Pedagogy First. Technology Second.

Pre-Train the Vocabulary

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Pre-Train the Vocabulary

Mayer’s pre-training: teach key terms before the main explanation. A vocabulary slide or pre-lesson video builds familiarity first. Learners who know the words can focus on the ideas.

Suggested technology vocabulary slide; pre-lesson video · Informed by Mayer

Find this under Explain difficult ideas · Reduce unnecessary cognitive demand · Support access and participation · Inclusive practice: working memory and cognitive demand · Inclusive practice: language and explanation

Part of Multimedia & Dual Coding in 05 Explanations & Modelling, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.

Why you might use it

The problem it may help with

An explanation delivered in unfamiliar terms is two lessons compressed into one, and working memory pays for both at once. Mayer's pre-training principle separates them: teach the key terms first, then the ideas.

Learners who already know the words can give the explanation their full attention, as the card puts it: they can focus on the ideas.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

Before a lesson on electrical circuits, pupils meet current, voltage and resistance on a vocabulary slide, or in a short pre-lesson video, with a picture for each. When the main explanation uses the terms, they label something half-known rather than arriving as new noise.

Try it

A way to begin

List the terms your next explanation cannot be given without, and teach the unfamiliar ones before it starts rather than pausing to define them mid-flow.

What to notice

Reading what happens

  • Whether questions during the explanation are about the words or about the ideas.
  • Whether the pre-trained terms show up in pupils' own talk and writing.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

  • How many terms need pre-training, and which, is a judgement about this class; the teacher knows who is meeting each word for the first time.
  • Pre-training pairs naturally with connecting to prior knowledge: one prepares the words, the other the ideas they will attach to.

Inclusive practice

The lens this connects with

Through the inclusive practice lens, this is one of the approaches that may reduce barriers around:

Technology second

Where technology fits

A vocabulary slide or a short pre-lesson video, made with the approved tools in your setting, puts the terms in front of pupils before the explanation needs them.

Drafting a tight vocabulary list with pupil-friendly definitions is a job AI handles well, through the approved tool in your setting:

A prompt to start from, shaped by the STAIR approach (Specific, Tell, Actionable, Iterate, Role)
Act as a secondary science teacher. From the topic outline below, identify the six terms Year 8 pupils must know before an explanation of the topic, and write a one-sentence pupil-friendly definition for each.

Keep definitions concrete and free of other technical terms. Present as a plain list, term then definition, nothing else.

[paste your topic outline here]

You know which terms your class already holds; cut and swap until the list is genuinely the six that unlock the explanation. Iteration is essential, and the definitions must match how you'll use the terms in the room.

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

Pre-training is one of Mayer's multimedia principles, and its logic is pure cognitive load theory: reduce what is novel at the moment of explanation. The card’s attribution stands as published: Mayer.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Explanations & Modelling.

Keep exploring

Where next?

Back to this strategy in 05 Explanations & Modelling, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.

Want to take this further?

Support is available

Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.

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