How to use this Page

from Dorit Sasson, Contributing Editor for the National Writing for Children Center

Teaching vocabulary in context may initially appear challenging, but there are many ways to make it an enjoyable and lively experience especially for young learners.

Just remember, there are three principles involved in teaching and learning vocabulary in context. Students must:

Practice
Understand
Infer (go beyond the text)

Vocabulary activities, read alouds and games are all part of this vocabulary learning. As a general rule of thumb, vocabulary can be taught inductively (through some process of discovery) or deductively (example: providing a picture – “this is a _________” ) The discovery process has a general appeal to learners especially when the words have been previously introduced using a picture book or a text. Don’t introduce more than 7 new vocabulary words in a given lesson (5-7 words is ideal).

Stages of Vocabulary Practice

Vocabulary practice should be taught in a variety of fun, communicative and motivating contexts so students will feel confident using the new words. The stages of practicing vocabulary can [and should] be both oral and written.

Stage 1: Guided - teacher orientated activity.
Stage 2: Semi-guided - a clue is provided. Example: Teacher asks: What did you do last night? [S/he guides the students to give an answer with the target word]
Stage 3: Free - students are expected to produce. [Tell your neighbor what you did last night - again, hoping that students will respond using the target vocabulary words]

Fun Vocabulary Practice Techniques

Once the targeted word has been formally introduced, students can practice learning the new words. Pictures are a great way to reinforce vocabulary concepts and words. Younger kids, for example, can talk about the animals on Old McDonald’s farm in context with the other animals.

Personalize: Teacher can ask students: “Do you have a dog at home?” or, “What animal do you like the best?”
Teacher numbers each picture: students say the number of each word as it is called or show the number of fingers if the teacher wants to keep the noise level down.
Students can describe the colors of Old McDonald’s farm.
Interactive: students come and put the dog in a place the teacher says.
I’m thinking of a word: teacher describes the word and students guess the meaning.
Use imagination: for example, imagine you are in a cabin. Students have ten minutes for creating a story using as many words as possible.

Other Tips and Strategies for Practicing New Vocabulary

Be selective. Don’t use a drill or exercise just because it happens to be in the book.

Examine the vocabulary activity. Is its purpose clear? Is it useful? Does it force the students to think about the language? Can it be made more interesting?

Make sure your drills are adapted to the needs of the individual student. Make up your own exercise if the book does not have any suitable ones.

Use as much time as possible on listening and speaking. Let students work in pairs or in small groups as often as possible.

Start written work in the classroom to make sure everyone understands what they are doing. Do some exercises orally first, then let the students finish them for homework. Don’t underestimate your students. Show them that you expect them to be able to work individually or in pairs or groups.
Make the lessons as enjoyable as possible. If you enjoy your work, the students will enjoy your lessons.

Don’t make language meaningless.

The key to successful vocabulary practice is frequent exposure and repetition. So have fun while learning new words!

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Need more help and support?
Check out additional teaching tips and lesson plan help at Dorit Sasson’s blogsite, The New Teacher Resource Center, at http://www.newteacherresourcecenter.com

from Suzanne Lieurance

As a classroom teacher or home schooling parent, you want your students to be adding new words to their vocabularies all the time.

Here’s a fun way to help students take real ownership for new vocabulary words.

Create a word wall.

A word wall is simply a wall in the classroom - or the hallway - that is devoted to words and their definitions.

Any student can add to the word wall at any time.

As the teacher, you will need to have the following items available to your students at all times:

* Blank sentence strips or thick pieces of paper or tagboard

* Colorful Markers

* Masking tape, tacks, etc. for adhering the sentence strips to the word wall

* Dictionaries

Here’s how the word wall works:

Any time a student is reading and comes across a word he is not familiar with, he uses the dictionary to look up the meaning of the word. He then writes the word and its definition, along with his signature, on the sentence strip, then tacks the sentence strip to the word wall.

At a designated time during the day, students remove their sentence strips from the wall and they take turns presenting their new words and the definitions to the class. They can tell what they were reading when they came across this word and how the definition helped them figure out what that particular reading passage was all about. After the new words of the day have been discussed, have students tack them back up on the word wall. Encourage them to start using each others’ words during the day, whenever possible.

The word wall will grow and grow, of course. And, you’ll be surprised at how students will become POSSESSIVE - or take ownership - for their own words.

During other daily activities in the classroom, if someone uses a word in conversation that another student has tacked up to the word wall, you’ll probably hear that student say, “Hey, you just used MY word.”

And that’s what you want - students using new words, being aware that they use new words, and feeling a sense of pride and ownership in their expanded vocabularies!

Try it!