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Teaching VocabularyVocabulary is probably one of the most important parts of learning any new language including English. Having a wide knowledge of vocabulary is what allows us to communicate and express what we want to say. Often students, most commonly young learners, may have studied English grammar throughout their time at school, the tenses, correct pronoun usage etc and so they may have good knowledge of the structure and the technical part of the English language, however it is often the case that when it comes to expressing themselves they are lacking in vocabulary. It is obvious that with little vocabulary you can ?get by? and ?defend? yourself if you go on holiday to an English speaking country, phrases like, ?where is the toilet?? or ?What time is it?? are enough to get by on holiday but if the student wants to break out of this bubble of prepared phrases they will need more vocabulary. However getting the student to learn the dictionary is not the answer or the simple solution, often there are topics and themes that the student may not ever need or want to talk about, such as medical terms, business vocabulary etc. This is when you as a teacher need to find out why the student wants to learn English, what are his or her motives, do they need it for work, for going on holiday, to move and live in an English speaking country etc. The vocabulary needs to be appropriate to the task that is being done, so if the task talks about animals and vets, vocabulary regarding the business world would not be considered appropriate. The teacher needs to know or find out whether the vocabulary is appropriate for the level of student, for beginner students for example; the teacher may need to use much simpler and clearer vocabulary whilst for more advance students the teacher may begin to introduce more complicated vocabulary. When teaching a student a vocabulary item there are a few things they need to know for example, the meaning, a student needs to know what the vocabulary means, for example the student can?t go around saying ?I have a car? when what they really mean is that they own a bicycle. The use of the vocabulary this refers to how and when the vocabulary should be used. Sometimes students may add words to a phrase because they know the word but do not know how or when to use it, for example ?I went to swimming yesterday? the student knows that the word ?to? is often used and has heard it many times, and so has put it in the phrase without really knowing its use. Word grammar which refers to where the vocabulary belongs and in what order, the student needs to know the order of the words so that they make sense when used in a sentence. For example a student may say, ?She with me went dancing?, when it should say, ?She went dancing with me?. How the vocabulary interacts and affects other words is known as interaction. The student needs to be aware of how by using one word next to another may change the sentence or the meaning of the sentence entirely. For example, ?I was by the sea? by adding the words ?put off? changes the sentence to be, ?I was put off by the sea? changing the sentence and its meaning completely. Spelling is important if the student is to read and write correctly and avoid confusion. For example, ?I hat a bike? the student has misspelled had and has written ?hat? which creates confusion, when read the sentence does not make sense and should in fact read, ?I had a bite?. Finally one of the more important parts is pronunciation which refers to how the word is spoken. This is needed by the student if that they wish to speak English and be understood. The student may know a lot of vocabulary but when the student is no understood all that vocabulary becomes useless, hence why the teacher needs to do lots of drilling and pronunciation exercises.