I believe we should approach word learning as a process rather than a single act of memorization.

Our students should know word-learning strategies and use them selectively. We can facilitate such independence by activities that will enable our students to be successful in this lifelong word-learning process.

Here are some common activities I try time to time to develop my students’ word consciousness:

·         Ranking new vocabulary according to difficulty (e.g. frequency, pronunciation, similarity to other words, etc.)

·         Identifying textual clues for decoding new words in context.

·         Using key words in questions to review a text.

·         Identifying and correcting errors in a set of sentences.

·         Finding target words outside the classroom (e.g. magazines, brochures, Internet sites)

Do you have any other suggestions to develop students’ word-learning skills?