The ESL Teacher Professionals Group on LinkedIn currently has a membership of almost 3,000 English language teaching professionals.  I have found their discussions a good source of wisdom as I work to learn more about strategies learners can use to improve their English language skills, for TOEIC testing and for life.

 

About a month ago, a discussion began regarding techniques and resources to improve vocabulary that I thought was very helpful. Since the group is for members only (you can join on request), you may not be able to see the discussion through the link above immediately, but I am summarizing below a few ideas that were repeated and built upon by the group:

 

 

Teachers emphasized the importance of learning language in context rather than through rote memorization and of using different activities that tap into audio, visual, kinesthetic, and task building learning styles. Margot McCamley of the Consulting Organisation in Brisbane, Australia, notes that learners need to be exposed to a word or phrase in different contexts about twenty times before they can know it well enough to employ it for particular situations where they may need it!

 

Two books for more learning recommended by Hall Houston, a lecturer at Kainan University in Taiwan, were the new “Memory Activities for Language Learning” by Nick Bilbrough and his own book “Provoking Thought: Memory and Thinking in ELT.”

 

Vocabulary-building strategies that have worked for you? Contribute to the LinkedIn discussion and also fill in readers here with your comment.