After reading Chapters 3 & 4, please tell us which sources of words you are using in your classrooms right now. Are there any sources you wish you were using or would like to start using?
I will talk about my classes with students of Tourism. What I usually start with is a discussion on the topic which is to be dealt in class. I never do pre-teaching of vocabulary by using exercises, as I think that a discussion involving all students and prompting them to retrieve vocabulary from the intended specific lexical field seems strategically better. This is because it means putting words in context, as opposed to dealing with other aspects of lexical competence. Afterwards, I continue with work on authentic texts which I find on internet, magazines, so on. This involves reading the text for understanding and then discussing it. I try to avoid translating when dealing with texts, even though my students always ask me to involve more translation in class, as they believe this will help them much more than what I usually do, which is giving English definitions only to some unfamiliar words which students come across to in the text. After discussing the text I give them some exercises from vocabulary books. I give them some time to do the exercises and then we read and compare the answers. Finally, I involve students in some follow-up speaking or writing activities. This helps them rehearse the lexical chunks (words and phrases) covered during that class. All in all, it is safe to say that I try to prompt a lot of discussions in class, I ask a lot of questions, tell a lot of personal anecdotes and encourage students to tell me some of theirs. What I would like to incorporate in my classes is corpus data. This could be done, if there were computers in the classroom, and some activities might involve in class search of concordances and related follow-ups. What I would also like to do, but what sometimes seems unachievable, is to make learners do some more extensive reading of authentic texts outside of class. I also encourage students to use monolingual dictionaries specialized in the lexical fields of tourism, catering and hospitality; however, these are things that are to be done outside of class, which means that I cannot really make them do it.
At the moment I am not teaching but I can reflect on how I used to teach vocabulary. In my 18 year experience as a teacher I worked with different students and from different course books. My groups were from 4 year old children through teenagers, students, adults, marginal groups like drug addicts, handicapped people, to 60 year old people studying English just because I told them that learning a language was a good prevention of sclerosis (which is actually true according to several American scientists). All these groups had different levels of motivation, different learning techniques, and different interests. Some of them were not motivated at all. Very young learners loved picture cards, cartoon presentations (like Pingu and Learning with Gu course sets), oral gap filling, songs with target vocabulary gaps and memory games. Primary school students liked learning thematically linked words especially with topics of their interest (music, fashion, and movie stars), association games and in-pair revision of vocabulary. Older teenagers wanted to be actively involved in vocabulary learning. They preferred text-based tasks like matching definitions with words used in a text (follow up tasks), discussions about the topic before the introduction of the new vocabulary, thesaurus dictionaries, word formation activities and I am sure that they would have loved Corpus Database exploration. Adults preferred learning lists of words, pre-teaching of vocabulary, dictionaries (especially bilingual ones, but with my persistent persuasion after a period of time they would see the advantages of the monolingual and collocational ones). Reading simplified books (according to their level of proficiency) was their favorite vocabulary learning activity for homework. Word sources used in the classroom should also differ in accordance with the proficiency level of students. Each course book treats vocabulary in one or two specific ways and the activities introduced are usually the same. That is why teachers should be familiar with other sources of words in order to make vocabulary learning more interesting and more challenging for students.
I do not have a teaching experience so far, but during these studies and the communication with my colleagues here, I have built my opinion about how vocabulary should be taught. First of all, I think that teachers should be trained well to be able to use all sources of teaching and learning new words. Teachers should present these sources to their students to help them find which one/ones is/are the most appropriate for them, depending on their age, capacity, level of proficiency, interests and personality. Gap filling, in my opinion, is one of the best ways of learning vocabulary as it enables students to practice the context in which words are used and also pay attention to the written form of the word (phrase, chunk...). Modern learners, especially those with intermediate and advanced proficiency level, will definitely prefer Corpus data sources, as they offer authentic examples of vocabulary usage.
