The Vocabulary Teachers' Competencies Framework

Competency 1.1 states that teachers should be knowledgeable about the statistical properties of words, such as frequency, collocation, genre, associations and why these patterns matter for vocabulary instruction (Nation, 2024). For early literacy teachers in particular, this would include a knowledge-base about the mappings from oral language to print (e.g., grapheme-phoneme correspondences) (Beck et al., 2013).

Competency 1.2 ensures teachers have specialist knowledge about word structures, including morphology, phonology, orthography and semantic features (Scott, 2016).

Competency 1.3 recommends teachers understand different types of vocabulary, such as the characteristics of academic vocabulary (Coxhead, 2000). This may also include research concepts such as vocabulary tiers (Beck et al., 2013).

Competency 1.4 supports teachers’ capacity to source and critically evaluate instructional resources; for example, wordlists, textbooks, assessment tools and research-informed online resources (Hiebert, 2020).

Competency 1.5 underlines the importance of training teachers in specific pedagogies for teaching vocabulary, which may include models discussed in this paper such as Generative Vocabulary Instruction, Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the Four Strands and so forth, though the VTC does not prescribe particular pedagogical models, which is a matter of academic freedom for teacher-trainers. The competency aims only for teachers to be trained in research active and evidence-informed pedagogies by the time they are teaching vocabulary in the classroom.

Competency 1.6 addresses the need for teachers to understand current theories of vocabulary, literacy and theory-practice links (e.g., Gough, & Tunmer, 1986; Perfetti, 2007; Wyse & Hacking, 2025).

Competency 2.1 emphasizes training teachers to be able to identify the morphological structure of a word, pronunciation properties such as stress, a word’s phonemes (transcription skills), their mappings to graphemes and spelling. This would also include being able to identify part of speech, word family relationships and so forth. Teachers do not need to be trained as linguists, of course, but they should be competent in these areas in order to deliver effective instruction. These technical skills are crucial for preventing mistakes when teaching vocabulary (e.g., misidentifying roots and morphemes).

Competency 2.2 ensures that teachers can select words for instruction and teach them effectively. Training should prepare them to identify instructional words, with consideration of frequency distributions (Coxhead, 2000), word classification systems (Beck et al., 2013), their students’ current knowledge (Biemiller, 2010), text-criticality and language-criticality (Lawrence et al., 2025).

To meet competency 2.3, teachers must be able to teach interrelated elements of word knowledge and identify their connections. For example, this would include pedagogical content knowledge about interactions between spelling, sound, and morphology that connect in multisyllabic words (e.g., decide vs. decision) (Van Hees, & Nation, 2017).

Competency 2.4 supports teachers in identifying atypical development, such as suspected dyslexia or developmental language disorder, and following-up competency to help these students (e.g. via with multi-tiered systems of support/MTSS).

Competency 2.5 requires skills in identifying the vocabulary demands of texts (e.g., lexical complexity), both quantitatively and qualitatively (Coxhead, 2018), and selecting appropriate texts that support vocabulary fluency and growth.

Competency 2.6 proposes that teachers are prepared adequately to expand students’ vocabulary through leveraging the semantic and morphological connections amongst words and across texts and content areas (Bauer & Nation, 2020; Marzano, 2020).

Competency 3.1 addresses the need for teachers to deliver structured vocabulary instruction, such as long-term curriculum (Graves, 2016).

Competency 3.2 encourages the disposition to remain up-to-date with vocabulary research, innovate accordingly in practice, and leverage new pedagogies and technology (e.g., generative-AI).

To demonstrate competency 3.3, teachers should foster student interest in vocabulary (Scott et al., 2016), assess distal/proximal vocabulary development and provide feedback (Nation & Coxhead, 2021).

Competency 3.4 underscores the importance of cross-curricula collaborations with colleagues (Lawrence et al., 2017).

Competency 3.5 ensures teachers can differentiate instruction, for example, meeting the needs of diverse learners, multilingual students, and/or special educational needs. This could be demonstrated in a teacher training program through lesson plans with varied vocabulary outcomes for diverse students.

Competency 3.6 requires teachers to take into account the relationship between vocabulary, identity, diversity, equity and inclusion in their vocabulary instruction (Uccelli, 2023). As noted in the integrative review, this would include careful attention to the relationships between language and power around academic language (Wyse & Hacking, 2025).