Posted by Kaleigh Bangor on Monday, October 7, 2013 in News.

The essence of communication is to convey meaning. If one fails to find the words to express their thought, the grammatical structures become useless. Therefore, the role of vocabulary in the second or foreign language classroom is critical. In order to learn and retain vocabulary, or build a lexicon of words, students require a number of interactions in various contexts to competently use the vocabulary in different discourses. It is not enough to properly spell and pronounce the word in question; a student needs to be able to recognize words and phrases in original, authentic contexts and be able to employ the word in an original statement as well. Manipulating new words at this level demands practice and repetition over an extended course of time. One class session will not suffice and this fact also supports emphasis on building vocabulary. By recognizing the intricate process in learning and retaining the very definition of declarative knowledge, or a word, the reasons to place vocabulary learning at the heart of the foreign language instruction become almost urgently self-evident.