How to Teach Vocabulary

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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

realia pictures masking drawing scales

using gestures and actions

mime gesture facial expression action

showing lexical relations

synonyms antonyms collocation prefixes and suffixes

words in context
dialogues role play drama stories songs rhymes & poems videos

guessing / predicting
Example 1 Example 2

Other techniques
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

giving directions picture dictation matching words labeling words searching words sequencing words guessing words eliminating words classifying words

Review Games
wordsearch games picture labeling crosswords Bingo dominoes puzzles charts or survey for their peers Example 1 Example 2

Socio-affectively, students can

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

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