As you grow in your knowledge of English, your methods need to grow with you! Grammar exercises, drills, flashcards, etc. are great when you’re building the foundations, but if you’re fairly fluent and using English at an Upper-Intermediate or Advanced level, you need more meaningful and integrated practice in order to expand your vocabulary and increase your proficiency.
While repetition is still important, memorizing words and their definitions often isn’t as helpful as repeatedly encountering unfamiliar words and their collocations (the words often found near them), understanding their synonyms (words with similar meanings), and then using the words in context.
A lot of online advice suggests using memorization techniques and lists of words from “building” knowledge and applying them to “growing” your English proficiency. However, these familiar learning strategies don’t work as well at the upper levels where nuance, connotation, and collocation are so important.
Let’s face it, exploring “meaning” is a lot messier than memorization, which can be hard for those of us with limited time to study and prefer a clear schedule to follow. However, I believe learning only “sticks” if it is meaningful, useful, and used!
If you’re short on time, but want a plan to grow your vocabulary, here is my suggestion.
Vocab Expansion Plan: 5 days per week, 30-45 mins per day
Day 1: Find “new” words
Find something you enjoy to watch/read/listen, and write down any words that you want to learn. Focus on only 8-10 words. They may be new words you’ve never heard before, or words you’re familiar with, but don’t use and would like to add to your “working” vocabulary.
- If you like watching videos, search Ted Talks or YouTube for a topic that interests you or relates to your career field (if you’re trying to expand your job vocab). You can search by duration for short videos if you don’t have much time. Also, remember you can adjust the playback speed settings if you prefer to watch more slowly or quickly.
- If you like reading, search Google News or find magazine articles you enjoy. Magazines like The Atlantic or The New Yorker often have very challenging vocabulary.
- If you like listening, then podcasts may be the way to go. You could even find a series to get involved in and listen to a new episode each week.
Whichever medium you choose, focus on finding a topic that you’re truly interested in learning about.
- Timesaver Tip: A tutor can find quality content for you (saving you time) and can help you identify which words are most commonly used and useful to learn (saving you from learning outdated vocab). For my clients, I discover what they like and find related articles and videos specially tailored to their interests, then I highlight which words I think they’re least likely to know or use on a regular basis.
Day 2: Research
Keep track of your new words in a notebook (paper or digital). Flashcards could be useful, but a Vocab Log helps you go deeper than just memorizing.
Do some research to find words with a similar meaning (synonyms) or other forms of the word (verb, noun, adjective, adverb). Also, find the common collocations for your word. Collocations are the words that are most often “located” near your word. Remember, meaning is typically shared through “chunks” of language, not individual words so it’s important to know what’s often found around your word.
I give my clients the following Vocab Log to track their word research:
| Word: |
| Definition or Synonyms: [you choose if the definition or the similar words are most helpful for you] |
| Other forms: [write other forms from the Word Family] |
| Example sentences and or collocations: [Copy the sentence where you found the word, or sentences from the dictionary example. Be sure to copy common collocations.] |
Example:
| Word: concept |
| Synonyms: idea; theory; thought |
| Other forms: conceptualize; conceptual; conception |
| Example sentences (with collocations): He had no concept of the problems he was causing. While it was a fairly simple concept, she didn’t seem to grasp it right away.[note: the verb “grasp” is often used instead of “understand” when talking about concepts] |
- Tool Tips:
- Oxford Learner’s Dictionary is my #1 recommendation as a “one-stop” place to find definitions, example sentences, word family and collocations.
- https://www.thesaurus.com/ is great for finding synonyms.
- Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary is a good source for very simple definitions.
- YouGlish is a fun tool to hear how your word is pronounced. Just search for the word, then listen to YouTube clips of various people saying your word in context. Skip between videos to head more examples.
Day 3: Controlled Practice
Practice in a way that works best for you. Some of us need to write a word to make it stick in our minds. Others are “oral” learners and need to say the word. Either way, controlled practice is crucial to make sure that you are not creating bad habits by beginning to use the word incorrectly. Starting with “free” practice is faster but can lead to “fossilized errors” which are much harder to fix later.
Try writing some sentences of your own using your new word. Keep it simple, but practice adding collocations or playing with different forms of the word.
If you don’t learn well through writing, record yourself saying sentences or send messages to your tutor.
- App Tip: the Marco Polo app is a creative way you can send short videos to your tutor and she can reply with corrections. WhatsApp is another great way to quickly share texts or audio messages with your practice sentences. I also like shared Google Docs as a way to correct and comment on clients’ controlled sentence practice when they want to focus on writing.
Day 4: Review
Watch/read/listen again to the same video/article/podcast from Day 1. Your ear will naturally pay attention to your 8-10 new words that you’ve researched and practiced because they are familiar!
Now, try using your words in context. If your tutor has written comprehension or discussion questions, try to use your new words in your answers. You could also try writing a summary or synopsis of what you read or listened to.
Review or read aloud your answers or summary a few times before you move on to “free” practice.
- Speaking Tip: if you’d like more practice speaking instead of writing, just make an outline of notes about your article to review before you move on to more practice. Write notes for yourself answering:
- What was the main idea of this article or video?
- What were the sub-points or supporting ideas?
- Were there any really interesting examples that supported the main idea?
- What was one thing you learned from this article or video?
Day 5: Free Practice
Finally, it’s time to freely use your new words in a more natural practice environment. In this last step, you will discuss the video or article with someone in your life (either a tutor or a friend).
Share what you learned, review what you thought about it, discuss your opinions…most likely you will incorporate your “new” words naturally because they are now familiar and have become part of how you talk about this particular topic.
Most likely, you have not only added these 8-10 “new” words to your vocabulary, but you’ve also added other words from the same family, you’ve remembered similar words and learned collocations (words that are often found together).
Congratulations! You’ve expanded your vocabulary and gained valuable reading, listening, researching, writing, and speaking experience as part of the process!
- Review tip: a good tutor can help reinforce these new additions to your vocabulary by incorporating them into your lessons and conversations every 2-3 weeks. This repetition will further fix these words in your mind and keep them fresh in your working vocabulary.