“Studying” vocabulary can mean many different things; here are some suggestions:
* Of course, the best way to improve your vocabulary is simply to read a lot. Read widely, and often. Read about topics—and in genres—that are unfamiliar to you. Make a deliberate effort to step outside of your “comfort zone” and challenge yourself with texts that are different for you in some way(s). If you’re looking for suggestions, try browsing the many “Links” listed on the right side of this page. If you spend some time looking, you’re bound to find something that will pique your interest.
* Note unfamiliar vocabulary and study them: Your ability to understand what you read and hear, and to express yourself in writing and in speech, will always depend on your knowledge of words. So, as you read—for school, pleasure, or any other reason—be sure to note at least some of the unfamiliar vocabulary and study them in some way. For example, it’s very easy to create a list and practice it in Vocabulary.com.
* Vocabulary.com describes itself as “The most intelligent way to improve vocabulary.” It “combines the world’s smartest dictionary with an adaptive learning game that will have you mastering new words in no time.” I’m not sure if the superlatives are justified, but I do know that many students LOVE using this website! While you’re there, check out Vocabulary.com’s “Choose Your Words” page, an excellent collection of commonly confused words and explanations of their differences. You can also easily subscribe to their Word of the Day, which will provide you with a daily nudge to play with and learn new vocabulary.
* Subscribe to Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day and/or to A.Word.A.Day, which the New York Times has called “The most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace.” A.Word.A.Day can also be added to your calendar.
* Learning about the building blocks of words—the roots—can help you make sense of unfamiliar vocabulary. This webpage contains a large index that allows you to easily identify words that share a given root. What’s more, the most common entries include a short audio that provides a detailed explanation of the root and its family of related words.
* In order to deepen your understanding of a word, you need to have multiple and varied exposure to it. Searching for a particular vocabulary item in Google News will produce countless examples of real-world, in-context uses of the word.
* Everyday, The New York Times features a new vocabulary word that has recently appeared in its articles. A brief excerpt is provided for context, followed by a quick quiz to test understanding.
* While you’re at The New York Times, check out these eight practical ideas for understanding new words in context — plus six ideas for thinking more deeply about the relationships between language and culture.
* Merriam-Webster offers lots of fun ways to broaden, deepen, and, test your knowledge of words, including many games and weekly, themed challenge quizzes.
* Quizzitive is “an entertaining quiz, an addictive game, and a new way to test and improve your vocabulary! The goal is to master ‘1000 Words Worth Knowing’ – words selected by Merriam-Webster editors to challenge, intrigue, and contribute to a powerful vocabulary. Quizzitive offers 10 difficulty levels, with quiz types from ‘Speed Drill’ to ‘Name That Thing.’ Master the words, beat your personal best, and see how your scores compare to the crowd. The first two levels of the game are free. An in-app purchase unlocks the full game and turns off ads.”
* When you look up the definition of a word at Wordnik or Wordsmyth, you can also study examples of the word in different sentences.
* Quizlet is a excellent website that allows anyone to create flash cards and study anything—for free. By clicking on “Sign Up,” you can quickly create your own account.
* The Online Etymology Dictionary is “a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they’re explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.” Speaking of etymology, check out these English words of Arabic origin. And what about English words from other languages?
* Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words.
* Try studying words that share spellings, pronunciations, and/or meanings: heteronyms (here, here, and here), homographs (here), homophones (here), homonyms (here), and synonyms (here and here).
* There are many websites designed to help you improve your vocabulary. One of the best I’ve found is Learn That Word, a program that targets long-term memory. In addition, Learn That Word offers a unique “pay-per-result” concept. To learn how the quizzes work, watch this video and then create your free student account by visiting the homepage and clicking on “Start” at the top-right.
* In order to develop fluent use of a word, you must practice using it when you speak and write. So, when you and your parents, guardians, and friends are communicating with one another, try playing with new vocabulary. It CAN be fun!
* Studying analogy—“the fuel and fire of thinking“—is a fun, effective way to promote critical thinking and to build both vocabulary and content knowledge. To get a feel for how analogies work, try to solve a few here.
* The Voice of America website has a special Learning English page with a wide variety of resources, including news articles that you can read and listen to at the same time. This is an excellent exercise for anyone interested in improving their English, especially ESL students and any native English speaker who struggles with reading. Don’t miss the Voice of America’s Learning English YouTube page.
* Most of the world’s languages have phrases or sentences that cannot be understood literally. Even if you know all the words in a phrase and understand all the grammar of the phrase completely, the meaning may still be elusive. A phrase or sentence of this type is said to be idiomatic. Many proverbs, informal phrases, and common sayings are idiomatic, and offer special problems to readers, writers, and language learners. This dictionary is a collection of the idiomatic phrases and sentences that occur frequently in American English.
* “Allusions form a colourful extension to the English language, drawing on our collective knowledge of literature, mythology, and the Bible to provide us with a literary shorthand for describing people, places, and events. So a miser is a Scrooge, a strong man is a Samson or a Hercules, a beautiful woman is a Venus or a modern-day Helen of Troy—we can suffer like Sisyphus, fail like Canute, or linger like the smile of the Cheshire Cat.” Here‘s a dictionary of allusions from Oxford University Press, and here‘s another from Merriam-Webster.
* And while you’re considering idioms and allusions, you may also want to sample/study the vast cultural wealth of British, American, Modern English, and International proverbs, an important window into the world(s) of English speakers. As the scholar Wolfgang Mieder suggests, “Proverbs fulfill the human need to summarize experiences and observations into nuggets of wisdom that provide ready-made comments on personal relationships and social affairs.”
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At the beginning of the school year—as part of our broad, ongoing effort to promote the development of students’ vocabulary—my students and I occasionally focus on a single word, its structure, and its history. Using this worksheet, students begin by copying a sample sentence that includes this word before looking up the word in a dictionary and identifying several pieces of information: the relevant part of speech, the relevant definition, and the word’s etymology, including the name of the original source language, the original word in the original source language, and the meaning of the original word in English. Once students have had a few minutes to find and consider this information, we go over everything as a class before discussing the word’s English root, the root’s meaning, and words that share this root.
Here is a sample (by worksheet) of the words my 10 Honors English students might study:
Vocabulary Worksheet #1
Word #1: decapitate and its root cap; here’s the dictionary entry.
Word #2: eccentric and its root centr; here’s the dictionary entry.
Word #3: philanthropy and its root philo; here’s the dictionary entry.
Word #4: finite and its root fin; here’s the dictionary entry.
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