Teaching vocabulary for A2 level learners with Communicative Approach

Key words and pictures.

This is a technique that some people have claimed helps to fix the word and its meaning in the memory. The technique is based on making a mental image that connects the new word in the L2 with a word in the students L1 that has some association (often sound) with the L2 word. For example, when I want to remember how to say ‘I love you’ in Chinese I connect the Chinese words that make up the phrase with three words/pictures in English – wall, eye and knee. When I put these English words together I can make the phrase for ‘I love you’ in Chinese! If you can’t think of a key word, then often a simple picture will help remind you of a word and its meaning.
2. Groups, scales and spidergrams. Putting words into groups of related vocabulary items is another good technique. Groups might consist of hyponyms, such as father, mother, sister, son, cousin, aunt, grandfather; grammar sets, such as adjectives and adverbs; or root words and derivatives, such as comfort, discomfort, comfortable, uncomfortable. Another way of grouping words is in the form of a scale. This is a common way for things like adverbs of frequency to be presented in many books, for example, always, usually, often, sometimes, hardly ever, never. It’s also useful for sets of adjectives that can be presented on a scale from one extreme to the other, i.e. boiling, hot, warm, cool, cold, freezing. Finally, using a spidergram can be extremely useful as it enables you to add more words later on. A spidergram for sport might look like this: 

3. Synonyms and antonyms Using synonyms and antonyms is another way of grouping words. It can also be very useful to record synonyms together so that when you are writing or speaking you are able to use a variety of language and not just the same word again and again. There is a tendency for some words to be overused in English. A good example of this is the word nice, which is used to describe so many things that it has become almost bland and non-committal.
C O N C L U S I O N
Vocabulary is an important part of the English teaching process. It is supposed to be a very effective communicative device as it carries the highest level of importance within peoples´ verbal interaction. There are many techniques to teach students how to learn vocabulary effectively. According t the scientists Sagarra and Alba “Keyword technique” is also best way to keep vocabularies in the long-term memory. In this technique teacher should explain how to connect words to one another during the lesson.
According to Krashen communicative approach is also suitable to young language learners. With the help of this method, students can use their memorized vocabulary in their speaking process, in their daily conversations on a regular basis, additionally this also assist to make the learning process more active.
An important aspect of learning how to use vocabulary items is knowing what other words they collocate with. In many ways collocations are the building blocks of language and recent studies have found that native speakers often rely on pre-formulated chunks rather than putting words together one by one. Tasks in which we learn to match words to form collocations are always useful. For example, students can find out that we can have a packet of biscuits or a tin of biscuits but we wouldn’t have a tube or a can of biscuits.
Sometimes the collocations are almost grammatical in nature. After all, collocations are patterns of language which is exactly what grammar is. An example of this type of collocation would be with words such as make and do. We can make the bed, make breakfast, make a mistake, but we do stuff, do the housework and do language exercises. Therefore, helping our students learn collocations is a fundamental step in enabling them to use the language effectively.
However, The National Reading Panel mentions that there is no single research-based method for teaching vocabulary. From its analysis, the panel recommended using a variety of direct and indirect methods of vocabulary instruction.
These ideas are in no way exhaustive. Some of the techniques and activities I use more frequently than others and some I don’t use at all – mostly because I do not think they are appropriate for my style of teaching or my students’ needs. Finding the best ways to teach and learn vocabulary with your students is one of the most important things as a teacher you can do, and having a range of techniques and activities aids this process.