By Rolf Palmberg 

In most, if not all, languages there are words which have more than one meaning. The various meanings of such multiple-meaning words in one language do not, however, always coincide with the corresponding translational equivalents in other languages. The purpose of the lesson plan presented below is to help EFL learners not only recognize multiple-meaning words in English but also increase their vocabulary awareness in general.  

Step 1

Divide the class into three groups, A, B, and C (if necessary the groups can be further divided into subgroups), and give each group one of the three texts below. Ask each group to read and discuss their text so that they understand its content. Invite them to use monolingual English dictionaries if they don't find the context clues helpful.  

Step 2

Display the following word list on an OHP:

• date, figure, form, head, mark, pack, pipe, record, service, tramp

Ask the learners to underline the ten words in their texts and, within the group, discuss and agree on the best possible mother-tongue equivalent for each word. Invite the learners to use bilingual dictionaries only if they find that they fail to come up with a good translation. Next, ask each learner to write down the resulting mother-tongue word list on a piece of paper.  

Step 3

Regroup the class in such a way that each group consists of (at least) three learners, one from group A, one from group B, and one from group C. Next, ask the learners to share their mother-tongue word lists with each other and to discuss the differences in word meanings. (The word lists will in most cases, depending on the learners' mother tongue, differ from one another owing to the fact that each target word has a different meaning in the three texts.) Tell the learners to defend their choice of meaning by reading out portions of the texts, not by showing the complete texts to their peers. Walk around in the class and encourage the learners to converse in English.  

Step 4

Invite the learners to come up with words in their mother tongue that have multiple meanings. Next, tell them to look these words up in a bilingual dictionary to check which words share the same multiple meanings in English. Or, depending on the learners' level of proficiency, challenge them to find more English words with multiple meanings.  

Step 5

Ask the learners to work in pairs and provide each pair with a list of multiple-meaning words (e.g. hand, heart, land, match, plan, ring, rank, spot, taste, and work). Invite the learners to look up the words in a monolingual dictionary and to create sentences that clearly show the differences in meaning for those words. Next, invite them to share their sentences with their classmates, e.g. by reading out two or more sentences where the same multiple-meaning word has been left out, prompting their classmates for the correct word.  

Step 6

Invite the learners to discuss (in class or in groups) what they have learned about words with multiple meanings. What are the advantages of multiple-meaning words? What are the disadvantages? 

Step 7

For homework, ask the learners to provide their original texts with suitable endings. Tell them to include as many new multiple-meaning words as possible. 

Text 1

Maria looked good with the red scarf round her head. She had a good figure, and she was good at school, too. Her teacher always gave her a good mark for everything she produced. Yesterday Maria had written her name on an online application form for lonely hearts, and here she was, standing in the street with Peter, the date the computer had found her. Maria wanted to go to church to attend the evening service and then go home and listen to her new record. Peter wanted to go to the forest to the place where a huge metal pipe brought water into town. There they could sit in the dark and listen to the tramp of heavy steps from unknown animals. Maria did not like the idea at all. She was afraid of the dark and of the pack of wolves that lived in the forest.  

Text 2

Maria and Peter were sitting in the doctor's waiting-room. Peter took out a pack of cards from his pocket. "I don't want to play", Maria said and opened a newspaper. At the head of the page was a picture of a man smoking a pipe. "Look," she said, "this man is going to make a tramp over the mountains. If he manages to make it in two days he will get a tea service of 24 pieces." "That figure is not a 4," Peter corrected her. "It's a 7." "You're next, Peter", the doctor said interrupting their conversation. "I can see from my record of patients that you're in form 7 at school. But what's that dirty mark on your shirt?" "It came from the date I spat out from my mouth this morning," Peter said. "I'll never eat that sweet brown fruit again."  

Text 3

I will never forget the place we moved into on the date of Maria's birth. We paid a high figure for the house, and although the town had a good bus service, we decided to buy a new car, too. On our first evening in the new house we heard a knock on the door. We saw the form of a man outside the door and thought it was the homeless tramp we had seen earlier that day. We opened the door and were greeted by a huge man holding a horse. The horse had a white mark on its neck and the man had an enormous pack on his back. The man told us that he was the head of the church, that he was very good at playing the pipe, and that he held the record for swimming 200 metres.