The Vocabulary Notebook

In this week's blog post we are going to look at tips for keeping a vocabulary notebook. Vocabulary notebooks are a great tool to help you increase your vocabulary when learning a second language. 

English has lot of vocabulary ranging from formal to informal phrases. Learning vocabulary can be overwhelming for students, and they often ask teachers for advice on how they can improve their level and knowledge of vocabulary. Many teachers will agree that a vocabulary notebook is a great tool for students. However, many teachers will also agree that students often start a vocabulary notebook, but they do not continue it. The reason for this may be that students don't know how to keep a vocabulary notebook or what should go into a vocabulary notebook. Here are some ideas to help you.

Methods

This is probably the most important thing about keeping a vocabulary notebook. There are different ways of recording new words. Remember that your vocabulary notebook is for you and no one else, so find a method or methods that work best for you. Here are some methods students use in their vocabulary notebooks:

Translation - a lot of students like to write the new word into their notebook with the translation next to it. This is good for a quick reference, but can limit students' learning of how to use the word.

Dictionary definition - a dictionary definition can offer you a little more extra information about the word than just it's meaning. Dictionaries show you how to say the word with phonetic symbols. They also tell you what word class the word belongs in, e.g. noun, verb, adverb

Example sentence - A very good way to learn how to use the word is to write an example sentence. This works very well for phrasal verbs or word collocations (words that often go together).

Organisation

We all have different ways of organising things, and we are all learning English for different reasons. It's important that you have a system in place in your vocabulary notebook, so that you can easily find words when you need them. There are a number  of ways to organise your notebooks.

Alphabetically - Just like a dictionary, you can divide your notebook up alphabetically to record your new words. 

By word class - Some students like to record their words by word class. They like to keep their verbs in one section, adjectives in another, adverbs in a different section etc. In this way students know more about how to use the words in sentences.

By context - For many people this is the best way to record and save vocabulary. You put all the words and phrases into one section according to how you will use them. For example, maybe you are going on holidays, and you have learned new phrases and words for booking a hotel. You can note all these phrases and words in the one section so they are easy to find when you need them. Likewise, if you are learning vocabulary for academic writing, you can save linking words and expressions in one section, so it's easy to refer to them when you are practicing your writing skills. It's important that you give each section a title, and having an index at the start of the notebook our using colour paper bookmarks can help you find the different sections easily.

By book unit and page - For students who are studying English in school and are using a course book, recording your vocabulary by the unit and page can be a great way to remember where the word came from. You can always return to the unit or page to practice the listening or the reading where the word came from.

Revision

So we have our vocabulary notebook, and we have saved some words and phrases in it - so what now? Well, use it! Take out your notebook and read through your notes every few days. Go back over the words you have recorded until you know them, and you don't need to look at them in your notebook anymore. Keep adding to the notebook and keep reading back over your notes. Use your notebook in conversations and when you are writing. Use your notebook in class and at language exchange meetings. The more you use it, the more your knowledge of vocabulary will grow.

We hope you enjoyed our tips for keeping a vocabulary notebook. Please comment below and tell us if you have any other tips for keeping a vocabulary notebook. What do you do in your notebook? Do you think vocabulary notebooks are a good idea? We would love to hear from you ...