Teaching and Learning Vocabulary by I.S.P. Nation

Paul Nation is probably the most authorative figure in vocabulary acquisition in the English-speaking community, and this is his book distilled from a large amount of research findings of teachers and researchers from around the world. Nation informs us as to what learning a word actually entails, which words need to be learned, how to teach them, which words do not need to be learned, and how to train one's students to cope whenever they encounter such low-frequency words. "Teaching & Learning Vocabulary" breaks up vocabulary learning into the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and there are answers in each section to most of the questions that teachers typically ask, such as what to do when students don't have enough vocabulary to understand. Finally, Nation presents his personally developed and efficient test format for assessing vocabulary, which I find very useful. (I still think it's back to front, though. What do you think?). I was also a little bit baffled about his penchant for using the keyword technique to remember words, but then again he's not the only one who abides by this strategy. All in all, it's an excellent book. If you are a language teacher or a researcher, then it is well worth reading.

Read about Teaching and Learning Vocabulary at Amazon.com.