Koprowski - Ten Good Games for Recycling Vocabulary

Seven steps to vocabulary learning You might expect that, after having been exposed to a word in ten, twenty, or maybe at the very most thirty, contexts, a learner will gradually piece together the word's meaning and start to use it correctly, appropriately and fluently. Classroom context Seven steps to vocabulary learning Conclusion Classroom context Of course we cannot expect a learner to acquire difficult words in the same way as a young child acquires their first language, but, perhaps as teacher we can somehow help learners to arouse their 'learning monitor' by, for example, providing rich contexts containing the target language and by giving our learners time to reflect on what the language item means. In this way teachers can use the EFL classroom to replicate the real world and nurture strategies to help students understand and produce difficult language items which often seem beyond their grasp. Seven steps to vocabulary learning Here are some practical steps that I have used to help my students. Paul Bress

Vocabulary revision activities One of the things we do for professional development in the school where I work are so-called ‘experimentation cycles’, where the team chooses a topic, we pool resources (books, resource packs and blog posts with all sorts of activities on the topic), after which everyone who is interested in the topic picks a few activities and tries them out in class. Finally, we organize a workshop to share the activities we liked. This post is a summary of one of these workshops, which was focused on Vocabulary revision activities. As I mentioned above, the activities mostly came from books and the Internet, and I’m sure you’ll see here quite a few ideas that you’ve tried too – so if you have a variation that you love, could you share it? ‘Vocabulary revision’ is a very broad term and activities could be very different in terms of what the learners need to do with the words: am I given something or do I need to retrieve something from memory? Recalling the meaning of an item Test-teach-test Tip. Tip.

Running Dictation - Games in the ESL classroom - Teaching English Running Dictation by Lynne Hand Instructions to the English teacher Running dictation is a great way to enliven a tired class. Use your own short text or the texts on my English dictation pages. The runner has to go around the room and read the sentences - commiting them to memory - they are not allowed to touch the paper, take the paper back to the group or shout the sentence across the room. The writer of the group writes down the sentence as it is dictated, if the runner forgets part of the sentence they are allowed to go back to the paper and re-read it (same rules apply). The group can then elect another runner and a writer and they have to find another sentence. Do you have an article, handout or a teaching idea/tip that you would like to share?

4 szuper nyelvtanulós játék otthonra! Így tanulja meg a gyerek könnyedén a szavakat Angol szakos tanítóként sokszor kapom a szülők részéről a kérdést, hogy miként segíthetik a gyereküket az angol nyelvben, ha ők nem vagy csak nagyon minimális szinten beszélnek angolul. De gondot okozhat a gyermek angol leckéjében való segédkezés néha akkor is, ha a szülő beszéli a nyelvet, de nem tudja, hogyan „adja át a tudását”, milyen módszerekkel, ami közel áll az iskolai tanuláshoz, mert nem szeretné például összezavarni a gyermekét. Ebben a bejegyzésben az iskolás gyerekek szüleinek szeretnék mankót adni, néhány ötletet, hogy miként segíthetik a gyerekeiket az angol nyelvben. Még a nyelvtanulásnál is számít a szülői minta Az első és legfontosabb, amit a szülő tehet, hogy jó példát mutat. Ezzel valószínűleg nem mondok újat, hiszen a sportban és az élet egyéb területein is meghatározó, hogy milyen mintát lát a gyermek a felnőttektől, a szüleitől. Elsősorban nem abból tanul, amit mondunk neki, hanem amit csinálunk, azt fogja utánozni. Tanulj játszva a gyerekkel! 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Teens and reading skills The Reading skills section on LearnEnglish Teens helps teenagers to improve their reading skills for their school studies and English exams. There are activities for a range of levels from A1 to C1. Find out more about CEF levels here: Here are some activities you can use with students before, while and after reading a text. Before readingThere are lots of activities you can do before students read a text to help enhance their comprehension, such as ones that activate the students’ schemata or background knowledge, arouse their interest in the topic or prepare them linguistically. 1. Before Ss read a text, choose four topics that relate to the text that would be useful for Ss to think about before reading. Take a large piece of paper and divide it into four triangles by drawing diagonal lines from opposite corners. Four students sit around the piece of paper and are given a time limit e.g. one minute. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 3.

Peer-Taught Phrasal Verbs | Tim's Free English Lesson Plans Image credit: teaching.berkeley.edu Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio I’m running the Barcelona Half-Marathon dressed as David Bowie to raise money for Cancer Research, sponsor me here: This is a vocabulary lesson originally designed for higher levels (C1+) but the method can be adapted for any level and any set of vocabulary. Preparation Print out the phrasal verb cards and one copy of the worksheet for each student. Lesson Plan Word doc – Peer Taught Phrasal Verbs LP phrasal verbs peer teaching CARDS Peer taught phrasal verbs worksheet Peer Teaching Put students into groups of three and give each member of each group 2 phrasal verb cards. to hazard a guess – make a guess to put sb out of their misery – kill someone who’s suffering/give sb who is guessing something the answer When everyone has finished move onto the next stage. Analysis and Processing Invite students to come to the board and write a phrasal verb they have learnt and a definition.

Questions Stop, Breathe & Think learning.blogs.nytimes Each month, Larry Ferlazzo, a teacher and edublogger, offers ideas for using recent Times articles, photographs and videos to engage English Language Learners — or any students for whom The New York Times can be challenging. This month: a picture-labeling activity to build vocabulary; a video-making challenge inspired by a Times piece about a piano; a sequencing exercise for understanding complex passages; and, finally, a “noisy, fun, and rambunctious learning game well worth the organized chaos that ensues.” Teaching With Photos Using The Picture Word Inductive Model The Picture Word Inductive Model, originally developed by Emily Calhoun can be used with E.L.L.’s. In the adaptation I use, I first choose an image that relates to the thematic unit we are studying at the time. For example, if we are learning about “home,” I might use an image from this Times slide show on children’s messy bedrooms and use this teaching sequence: Friday: They put their paragraphs together and choose a title.

Nine ways to revise English vocabulary using slips of paper What can teachers do when classroom technology stops working? Cristina Cabal, latest winner of the British Council's TeachingEnglish blog award for her post on pronunciation, suggests nine activities for revising English vocabulary using simple slips of paper. Nowadays, it seems very simple to plan a lesson that makes use of the many tools available online, especially as more and more of us have access to the Internet in our classrooms. One of the best ways to deal with this situation is to use slips of paper – a resource available to every teacher in any given situation. Using slips of paper to revise vocabulary 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Using slips of paper to practise vocabulary in writing Every day, we give students new vocabulary, and although we encourage them to revise it at home and do plenty of revision exercises in class, they still find it hard to use when they speak and write. 6. Arrange students in pairs or in threes. 7. 8. 9.