Welcome to your Yoga Vocabulary Builder!

I’m thrilled to see you here and very proud of you for choosing to improve your vocabulary knowledge so that you can communicate with your students more clearly, authentically, accurately, and inclusively! 

If you don’t know me already, my name is Annie. I’m the founder of Enga Unite, the online learning platform you’re using right now! I’m an English and yoga teacher and here to help you develop your communication skills for teaching yoga in English to people all around the world. I want you to be able to say what you truly want to say and express your thoughts and ideas with clarity and confidence. Which also means, teaching and speaking in a way that’s easily understood, yet thoughtful and compassionate, respecting everyone’s cultural background and personal conditions. 

As a yoga teacher, communication is the foundation for your student-teacher relationships. The way you speak directly affects your students. This includes your word choice and sentence structures, but also how much you speak and about what topics. You need to know about how words are used in context and how they could be perceived by your students. And that’s what you’ll learn here! 

How to use the yoga vocabulary builder…

This vocabulary builder is designed for non-native English speaking yoga teachers that want to learn the vocabulary that best matches their teaching style, personality, authentic voice and the needs of their students! 

Here you can learn a very broad selection of words in the following categories:

• Asana names in English, categorised per Asana family.
• Body parts, from general to muscles, tissues, joints, ligaments, tendons, bones, the organs and meridians.
• Language for movement, including prepositions.
• Adjectives that speak about the body, hair and skin, emotions, characteristics, personality and relationships
• Physical sensations; the words we use to describe how and what we feel.
• Ethics, including the Yamas and Niyamas
• The language for mindfulness, idiomatic phrases, expressions, and metaphors.
• Equipment, from props to objects you come across in almost every yoga setting
• The Business of Yoga which entails marketing, content, design, and services.
• Outdated cues, which are instructions that include words you no longer want to use because they’re inappropriate, not effective or not inclusive.

Most categories come with quizzes. The quizzes have flashcards and the option to play and practise the terminology. You can choose from memory games, to spelling the word, imagery tests and more. I highly recommend trying out all the options, so that you can find out which way of studying best suits you.

You’ll also find training videos in which I explain how to learn vocabulary. Specifically, how to learn words, phrases and expressions that suit your teaching style, style of yoga, and authentic voice. In these videos I also help you understand your learning style and find the learning and memorisation techniques that will be most useful for you! 

Lastly, something important: there are lots of categories and a lot of vocabulary you could learn. I can see how the amount of words you get here might feel a little overwhelming, but here are two things to remember. 

1. You have access to this library forever, there’s no need to rush through all the content. Learning vocabulary isn’t something you do in one day anyway, so trust your process, be patient, and take your time.
2. You have your own unique teaching style and maybe even a specific group of students you work with. This means that some of the vocabulary you’ll use in your classes straight away. Other words have a lower priority, because you don’t need them frequently. For example, if you teach yoga to kids, you first want to know about general body parts and physical sensations. In that case, it’s not necessary for you to put all your energy studying advanced anatomy.In other words, first focus on the language that you can directly use in your classes. This is the language your students will benefit from most! Later, when you feel confident using what you truly need, you can expand your vocabulary and focus on learning words in other categories!

If you’re unsure about where to start, I’m here to help! Simply write in the comments to tell me about your style of voice, the type of yoga and people you teach. Based on that, I can give you my recommendations. If you don’t know what your style is and want to discover your personal teaching voice, check out the ‘What’s your style of teaching voice’ quiz to find out!  

Thank you again for letting us be part of your journey! We’re super excited for you to develop your vocabulary knowledge to teach yoga in English with clarity and compassion! 

Time to start! 

Watch the training videos and start exploring the Yoga Vocabulary Builder! Throughout, remember that whenever you have questions, you can write in the comments of the lectures. And, I’d love to hear how you’re getting on!