Most of the new words are learned from the context. For example, for elementary learners words can be easily taught and learned by demonstrating them with pictures or illustrating them. Teachers should not focus only in one source of teaching the new words, but they should try to use all of them even though might not be easy for them, because perhaps do not meet the teacher’s style of teaching. Moreover, if the strategy that they are using is not effective then they should use another one to see whether the learners improve their learning and to help them learn the new words. Also, the sources of words depend on the learners’ age and proficiency. I don’t have a teaching experience but if I were teaching I would like to use the vocabulary in a discussion, because this is one way that the learners can remember or learn the new words. A gap-fill exercise is a very useful way of learning the new words, and can introduce vocabulary in various ways and the learners meet the vocabulary in different contexts.
I will talk about the students that im teaching at the moment they are third year high school students intermedita and the way that my studnets lear new words is from the textes that they read and if they have some unknown words im trying to help them to get the context of that word, but sometimes i should translated in their native language so they can better understand it. Some words studnets may undertsant from the context of the sentence. I would like to start to use dictioanries in the classroom but studnets are careless and they wont take dictionaries to classes or eve encourage them to use it at home, because through using them students can learn more words and rich their vocabulary. The best dictionaries to use is the monolingual one only english so u can gess form the description of the wrod that is given in what does the word means. The best way to learn and remeber the words is using them more so we wont forget them easily, for example when we learn a new word we can write a sentence in that way the studnet will rember better the word and he will have it in mind and when he will need that word he'll remember the sentecen and he will use it, this is my opinion i think this way will work better.
I am a teacher in a primary school, teaching students from the first until the eighth grade. Since I teach different level of students, I have had the opportunity to use different ways of teaching vocabulary. The way how vocabulary words are taught depends a lot on the students’ level, their needs and their desires. Young learners prefer learning and repeating new words through games. They enjoy playing games, and meantime repeat the words they have learned. Another way how the very young learners learn new words is by drawing things on their notebook. They love drawing and coloring things, and this gives them the opportunity to learn things they have drawn in the target language. Picture cards and video presentations are also considered to be very important, because the students have the opportunity to see things concretely and try to memorize them better. The fifth and the sixth grade students are more interested in learning words which are related to everyday life situations and things which are in accordance to their age. They love learning words related to music, films, houses and sport. These students require a more direct explanation of the words, often using their native language. The seventh and the eighth grade students enjoy learning new words by filling the gaps, because this seems to be more useful and more interesting for them. This method helps them understand the meaning from the context and does not require an immediate translation in native language. They make use of dictionaries, often bilingual dictionaries. I have advised them to use Corpus data, and they have found it very useful. It has helped them very much to search the web and expand their knowledge in a specific topic. What I would incorporate in my classes are books which are more concentrated on vocabulary. Since I am obliged to use books which are too focused on grammar, I would like to change the material and use books that focus more on vocabulary rather than grammar. This would be useful especially with the students from the fifth grade until the eighth grade, since the very young learners have an adequate material for learning new vocabulary words which is in accordance to their level. Moreover, I would like to have the students focus much more on using the computer and finding useful information electronically.
In these two chapters I have found sources of words which I already use in my classes, and also some other sources which I found interesting and I would like to use. In the chapter 3 is explained how teachers can use lists to teach students new words. At the beginning of the semester, my students always learnt new words from lists because they were used to learn new words in this way. Every time my students faced with unknown words, they asked me to translate those words into their mother tongue, and then they learnt these words from the list. Students were used to learn in this way; moreover, they wanted to continue to learn new words from lists because they thought that this was the easiest way of learning new words. But, I think that it is not useful to use always the same method of learning new words. Therefore, I often ask my students to guess the meaning of new words from the context, and if somebody still has difficulties to find out the meaning of the new words, I will ask other students to help their classmates. This idea is mentioned in the chapter, and I found it very useful. Furthermore, I use it in my classes because students sometimes remember things better if they are explained by their classmates. But in cases when all the students do not know the meaning of that word I translate it, or ask the students to find the meaning of this word in the dictionary. I tell my students to use the dictionary when they find unknown words because while they are trying to find the new word in the dictionary, they will repeat this word, and in this way, they will learn the word. In the chapter 3, there are also some other sources of words, such as books on phrasal verbs which I found interesting, and I would like to use in my classes. I think that using books on phrasal verbs is useful because sometimes we can not find the meaning of a phrasal verb even if we know the meaning of words it contains. Therefore, using these books will help the students to find the meaning of phrasal verbs and learn them as one unit. Another thing that I found useful, and I want to start using in my class is corpus data. I think that it is a good idea to connect computers with learning new word because all the students can use the computer; moreover, they like to use it. Using computers to learn new words will be very enjoyable way of leaning; moreover, the students will be more motivated to learn.
