You’re staring at a list of academic vocabulary words you’re supposed to teach, and you have no idea where to start. No curriculum. No materials. Maybe a photocopier if you’re lucky.
I’ve been there. I can help.
But first, really quickly, let’s address the question you might be asking yourself: do adult ESL students even need academic vocabulary?
Why should we teach academic vocabulary?
University-bound international students must pass rigorous exams to prove their English competency. Having a firm grasp of academic vocabulary matters for every section of these tests, but it’s not just about exams. They’ll need these words in actual university classes too.
But maybe you don’t teach in an Intensive English Program. Maybe you’re teaching refugees in a newcomer center or community college students who just want better jobs. Do they still need academic vocabulary?
Possibly.
Look, adults can reach a stage where they’re content and don’t want to push themselves further. I envy that and hope I’ll get there someday.
Is that where your students are? Probably not. If they were satisfied with where they are in life and had no drive to go further, they wouldn’t be sitting in your classroom.
Maybe they need convincing, though? My favorite approach is showing them two pictures: one of someone in casual clothes, the other in a power suit.
I ask, “Who do you think is more successful? Who can get what they want? Who likely has more respect?” Then I point out that vocabulary is like clothing. People make assumptions and judgments about others based on communication skills, on how effectively they convey their message.
So let’s teach academic vocabulary. But where do we start?
1. Build that initial background first
How often have you spent hours planning a lesson and gathering materials only to discover your students already know half of it? Part of you is thrilled to have students ahead of the curve, but you’re also bummed because you were looking forward to wowing them with your brilliant lesson.
Building background before you teach academic vocabulary accomplishes a couple goals at once. It shows you whether proceeding with your planned lesson makes sense. More importantly, it gives students a chance to show off what they already know, negotiate meaning together, and use test-taking strategies while figuring out definitions and parts of speech. This also cuts down on teacher talk and gives ESL students much-needed practice with the target language.
Make your own background-building worksheet
If you already have a required word list, create a simple worksheet. A page with words listed and lines to write on. That’s it.
The first time you do this, introduce the target words. Go over pronunciation with them, or let them try while you circulate and correct as needed.
Students look at the words and decide what part of speech they are. This shows you what they know about using affixes. Take notes as you observe which affixes groups know or don’t know, and have groups pool their knowledge before moving on.
Now put them in groups and have them determine the meaning of each vocabulary word. You might first go over the correct part of speech for each word to give them clues about definitions. Remember, it’s not important that they get it right on their own. You can give them a handout with words, parts of speech, and definitions later. Right now, they’re learning to decipher meaning without a dictionary.
**Here’s how to make activities: the basics**
Before we get into specific activity types, let me give you the foundation you’ll use for almost everything in this post.
You have two main options: card activities or worksheets. Sometimes I’ll suggest both for the same concept.
Card activities require a flat surface and some prep time (printing, cutting, maybe laminating if you’re feeling ambitious). The payoff? Students wake up when they can manipulate cards. Something about moving pieces around on a desk gets them talking more than a worksheet does. Plus, you can reuse them with future classes.
Worksheets save class time and require less space. They’re easier to send home. The downside? They’re one-and-done. You’ll have to make copies every time you teach those words to another class.
To make either one, use whatever word processing program you’re comfortable with. For cards, create a table. Fill in the cells with whatever content the activity needs. Print and cut. For worksheets, leave blanks where students need to write.
Keep that basic setup in mind because I don’t want you rolling your eyes at me like you would if I repeated that every time as we go through the different activity types. 😉
2. Tackle those definitions
Now that you’ve built background knowledge, let’s get deeper into definitions. Sure, you can (and probably should) give them a handout with definitions included. But don’t just expect them to memorize it. When you teach academic vocabulary, approach every part of it in various ways.
Match definitions with a card activity
This is easy to prepare and easy for students to complete. Worksheets are what most people expect, but card activities offer something different. That simple action of moving cards around on a desk somehow wakes students up. It opens them up to talking with a partner more than they might otherwise. Plus, no pencils needed.
