Conference Review

What are the Ten Most Effective

Vocabulary Teaching Activities?
Tomoko Antle
Hokkaido University of Education, Iwamizawa
On April 14, 2013 Paul Nation gave a presentation on teaching vocabulary
which was held at Hokkai Gakuen University, Toyohira Campus, Sapporo andwas sponsored by the CUE Special Interest Group and the Hokkaido JALT
chapter. The first time I heard Paul Nation was coming to Sapporo to give a talkwas during the Hokkaido JALT Christmas party. We were all very excited to havesuch a prestigious speaker scheduled for one of our events. On the day of theevent, 85 JALT members turned up and were treated to an excellent presentationthat changed the way I look at language teaching.
My overall impression was that Nation’s four-hour talk was extremely practicaland of great benefit to all language teachers. He started off his presentation
by describing his criteria for good vocabulary teaching activities, and then hepresented a list of the ten most effective activities. The remainder of his talkdescribed characteristics of well-designed language courses, but, not surprisingly,
he always brought the discussion back to vocabulary. Specifically, he described thefour strands (Nation, 2007; Nation & Yamamoto, 2012) and the most significant
changes that teachers can make to an EFL program (Nation, 2013). I left thepresentation with ideas for Monday’s classes and also with general guidelines for
how to design a better overall course.
From the beginning of the presentation, I was impressed by how Nation
supported his proposals by referencing previous studies, such as Joe (1998),
Nation and Yamamoto (2012), and Nation (2007). In addition, I was encouraged
53Antleby how easy it would be for a teacher to implement these recommendations. Thislatter point is seen in the criteria he used to identify the best vocabulary teachingactivities. He stated that these activities are most certain to result in usefullearning, do not require a lot of work from the teacher, provide balance in a welldesigned program, are simple and efficient, and can be used over and over again.
I was both surprised and relieved to have someone of Nation’s stature suggest
an approach which does not require a great deal of preparation or creativity. I
kept thinking of the saying “less is more” during his talk. I often feel pressure tocontinually come up with original activity ideas that often require a great deal ofclass time to explain to the students. I now believe it is better to use these criteria
and attempt to spend our limited class time in the most efficient way possible.
The most anticipated section of the presentation, at least in my opinion, wasthe part where he described the actual vocabulary activities. The ten activities are
as follows:• Extensive reading from suitable texts – The students read large quantities
of material at a level slightly below their own. The material should be easy
to understand and of high interest to the student.
• Listening to stories – The teacher reads a story to the class one chapter ata time. The students just listen and enjoy.
• Learning from word cards – The students write new vocabulary words
on cards with definitions, example sentences, and/or translations. Thestudents review these cards at regular intervals.
• Intensive reading of suitable texts – The students study relatively difficult
written texts above their current level. The focus is on acquiring newgrammatical structures and unknown vocabulary.
• Quick explanations by the teacher – The teacher, when an unknown word
comes up in class, gives a brief explanation, so the students will understandthe new word.
• A speed reading course – The students read one or two passages each week.
The goal is to improve reading speed, so the students are encouraged toread faster and record the amount of time it took to complete the passage.
• 4/3/2 – A student speaks on one topic for four minutes. The student54

Vocabulary Teaching Activities, OnCUE Journal, 7(1), pages 53-57

then changes partners and repeats the same exercise, giving the same
information. However, the student must finish in only three minutes. Thestudent changes partners again for the two-minute stage.
• Group speaking activities – The students discuss a topic based uponpreviously introduced material.
• Linked skill activities – The students use more than one of their English
skills for these activities. For example, a student reads a passage about a
topic, then discusses the topic in groups and then writes about the topic
for homework.
• 10-minute writing – The students write about a topic for ten minutes.
The goal is to improve writing speed, so accuracy is not important for thisexercise.
Some of these activities were familiar to me, and some I had never thoughtof as being vocabulary activities at all. For a detailed description of the actualactivities, please refer to his book: What Should Every EFL Teacher Know?
(Nation, 2013). He spent some time describing each activity, and it became clear
how each one was related to vocabulary. I often thought of vocabulary activities
as simply being rote-learning exercises focused on unknown words. While thesetypes of activities are important, I now understand the need to balance this withvocabulary activities focusing on output and fluency.
This idea of balance was further emphasized during Paul Nation’s descriptionof the four strands. He said a well-designed course should have equal parts:
meaning-focused input (learning through listening and reading), meaningfocused output (learning through speaking and writing), language-focusedlearning (deliberate study), and fluency development (in listening, speaking,reading and writing). While he used the four strands to describe a well-designed
program, he brought the discussion back to vocabulary by having us choose
one strand for each of the ten activities listed above. There was some confusion
regarding the difference between meaning-focused output and fluency
development. Nation differentiated the two strands by explaining that meaningfocused output had unknown grammar and/or vocabulary, whereas fluency
development was making the best use of what you already know. He proceeded55

Antleto explain that fluency development activities should be easy, have a pressure
to go faster, provide a large quantity of practice, and be message focused. This
matching exercise helped me understand how easy it would be to achieve balance
within my language classes.
The final part of the presentation focused on EFL programs in general.
Nation strongly recommended that EFL programs add extensive reading at theappropriate levels for input and fluency development, a fluency development
program, peer listening and speaking, linked skills activities, and vocabulary
size testing to their current curriculum. I was excited by the potential benefit
these changes might have on my students. I also feel that taking these steps toimprove my classes is easily doable by using the activities listed above and Nation’s
Vocabulary Size Test, which can be found at my.vocabularysize.com.
I left the presentation excited and intrigued. It was amazing at how quickly
the four hours had passed. By giving us specific activities that could be used
immediately in our classes and by proposing significant changes to our overall
programs, he managed to help everyone in attendance regardless of theirexperience or teaching situation. Overall, I thought this was an excellent learning
experience. I would strongly recommend anyone who has the chance to attend afuture presentation by Nation.

References

Joe, A. (1998). What effects do text-based tasks promoting generation have on
incidental vocabulary acquisition? Applied Linguistics, 19(3), 357-377.
Nation, I.S.P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning andTeaching, 1(1), 1-12.
Nation, P. (2013). What should every EFL teacher know? Seoul: CompassPublishing.
Nation, I.S.P., & Yamamoto, A. (2012). Applying the four strands. International
Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching and Research, 1(2),167-181.

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Vocabulary Teaching Activities, OnCUE Journal, 7(1), pages 53-57

Author’s bio

Tomoko Antle is a part-time lecturer at Hokkaido University of Education in
Iwamizawa, Hokkaido. Her main research interest is material design. 7elephants@live.com

Received: May 16, 2013
Accepted: June 12, 201357