I can honestly say that I use all of the sources mentioned in the chapters. We as teachers always try to do our best for our students, and we adjust our classes to our students’ needs and wishes, following a certain curriculum, which is provided for our classes by the schools in which we teach. As most of my classmates said, we teach different vocabulary to different levels. The young learners like color flashcards, so we often use these flashcards to teach vocabulary. They also enjoy more hands-on activities. The young adults like activities which incorporate vocabulary related to fashion, music, celebrities, i.e. things that interest them. Adults are more or less in favor of activities which incorporate vocabulary that they need in order to be able to have a meaningful conversation with their boss or colleague, write an appropriate business letter or e-mail, and so on. However, I would like to mention that different mentalities have different interests, and most importantly different study habits. Couple of years ago I worked with North American students, but at the moment I teach Macedonian and Asian students of all levels. Their mentalities are different, so I adjust my teaching to their needs and wishes. The Macedonian students are very easy going, they are very talkative and they always have comments about any activity I give them. We follow the textbook, which is assigned for the class, and we practice the grammar activities. We also have literature units, which are basically reading short stories, and we have discussion questions, and vocabulary. They would also bring a magazine to class, and we would discuss one of the topics. They even share jokes from the Internet. The chapter in our book mentioned reading horoscopes with the students. They love reading horoscopes and they pick up the idiomatic expressions so easily, and so unconsciously. It is like a game to them. Recently we added speaking classes, and they enjoy them a lot. Our activities are diverse, but they get fed up with everything quite easily, because they are a bit careless and they don’t really care if they offend anyone with their behavior, and they do not like to use dictionaries. They do like to use online dictionaries, because they think it is funny to hear the pronunciation of a word, since online dictionaries provide the pronunciation of a word as well. We are also planning a field trip to Bulgaria. We will visit the American University in Blagoevgrad, so that they can speak English, and hopefully pick up few phrases and idiomatic expressions along the way. This field trip might not be one of the corpora activities, but it is really original, because they will be involved in real life situations and they will have to use English outside of the classroom. The Asian students are totally the opposite. I have a different curriculum for them. With them we have grammar twice a week, one speaking class per week, one writing class per week, and one class per week to study expressions, phrasal verbs, and idioms. Also, they must learn 50 words per day, as part of their regular schools’ homework assignments; any 50 words per day. They write interesting stories on their own, using the vocabulary we studied in class together, and the vocabulary they have studied on their own. The also like to use dictionaries, bilingual and monolingual. They even read books on their own, and look up the vocabulary they are not familiar with. They make up little stories and they e-mail them to me so that I can correct them. They don’t like to share their stories in class. With them I use many corpora activities, especially when we study the phrasal verbs and the idiomatic expressions. They are so inquisitive and they love these activities. These are internal corpora activities, made by the University’s staff. While the Macedonian and Asian students study English as a Foreign Language, the North American students study English as their mother language. Thus, the classes were different and the vocabulary they learned was greater in comparison to second language learners’ vocabulary. But, vocabulary is vocabulary. Even native speakers have vocabulary that they don’t know, especially 7th graders. With them we usually had one month of literature and one month of grammar. We would come across many unfamiliar words during the grammar activities, and we would go over the words and explain them. But, when we had our literature units our focus was mainly on discussion and vocabulary. We read books and shorts stories, they saw movies based on the books and stories, and they had vocabulary lists which were part of that unit and they had to learn them. They would look up the words using regular dictionaries or online dictionaries, write the definitions, use the words in sentences, make paragraphs with the sentences, and make synonyms and antonyms. They used to make the funnies stories with the synonyms and antonyms. We used to have a vocabulary quiz once a week. One of the books we read was The Outsiders, and I did a lesson plan on the slang used in The Outsiders, and they loved it. They even started using the slang from The Outsiders in their everyday language. They also participated in an online program called Accelerated Reader. This was and it still is a program based on the stories and books they do in class, and the program tests the vocabulary, discussion questions, and situations from the books. The points they earn are extra credit. To conclude, I will say that no matter how many sources we use, books, dictionaries, textbooks, magazines, journals, internet, corpora, and so on, there will always be someone somewhere who will take our efforts for granted and simply not learn, and mentalities and study habits play an important role in learning. We as teacher must provide our students with diverse sources and opportunities, and truth be told we all do this, we provide immense possibilities. However, we cannot learn instead of our students.