You know the drill: make your table, put a word or definition in each cell, print as many sets as you need. In my academic vocabulary resources, I include information on each card specifying which list the words belong to. It’s in a small font size because it’s for teachers, not students. This makes staying organized easier so you can reuse everything.
How to use it:
Give each student, pair, or small group a set of cards. Have them match words to definitions. Encourage them to use affixes as clues. When checking, either show them which ones are incorrect or, to make it harder, simply tell them they don’t have everything matched correctly yet. You can give them all the time they need or make it a race.
Use this directly after background-building worksheets, as a review, or even as a sneaky quiz. Let them check their own answers with a handout you’ve created, or check it yourself if you want a subtle assessment.
Try a crossword puzzle
I love crossword puzzles because they serve multiple purposes: reinforcement, take-home assignments, reviews, or quizzes. For students who struggle with spelling, there are built-in clues…each word must fit in the provided boxes. Letters from words already filled in give spelling hints for other words. This is less stressful than just writing words on lines next to definitions.
You can make your own crossword puzzles to match whatever word list you’re required to teach.
Give a definitions quiz
Remember, assessments don’t have to be for a grade. They don’t even have to be for you.
I provide a matching quiz in all my academic vocabulary resources because they let students see how well they remember meanings with the support of having all terms and definitions right there on the page. Make one yourself from scratch, or use a matching worksheet generator. ↗
Need something more challenging? Have students write definitions in their own words. Create a simple quiz by listing words in random order and having them write definitions. Then have them pair up and compare their definitions.
Discussing their answers gives them a chance to defend their thinking and question others. They might decide their partner has a better way to express something and change their own answer. You can let them check against their definitions handout, go over answers as a class, or collect them to check later.
3. Don’t forget about spelling
It’s not all about meaning. Spelling matters too.
Don’t assume your adult ESL students know strategies for learning how to spell words. When you teach academic vocabulary, you should also teach strategies for learning it and provide scaffolded support.
Why focus on spelling?
Look at the scripts of your students’ native languages if you have learners from different backgrounds. Many languages look very different from English. Think about how long it would take you to learn how to spell academic words in not just a foreign language but a foreign script. Now add switching the direction the language is written in. Arabic goes right to left, for example.
Spelling challenges many students, adults and children alike. Spell-checkers are convenient tools, but they’re not always available or accurate. When attention is paid to spelling, students begin to see patterns that also help them read and understand new vocabulary words.
Scramble those words
Does scrambling letters in academic vocabulary words really qualify as supportive? Yes.
All my academic vocabulary resources include a word scramble worksheet. If you’re creating your own materials, use an online generator like Random-ize ↗ to save time. This type of worksheet gives students all the letters they need to spell words correctly. You can read the words aloud so they don’t have to figure out WHAT the word is before spelling it. Provide multiple lines for each scrambled word so students write words more than once. Repetition helps. Naturally, you only want them to write each word ONCE until you’ve checked that it’s correct.
While they’re writing each checked word multiple times, encourage them to say each word before beginning to write it again, say each letter as they write the word, then repeat the word once they’ve finished. This sounds like standard practice to us, but you’d be surprised how many adult students simply don’t know HOW to study spelling.
Giving them techniques for mastering spelling is necessary, but be sure to have them share their own methods for learning how to spell words too. If you made your own worksheet, create an answer key in advance so you can check answers quickly or just give it to them for self-checking.
Can they pick it out of a lineup?
Could your students identify correctly spelled words in a line of carefully misspelled words?
You might wonder why I’m even mentioning this because it sounds like an activity for kids. Well, it helps them with the same skills children are learning when they do this type of activity. This not only helps them recognize good spelling patterns but also gives them editing practice. Remember, when you teach academic vocabulary, you’re not just teaching terms. You’re teaching strategies for learning.
If you want to make a worksheet for this, don’t use an online word scrambler. It will jumble only letters of the word, and the result won’t even look like a word. You want to carefully misspell words. Spell them how they sound. Use what you know of your students’ pronunciation difficulties, like substituting b for p.
