Building Subject Vocabulary in Marketing Basics (Ireland, Junior Cycle)

Marketing is a topic students think they already speak the language of — until you ask them the difference between a market and marketing, or what the "place" in the marketing mix actually means. Business Studies in Junior Cycle carries a genuine load of subject-specific vocabulary, and in a First-to-Third-Year classroom the students who master that terminology are the ones who can answer with precision in their assessments. This piece is about the words: how to choose them, display them and drill them so they stick.

Decide which terms carry the weight

Not every word deserves a place on the wall. For marketing basics, prioritise the terminology students must deploy accurately: market research, segmentation, target market, the marketing mix, product, price, place, promotion, brand, USP. A structured unit such as Marketing Basics and the Marketing Mix introduces these in a logical sequence rather than as an undifferentiated glossary, which matters when you are mapping vocabulary to the NCCA learning outcomes for Business Studies.

A word wall that does real work

Make the display a working tool, organised so students can build a sentence from it, not just read it:

• Core concepts: market, marketing, marketing mix, brand.
• The four Ps: product, price, place, promotion — each with a one-line definition.
• Action verbs: segment, target, position, differentiate, promote.
• Sentence stems: "The business targets ___ by using ___ in its marketing mix."

Refer to it constantly. When a student says "they advertise it", push them to upgrade with the wall — "they promote it through social media to reach their target market" — and the vocabulary becomes usable rather than decorative.

Vocabulary routines that build retention

Words stick through spaced retrieval, so open each lesson with a two-minute drill: define a term, use it in a sentence about a real Irish business, or spot the odd word out. Vocabulary compounds across the Business course — the terminology of documents and transactions in Accounting Basics – Journal Entries reinforces the habit of precise, defined language, so a routine you build in marketing pays off elsewhere. Rotate a "word of the day" that students must use correctly at least once before the bell.

Literacy supports for every learner

Some students meet this terminology while still developing academic English, so scaffold access. Provide bilingual or visual glossaries, dual-coding cards that pair each term with an icon, and cloze paragraphs that let weaker readers produce accurate sentences. The applied vocabulary of the workplace in Application Training – Cover Letter, CV, Interview connects marketing language to how students present themselves, making the words feel purposeful rather than abstract — a strong hook for reluctant learners.

Check the words have landed

Assess vocabulary directly and often. A quick "back-to-back" game — one student describes a term without naming it, the partner guesses — reveals depth of understanding, while a fortnightly upgrade task asks students to replace three vague words in a paragraph with precise terms. Keep a running list of words that keep slipping and re-teach them. Because this terminology feeds directly into the Classroom-Based Assessments and the JCPA, the payoff for steady vocabulary work is students who can write about business with genuine precision.

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