I’m teaching students form the first grade until the eighth grade and I use different types of methods while teaching them vocabulary; it depends on my student’s level and their age. I have student’s who are only six years old and they like to learn the new words by using games or songs. It’s the way that they can memorize the new words easier. I also teach vocabulary by using flash cards especially for the young learners (1, 2, 3, 4 grade) because I think that it is very important for them to get the idea what they are going to learn and what the word is about. The other learners, I’m referring to the fifth, sixth, seventh and the eighth grade I use different methods; sometimes I ask them to read the text and underline the unknown words, after they underline the new words I explain them the words in the target language by using synonyms, sometimes by giving them a definition for the word. I also give them different exercises with multiple choices or filling the gaps and I think that it is useful by using these kinds of methods because it involves all students to find the meaning of the words based on the context. While reading the chapter 3 I saw many sources that might be useful while teaching vocabulary, such as books on phrasal verbs and I think that these books would help to my seventh and eighth grade students.
I liked my colleagues'comments.As I have mentioned before,I work in a primary school in Kumanova.I teach the 1st,2nd,3rd,and the 4th class pupils.I enjoy teaching them the English language.They like it very much. My first and second grade pupils ennjoy drawing andcolouring things in their notebook.I check their drawings and give them excellent grades. They like playing games in the class,listening to music as well.I use picture cards,flash-cards,radio,videos and so on. My third grade pupils like to write something in English,pronounce that word,draw and colour as well.My fourth grade pupils like to learn new words,make dialogues,listen to the tape,and watching different movies. It depends on their age,interests,level of English.Each of them have their own expectations,interest at the English language.We as teachers should help them and be beside them every moment.They need our guide.There are moments when I use lists to teach them a new word,but mostly,I use realia,flashcards,picture cards. I help them find books with vocabulary or guide them and advise to use dictionaries at home.Mostly,I do this with my 4th grade pupils because they are more grown up than the three other ones(1st -3rd class).They like to do different explorations,do projects or other activities.I am amazed because they are really interested in the English language.I notice this because they ask questions.They want to do a group work or to do something ndividually at home;look up new words in the dictionary, draw something and write the phrasal verb or the sentence next to it(the picture). I noticed that they like to imitate me(the 4th grade pupils).For example,If I say:"Are you finished?"or "Excellent!",they like to pronounce that word or expression. I think that external reading is very important and helpful for learning the foreign language.I think tha books which contain 200 words(easystarts)and 300 words are very useful for the very young beginners.The 4th grade pupils can start to read them and that way they will become more friendly with the dictionaries.They will have to look up the new word there because if they don't understand it,they would not understand the story completely.Moreover,narrow reading is very useful.I give my 4th grade pupils these kind of tasks to do at home.They have to read around the same topic over the course of a number of texts. Two years ago,I worked in a high school.I used to use word formations.I used follow-up,text -based activities with my 1st -4th grade high school students.I think that this way learners improve their listening,speaking, writing and reading skills. I used and would like to use a large lexical field of words such as food items,clothing, jobs.I would choose letters of the alphabet for each 'round' of the game.In their groups,students will have to come up with items that begin only with that letter such as B or D. I used to use short texts in class.Learners read the text from the book,and decided what kind of a text it is,which style it belongs and so on.Finally,we as teachers should be careful in our teaching and be capable to guide and motivate them every time.