Yes, these days almost everyone has access to a spell checker. But knowing correct spelling enhances reading skills and makes writing more efficient. Rather than spending lots of time in the editing phase, students could write quickly, capturing ideas and thoughts before they’re lost. Students could spend more time using higher-level vocabulary because they’re confident that they can spell it correctly rather than using simplistic words out of convenience.
What about a spelling bee?
Spelling bees can be fun, but keep in mind that their traditionally oral nature can be challenging for students who need to visualize words, especially those whose native language uses a different script. Sometimes you’ll find otherwise competent students struggling with the names of the letters.
I like using mini-whiteboards. I call out a word, all students write the word, and when time is up, all reveal their answers. Incorrect answers are out; correct answers remain in.
Using a time limit rather than racing to be first is a suitable modification for students who struggle to write quickly. A native Arabic speaker is using a foreign script while a native Spanish speaker may have been writing with a very similar script their whole life.
4. Teach the parts of speech
Whether you teach academic vocabulary from a list you choose, that you’re given, or from my line of resources, include the parts of speech. Sure, you probably expected to cover whether words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. But don’t stop there. Take it further by teaching other forms for each word.
What’s the point?
Learning different forms of words is one of the fastest ways to really increase your students’ vocabulary banks. If they learn a noun, also have them learn the verb form, the adjective form, and the adverb form (if applicable).
Take it word by word or list by list, and they’ll know more words. They’ll pick up on the meanings of various affixes they come across and be able to apply that knowledge to other new words.
Feeling overwhelmed and not sure how to handle this? Remember, two basic ways exist: card activities and worksheets.
Get interactive with a card sorting activity
By using a parts of speech matching card activity rather than a worksheet, your students can play with how they group words. Manipulating cards always seems to wake people up more than a worksheet. Having students pair up or form small groups gives them a chance to talk about the words.
A word of caution: this activity requires a good-sized flat surface. If that’s not possible in your classroom, consider using a worksheet instead.
Here’s how to make it:
If you use the card activity I provide in my academic vocabulary resources, you only need to print and cut enough sets for however many student groups you’ll have. If you’re making this yourself, settle in for quality time with online dictionaries. Create your table as usual. Put each word in its own cell. Try to come up with at minimum a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb form for each academic vocabulary word. Multiple forms for each would be even better, but keep in mind that some words won’t have all four forms.
At the same time, create an answer key with four columns, Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs. Add your vocabulary words first, in alphabetical order. Then put the forms for each word together in the same row as the original vocabulary word. This makes checking their answers SO much easier.
Quick tip: To make checking easier when they finish, have them lay out parts of speech cards in that same order: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Next, have them place vocabulary words in alphabetical order in the correct columns. Finally, have them look carefully at any suffixes and place remaining words in the correct columns.
Once they’ve finished and you’ve checked it, let them take a picture with their phone or have them look at their cards to fill in a worksheet version. Reference sheet done.
Save time with a worksheet version
With worksheets, you save time in class. You’ll still want to create an answer key as I described above for the card activity, but once you have it, making the student version is easy. Simply delete all the words from the table. Worksheet done. This is what you can let them use once they’ve completed the card activity to record their answers, or if you want them to have an open-ended challenging version.
Warning: This version is challenging for them AND you because no answer key you make is likely to include ALL the different parts of speech they might come up with, especially if they’re using online dictionaries. That’s why when it comes to worksheets, I prefer including the support of a word bank at the bottom of the page.
You can make the word bank easily using your answer key. Just mix up all the words and put them in a box at the bottom of the page. Now students are limited to just those words, which makes checking their answers easier and faster. Students draw from the word bank to fill in blanks where possible. They don’t miss the words you want them to have, and they don’t spend lots of time trying to come up with the adverb form of a word when no such word exists.
5. Put vocabulary in context
A list of words is just that…a list. Even when you add definitions, address spelling, and include parts of speech, there’s still more to do. Context matters, and you won’t get that with a list. When you teach academic vocabulary, you need to provide context for the words they’re learning.
