Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Items to 4th Graders

Summary:
This article presents techniques used in the classroom to introduce new vocabulary items
to the 4th –grade students. The activities are divided according to the four skills –
listening, writing, reading and speaking - but we are not suggesting that any of them
should be taught or learned in isolation. This division is simply a convenient and
systematic way of presenting the teaching methods in this paper.

Key words: vocabulary, skills, techniques.

I will give in this article several examples of activities that can be used in the 4 th grade when
teaching clothes. For introducing the new items or for revising them it is a good idea to ask
students to cut a page of a newspaper in the shape of a hat, gloves, trousers etc. Then, using a
washing line and clothes pegs, the teacher asks students to hang their projects on the washing
line. The students repeat the names of the clothes after the teacher, in chorus, then
individually. After introducing the clothes related vocabulary the teacher can ask students to
close their eyes, while he/she hides some of the clothes. A few seconds later, s/he asks them to
open their eyes and name the missing clothes.
This warm-up activity always has a great impact on my students as they seem to have a lot of
fun and, at the same time, they produce and practice the vocabulary I am interested in an
enjoyable context.

Teaching the 4th graders

Not many things differ from the 3rd grade but now students are more aware of language
structures (e.g. what a sentence is, that it should have a subject and a verb, word order in
simple sentences, make the connection between verb and person, etc) and this enables them to
make more complex sentences and therefore their vocabulary needs increase. That is why I
usually build on the previous vocabulary and teach new items which suit the level and the
necessities of the class.

Vocabulary
-the 3rd grade-revision
-blouse -trousers
-skirt -cap
-socks -shorts
-shoes -boots
-shirt -scarf
-jacket
and new words:
-gloves
-T-shirt -a pair of
-jeans skirt -swimsuit
-fashion designer -jumper
-to design -stocking
-clothes -coat

Speaking
This exercise is a good opportunity to revise vocabulary and introduce, if only visually, the
new words. Students look at the line of characters in their books. Ask them to name them. Ask
questions about their clothes, e.g. Who has a pink skirt? Sue. Who has a green dress? Andy’s
Grandma.

Speaking-Reading

Hold up your book and point to the shirt. Ask What’s this? Students find in the picture above
and read the word: Shirt. It’s a shirt. Repeat with the other items and deal with the plural
items in the same way: What are these? Shoes. They’re shoes. Special attention is given here
to grammar topics, such as plurals of nouns (trousers, socks, shoes, shorts, glasses) and
demonstrative pronouns (this/these). The concord between subject and predicate is often a
problem which persists even for more advanced graders so it is useful to start drawing their
attention to this matter even from this age.

Reading
Students read the descriptions of the characters and colour the pictures accordingly. Ask them
to read the sentences aloud first. This exercise is always enjoyed by all the students as they
simply adore using colour pencils and practice their artistic abilities. It is also suitable for
weaker or less confidents students as they do not have to produce language on their own but
still they can learn about clothes and colours just by doing something practical related to
them.

Writing

Look at the picture. Use the words in the box to describe Sarah.
This exercise also provides the opportunity to practice reading skills as students can read what
they have written.

shoes T-shirt jeans socks

Sarah is very pretty.
She is wearing a blue………… , a
………….skirt,white……………and
black …………… .
I like her, she’s friendly.

Teacher asks students to work individually and match the two parts of the words and write
them in their notebooks and then s/he checks them by asking different students to go to the
blackboard and write them down so that everybody in the class can have the correct answers.
Which of the clothes in the picture do you need to put on when you go to play with snow?
Then s/he asks students to write sentences in which to mention which clothes they need when
they go to play in the snow. This can be done individually or in pairs to facilitate
communication and speaking practice but, again, the teacher should monitor this very closely,
as students tend to use their mother tongue instead of English.

Listening

Teacher divides students into groups and asks them to listen to the conversation and then
answer the questions.

Listen and answer the questions:

What is Maria’s mom?
What does she do?

Teacher checks answers focusing on possible unknown words such as fashion designer and to
design.

When testing vocabulary acquisition I applied the following tests

the 4th grade
TEST

What do you want to receive at Christmas? Use these clothes to write five sentences.

Example: I hope Santa will bring me a shirt.

1) ________________________________
2) ________________________________
3) ________________________________
4) ________________________________
5) ________________________________

and the results below were obtained:

Out of 26 students a percentage of 88.89 did pretty well proving that they acquired the
necessary vocabulary items while the rest of 11.11% did not manage to pass. These four
students require special attention as they are students with special needs and their progress at
English is very slow and they usually work separately on much easier tasks.
Bibliography:

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Prof. Panuta Romelia