I can say that I am not a very experienced teacher since I have started with teaching recently but I will recall on my teaching that I have been doing so far. More precisely, I teach English to young learners at age of 6, 8 and 9. Therefore, I teach beginners and I use course books as a source of words. I teach the new vocabulary words as they are given in the books usually in lexical sets and words that are thematically connected. Afterwards, I imply many different activities so that pupils would learn and not confuse the new vocabulary words. Regarding presentation of vocabulary, I present the new vocabulary through using flashcards, and through demonstration. I consider it as very useful way to present the new vocabulary words especially when it comes to children since they may easily interfere with the outside world. Therefore, children may easily learn words that have connection with things they see in their real life. Another thing that I consider as very important and I use in my teaching is using games. Children love to play games and therefore I use games a lot, and it seems to be effective way for learning vocabulary. Another thing that I use a lot is repetition that is I repeat the words with the children repeatedly, since children rely on forgetting things easily. Finally, I play songs and play cartoons on DVD that are specially designed for them and go together with the book and consists the vocabulary they learn. All to all, I can say it is a very good way to incorporate vocabulary since they are beginners and it is a way which is with correspondence to their level and needs On the other hand when it comes to other students with different levels, I think that teacher should have knowledge based on all source of words and should imply them adequately each in correspondence to students’ proficiency level, students’ needs, students’ attitudes and students’ motivation.
A source of words is very important component in teaching vocabulary. So, teacher should think just on ways and methods about teaching vocabulary, but they also should decide about the appropriate source. This decision should be twisted based on a lot of factors such as learners’ level, interests, motivation, learning style and so on. I work in primary school and I use the course book as the thick source of words. I think that it is appropriate source about my students. In chapter 3 these words are regarded as: usefulness, frequency, learnability, and teachability. I agree with this and think that these words provide the best way about teaching and learning vocabulary. Learners consider the book as their prime tool that conduct their learning, I think that learners are focused more on these kind of words, they are related with their level, which means that these kinds of words are useful, they can be easily used from students and also can be easily demonstrated. In course book words are used frequently if they are used in one unit their use will continue in other units too. This frequency bid that these words are learnable. Course book words are integrated with other language skills. I also use short texts as resource of vocabulary; I try to choose texts with topics that are interested about students like teen’s problems, fashion, music, friendship. I don’t use poetry but I would like to use it, I think that rhyme will make learners to pay more attention on the words and to focus on new vocabulary. Vocabulary book-I don’t use this kind of resource but I would like to use because these books provide a good way about phrasal verbs and chunks. This source will help students to learn better chunks and phrasal verbs. My presence in class also provide source of vocabulary: directions that I give; when we discuss on particular topic and students ask for my opinion; when I tell them a story… Students are very effective source for each other. Students can learn from their friends, I think that they are interested to know the words said by their friends. This is evident especially with beginners. If one of the students says a word that other students don’t know others will ask immediately what does the word mean and writes it on the notebook. I also recommend to my students extensive reading, but it is very difficult in my city to find appropriate books about their level. I use dictionary, but not very often. I use them about word formation: suffixes, prefixes, to find new words. I don’t use corpus data but I would like to use it because they present to the students the real language use, and I think that this will be interesting about students.
