How to Teach Vocabulary
(click to get the pdf file)
Alice Chiu
0936-825423
English Teacher
Main menu
• Teaching Tips:
– Step One: presenting new words
– Step Two: helping students
remember new words
– Step Three: making sure
students make the new words
their own
• Online resources
Using visual images
Other techniques
Using gestures
and actions
Step One:
presenting new words
Words in context
Guessing/predicting
Showing lexicial relations
using visual images
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realia
pictures
masking
drawing
scales
using gestures and actions
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mime
gesture
facial expression
action
showing lexical relations
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synonyms
antonyms
collocation
prefixes and suffixes
words in context
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dialogues
role play
drama
stories
songs
rhymes & poems
videos
guessing / predicting
• Example 1
• Example 2
Other techniques
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Using a dictionary
Explaining
Describing
Defining the context
Translating
Using memorizing games & activities
Step Two:
helping students
remember new words
Learning with friends
Using review games
usinge memorizing
games and activities
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giving directions
picture dictation
matching words
labeling words
searching words
sequencing words
guessing words
eliminating words
classifying words
Review Games
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wordsearch games
picture labeling
crosswords
Bingo
dominoes
puzzles
charts or survey for their peers
Example 1
Example 2
Socio-affectively, students can
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practice words with a classmate or in a group
teach a word to a member of the family or peer
make and play word game with friends
peer test
Vocabulary record system
Step Three:
making sure students
make the new words their own
Personalizing the new words
Vocabulary record system-1
• Vocabulary books
– in an alphabetical order
– by topic or situation
– by grammatical groups
– by color sets
– by story features
Vocabulary record system -2
• personal dictionary (word notebooks)
– marking word stress
– adding pictures
– putting an L1 translation
– putting the word into context
– adding a synonym
– mapping a word family
– Example
personalize the new words
• Keeping a learning log (blogs)
• Keeping a diary (blogs)
• Creative writing by using newlylearned words or phrases
• Looking for recently learned words in
storybooks, the Internet, the
newspapers, etc., and noticing how
they are used.
Meta-cognitively,
learners learn how to
• self-test
• look for patterns in words
• plan and organize a vocabulary record
keeping system
• Learn words in their preferred ways
• reflect on learning and reviewing
regularly
• monitor vocabulary learning
Online Resources
• Teaching Vocabulary:
Two Dozen Tips and Techniques
• English Vocabulary Word Lists
with Games, Puzzles and Quizzes
• LearnEnglishKids
• An authoring tool: HOT POTATO
– Example 1
– Example 2
• A Collocation Tool: iWiLL
End of this session