Building vocabulary: word families and collocations

This week’s topics

Building vocabulary: word families and collocations

1. Noun, verb and adjective forms
2. Make or do?
3. Using a dictionary

What you will be able to do

• 1.2 Build and use vocabulary (word families, collocations, dictionary skills).

Activity

Build word families for ten common words.

Study materials

Further resources

• Writing for Success, ch. 4.4–4.5: Prefixes, suffixes, synonyms and antonyms · PDF · Saylor (2012), word families; pp. 154–162 · for registered students
• Writing for Success, ch. 4.3: Word choice and using a dictionary · PDF · Saylor (2012); pp. 147–153 · for registered students
• A Framework for Developing EFL Reading Vocabulary · Open-access article · Hunt & Beglar (2005), Reading in a Foreign Language. Practical framework for building vocabulary: word lists, word parts, dictionaries and guessing. · for registered students
• Evaluating L2 Readers' Vocabulary Strategies and Dictionary Use · Open-access article · Prichard (2008), Reading in a Foreign Language. When to look a word up and when not to: how learners use (and overuse) dictionaries while reading. · for registered students
• Incidental Learning of Duplex Collocations from Reading · Open-access article · Macis (2018), Reading in a Foreign Language. Case studies of how learners pick up word partnerships (collocations) through reading. · for registered students