Attempts to teach students to speak and pronounce accurate sentences I consider as a very complex. In order to make this process easier and young learners to feel confident in speaking teachers should recognize that many skills and layers of knowledge need to be combined so students to produce a formal and accurate pronunciation. With my high school students I use several techniques in teaching vocabulary. Pre-teaching vocabulary I consider as an effective way on emphasizing on the development of communicative skills which may equate to more language knowledge and a greater ease in performance e.g. high level of fluency and proficiency. Brainstorming is another technique in learning new words. My students enjoy brainstorming because they don’t have to think hard to guess a word or a phrase. If a text contains quite a lot new vocabulary even though some students should be able to understand a lot of it from context, but we might want to pre-teach, especially with weaker students. We can use pictures from the student’s book and mime to check the more difficult vocabulary. Extensive reading is another useful way in learning new vocabulary. I think that uses of readings may help learners to enrich their vocabulary so students learning from texts might be reflected in discussion tasks. But, on the other hand, the reverse position - students learn content information from vocabulary exercises without involving the reading of text materials is less easily accepted because I think that the text might be considered here as a stimulation or encourage less confident learners to read with ease and confidence and in the end produce something that would be valuable to them. I usually give them titles from Oxford University press, books that are already retold from other writers. Then, after two or three weeks, ask them to report back with their written assignment, and often I give them feedback and I always respond positively and encouragingly to the content of what the students have written and other times students give their feedback to peers or groups and I’ve realized that learners often appreciate giving paired answers like this since, by sharing their knowledge, they are also sharing their responsibility for the answers. Natasha mentioned that she would like to try corpus data with her students, but I don’t think that would be a good idea because I’ve noted that classrooms with computers are buzzing with communication and there are other factors that keep students distracted from learning new things, such as: the Internet, computer games etc.
i started with the teaching this year, so i have no much experience on the teaching process. also i teach just two classes per week. when i started teaching i thought my students already know a little English (by the way I'm teaching 1st year high school students). and i thought to talk only in English in the class. and that was what i did in the first class. after a while one of the students stood up and said " profesoresh, ne nuk kuptojm asgje( teacher, we do not understand anything)". i was surprised... anyway, i understood that it doesn't work. so i started to teach them from the very beginning, talking in their mother languages(Albanian, Turkish , and Macedonian). and what i did with the vocabulary... i was translating them the words in their mother language, the worst thing is that i had to translate the words in three languages: Albanian, Turkish and Macedonian. this makes my teaching process go very slowly. but it makes me happy that there is a progress. now i talk sometimes in English and they do understand me. firstly i used the list learning style. also when using a phrase i try to demonstrate that, for example; i say, OPEN YOUR BOOKS( i show the book and open it) ON PAGE # 12( and show them the number of the page); also i keep repeating this two or three times. now i do not use the list learning style, always i give them homework to find out the new words for the next class. this is better because it is time consuming. I've used the BINGO game, they loved that. i will be using different styles for teaching them vocabulary, because they get bored from one style only. however, i have so many things to teach them and not much time. it goes slowly, but the important thing for me is their progress.
As most of the others, I am also not so experienced teacher, having in mind that I've started to teach since October. I teach at University and I teach 3 different levels. I consider vocabulary as a very important part of my teaching, and i may say that the main focus on my teaching is to make students to use the vocabulary for communication but with a main caution to constructing grammatical correct sentences. As a vocabulary source I use the course books, and the monolingual mini dictionaries most often, and also I use texts taken from internet, songs and so on. The vocabulary that the course book offers is really good thought for learning. The vocabulary given is in correlation with its use in a daily life. Each unit has its own title as holidays, remembering and so on. These words we are using to do the exercises in the book. Sometimes I'm forcing a discussion in order to see in which situation one word might be used. On this way students are realizing that the word has its own use and they are remembering it faster. Also, sometimes I give them to write a text where they will use all the new words. On this way they will remeber the new words and aslo they will use some other words that usually go together with those ones. I consider the communication by discussions, paraphrasing, debates and a little bit writting as good ways for learning, improving and developing the new vocabulary. What I would like to add in my teaching vocabulary is using pictures on a projector in order to make a story. For example the students will write a story according to those pictures, and by using this method they will search for a vocabulary which they can use for that particular story. I consider this as a a very useful for rising the motivation and the creativeness for learning new words.
