Reviewed by Christopher Walker
“Learning to Teach Vocabulary” is part of the DELTA series of practical guides to teaching that have become so much a part of many schools’ resource libraries. In this volume, Simon Haines discusses the nature of teaching vocabulary before presenting a variety of activities and full lesson plans for use in classes where the focus is more on lexis than grammar.
This is not a book that will suit teachers at every stage of their careers. It is clearly aimed at those about to embark on their initial teaching qualification, and recent graduates of such courses who would like to know more about teaching vocabulary.
It is a highly capable book. It takes a non-academic approach to vocabulary that many teachers will appreciate. Split across eight sections, it includes numerous vocabulary-related activities that teachers can take directly into their class, as well as eight full lesson plans, enough to build a short summer school course out of, I would say. The frequent ‘Good to Know’ sections offer the reader food for thought, and all of the worksheets include questions to be discussed with a colleague - ideal for use in a professional development session at your school, though it’s unfortunate that Haines himself does not weigh in with an opinion here.
Strengths
There is much to like about what Haines has crafted in this volume.
The first thing, and for me one of the most important of all, deals with the topic of synonyms. There is a common misconception about synonyms - essentially, that they exist at all - that Haines is quick to deal with. As early as on page seven, Haines looks at synonyms not only in terms of how they can be used instead of a given word, but also what changes in meaning they represent (though it is a shame that in the Glossary this distinction disappears).
I have spent much of the last fifteen years correcting my students on the use of synonyms - after all, we say mentally ill and travel sick, not *mentally sick and *travel ill. If two words had precisely the same meaning and could be used interchangeably, one of those words would have died by now - and English is full of dead words whose meaning was co-opted by a variant form.
The second is that the lesson plans and their attendant materials are well-produced and fit to be taken directly into the classroom. The plans are exhaustive and require little by way of modification, and the material is ready for your photocopier - though you can also access the content digitally through the allango platform.
Shortcomings
There are a few shortcomings, though these will not interfere with the target audience’s use or appreciation of the book.
For example, according to Haines, “The word collocation refers to the combination of two or more words which are often used together in a way that sounds natural and correct to native speakers of the language” (p26). However, you don’t have to be a native speaker to know if something sounds correct or not, and nor is this the deciding factor in what makes something a collocation. Americans say ‘on the weekend’; Brits generally say ‘at the weekend.’ Which native speaker is correct? Does it matter? Or are collocations based on something more than just what ‘sounds right’?
Haines also sidesteps some of the trickier aspects of vocabulary - especially where they overlap with grammar - though I don’t think that doing so is particularly problematic given the nature of this resource. One could easily write a book on the English article system, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that Haines’s treatment is fairly reductive.
Yes, it is true that in many cases we introduce a noun first with the indefinite article and then use the definite article to refer back to the noun; but there are just as many, if not more, cases where we need to use the definite article to refer forwards: “I live at the end of a very long road” where we only know to define end because of what comes after the word of. Elsewhere, when Haines says that we use the definite article with the names of some countries and some buildings, it would have been good to explain why. We say The United Kingdom because many kingdoms are possible, and we are talking about one specific instance - but this information is not included here.
As someone who has grown rather passionate about grammar and how it is appreciated, I must of course disagree with Haines on page 91 when he says, “Many of the grammatical elements related to vocabulary are random.” Again, in a book on teaching vocabulary, this is not a serious error - and it is one that can be fixed by reading a more advanced resource book or by enrolling on the excellent Certificate in Advanced Methodology course offered by International House.
Conclusion
I feel that this book deserves its place in my (overcrowded) resource library. I will be pointing my new teachers in the direction of Learning to Teach Vocabulary, though I will also tell them to take some of what Haines says with a pinch of salt. This won’t be the only book on our shelves, but it is one that I think my teachers will make full use of - and our students will certainly benefit from a more focused understanding of the way that vocabulary should be encountered and learnt.
Teachers completing their initial training, and those who are relatively new to language instruction, will find an enormous amount of value in this book. They will be able to take Haines’ activities and lesson plans with them into the classroom, and they will find much of general value in Haines’ treatment of the fundamentals of teaching vocabulary.