Adults need example sentences
No one ever disputes the importance of example sentences for children. Well, just as including images to associate with words benefits adults and children, so does providing example sentences. Seeing how words fit in sentences makes creating their own easier.
Before requiring students to create their own sentences, ensure they’ve examined sentence models. You want to set them up for success, not frustration. Dissect sentences together to consider negative versus positive meanings and examine sentences for context clues. They should look within sentences for definition hints, synonyms, antonyms, and so on.
It’s already done for you if you’re using any of my academic vocabulary resources. If you’re creating materials yourself, write at least one example sentence for each vocabulary word. Embed context clues, synonyms, antonyms, or even short definitions to make sentences more useful for your students.
Again, you can make a card activity, a worksheet, or both. Whichever you choose, use the sentences to point out to students how to use their grammar knowledge and context clues to match the correct word to each sentence. Remind them that they can use these skills to decode new words in the future.
Create a sentence cloze card activity
Use your word processing program to create a table. In each cell, type a vocabulary word or a sentence with a gap where the vocabulary word should be. Print and cut out as many sets as you need.
Have students sort word cards by part of speech, using suffixes for hints. Next, have students sort sentence cards according to what part of speech each sentence requires to be complete. Remind them to account for the possibility that some words might need slight alterations to fit (singular to plural, for example). Finally, have them match word cards to sentence cards.
If they finish faster than you planned, have them quiz each other on definitions and spelling, and create their own sentences orally.
Or use a sentence cloze worksheet
Short on time or just want to mix it up? Make and use a worksheet version instead. Remember to create lined gaps large enough for students to easily write entire words. Hot Tip: If all gaps are the same size, students can’t compare line length with word length to help them guess the answer.
Have students think about what part of speech is needed for each blank and use any suffixes on vocabulary words for hints. If your sentences use a different form, such as the plural form of a word students are learning as singular or the past form of a word they know the base form of, tell them they may have to adjust their vocabulary words to fill gaps correctly.
If they finish early, have them quiz each other on definitions and spelling, and create their own sentences orally.
Tip from my students: They liked assigning each part of speech a color and highlighting each blank with the part of speech needed. Then they would consider negative versus positive meanings, look for context clues, check for definition hints, and so on.
6. Synonyms and antonyms matter too
Just as having more than one way to express an idea is necessary, it’s also sometimes necessary to express the opposite idea. It’s not always possible to just add a prefix like un- or dis- to get the opposite. Synonyms and antonyms are often used as context clues. Learning to recognize them is a good comprehension strategy. We teachers know this, but remember to tell your students. When they understand WHY they’re doing an activity, they’re more likely to make connections elsewhere too.
Isn’t this too much?
Yes, it might be, depending on your group of students. However, I’ve found that another great way to increase vocabulary banks is to have them learn a synonym and an antonym (where possible) for any new word they’re learning. They’re not learning a new definition. They’re just learning other words associated with the same general meaning.
Build that background
As always, it’s a good idea first to see what students already know. Ask them to write one synonym and one antonym for each word. You can have them do this individually or with a partner. Remember that not all words will have a synonym or antonym. If the word list you’re using has one of those, you might want to tell your students exactly which word doesn’t, or give them a vague hint like, “Two words have no synonyms.”
I’ve got you covered with synonym and antonym materials in my academic vocabulary resources. If you have time and want to do it yourself or you’re dealing with a list within your school’s curriculum, you can make your own. Sites like thesaurus.com ↗ will become your hangout spot while you come up with word friends and enemies. You’ll want one of each for every academic vocabulary word (where possible).
Use a card activity or worksheet
You know the setup by now. Make your table, fill in cells with synonyms and antonyms, decide whether you’re going with cards or worksheets.
Something to consider when choosing which synonyms and antonyms you want to use is the level of your students. Choose words they’re more likely to already know if you want this activity to strictly help them associate new vocabulary words with familiar words. Choose words they might not already know if you want them to increase their vocabulary even more. Choose words with helpful affixes if you’d like the focus to include using them as a strategy for figuring out meaning.