I teach in elementary school and I think that one of the better books I use is the book for the 5th grade “Welcome 2”. So, it is a kind of a course book with a premise of vocabulary book. The book contains some parts which are typical for vocabulary book. First of all, there are activities and steps like a typical course book, the lessons are arranged around lexical content in the syllabus and grammar is included as secondary activity with one or two exercises in each lesson. As I mentioned the syllabus is arranged around lexical content, for example some of the lesson titles are: “At the market”, “I want to be a firefighter’, “cows are fatter than goats”. One of the premises of the vocabulary books is that the beginning of the lesson starts with an activity of presenting a new vocabulary supported by pictures and under each picture is the written form of the vocabulary item. The teacher presents the items with flashcards and students repeat them or they do the same drill but with class CD. I personally think that this book is effective because its activities apply first segregated type of activities and then integrated activities. Also, the final step offers opportunity fir using words in context. In the first step words are presented in lexical sets, for example school subjects like: Science, English, PE, and History; they are supporter by a picture. Then, the words are integrated in a short text. This is an effective way because once students know to recognize and produce vocabulary items; they are learning the use of word, its collocation and the context in which it occurs. In the final stage there are few contextualized exercises in which students deal with the decisions about the words. Students have to decide and choose the context in which words occur. Also I have to add that for each lesson I have posters with the lexical sets and the poster is hanged on the wall during the classes. I think that the posters help students to recall and also help them to recycle items easily.
I like those different methods of using words but what I want I can never realize in actual period of time. It would be wonderful if we break the monotony from using course books. There are many different ways how to motivate the learner in a second language. Too often I have been thinking of how it could be for a lesson to watch a film related with the lesson, teaching outside in the schoolyard when I have to explain demonstrative words or using magazines. But it is impossible using such kinds of ways. First of all the books we possess are planned for a lesson of fifty minutes and our lesson is forty minutes. And these students have not enough time to develop reading skills. I admit that the third grade learners read better than the students from the fourth grade. Also for them is the first level of English Language and there is too much for a class hour to cover all the aspects of grammar- learning rules and doing exercises about that unit which was impossible for students to understand while going through briefly. Also, in the books there is not mentioned that there is some space for revisions. The grading must be based on tests. But what about those who fail on tests, they are maybe better orally revisions. It’s not fair not to use revisions in the classroom. Or maybe students do want a higher grade, and now how can I find some minutes to ask him? Or less using work book exercises. I am for to offer help my students. I do not really prefer learning words from the list, but having in mind that in these way learners can learn many words for a short period of time. For example: if we are learning about living room things I prefer students to cut the written words and glue them to the appropriate things. In this way when they open the door they will see that how it is called the door in English and it will be better memorized using this way. The facts that English Language possesses a really complicated alphabet to make my students easier understand I refer them that unknown words to write for many times and very often to draw the pictures as well. Writing many times the same word and demonstrating it by picturing make the learners to know how the word is written, pronounced and what does it mean. Looking words from dictionary I thing it is boring searching letter by letter. It takes too much time just looking some of many words. For that reason it is useful the use of online dictionary. It makes the work easier. But my work does depend on my student’s desire. Almost all the time I try lesson to transform in the games and I have seen that students love it and the words are used in such kinds of practicing they memorize better. It’s good to ask what students love.
