activities

Word parts

Ranking

Phrasal verb

Strength

of words

Conventionally

important

Significant

Symbol

Practice with word parts: A picture tells a story

Word level

activities

Phrasal verb Word

parts

Ranking

Strength

of words

Word level

activities

StrengthOf

word Word parts

Phrasal verb

Ranking

How strong are these words?

Sentence

level activities

Picture stories

Strip stories

Choose a story divide it into sentences Group students, give each student a

sentence of the story

Have students memorize and restate the sentence to group

Group decide the order of the sentence

Group retell the story to class

Strip stories

Picture stories

Discourse

level activities

Story re-working

dictation

games

strengthBy using as many of the

words from the word

strength continuum as

possible, write a …

Story re-working activities

Hear and retell

Read and retell

Synonym search

Register reword

Dictation

Discourse

level activities

Story re-

working

dictation

gamesstrength

Speller line-up

Hangman Password Adverb in

actionTwenty

questions

verb adverb

Word learning

strategies

Vocabulary notebooks

Dictionary use

Memory aids: word

cards

reflection

The ability to ask insightful questions

that will lead to accurate word use

Promote learner independence

Learner’s dictionary practice: correct the errors in a text by using dictionary

Navigating the dictionary: where is the letter?

word learning strategy: planned approach that a word learner takes as an agent of his or her own word learning

Beyond the planned lesson

Defining words

Answering questions

about words

There are always surprises

Begin the definition by

focusing on the basic

meaning before moving

on to the details

Examples

Negative examples

Synonyms

Antonyms

Situational context

Realia

Gesture, pantomime,

demonstration

The more the teacher can develop his or her own awareness of how words are used the more the teacher will be able to assist the L2 learners

Thanks for your attention