For ESL students, vocabulary is the most important element leading to reading comprehension. Without extensive vocabulary teaching and practice, ESL learners will not be able to reach the required proficiency standard of reading. This article will look at some tactics for incorporating more vocabulary teaching basics.

Decide which vocabulary items you wish to teach for the first time. There should be no more than 10 of these items, and ideally they should be pulled from a reading comprehension text that students will read.

Prepare interesting pre-reading activities using vocabulary. Provide many new opportunities for students to encounter the word. This can be done by showing the word using a picture or a flashcard.

Provide opportunities for students to recognize the word in a variety of contexts using sentences, describing pictures and playing games. A good elementary level games is "I spy," where you describe a word and students have to guess the word. This game can be played in groups, individually or with the entire class.When planning recognition type activities, include a variety of activities that will engage the students and stimulate them cognitively. Activities need not be too challenging and should motivate and interest them to learn the language.

Progress from recognition style activities to production-based activities, which require students to do something else with the word other than simply recognize its meaning. Spelling bees and short creative writing assignments where students brainstorm around a targeted vocabulary word from a list are a few such activities.

Prepare assessments that combine both recognition and production-based tasks.

Circle around a variety of learning styles. For your audio type learners, use more dictation practice activities, while your visual learners could benefit from more picture use, especially when learning the word for the first time.