Vocabulary has gained its rightful place at the centre of modern language learning syllabuses, but how does a writer select which items to present and practise? Philip Kerr, an experienced teacher, trainer and coursebook writer, explains the importance of key criteria such as frequency, learnability and usefulness when choosing vocabulary items to focus on.

Starting with an overview of theoretical and practical issues involved in writing vocabulary materials, he goes on to illustrate a wide range of practice activity types and also includes suggestions for dealing with the knotty issue of rubric-writing. Carefully constructed tasks are backed up with detailed commentaries which encourage readers to think critically about vocabulary materials in general.

This module forms part of the ELT Teacher 2 Writer training course. The training modules are designed to help you write better ELT materials, either for publication, or simply to improve the quality of your self-produced classroom materials.