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Vocabulary is the most important tool you might need in learning or teaching any foreign language. It is a basement for development and improving other skills such as reading, speaking, listening, writing, spelling and pronunciation. Vocabulary must be the very first step in teaching English because it is a crucial instrument students need to succeed in achieving real results and use it effectively. So, why vocabulary? If you are still questioning yourself then think about what first comes to your mind when you are watching favorite movie or listening to a song, when writing a new post in English trying to impress your friends, when reading an article about something you are interested in, when travelling abroad and you simply need to communicate with a native English speaker or any foreigners?.. This list can be endless, but the answer is - words. Just a short set of words allows you to express yourself, start a simple conversation and understand others. This point is reflected from my own experience with other languages because I always manage to communicate having just some useful words and expressions even without grammar. Usually, students feel unconfident and find difficult to speak English fluently. Due to various missing words sooner or later their conversation becomes interrupted, that’s why they consider speaking and writing activities exhausting. The lack of vocabulary is the main reason for such communication problems. Some students are faced with the problem of forgetting the words immediately after the teacher has elicited their meaning or after they have looked them in the dictionary, and this also a cause of the lack of vocabulary. The more words students learn, the easier they memorize them. Of course, vocabulary is not just a list of single words, it is way more. It is a combination of single items and phrases or parts of several words which convey a specific meaning, the way individual words do. To help your students in enhancing their English vocabulary knowledge teachers need to be aware of and focus on significant aspects of the concept of a word: form, meaning, and use. You might have some challenges because like in any other foreign language, some words for students are easier to learn than others, certain words are difficult in pronunciation, some words just hard to memorize. Nowadays, you can find an array of methods and techniques in teaching vocabulary (repetition, usage of the newly learned words, practicing vocabulary by applying it to students’ real-life events, imagine and visualize) with a plethora of supportive materials depending on your schooling style. Perhaps the best one is to find a way to simply develop a love for vocabulary learning. Summarizing the above, the main reasons that make teaching vocabulary important for students’ success are: ability to express yourself and understand others; ability to think more logically and grasp new ideas; ability to persuade and boost confidence. Vocabulary is a foundation for comprehension. Having a rich vocabulary helps students to avoid seeing “holes” in a text, communicate in a more engaging way and describe their ideas. And you as a teacher have an essential role in helping students to improve their vocabulary.
