What and Why?
Vocabulary is possibly the single most important area in language learning. With a large vocabulary, a person can communicate effectively even though he/she may be very weak in grammatical knowledge. In CES, vocabulary development is thus emphasised. This is achieved through various vocabulary related exercises, the Language Records and the suggestions for making vocabulary exercises in the ideas list in the Student's Book and the 'Help Yourself' unit and Picture Dictionary in the workbook. It can be expected, however, that the students' passive knowledge of vocabulary (their understanding) will always be greater than their active abilities (what they are able to produce). The same is likely to be true in the mother tongue.
Practical ideas
- Writing vocabulary puzzles for the Exercise Box, for the Parcel of English or their partner (see ideas list) also gives students time to absorb new words
- Encourage students to compare new words with translations in the mother tongue.
- Encourage students to guess new words in texts.
- Show the students how they can use a dictionary. This will help them build up their vocabulary outside of class time.
- You could encourage the students to keep a vocabulary notebook in which they note down words/phrases new to them and their meaning in their language.
- Students can be put into small groups to test each other on vocabulary or to devise a vocabulary test for the class.
- For each theme, the students could gradually construct a large vocabulary puzzle. Decide in advance with the students what kind you will make ( e.g.: find the words, or one long word acting as the basis for all the words, a traditional crossword puzzle, a circular puzzle in which the last letter of one word is the first letter of the next etc.) and put the plan on the wall. During the two or three weeks of the theme each student puts a a clue on the puzzle. At the end of the theme, students write the clues and the blank puzzle in their books and do the puzzle together.
- 'I spy' is a lively vocabulary game which younger students like playing. (One student says 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'w' '. The object must be in the room. Students guess. The one to get it right has the next turn)
Researching the Classroom
- Most research suggests that it is far easier to learn vocabulary in 'chunks' of meaning than as isolated words. This is one of the main reasons why CES is designed around themes. This give a context with which the students can associate language and thus makes it more memorable. You can see the effect of context, meaning and association with a few simple experiments with one of your classes.
- Give your students a list of 20 random words to learn and, at the same time, a short passage about something interesting. Test their ability to recall it in writing. Ask them to write down anything they remember from the list and anything from the passage (for the purposes of this experiment, ignore spelling mistakes). One week and two weeks later, test the students on both things again. Which do they remember most? How much is lost from the list and from the passage?
- Try a similar experiment but, this time, actively involve the students with the language in some way in order to build up associations with the language. For example, you could identify each word on the list with a part of the room (ask the students to imagine that the word 'street' is in the corner of the room, 'traffic' is near the window, 'airport' is near the door and so on.). A week later, point to each part of the room and see if they can recall the word.
- You can try a similar experiment with remembering 'chunks' of text. Ask the students to act it out, perhaps in pairs as a dialogue. Or perhaps they could sing it or associate physical movement with each sentence.
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