Gradation of Vocabulary:

The words selected for the school stage have to be taught in five, six years. So we have
to grade them for the different years according to certain principles. The following are the
principles of gradation:

 Usefulness: some words are more useful for the child

at a particular stage than others. For example, in first years of teaching English, the following
vocabulary items are very useful.

a)Words for the things the child uses, e.g., book, pen.
b)Words for the common relationships e.g., father,
mother.

c)Words for environmental areas, e.g., school, home.

d)Words for everyday actions, e.g., sit, stand, go.
e)Certain quality words, e.g., good, bad.

 Structural value: Even the structural words are

graded. For example, the prepositions on and in are
taught earlier than at.
 Teachability:Some words are easier to teach than

others. For example, the word Table is easier to teach than Honesty. The teacher can show a
table, but he will have to create a verbal situation to give the mother tongue equivalent to
teach Honesty. For the same reason it is easier to teach Open than to Kill.

 Simplicity: The simplicity of a word depends on its

spelling and pronunciation. For example, Strange is
simple than Mysterious.
It should be noted that only one meaning of a word be
taught at a time. That meaning should be simple one.

Look at the following three meanings of the word Have. These meanings have to be
taught in the order mentioned in accordance wit the principle of simplicity,

Have
1) (showing permanent possession). I have
two hands.
2) (as helping verb). They have gone.
3) (followed by infinitive).They have to work.
Active and Passive Vocabulary:
There are two kinds of vocabulary:
 Active Vocabulary
 Passive Vocabulary
 Active Vocabulary: the active vocabulary of a person

consists of those words that he can use correctly in his own speech and writing. He fully
understands the meaning of those words.

Active vocabulary is also called working or functional vocabulary. Whatever words are
taught to the students in the first three years should form a part of their active vocabulary. In
other words the student should master those words at the productive level.

 Passive Vocabulary: the passive vocabulary of a

person consists of those words which he recognizes when he meets in print or in the speech
of others. He can make out the meanings of those words, for example, while reading an
editorial in the newspaper. But he has not sufficient mastery ever those words. So he cannot
use them in his own speech or writings.

Passive vocabulary is also called recognition vocabulary. In senior classes students are
required to learn certain words which form a part of their passive vocabulary only. It should
be noted that a word which forms a part of a student’s passive vocabulary next year.

A person’s passive vocabulary is always larger than his active vocabulary because the
former also includes the latter.

Structure versus content words

English words fall into two broad types: those that belong in the
dictionary like ‘storm’ and ‘confabulate’, called content words, and

those that belong in the grammar like ‘of’ and ‘the’, called structure
words
Here are some of the main differences between structure and content
words:
Content Words
Structure Words

- are best explained and listed in the

dictionary, like ‘book’, ‘teddy bear’ or
‘encapsulate’

- are best explained in the grammar, i.e. in terms of how they fit into sentences: ‘the’ is a definite article goes
with nouns

- exist in large numbers, tens or

hundreds of thousands, as seen in any
dictionary
- are very limited in number, consisting of
220 or so in English

- vary in frequency from common words

like ‘beer’ to very rare like ‘adduction’
(6 times in a 100 million words)

- are mostly very high frequency, for

example all the top ten for English and 45%
of the top 100 are structure words

- are used more in written language

- are used more in spoken language

- are more likely to be preceded by a

pause in speech ‘I like … bananas’,
perhaps because there are more to
choose from

- are less likely to be preceded by a pause

in speech ‘I hate …the referee’, perhaps
because there are less of them to choose
from

- consist of Nouns (‘glass’), Verbs

(‘move’), Adjectives (‘glossy’) etc
- consist of Prepositions (‘to’), Articles
(‘the’), Auxiliaries (‘can’) etc

- are always pronounced and spelled in

essentially the same way; ‘tree’ is
always said with the same consonants
and vowels

- vary in pronunciation for emphasis etc;

‘have’ can be said as /hQv/, as /h‚v/ with a
change of vowel and as /v/ (‘ve)

- usually have a fixed stress or stresses;

‘theatre’ is always ‘theatre’ /'Ti‚t‚/)
never ‘theatre’ /Ti‚'t‚:/

- are usually unstressed but given stress for

emphasis etc; ‘I’ve done it/I have done it/I
have done it’
 - usually have more than two letters, as
in ‘eye’, ‘two’, ‘inn’
- can consist of one or two letters, as in ‘I’,
‘to’, ‘in’
- starting in ‘th’ are pronounced with a
voiceless ‘th’ /T/ ‘think’, ‘theme’
- starting in ‘th’ are pronounced with a
voiced ‘th’ /D/ ‘this’, ‘them’, ‘there’

- can always be invented – I heard

‘vagueity’ on the radio this morning.
Virtually all the new words coming
into the language say ‘cyberpunk’,
are content words.

- can never be invented, apart from

changes over time. One attempt was ‘per’
for ‘he/she’, which has never caught on.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29059896/Teaching-of-Vocabulary