'We use words to think; the more words we know, the finer our understanding is about the world.' (Vocabulary Development, Steven A. Stahl).

How do we as teachers engage students in learning new vocabulary? How can we ensure that the new vocabulary to which students are introduced is retained? Which vocabulary should we introduce and how should we teach it?

My own teaching of vocabulary changed radically after I had trained as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. Having been an elementary classroom teacher for ten years, I went back to school and learned new and exciting techniques about teaching that have remained integral to my practice ever since. In order to support foreign language learners to access texts, as student teachers we were strongly encouraged to anticipate which vocabulary was likely to present challenges to our students. This practice meant that we had to know the text well and to plan specific vocabulary work in each lesson. This is how it was approached:

1. We would establish the text's context, often with photographs or images, and use these to ask students to predict any vocabulary they might expect to encounter in the subsequent listening or reading.
2. Then, we would scribe their suggestions as well as the vocabulary we had anticipated would prove difficult before the students engaged in reading or listening.
3. Students were asked if they knew any of the word meanings and, if they did, we would write their own definition/s next to the words or draw pictures where possible.

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