Vocab Ideas

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Home : 2003 : November : 17

Vocab Ideas
By Lina

I just attended a conference on vocab, and they said NOT to have them look up the words for meaning. (You can still look them up as a skill.) We were told to introduce words and have students take part in "meaningful interactions."
Some of these were:
1. Rate the word -- 1 finger if you know the word and can use it, 2 fingers if you have heard of the word but aren't sure what it means, 3 fingers if you have never heard of the word.
2. Word Associations for each word
3. Ask students to tell about personal experiences they have had concerning the word (and use the word as many times as you can when

talking about this to give the students lots of practice hearing the word used in everyday language.

4. List synonyms and antonyms for each word, add prefixes and suffixes if possible.

5. In my class I do vocab skits. In small groups they have to prepare a little skit demonstrating the meaning of a word without actually saying the word. Then they perform the skits and the rest of the class tries to figure out the word.

6. I just tried this today: instead of looking up the words in the glossary, each student got a set of cards with holes in them. On each card they wrote a word that we introduced by rating and discussing (as mentioned above.) Tomorrow, after more discussion, they will add an illustration that can help them remember the meaning on the front of the card. The next day they will add a meaning of each word, written in their own words (instead of from a glossary.)on the back of the card. And, finally, they will use the word in a sentence on the back of the card. The cards are kept on a large binder ring.

Ok, this was much longer than I intended! I am sure there are many typos in here, but I am too tired to fix them! Sorry! Hope this helps a little.