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Abstract
The Vocabulary Teachers’ Competencies (VTC) framework fills a gap by specifying 18 competencies across knowledge of vocabulary research and resources, vocabulary analysis and instructional skills, and professional and socio-cultural capabilities. It also carries a second, quieter representation, a Möbius strip signaling continuity, interdependence and return. This conceptual article takes that second representation seriously. It identifies five frictions teacher educators meet when using the framework, uneven grain size, unexplained overlap, competencies that depend on institutional opportunity rather than individual capability, a wide intended population, and the late placement of equity. It then proposes a complementary process architecture: a recursive continuum of vocabulary-teaching enactment, with four overlapping functional zones (lexical-research foundations; pedagogical reasoning and selection; diagnostic and adaptive design; instructional enactment and professional renewal), a cross-cutting socio-cultural orientation, and feedback returning from teaching to judgement and knowledge. All 18 competencies are mapped onto this architecture, and each is sharpened for use. The model does not replace the VTC’s content specification. It explains how the competencies work together, and why teacher education should teach lexical knowledge alongside decisions about learners, texts and evidence rather than before them.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Mark Feng Teng, Wei Lun Wong (Author)