In this article Paul Nation responds to Thomas Cobb's "Numbers or Numerology? A Response to Nation (2014) and McQuillan (2016)" (EJ1117024). Nation begins by clarifying his own position on vocabulary learning and goes on to highlight points made in Cobb's article with which he is in agreement, while drawing from his 2014 article,…

A recent study of neologisms has restated the prominent position of the lexicon from a linguistic point of view. From the perspective of language teachers, it is evident that an adequate vocabulary plays a crucial role in the ability to communicate in a foreign language. The fact that the lexicon is a major component of a language has caused the…

Concludes that semantic maps do not work alone, but must be built in class during discussion of vocabulary. Shows that discussion alone works well for most students. (FL)

Discusses the uses and advantages of pictorial schemata in teaching vocabulary to second language learners. The advantages are that the learner is encouraged not only to deal with lexical ordering but also to look for such ordering when learning the language outside the classroom. Describes how to design a schemata. (SED)