Current Perspectives on Vocabulary Teaching and Learning

This chapter reviews key vocabulary research and draws a number of teaching and learning implications from that research. Lexical areas addressed include the amount of vocabulary required to use English, what it means to know and learn a word, the incremental nature of vocabulary acquisition, the role of memory in vocabulary learning, incidental and intentional vocabulary learning, techniques for effective vocabulary teaching, and the role of learning strategies in vocabulary acquisition. The insights and techniques discussed in this chapter can help teachers develop more principled, and hopefully more effective, vocabulary programs for their students.