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Necessary parts of teaching English as a foreign language include teaching vocabulary, grammatical structures, and language functions. Choosing what vocabulary to teach will depend on the appropriate level of the students, the lesson tasks, teachability, and frequency and coverage (which is how often the students may come across the vocabulary in different common situations). In order to teach vocabulary in well-rounded, understandable way certain elements of the vocabulary must be taught with it. They are as follows: the meaning of the word, which can be described through definitions or visual aids. The use of the word, how and when the word is used. For example, "drive" is a verb so it always needs to be done by someone and is usually associated with cars. Word grammar, where the word belongs grammatically, for example verbs come after the subject and before the direct object in a sentence. Interaction, how the word interacts with and affects other words. For example different prepositions can imply different ideas in a sentence; "He threw the ball to me" and "He threw the ball at me", the latter may seems more aggressive. Spelling, how the word is written. This is important especially for words that may sound the same but are written differently and have different meanings, such as "reign" and "rain"; one having to do with kings and queens, the other having to do with the weather. Pronunciation, how the word is spoken. For example some words are not pronounced exactly how they are spelled, therefore it is important to differentiate pronunciations for words like cough and borough.
Introducing grammatical structures comes with similar elements which must be taught. Like vocabulary the meaning and use of grammatical structures must be taught, as well as forms and patterns. It can be helpful to point out the differences in written and spoken forms of language since written forms tend to be more formal in certain contexts.
Grammatical structures and vocabulary are building blocks for language functions. Language functions are what we use language for, like inviting or rejecting, agreeing or disagreeing and the like. Teaching language functions also involves teaching what uses are appropriate to what scenarios. For example, when to be formal/informal, degree of politeness, and expressing ideas as suggestions or new points to the conversation.
