関東学院大学人間共生学部

I had to write the column for this month and decided to talk about a presentation I gave on vocabulary at the KGU Open Campus in August. The presentation was only three minutes – can you imagine that! I am sure you have seen many students on the trains earnestly studying English vocabulary lists from those small-sized vocabulary books. It is an excellent essential first step to learning vocabulary. We see this on the trains or coffee shops because most students in Japan do not have English classes where they thoroughly focus on vocabulary. I must look at high school student report cards yearly during the entrance exam season. I like to look at the names of their English courses. I often see titles with the word ‘grammar’ in them, but I don’t recall seeing a class with the word ‘vocabulary’ in the title – why is this? We think learning vocabulary is simple – as easy as memorizing word lists. Moreover, we mistakenly believe that grammar is more important than vocabulary. Neither of these assumptions is correct, which is why so many students struggle with learning English.
Watch for my next column, in which I will show why you should focus more on learning vocabulary than grammar!
Jason