Vocabulary

agenda Actives and games for teaching vocabulary

I know these words already You’re in the middle of teaching some ‘new’ words in a lexis lesson when one of your students politely interrupts and says that he knows all these words already. What do you think the student means by ‘knowing a word’?

Some of the things you need to know How it’s spelled; the number of syllabus; which syllabus is stressed; what part of speech it is; the primarily and secondary meanings; connotation; appropriacy for certain social contexts; collocations; synonyms; antonyms; affixes that can be added to it; lexical set it belongs to; mnemonics

Eliciting vocabulary Read this advice for eliciting vocabulary. Which points are helpful? a.Try to trick the learners to ensure that they really know the words b.Plan how you will elicit the words before the lesson. c.Keep eliciting as simple and quick as possible d.Make sure you elicit everything; never give in and just tell the learners. e.If the learners don’t get the word quickly, try giving them the first sound of the word.

Checking understanding: techniques Work in pairs. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the following techniques for checking that learners have understood the new words. a.Translation b.Question (do you understand? Ok? Does anyone have any questions?) c.Put the word(s) in a sentence d.Concept checking questions

Checking understanding: Exercise Read these questions for checking the understanding of handbag. Which ones aren’t useful. a.What color is the handbag? b.Do you put big things or small things in a handbag? c.Do men and women use them, generally? d.Do you like this handbag? e.Would a handbag be used everyday, or just when you are travelling?

Practice Think of words that are likely occur in your teaching practice over the next few days. Plan how you will check understanding

Board Rush Write the simple past tense form of verbs on the board. Create a starting line on the floor. Get ss in two lines facing the board. Call out a present simple verb, the ss in front must then reach for the corresponding past simple form. Keep track of the score.

The hot seat Two teams, two chairs back to the board. Two ss sit down, T writes a word on the board. Groups must help ss in hot seat guess what the word is by giving clues. Keep track of points.

Body Modeling Make groups of 3 or 4 students, more if needed. Assign one target word to each group, who must them model the word with their bodies

Pelmanism Prepare pieces of paper, one set for 2 or 3 students. One half of the papers have words, the other half have definitions. Match. Alternatively, organize the parts of a text (lyrics to a song, biography, instructions for a machine) in the correct order.

Songs with themes Listen to the lyrics of this song talking about the theme of the unit you are teaching, say feelings, or jobs. Prepare a worksheet of the song lyrics but leave out all the words related to the theme. Students listen to fill out the missing theme words

Find the differences Students Look at two pictures that are similar but with a number of differences. What differences do you notice?

Maps or charts Look at the following map. Label the names of the countries in the white boxes, the names of the capitals in the blue boxes. What is the title of this map?

Picture Prompts Look at the following people. They have all been or still are working at Sheraton. In groups, guess their jobs and how do you know.

Film posters Look at this film poster: What words come to your mind? 17

Ideas for presenting and practicing vocabulary Pre text activity – Grouping words – Text activity Customized the text – Identify the object Games – Pictionary – Password – Circle game – Underling all the adjectives.. – Noughts and crosses – Bingo

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION! ALL THE BEST