introduction

1
What is “a Vocabulary”?
“A vocabulary” is not necessarily a word.
In fact, “vocabulary” is uncountable.
Many different kinds of vocabulary items:
__________ __________ - e.g. cat, today, went
__________ __________ – phrases that consist of more
than one word and do not usually change, e.g. ladies
and gentlemen, in other words
__________ __________ – phrases in which most parts
will stay the same but there is variation, e.g. on one’s
own, It has come to one’s attention that…

2
What is “a Vocabulary”?
(cont’d)
__________ __________ – two or three words
with the 1st word a verb and the other word(s)
usually prepositions. With different
prepositions, even phrasal verbs with the
same verb have different meanings, e.g. call
off, call back, pass away
__________ – phrases of which the meaning is
NOT the sum of the meanings of the individual
words. Most phrasal verbs are idiomatic.
Examples: break the ice, for good, kick the
bucket
3
What does it mean to
know a word?
__________ __________ – Most English words
have multiple meanings
__________ and __________ – refer to the table
below
Word Denotation Connotation
(basic (idea
meaning) associated)
thin not overweight neutral image

skinny not overweight negative

image
4
What does it mean to
know a word? (cont’d)
__________
_______________
__________ __________ __________ – noun, verb,
adjective, adverb…
__________ – affecting whether your English sounds
native
__________ – “I’m sorry to hear that your mother
passed away” vs. “I’m sorry to hear that your
mother died” vs. “I’m sorry to hear that your
mother kicked the bucket” vs. “I’m sorry to hear
that the bucket was kicked by your mother”
5
What does it mean to
know a word? (cont’d)
__________
One of the most important aspects of
knowing a word for nonnative learners
A collocation is a word or phrase that
naturally and often occurs before, after, or
very near the vocabulary item.

6
What does it mean to
know a word? (cont’d)
Collocation
E.g. “Commit” has three different
meanings: (1) do or make, (2) dedicate
resources, or (3) be dedicated to.
The most common collocations for commit
are all types of crimes: e.g. commit murder,
commit suicide. Thus, for the 1st meaning,
“commit” actually means “do or make
something __________”.

7
 What does it mean to
know a word? (cont’d)
Collocation
The more common the vocabulary item is (e.g. “take”), the
more the collocations will be (e.g. take ______ __________,
take __________, take __________ __________ …).
Practice of understanding and using collocations is needed
because:
 1. Frequency - Many common words have many collocations.
 2. Difficulty – Often, we cannot fully understand the meanings
of a word unless we also know its collocations, e.g. take part in.
 3. __________ – It’s a fast way to expand your vocabulary.

8
What does it mean to
know a word? (cont’d)
__________
Understanding prefixes and suffixes is another fast
way to expand your vocabulary.
 According to Richard E. Hodges: "If you were to examine
the 20,000 most used English words, you would find that
about 5,000 of them contain prefixes and that 82% (about
4,100) of those words use one of only fourteen different
prefixes out of all the available prefixes in the language.“
The 14 prefixes: ab-, ad-, be-, com-, de-, dis-, en-, ex-,
in-, pre-, pro-, re-, sub-, un-.

9
What does it mean to
know a word? (cont’d)
__________
Some inflectional suffixes: -s, -ed, -ing,
-en, -er, -est, -n't
Some derivational suffixes:
Suffix Example Suffix Example
-ize/ -ise -less
-ly -ness
-able/ -ible -ism

-ful -al
10
A few important points
about vocab. learning
from experts
In learning English, vocabulary is __________
less important than grammar or other areas.
Efficiency of implicit learning (i.e. learning
vocabulary by reading) is low. Direct teaching
and recycling of vocabulary is important.
Using word lists to learn can be quite useful.
The use of translations (i.e. Chinese) to learn
new vocabulary can be effective.
There is no one way that is better than others.

11
Independent Vocabulary
Learning Strategies
Good for highly-motivated learners for words (e.g.
less common words) not covered by implicit
learning and direct teaching
Promote learner autonomy
__________ __________ – taking note of new words
and their meanings, collocations, antonyms/
synonyms
__________ __________ – identifying the part of
speech and prefix/ suffix (if any), examining
context, guessing the meaning and finally
checking the guess
12
 How are we going to
learn vocabulary this
year?
Homework: 1. using collocations in Sentence Making homework
2. putting down detailed information of vocabulary items in TV/
Radio News homework
Warm-up activity about vocabulary at the beginning of English lessons:
Day 1 – Hangman (a class game about spelling and usage)
Day 2 – Quick Spell (a group game about spelling)
Day 5 – Dictogloss (a group game about spelling, grammar, listening,
note-taking and discussion)
Day 4 & 7 – Victation (a test of everything about vocabulary)

13
How are we going to
learn vocabulary this
year? (cont’d)
Word lists used:

List Words Notes

General 2000 words that Published in
Service are of general 1953
List (GSL) service to learners Based on
(i.e. most common frequency
words)
Academic 570 word families Published in
Word List that occur in a 1998
(AWL) variety of Based on
academic text frequency 14