I cannot imagine how many words there are
in English. Furthermore, everyday there is a new list which appears in the
language. Personally, I would count how many of them I know; one day I will do
it. I hope so. Ok, let’s stop beating around the
bush. How to teach vocabulary? In my humble opinion, I think we ought to teach
students how to ask for words they don’t know or how to ask for the meaning of
words they don’t understand. So, the next questions can take part in
these situations:
How do you say _____ in English? What’s the word
for____ in English? What does ____ mean?
As you can see these questions appear in
special context where the words are used. Thus, students can remember them
better and see how they (words) are used.
Other strategy to make students memorize or
remember vocabulary is playing games. Here are two examples:
Art
Gallery: This is a great activity for reviewing
vocabulary. Draw enough squares on the
board for each Student to be able to draw in.
Have the Students write their names above their squares. Teacher calls out a word and the Ss draw it
(could be simple nouns e.g. "dog, bookcase, train", verb structures
e.g. "draw a man running, eating cake, sleeping") or adjectives
("draw a big elephant, an angry lion, an expensive diamond
ring"). For each Student give a
score for his/her picture, and then move on to the next picture. The Student with the highest score at the end
is the winner.
Pictionary: Good for reviewing vocabulary.
Pick a Student and show him/her a picture or whisper a word into his/her
ear. The Student draws the picture on
the board and the first Student to guess the picture gets to draw the next
picture. This can also be played in
teams with a point system.
To sum up, these are two important strategies we can use to teach vocabulary in a classroom (with questions and games). Students will learn a lot when we use the new vocabulary in the right context. Additionally, we should use different ways to present vocabulary including pictures, sounds, and different text types with which students can identify: stories, conversations, new reports, etc.
It's a very interesting video where the guy teach us how to teach new vocabulary.
Hi Jose
ReplyDeleteI love pictionary. I use it a lot in classes
Katya
These are great ideas! I have used pictionary before in my classroom. Usually with older students though. The younger kids can't draw well enough for the others to guess usually. :)
ReplyDeleteMight I suggest a few other ideas:
Have you ever played BINGO? For review of recent vocabulary, I like to give the kids a blank sheet with a BINGO Box on it. I also give them a list of the vocabulary I want to review. They fill in the boxes with the words in whatever order they choose. Then when they are ready, I read off a definition and they use tokens (plastic chips, candy, etc.) to cover the word that means the definition I have just read. The first student with 5 in a row wins. The kids love this game.
Also, to introduce vocabulary, I like to use poetry. It helps not only with vocabulary but reading fluency and overall comprehension. I use the same poem all week, and I write it on big paper so the kids can all see it on the board. On Mondays, we read the poem multiple times in different voices altogether (loud, soft, like a robot, pinched nose, high pitch, low voice, etc.). Then I ask the students if there are any words in the poem they do not know and we highlight them. On Tuesday, we read the poem altogether twice. Then we talk about the meanings of the words we highlighted the day before using context clues from the poem and a dictionary if necessary. On Wednesdays, we again read the poem twice altogether and talk about the rhythm, voice, the stanzas, rhyming, etc. that is in the poem. Thursdays we read it twice more (every time in a new voice). We also talk about what the poem means. And lastly on Fridays, I give the students a copy of the poem, and we talk about the author. The kids enjoy this activity, and while they find it tedious the first few weeks of school to read the same poem every day, they begin to beg for poetry by the second month of school.
Hope those are a few more ideas you can add to your "teacher toolbox" as one of my college professors always said. :)
I really appreciate your comment. I think it is very rich in activities and purposes for kids to learn vocabulary and poems. Thank you Jessica. Yeah it's a great idea to start creating a Teacher Toolbox.
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