I prefer card matching activities with my students because they encourage discussion, but sometimes time matters, and a worksheet is the better choice.
For worksheets, providing a word bank at the bottom of the student page is something to consider if you have time constraints. When time is flexible, I love using a version without a word bank to see which words my students will come up with or choose from dictionaries.
If you go for that, definitely create a possible answer key FIRST with all the synonyms and antonyms you can come up with for each word. This decreases the chances of students using a word you aren’t familiar with (hey, it happens) or initially can’t see how it could be a synonym or antonym.
A word of caution: it’s not always easy for ESL students to use a thesaurus and come up with appropriate synonyms and antonyms. Having the support of a word bank is often the best option.
You can have your students complete worksheets individually, with a partner, or with a small group. With adult ESL, I always looked for opportunities for them to talk to each other, so my students always worked with at least a partner.
7. Get them writing their own sentences
When you teach academic vocabulary and expect students to write sentences using those words, you’ll sometimes deal with students churning out simplistic sentences. Not much sells without advertising, right? Same concept. Get your students to buy into the importance of writing context-rich sentences by telling them why. Most learners will be much more willing to go all-in on something when they understand the purpose of the exercise. If they’re writing sentences simply because it’s the assignment, they’re not getting anything out of it.
Depending on student level, sentences can be entirely separate from each other, all share the same general topic, or all link together. For an extra challenge, have them write a short essay using all the words.
Teach them to stretch
When creating their own sentences, your students may want to use another form of the word. Point out to them that if they’re using another form because it’s easier…for example, to use the verb form rather than the noun form, it defeats part of the purpose of this exercise. They need to stretch themselves, to try what they haven’t done before to grow.
Once I explained this to my students, the majority would either use multiple forms or use whichever form they thought was the most difficult. Of course, how you handle this is up to you.
In my academic vocabulary resources, I include a page of challenges to help guide students out of simplistic sentences and into variety. Consider developing your own challenges to help your students stretch.
8. Try vocabulary word maps
If your students are into graphic organizers, they’ll appreciate vocabulary word maps. Keep in mind that graphic organizers aren’t for everyone. Some will find this a tedious waste of time. Others will remember all the information better with these. If you’re not sure which type your students are, just ask them. If they’re not sure, let them try it out. If it’s just not for them, move on to something else. But if this turns out to be a helpful strategy for them, continue using word maps.
I include both a full-page and a mini version from my Vocabulary Word Maps resource in all my academic vocabulary resources. I got the mini-version idea from a student who had missed a lot of class and borrowed a blank page from a classmate. When she came back to class, she had a mini-version filled out for each word because she made copies with four to a page. This can be a great paper-saver.
Of course, you can also create your own quite easily. They can even be hand-drawn.
9. Get them talking
Don’t forget to give your students a chance to use their newly-acquired vocabulary words in context. Develop a set of questions to go with whatever topic or theme matches the academic vocabulary words you’re teaching. Ensure that each question includes a form of at least one vocabulary word. Instruct your students to also include a form of that word in their answer.
The Bottom Line
Teaching academic vocabulary doesn’t have to mean drowning in prep time or reinventing the wheel every semester. Build background first, tackle definitions and spelling, teach parts of speech and word forms, provide context through sentences, add synonyms and antonyms, and get them writing and talking.
You can create all of this yourself if you have the time and energy. Or you can grab my academic vocabulary resources and spend your time actually teaching instead of making tables and cutting cards at midnight.
Either way, your students will leave your class with vocabulary banks that serve them in the real world, whether they’re heading to university or just want people to take them seriously in job interviews.
That’s it from me. See you in the next post!
Need some ready-to-use academic vocabulary resources?
In my TpT store, you’ll find my (heavily discounted) Academic Vocabulary Mega Bundle.
Each resource in it is also available separately, and there are even smaller bundles available.
More about teaching academic vocabulary:
Stop Selling Academic Vocabulary. Start Selling This Instead.
How to Teach Academic Vocabulary with Videos and Not Just Kill Time
