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Global Research in Higher Education 
ISSN 2576-196X (Print) ISSN 2576-1951 (Online) 

Vol. 2, No. 1, 2019 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe 

65 
 

Short Communication 

Usefulness and Learnability in Teaching Vocabulary to 

ESL/EFL Students 

Shanjida Halim1* & Tanzina Halim1 
1 College of Languages & Translation, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia  
* Shanjida Halim, College of Languages & Translation, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia 

 

Received: December 27, 2018    Accepted: January 7, 2019    Online Published: January 28, 2019 

doi:10.22158/grhe.v2n1p65             URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/grhe.v2n1p65 

 

Abstract 

It is known that vocabulary is a must in teaching English Language because without a sound 

knowledge of vocabulary students are not able to understand others or express their own ideas. 

Although vocabulary deals with words, yet vocabulary is much more than just single words. Therefore, 

vocabulary can be defined as “the words of a language, including single items and phrases or chunks 

of several words which convey a particular meaning, the way individual words do”. Vocabulary is so 

important that Wilkins (1972, p. 111) said: “Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without 

vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. 

Innumerable ways of presenting and teaching vocabulary are there, but this paper is going to focus on 

the ways briefly without any detailed explanation of those ways because most of the ESL/EFL teachers 

are already aware of those strategies. What our paper aims to focus is that selection of vocabulary is 

very important for the learners if a useful vocabulary is to be built up quickly. As teachers of 

vocabulary, we know, or we must know why we should teach certain items to our learners and not 

others. In teaching vocabulary to learners there are two general criteria: usefulness and learnability 

which this paper is going to discuss in detail, and it will also show why selecting what to teach, based 

on usefulness and learnability, according to the needs of the students, is essential.  

Keywords 

presenting vocabulary, usefulness, learnability, selection, strategies 

 

1. Introduction 

It is known that vocabulary is a must in teaching English language because without a sound knowledge 

of vocabulary students are not able to understand others or express their own ideas. Although 

vocabulary deals with words, yet vocabulary is much more than just single words. Therefore, 



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vocabulary can be defined as “the words of a language, including single items and phrases or chunks of 

several words which convey a particular meaning, the way individual words do”. Vocabulary is so 

important that Wilkins (1972, p. 111) said: “Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without 

vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. 

There are many different ways of presenting and teaching vocabulary, but selecting what to teach, 

based on frequency and usefulness according to the needs of the students is very important. As soon as 

the teachers choose what to teach, the next steps are to consider what students need to know about the 

items, and how those items can be taught. We can take a quick look at the following diagram before 

going on to the discussion.  

 

Table 1. What to Teach While Teaching Vocabulary 

 

Form 

pronunciation 

spelling 

inflections 

derivations 

 

 

 

Meaning

basic and literal

meanings

derived and figurative

meanings

semantic relation

connotation

 

Usage 

sub-categorization  

collocation 

sociolinguistic and stylistic restrictions 

slang and idioms 

Source: Teaching Vocabulary-Auburn University. 

 

Based on the diagram, we can come up with the following points which students need to know about an 

item: 

Pronunciation 

This can be particularly problematic for learners of English because there is often no clear relation 

between how a word is written and how it is pronounced. It is very important to use the phonemic 

script in such cases so the students have a clear written record of the pronunciation. Teachers must not 

forget also to drill words that they think will cause pronunciation problems for their students and 



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highlight the word stresses. 

Spelling 

Teachers should remember to clarify the pronunciation before showing the written form the words to 

students. 

Meaning 

It is important to get across the meaning of the item clearly and ensure that students have understood 

correctly by asking questions. 

The form  

Learners must be familiarized with the aspects of vocabulary. They need to know if it is a verb/a 

noun/an adjective, etc., to be able to use it effectively. 

Unpredictable grammatical patterns  

For example, man-men/information (uncountable) and if the word is followed by a particular 

preposition (e.g., depend on). 

Denotation and Connotation 

Denotation is the basic or core meaning. In other words, the dictionary and literal meaning of a word is 

denotation. Connotation is an emotional or social association with a word giving meaning beyond the 

literal definition. For example, the word bachelor is a neutral/positive word whereas spinster gives a 

more negative image. 

Usage of the word  

Is the word formal/neutral/informal? For example, the words specs, spectacles or glasses. Is it used 

mainly in speech or in writing? To sum up is usually written whereas mind you is spoken. What needs 

to be found out as well is that whether the word is outdated or not.   

How the word is related to others  

For example, synonyms, antonyms, and lexical sets. 

Collocation or the way that words occur together  

We describe things “in great detail” not “in big detail” and we use the expression “raise your hand”, we 

don’t say “lift your hand”. It is important to highlight this to students to prevent mistakes in usage later.  

 

2. Meaning of Affixes (Prefixes and Suffixes)  

It is really important to teach affixation as it helps learners guess the meaning of new words they find, 

and make new forms successfully. For example, in the word substandard “sub” means under. This is 

particularly useful at a higher level. 

Which of these areas you choose to highlight will depend on the item you are teaching and the level of 

your students. Now it’s time to think about how we can get the meaning across. 

As is already mentioned above that innumerable ways of presenting and teaching vocabulary are there, 

this paper is going to focus on the ways briefly without any detailed explanation because most of the 

ESL/EFL teachers are aware of the following strategies.  



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 Illustration/Drawing pictures 

This is very useful for more concrete words (ball, rain, tall) and for visual learners. It has its limits 

though, not all items can be drawn. 

