How To Teach Vocabulary Like a Pro - Part 1: Your Approach

Teaching vocabulary (lexis) is one of the most important skills for an English teacher to master. Without new vocabulary, new language students will not improve and grow in their English skills.

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What should English teachers (ESL teachers) consider when teaching vocabulary? How many words to teach your ESL students? What specific words do you teach?
All of these questions are answered in this first video in my How to Teach Vocabulary video series.

I train new English teachers every single month on our 4-week TEFL certification course in Prague.
The main concepts we cover in this vocab video are:
Focus on usage
How many words to teach = 10-15 words per lesson
Appropriateness of your words
Passive vs Active vocab
Denotation vs Connotation
Parts of speech and morphology
Collocations

Thanks for watching and please leave a comment with your thoughts!

Timestamp
00:00 intro
01:06 4 systems
01:49 focus on usage
02:34 active vs passive
03:43: appropriateness
05:33 denotation connotation
07:41 parts of speech
08:06 morphology
08:87 collocations
09:44 the main goal

[elenad]

All suggestions are very much appreciated. Greetings from Ukraine, from a novice teacher 💙💛.

[alemilano]

There are not many free courses and tips on how to teach and I believe you did a great job! Thank you so much

[Jansay]

These videos are AMAZING and can work for any foreign language teaching. Wish you all the best, keep 'em coming! ^^

[qualityenglishbyeslinstruc]

Hello Chris, been watching all your tips and techniques. My favorite video, not relevant to this video, is about how to teach grammar; the way to elicit, to create lead-ins, contextualization and so forth. I have been using the tips in my classes right after watching the video.

[mandycastle]

Another great video filled with tons of golden nuggets. Thank you Chris for taking something daunting and breaking it down so simply. Your videos have been so helpful.

[baderammory]

You have always been my role model, Chris! Thank you for sharing these wonderful insights!

[amelia-roo]

P.S. In the defense of your "Rain" example, I am a poet and argue that rain can indeed be aggressive or thick .. this is tongue and cheek of course! Cheers!

[shmadsta]

You have the best teacher training videos! This is very helpful, thank you!

[MrsOMG]

It feels so good just to see that a new video has come out! And there's going to be more and more!

[SelmaBaptista-we]

You a natural, I learned a lot and can't wait to pack my bags 👍🏿

[elahekhooryani]

You are a lifesaver! Thank you so much. Keep up the good word.

[genevievebayabos]

Good day Chris! I'm Gen from the Philippines. I would like to thank you for all the useful videos you made. I downloaded five and will download more, hahaha. I will watch them everyday until I master all your tips. Daghang salamat Chris.

[Raffia]

Thank you so much for this video, you have explained everything so comprehensively.

[andreaguimaraes]

Amazing! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience! From Brazil here.

[Andy-ccqy]

Chris is such a brilliant educator so he really deserves that we all pool some money to buy him a comb and hair setting gel

[vikiillesh]

Why so little likes and views?? Its a really useful thing to know!

[tammy]

I should watch all the videos we have here because I will work as a teacher next year 💜💜💜 thank you.

[jenmigz]

A sample text and vocab list would be awesome!

[yhanieez]

Great lesson. Your video made my english improve. because you explain is clearly

[alleras]

Wow! I've been teaching for a while and never considered some of the points mentioned here! I don't teach collocations enough so I'll definitely be using them more with my intermediate students from now on.