Start with the reality of your room

Any UK classroom holds a wider spread of language than a single lesson plan can comfortably carry. You might have a pupil who arrived from Romania in September, another who speaks Punjabi at home and English with friends, and a third who reads confidently but freezes when asked to explain a new word. The temptation is to pitch to the middle and hope for the best. A calmer approach is to choose one core set of vocabulary and build several routes into it.

Before you teach, answer three questions. What must every pupil be able to do with these words? What will your most confident speakers do with them? What is the smallest first step for the pupils who are furthest behind? If you can answer those, the differentiation is already half planned.

Differentiate the task, not the word list

Handing out two different word lists feels efficient, but it quietly separates the room. Keep the same words for everyone and vary the demand of the task instead. Every pupil then hears the same vocabulary in the same lesson, and nobody is working from a "baby" list.

• First steps: match the word to a picture or a home-language translation, then drop it into a sentence stem such as "The nurse checked my ______ before school."
• Getting there: write an original sentence and explain the word in your own words to a partner.
• Stretching: use two target words in one sentence, or decide which word in a set does not belong and justify the choice.
• Challenge for all: ask pupils to spot the word in a short text and say which clue helped them work out its meaning.

The same principle works for homework: one task, three levels of support, rather than three separate worksheets.

Let visuals carry the meaning

Images reduce the amount of English a pupil needs in order to understand a new word, which is exactly what a beginner needs. Keep a dual-coded word mat on every desk, with the word, a simple picture and a short definition. For abstract vocabulary, such as fairness, persuade or estimate, a picture alone will not do the job. Use a quick scenario instead: "Two children share six sweets. One takes five. Is that fair?"

Other low-effort, high-impact habits include:

• Colour-coding words by type, so nouns, verbs and adjectives look distinct on the board.
• Building a word wall that grows through the term and stays visible during writing tasks.
• Using actions or gestures for tricky verbs, then repeating them every lesson until they stick.
• Displaying a sentence stem next to each new word so pupils can use it immediately, not just recognise it.

Set up peer support that actually works

Pair work is only useful when both pupils have something to do. A confident speaker who simply explains the answer to a quieter partner is not teaching them vocabulary; they are performing. Give each partner a role. One describes, the other draws. One reads a definition, the other guesses the word. One asks "why?", the other must answer in a full sentence.

Barrier games work particularly well: pupils sit back to back, one has a picture and must describe it while the other draws. The vocabulary gets repeated many times, and the pupil who is less confident has a genuine reason to speak. Where you have multilingual pupils, encourage them to check meaning in their home language first. It is quicker, it is cognitively richer, and it signals that their language is an asset rather than a problem.

Check understanding quickly and often

Vocabulary teaching fails quietly. A pupil nods, copies the word, and still cannot use it a week later. Short, frequent checks catch this early. Mini whiteboards let you see every answer at once. Concept questions reveal gaps that definitions hide: "If I borrow your pen, do I keep it forever?" "Can you persuade someone without speaking?"

Exit tickets with three prompts are a simple routine: write one word you will use this week, one word you are still unsure about, and one sentence using either word. Five minutes of marking gives you tomorrow's starter.

Make vocabulary a routine, not an event

The most reliable gains come from a steady drip rather than a big push. Begin each lesson with a five-minute retrieval task using words from last week, not just yesterday. Revisit vocabulary across subjects so pupils meet the same word in science, history and English. Display a word of the week and use it yourself, deliberately, several times a day.

Finally, keep families in the loop. A short half-termly list of key words, with space for a home-language translation, lets parents and carers support learning even if their own English is limited. In multilingual households, that shared effort is often the difference between a word being recognised and a word being owned.