M04 — Teach vocabulary and expressions
Vocabulary and expressions
Module outcome: help learners use useful words and phrases for a purpose. Selection before preteaching, chunks before single words, and reuse in changed contexts instead of promised encounter counts.
Prerequisite: a learner profile from M01 and a task context from M02. Planned module budget: about 16 of the 200 activity hours. Built today: nothing complete. All four units are specifications.
M04-U01 · Choose useful vocabulary
Specification. The unit page does not exist yet.
Planned content: select the words needed for the task; identify blocking vocabulary without preteaching every unknown word. Evidence to keep: a selection with reasons, and a reading text with selective glosses.
M04-U02 · Teach chunks and collocations
Specification. The unit page does not exist yet.
Planned content: use phrase patterns in messages; contrast a natural combination with an understandable but unusual one. Evidence to keep: a phrase bank with contexts, and a notice-and-use activity.
M04-U03 · Infer and verify meaning
Specification. The unit page does not exist yet.
Planned content: combine context, word parts and a dictionary, and mark uncertainty before checking. Evidence to keep: a word-inference record built on two passages containing the same word.
M04-U04 · Retrieve through use
Specification. The unit page does not exist yet.
Planned content: return to phrases in a changed context; avoid promising a fixed encounter count. Evidence to keep: a spaced reuse sample and a three-return practice plan.
Game · Chunk snap
Pairs or teams, one deck of 20 cards, 10 minutes. Split the deck: verb cards on one side (make, take, do, have), noun cards on the other (a booking, a message, a mistake, a photo, a call, a break). Deal four cards to each player and turn cards up in the middle in turn. When a turned card can combine with a middle card into a natural workplace chunk, the first player to call “snap” and say the full phrase with a context sentence wins both cards: “Can you take a message?”, “She made a mistake with the invoice.”
Francophone note: the game’s traps are direct transfers from French. Faire une photo becomes “make a photo”; faire une erreur becomes “do a mistake”. Learners hear that the meaning survives but the combination is wrong, which is the U02 distinction between understandable and natural.
Format adapted from matching activities in Games for Vocabulary Practice.
Play it now: chunk snap
Noun cards appear one at a time: a photo, the cleaning, an appointment. Snap each noun to the verb it keeps company with: take, make, do or have. Then answer the context question: is this the sentence you would actually use at work? Ten cards per round. Timed mode gives 45 seconds; own-pace mode gives none, because collocation judgement is the point, not reflexes.
The card-deck classroom version is above.
Answer key and why-lines
Interactive version built for this course; original design, as stated on this page.
How to work through this module
No built units yet. Use the specifications as your vocabulary planning checklist: name the task, list only the blocking words, teach chunks in message contexts, plan three returns in changed contexts. Chunk snap works today with any A1 to B1 group.
Sources and review status
Source anchors C1, D2, D6 and R5 in the evidence register. No source certifies this module. Educator review pending. Corrections go to the contact page.
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