Teaching Academic Vocabulary to Foreign Graduate Students

The foreign graduate student in an American university needs to exhibit a wide range of academic skills. To participate effectively in the research-oriented environment of the American university, he needs an excellent command of vocabulary-both technical and academic. A method of teaching academic vocabulary to the intermediate to advanced EFL graduate student is discussed. The term academic vocabulary is defined and compared to the terms technical, scientific, and sub-technical vocabulary. Criteria used for selecting academic vocabulary items are explained. The vocabulary is divided into three areas appropriate for teaching: the research process, analysis, and evaluation. Selected items and sample exercises for each area are given and broader applications in each of the four areas of language use are described.