Teaching vocabulary to young learners11/14/2023 ![]() Repetition is quite natural in anecdotes and so does not seem out of place.Įliciting words from students is an effective way of activating their memories. The more times students hear a word, the more likely they are to remember it. It’s also quite simple to recycle the words within an anecdote so that students hear the same word more than once. This gives the words a context and helps students understand not only the core meaning, but also how the words might be used. ![]() Getting students to mime various actions in a particular manner is great fun and a good way of making the adverbs memorable.Īnother way of presenting vocabulary is to tell a short anecdote containing the new words. It is also relatively easy to use mime to teach adverbs of manner, i.e. run, walk, stroll, sprint, jog, wander, etc. It is relatively easy to mime words such as run and walk and even to differentiate between words that belong to the same group but have quite fundamental differences in meaning, e.g. However, these three areas of vocabulary do lend themselves to mime and anecdotes. Visuals and realia are usually limited to concrete words and are probably ineffectual when it comes to more abstract notions and even some basic areas of vocabulary such as verbs, adverbs and adjectives. Even some abstract words can often be conveyed using visuals – for example, a picture of a man and woman plus a heart could be used to convey the word love. Likewise, related words such as stool, armchair, sofa, deckchair, etc can be taught in a similar way and the distinction between each made relatively clear. For example, a word like chair (as a noun) is quite easy to teach, by pointing to a chair or by showing a picture. Concrete words (mostly nouns) can usually be conveyed through pictures or realia (real objects). One of the most effective ways of teaching vocabulary is to show students the word. As you read through the different techniques, try to think what words would be best taught using the technique and for which words the technique would probably not work very well. Different techniques are appropriate for different vocabulary items and also for different types of learner. ![]() It is important to realize that a good teacher will not rely on just one of these techniques, but will use a combination. In this section we’ll look at various techniques for presenting and, to a lesser degree, practising vocabulary. ![]() These later techniques and activities do need to be introduced (or taught) to the students, but once they have mastered them, they can be used independently of the teacher. Therefore, I am going to divide this article into two broad sections: the first looking at different techniques and activities designed to teach vocabulary, both new and old (or familiar) and techniques and activities that focus on learning vocabulary. Of course, it’s not a clear divide and many activities cover both areas, but I do think it is an important distinction to make. In the title of this article I have separated teaching and learning – why? Well, when it comes to vocabulary I think that some activities are designed for presenting and practising vocabulary, while other activities are designed to help students record and activate vocabulary. Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship. ![]()
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