Saturday, May 31, 2025
Exams are tough, there’s no way around it. Most of us dread being under pressure, assessed on our knowledge on a particular topic. Now imagine facing an assessment for the very first time. That might very well be the reality for many of our young learners and, needless to say, it’s no easy feat.
That being said, there’s no reason why we as teachers cannot make this experience at least more bearable for our students. How can we do that? Well, we can provide them with tools they can rely on and utilise the day of the exam, particularly when learning new words.
At their core, YLs exams rely basically on our learners’ previous knowledge of vocabulary. The “Reading and Writing” paper of the Cambridge Pre-A1 Starters, A1 Movers and A2 Flyers exams, are heavily focussed on a depth of knowledge of the vocabulary at that level, based on the list that they provide. Besides a couple of exceptions (think of the paraphrasing tasks 5 of Flyers and Movers exams ), the different tasks in these exams assess our learners’ ability to, of course, read, and recognise or recall specific words or short phrases. Hence, the need for a strong vocabulary knowledge in order to succeed.
Before we get into any tools at our disposal for vocabulary teaching, we should go over some basics in regards to the way we learn new words. Think about it for a minute, what does it take to really know a word? Many of us will remember our early training as teachers (e.g., CELTA) where we learnt that we are to focus on meaning, form and pronunciation when presenting language. These concepts are quintessential, of course, but there’s much more we need to consider as teachers.
Take form, for example. Scott Thornbury (2002, p.15-16)[1] provides an excellent illustration of what there is to know about the form of a word. Learners may be able to read a word they encounter, its written form, and if they hear it, they will know its spoken form as well. As teachers, we must raise our learners’ ability to recognise both. Therefore, spelling and pronunciation are some of the aspects we will need to teach. Pronunciation, in particular, is often overlooked in ELT classrooms even though it plays a crucial role in being intelligible. If a student can’t utter a word properly and clearly, there will surely be a breakdown in communication (check out our blog post Managing Communication for more information on this topic).
Then there’s meaning, without which there is no real purpose in teaching a word. We must consider the undeniable reality that words have several meanings and functions, and make our learners aware of it. Take grammar functions for example: a single word might function as a noun in one sentence and a verb in another. The same careful consideration applies to collocations, with fixed phrases, phrasal verbs and dependent prepositions. Moreover, we are required to be sensitive when teaching, as a word may have, connotations and even cultural associations.
Lynne Cameron (2001)[2] provides a beautiful analogy regarding YLs, comparing the way our learners develop their second language (L2) vocabulary, to a garden where new flowers (words) bloom. However, this garden also includes L1 flowers, words and concepts that they are still learning in their mother tongue, knowledge that is in a consolidating progress. This makes acquiring new words in L2 more complex and fragile.
Therefore, in the case of young learners, repetition is key. It is unrealistic to expect a learner to learn a new word only by encountering it once, and that it’s a done and dusted process. Learners need to be exposed to new items of vocabulary repeatedly, seen, heard and used again and again, in order to make that new word part of their active vocabulary. So, just because we are almost at the end of the year, doesn’t mean you can’t revisit vocabulary from unit one!
And then there’s the use of images and flashcards. If you’ve been following our monthly posts, you will know how much we value the use of visuals in the classroom. Not only does it make learning more engaging, but it also helps our learners make stronger connections for them to remember language easily in the future. They also give teachers a wide range of ways for presenting new language, many of which you can find in another of our blog posts, Using Images and Flashcards.
However, this all may seem a bit generic and after all you are here for some exam content. With this in mind, here provided are three tools at your disposal to raise awareness of vocabulary structures when preparing for the Cambridge Starters, Movers and Flyers exams.
First, we shall take a look at the widely available vocabulary lists that Cambridge provides on their website. They include the vocabulary items that learners are expected to know for each exam, providing an incredibly useful tool to our everyday lessons. But are we supposed to design a whole lesson based on a decontextualised list of words? Which items should we choose? Do learners need to know all the list by heart?
All of these are valid questions that we should keep in mind, sure, but it’s important to also be aware that these lists of language can be quite overwhelming. Our role as teachers is to filter and prioritise, almost “cherry picking” the words our learners will find most useful. With this in mind, it is essential to go over each list and decide what language items learners might find particularly challenging or even unknown.
A similar approach applies to previous exams papers used throughout the year. As stated, repetition is key, so going over the mistakes your students make in the exams will be extremely useful in order to solve doubts and help learners recall new vocabulary items they struggled with in the past. We certainly believe that this approach can ease some of that negative effect exams have on learners. After all, the whole exam experience can be a bit more meaningful if learners feel they’ve learnt something new from it.
One of our most reliable tools, coursebooks provide most of the vocabulary of the level at hand (Starters, Movers, Flyers). They present language in an orderly fashion, organised into units, usually in order of difficulty. More importantly, they provide one indispensable aspect that neither vocabulary lists, nor previous exams can: context. Without a unifying theme or storyline, it can be quite challenging to come up with ways in which we can present a list of decontextualised, isolated words and expect our learners to memorise them. This usage of a carrying theme, added to the way they recycle vocabulary and recalling previous knowledge, make coursebooks essential for easier lesson planning and more meaningful learning.
Some key takeaways and conclusions can be drawn from this blogpost. The new vocabulary learners acquire in a second language is incorporated to the words they’re learning in their mother tongue. Especially for young learners, we must make sure they encounter new items again and again and apply other meaningful strategies, like making learning visual. Coursebooks, wordlists and previous exams give us the means to make vocabulary truly come alive for our learners. By teaching language in context and providing our learners with chances to use it meaningfully and repeatedly, those scary exam pages will become less intimidating.
[1] Thornbury, S. (2002) How to Teach Vocabulary, Longman
[2] Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching languages to young learners. Cambridge University Press.
