{"id":6119,"date":"2011-02-17T09:11:20","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T09:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltchat.org\/wordpress\/?p=6119"},"modified":"2011-02-17T09:11:20","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T09:11:20","slug":"how-can-we-activate-vocabulary-and-get-our-students-to-use-it-eltchat-summary-17022011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/2011\/02\/17\/how-can-we-activate-vocabulary-and-get-our-students-to-use-it-eltchat-summary-17022011\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can We Activate Vocabulary and Get Our Students to Use It? \u2013 #ELTChat Summary 17\/02\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;\" title=\"mp-words-full-res\" src=\"http:\/\/vickyloras.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/02\/mp-words-full-res.jpg?w=150&amp;h=94\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Words, words, words! (Image taken from http:\/\/www.good.is)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Today\u2019s\u00a0<strong>ELTChat<\/strong>\u00a0session at noon was all about\u00a0<strong>vocabulary\u00a0<\/strong>and how to\u00a0<strong>activate\u00a0<\/strong>it with students, in order for them to assimilate it and make use of it. Several interesting ideas circulated the Twitterstream, as always!<\/p>\n<h2>So how do we activate vocabulary and get our students to use it?<\/h2>\n<p>The ideas\u00a0move among\u00a0Young Learners and Older or Adult Learners, but you will find that sometimes an idea can very well cross over a category!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The idea of\u00a0<strong>using songs\u00a0<\/strong>is a plus in assimilating vocabulary. For Young Learners they can be songs with repetition in them, such as Old MacDonald,The Colours Song and so on. TPR with songs such as finger chants\u00a0is so effective with children, as is attaching new vocabulary with gestures. With older students you can use songs with fill-in-the-gaps, or sing a song with a particular word and stop at that word for them to recognise it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Repetition\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<strong>recycling\u00a0<\/strong>of the vocabulary is necessary. \u00a0The vocabulary found in coursebooks once, needs to be interacted with \u2013 more than once.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Connecting\u00a0<\/strong>the words or collocations to something meaningful, something that can help them retain, is the key. Establishing a meaningful and relevant context is paramount.<\/li>\n<li>Try to connect the vocabulary students learn to their\u00a0<strong>immediate needs<\/strong>, if possible.<\/li>\n<li>When they do use a word or collocation spontaneously, give them\u00a0<strong>praise<\/strong>and write it on the board. The\u00a0<strong>visual\u00a0<\/strong>effect helps as well.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Passing a box\u00a0<\/strong>with words can help \u2013 each student picks a word, describes it to the rest of the class and has them guess which word it is. This is a very effective activity, in particular when you are covering previously taught vocabulary. Guessing can be a very crucial first ingredient in vocabulary acquisition.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Games\u00a0<\/strong>such as Boggle can help students form words and remember them. In addition teachers can use Taboo, Pictionary or miming.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Activities\u00a0<\/strong>such as wordsearches, gap-fills, wordsnakes and crosswords are great ideas in class.<\/li>\n<li>The use of\u00a0<strong>post-it notes<\/strong>\u00a0helps, putting the words on them and placing them all over the classroom. Incidental vocabulary can also be written on notes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Visual representation\u00a0<\/strong>of vocabulary is helpful, especially with low-level learners. Teachers can use picture vocabulary quizzes, rebus exercises and so on. For younger students, creating their own picture dictionary of new words assists in their learning.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Flashcards\u00a0<\/strong>are essential to helping them learn vocabulary and use it. A very nice game with young learners is to place flashcards in a pile, for the teacher to blow a whistle, yell out the word and the children have to find the card that represents the word.<\/li>\n<li>In the same context of\u00a0<strong>visuals<\/strong>, students can bring to class pictures of things they would like to learn and that way attach the word to the image. All these visual representations can prove effective with dyslexic students as well.<\/li>\n<li>Have\u00a0a\u00a0<strong>vocabulary bank\u00a0<\/strong>for your students.\u00a0 From this bank, you can assign them a determined number of words which they have to use in any activity.<\/li>\n<li>The use of\u00a0<strong>spider diagrams\u00a0<\/strong>helps students in learning lexical sets and then translation can follow.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Extending vocabulary\u00a0<\/strong>is also useful. Collocations, antonyms, concordances give them more time to study the word.<\/li>\n<li>Some students may find keeping a\u00a0<strong>vocabulary journal\u00a0<\/strong>effective. They write there all the new words as they learn and repeat them frequently.<\/li>\n<li>The use of a\u00a0<strong>dictionary<\/strong>, picture or word kind, can help at specific moments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Do learners choose the words to learn, or do teachers choose them for them?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Perhaps a combination of both is useful. Students, especially if they are oldercan see where they need more help and teachers\u00a0can orientate them to the vocabulary the students need.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Online Resources:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Balderdash\">http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Balderdash<\/a>\u00a0A vocabulary game \u2013 you can even make your own version!<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Wordwise \u2013 an activity for vocabulary building and application.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0An online list \/ dictionary\u00a0from Oxford University Press of the top 3,000 important and useful words to teach.<\/li>\n<li>Gapfillers provide a word of the day (by e-mail or sms)<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>Madlibs \u2013 it works with all levels.<\/li>\n<li>Visuals to help understand expressions, concepts, idioms.<\/li>\n<li>andMore vocabulary examples.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/f19Vfh\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/f19Vfh<\/a>\u00a0Information on concept mapping.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wordle.net\/\">http:\/\/www.wordle.net<\/a>\u00a0Wordle \u2013 words, words, words!<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/h6DlOh\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/h6DlOh<\/a>\u00a0Advice from Carol Read about vocabulary with Young Learners.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/englishstorytime.pbworks.com\/\">http:\/\/englishstorytime.pbworks.com<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ShellTerrell\">Shelly Terrell\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>wiki for Young Learners with a lot of resources.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/FuQOwdfI2So\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/FuQOwdfI2So<\/a>\u00a0A video of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/sandymillin\">Sandy Millin\u00a0<\/a>and her class, playing vocabulary box games.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/hiyZrm\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/hiyZrm<\/a>\u00a0Activities on Phrasal Verbs by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/janetbianchini\">Janet Bianchini<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is a multitude of ideas on helping activate vocabulary in class \u2013 have a great time with words!<\/p>\n<h2>About the Author<\/h2>\n<div style=\"width: 99px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  \" src=\"http:\/\/vickyloras.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/11\/602261_4587621141090_73017396_n.jpg?w=558\" alt=\"\" width=\"89\" height=\"94\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vicky Loras<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This summary was contributed by Vicky Loras &#8211; @vickyloras on Twitter &#8211; and first appeared on her <a href=\"http:\/\/vickyloras.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blog<\/a>. Vicky is an ELT teacher born in Canada, of Greek parents now living and working in Switzerland where she runs an ELT centre. You can read more about her here and follow her on Twitter<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s\u00a0ELTChat\u00a0session at noon was all about\u00a0vocabulary\u00a0and how to\u00a0activate\u00a0it with students, in order for them to assimilate it and make use of it. Several interesting ideas circulated the Twitterstream, as always! So how do we activate vocabulary and get our students to use it? The ideas\u00a0move among\u00a0Young Learners and Older or Adult Learners, but you will&hellip; <br \/> <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/2011\/02\/17\/how-can-we-activate-vocabulary-and-get-our-students-to-use-it-eltchat-summary-17022011\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}