 Mime/Demonstration 

This lends itself particularly well to action verbs and it can be fun and memorable. 

 Synonyms/Antonyms 

Using the words a student already knows can be effective for getting meaning across. 

 Definition 

Make sure that the word is clear (teachers can check in a dictionary before the lesson if they are not 

confident). Remember to ask questions to check that learners have understood properly.  

 Etymology 

Learning the origin of a word will promote students’ comprehension of new words. 

 Translation 

If teachers know the students’ L1, then it is fast and efficient. Teachers need to remember that 

not every word has a direct translation. There are differences in the pragmatic meaning of 

synonyms and of L1 translation equivalents. 

 Context 

Think of a clear context when the word is used and either describe it to the students or give 

them example sentences to clarify meaning further. 

 

3. Selection of Vocabulary 

Which words you choose will depend on the item you are presenting. Some are more suitable for 

particular words. Often a combination of techniques can be both helpful and memorable. 

What this paper aims to focus is selection of vocabulary is very important for the learners if a useful 

vocabulary is to be built up quickly. As teachers of vocabulary, we know that or we must know why 

students need to know certain words for using them actively rather than using them passively. A 

distinction is made between active and passive vocabulary. Doff (1998, p. 19) says “words which we 

want students to understand” (e.g., when reading a text) but which they will not need to use them, we 

call them “passive vocabulary”. Words which students will need to understand and also use themselves, 

we call them “active vocabulary”. There are some criteria for selecting vocabulary which are shown 

below. 

(1) Learnability: means how easy or challenging lexis is in terms of length, pronunciation, spelling, 

meaning, grammar, word order in a sentence, etc. By usefulness, we can decide which lexical items are 

going to be planned for the learners to learn receptively (for recognition only) and productively (for use 

in speech and writing). Of course, receptive learning is easier. 

 

 



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(2) Range: the extent to which a word occurs in the different types of texts. Some words are relatively 

frequent but restricted in the range of situations or registers in which they are used. Words which are 

used in various situations are more useful, though often words of greater range also have greater 

frequency.  

(3) Coverage: means the capacity of a word to replace other words. Some words are semantically 

covered by others. For example, vegetables cover eggplant, lettuce, beans, etc. 

(4) Frequency: the number of occurrences of a word in the target language. In other words, frequency 

means knowing the degree of probability of encountering the word in speech or in print. It is observed 

that frequency also differs in speech and in writing. There are high frequency and low frequency words. 

For example, “of course” or “actually” will occur very frequently in speech rather than in print form. 

The word “former” or “latter” may only occur in the written language (Taylor, 1990, p. 1). Other 

examples of words which are used frequently are: all day, always, all the time, usually, sometimes, etc. 

(5) Association/Collocation: means the words or types of words which occur with particular ones. 

According to experts, collocations “teach students expectations about which sorts of words go with 

which ones. Students will not go about reconstructing the language each time they want to say 

something”. Taylor (1990, p. 2) says that collocation means knowing the syntactic behavior associated 

with the word and also knowing the net work of association between that word and other words in the 

language. It shows the relationship between words. For example, we can say heavy rain, but not heavy 

sun. 

(6) Familiarity: How often some words are used. According to experts, it is better to start off with the 

words with which learners are familiar in order to give the learners a basic set of tools for 

communication. For example, the words tardy, tardily and tardiness will hardly sound familiar to the 

learners because they are familiar with the synonym of tardy which means slow.  

(7) Easy Pronunciation: In the very early stages, it is wise to exclude words which are difficult to 

pronounce. Such as, appreciative, nocturnal, amputation, etc.  

(8) Transparency: It is not difficult for a learner to absorb a new item whose meaning is transparent 

formed from familiar words than to learn some unfamiliar words. Many phrasal verbs are not 

transparent such as: give up or went off and so on. Teachers need to expose the learners to transparent 

phrasal verbs first which can be decoded by recognizing the meaning of each word: the verb and the 

preposition. 

 

4. Conclusion 

In summing up, it can be said that teaching vocabulary can seem to be a daunting task, but once 

teachers choose what to teach their learners, the important steps are that they need to think what 

learners need to know about the items, and how those can be taught to them. Teachers must encourage 

learners pick up vocabulary through extensive reading, communicative interactions, and through 

exposure to natural input such as movies, TV, etc. As students develop greater fluency and expression 



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in English, it is necessary for them to acquire more productive knowledge of vocabulary. It must be 

remembered that learners need to be taught vocabulary explicitly and in context, so that they are not 

overwhelmed by the exposure to vocabulary. 

 

References 

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https://www.edutopia.org 

Ansarin, A., & Khojesteh, M. R. (2013). Retention in meaning-based vocabulary instruction. SKY 

Journal of Linguistics, 26, 7-19.  

Cunningham, A. (2000). Vocabulary growth through independent reading and reading aloud to children. 

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Practice (pp. 45-65). New York: Routledge. 

Folse, K. (2004). Vocabulary myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. N. 

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Genc, B. (n.d.). New trends in teaching and learning vocabulary. Retrieved from 

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Henrikson, B. (1999). Three dimensions of vocabulary development. Studies in Second Language 

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https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263199002089 

Richard, F. (n.d.). Presenting vocabulary. Teaching English British Council BBC. Retrieved from 

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk 

Taylor, L. (1990). Teaching and learning vocabulary. In Herefordshire. UK: Prentice Hall 

International. 

 

 


