Ted Power
English Language Learning and Teaching

Teaching English vocabulary

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Concordancers, corpuses and computational linguistics in vocabulary learning and teaching

For developments in corpus lingusitics, consult:

1) Looking Up: An Account of the Cobuild Project in Lexical Computing edited by J.M. Sinclair and
2) The British National Corpus.

The best way to learn what a concordancer can do is to use one. Take the following link to a web site which allows you to use a concordancer: Link 1 or Link 2.

You merely need to enter a word or vocabulary item in an input box similar to that of a Search Engine. The concordancer will return some example sentences from corpus data illustrating how the word is most frequently used. Some concordancers allow you the option or oblige you to select the categories of corpus data targeted by your search. However, if you limit your corpus data to the stories of Agatha Christie, certain search strings will yield few results.

If your learners have access to the Internet, you can set them classwork or homework which involves the use of a concordancer. The tasks you give them could focus on vocabulary (e.g. lexical items in collocation), grammar (syntagmatic relations) or contexts in which syntax and semantics combine to differentiate meanings (e.g. "I think" versus "I am thinking").

It is possible to ask the concordancer to return a list of example sentences where strings of more than one word occur and it is also possible to focus on morphemes or difficult consonant clusters within individual words.

Sample tasks for learners to complete with the help of a CONCORDANCER:

  1. [LEXICAL] Your teacher tells you that the word "sill" is usually spoken or written after the word "window". Is this true? Make sure you select a corpus which is large enough to give you a few results containing the word "sill". You can use the operator is equal to providing you enter whole words.
  2. [LEXICAL] Buy or borrow an English vocabulary practice book on collocations such as The LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations Edited by Jimmie Hill and Michael Lewis. Some authors of books on collocations use their intuitive knowledge of what learners need to know [based on many years teaching experience] in order to select practice examples. Other authors use a concordancer to check that their collocations are the most frequent for the constituent words used. Refer to some of the examples of the collocations in your practice book and test out their constituents using a computer concordancer, taking care to select a suitable corpus. Does each constituent frequently make up a collocation or are you being taught collocations which constitute rare use of each constituent? Is the practice book really useful?
  3. [GRAMMATICO-SEMANTIC] Your teacher tells you that the verb HAVE usually implies "ownership", "possession" or "embodiment" when used lexically in Simple tenses, but can mean several very different things [e.g. "experiencing", "taking" or "eating"] when used in Progressive or Continuous Tenses. Use the concordancer and the corpus data to prove your teacher wrong, right or only partly right. Compare the results for the search strings: "has" and "is having".
  4. [PHONOLOGICAL] Your teacher tells you that there are only a few words in the English language ending in the consonant cluster "pths". Is this true? You will need to select the operator contains the string when searching on parts of words such as "pths".


It is possible, though not always very practical, to use a large search engine such as WWW.GOOGLE.COM instead of a concordancer. One activity is to attempt to find web sites in languages other than your own by entering clusters of consonants or combinations of alphabetical letters which are not possible in your native language. This can be used as part of a basic language awareness course or as a way of explaining complementary distribution to undergraduates studying linguistics.

Vocabulary building activities on computers without Internet connections

Computer users without Internet access may find more difficulty in gaining access to corpus material. However, the size of computer hard disks still provides scope for vocabulary study, especially work at word level on prefixes, suffixes, initial, medial and final consonant blends [containing 2, 3 or 4 parts]. If you still have a copy of the popular Word Processor, WordPerfect 5.1, you may be familiar with a very useful utility called SPELL, which is accessed from the "wp5.1" directory rather through the main component of the software. This utility permits you to search the large number of words contained in WP5.1's Spell Check files and is excellent for solving crossword clues which you cannot otherwise complete. If you enter the consonant cluster *pth* as a search string, it will return the results 1. depth 2. depths 3. opthalmitis 4. upthrow 5. upthrows 6. upthrust 7. upthrusts.

The asterisks in the search string *pth* are known as wildcat characters. This means that any number of letters can precede or follow the search string providing they are within the word. Crossword enthusisasts can make good use of search strings such as ???ses. The use of question marks as wildcat characters means that precisely three alphabetical letters precede the three known letters in the answer to the clue. The Spell utility will return a list of all the words (51 in total) containing exactly six letters and ending in the string ses. You can use any combination of wildcats standing in for single unknown letters together with the letters in the answer which you have uncovered by successfully completing other answers to clues. This usually allows you to solve the few clues you are unable to complete through brain power very quickly. Cheating in this way is recommended when the crossword setter is offering a money prize or to avoid falling victim to frustration and using a premium phone line to pay for the answer to a clue. Thick books exist to help crossword enthusiasts search through words of fixed lengths containing common letters. However, the Spell utility is much faster and kinder to your eyesight.

Materials for vocabulary learning and teaching

Vocabulary practice books for learners

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Advanced Vocabulary and Idiom B. J. Thomas [ excellent for high levels]
English Vocabulary in Use: Upper Intermediate Michael McCarthy, Felicity O'Dell [ good for learner training ]
Idioms Organiser Jon Wright [ especially good for FCE examination candidates ]
The LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations Edited by Jimmie Hill and Michael Lewis [known for their lexical approach to language learning]
Intermediate Vocabulary B. J. Thomas [a classic ]
Elementary Vocabulary B. J. Thomas [ this author is noted for excellent vocabulary practice materials ]

Activity based vocabulary teaching materials for the language class

Elementary Vocabulary Games Jill Hadfield [The author specializes in good activity-based material for use in the classroom where language can be practised orally]
Intermediate Vocabulary Games: Teacher's Resource Book Jill Hadfield

Theory for vocabulary teachers and linguists studying vocabulary acquisition

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Vocabulary : Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy Norbert Schmitt (Ed.), Michael McCarthy (Ed.)
Vocabulary, Semantics and Language Education Evelyn Hatch, Cheryl Brown


Free online vocabulary materials

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