I will talk about my classes with students of Tourism. What I usually start with is a discussion on the topic which is to be dealt in class. I never do pre-teaching of vocabulary by using exercises, as I think that a discussion involving all students and prompting them to retrieve vocabulary from the intended specific lexical field seems strategically better. This is because it means putting words in context, as opposed to dealing with other aspects of lexical competence. Afterwards, I continue with work on authentic texts which I find on internet, magazines, so on. This involves reading the text for understanding and then discussing it. I try to avoid translating when dealing with texts, even though my students always ask me to involve more translation in class, as they believe this will help them much more than what I usually do, which is giving English definitions only to some unfamiliar words which students come across to in the text. After discussing the text I give them some exercises from vocabulary books. I give them some time to do the exercises and then we read and compare the answers. Finally, I involve students in some follow-up speaking or writing activities. This helps them rehearse the lexical chunks (words and phrases) covered during that class. All in all, it is safe to say that I try to prompt a lot of discussions in class, I ask a lot of questions, tell a lot of personal anecdotes and encourage students to tell me some of theirs.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would like to incorporate in my classes is corpus data. This could be done, if there were computers in the classroom, and some activities might involve in class search of concordances and related follow-ups. What I would also like to do, but what sometimes seems unachievable, is to make learners do some more extensive reading of authentic texts outside of class. I also encourage students to use monolingual dictionaries specialized in the lexical fields of tourism, catering and hospitality; however, these are things that are to be done outside of class, which means that I cannot really make them do it.
At the moment I am not teaching but I can reflect on how I used to teach vocabulary. In my 18 year experience as a teacher I worked with different students and from different course books. My groups were from 4 year old children through teenagers, students, adults, marginal groups like drug addicts, handicapped people, to 60 year old people studying English just because I told them that learning a language was a good prevention of sclerosis (which is actually true according to several American scientists). All these groups had different levels of motivation, different learning techniques, and different interests. Some of them were not motivated at all.
ReplyDeleteVery young learners loved picture cards, cartoon presentations (like Pingu and Learning with Gu course sets), oral gap filling, songs with target vocabulary gaps and memory games.
Primary school students liked learning thematically linked words especially with topics of their interest (music, fashion, and movie stars), association games and in-pair revision of vocabulary.
Older teenagers wanted to be actively involved in vocabulary learning. They preferred text-based tasks like matching definitions with words used in a text (follow up tasks), discussions about the topic before the introduction of the new vocabulary, thesaurus dictionaries, word formation activities and I am sure that they would have loved Corpus Database exploration.
Adults preferred learning lists of words, pre-teaching of vocabulary, dictionaries (especially bilingual ones, but with my persistent persuasion after a period of time they would see the advantages of the monolingual and collocational ones). Reading simplified books (according to their level of proficiency) was their favorite vocabulary learning activity for homework.
Word sources used in the classroom should also differ in accordance with the proficiency level of students.
Each course book treats vocabulary in one or two specific ways and the activities introduced are usually the same. That is why teachers should be familiar with other sources of words in order to make vocabulary learning more interesting and more challenging for students.
I do not have a teaching experience so far, but during these studies and the communication with my colleagues here, I have built my opinion about how vocabulary should be taught. First of all, I think that teachers should be trained well to be able to use all sources of teaching and learning new words. Teachers should present these sources to their students to help them find which one/ones is/are the most appropriate for them, depending on their age, capacity, level of proficiency, interests and personality.
ReplyDeleteGap filling, in my opinion, is one of the best ways of learning vocabulary as it enables students to practice the context in which words are used and also pay attention to the written form of the word (phrase, chunk...).
Modern learners, especially those with intermediate and advanced proficiency level, will definitely prefer Corpus data sources, as they offer authentic examples of vocabulary usage.
Most of the new words are learned from the context. For example, for elementary learners words can be easily taught and learned by demonstrating them with pictures or illustrating them. Teachers should not focus only in one source of teaching the new words, but they should try to use all of them even though might not be easy for them, because perhaps do not meet the teacher’s style of teaching. Moreover, if the strategy that they are using is not effective then they should use another one to see whether the learners improve their learning and to help them learn the new words. Also, the sources of words depend on the learners’ age and proficiency.
ReplyDeleteI don’t have a teaching experience but if I were teaching I would like to use the vocabulary in a discussion, because this is one way that the learners can remember or learn the new words.
A gap-fill exercise is a very useful way of learning the new words, and can introduce vocabulary in various ways and the learners meet the vocabulary in different contexts.
I will talk about the students that im teaching at the moment they are third year high school students intermedita and the way that my studnets lear new words is from the textes that they read and if they have some unknown words im trying to help them to get the context of that word, but sometimes i should translated in their native language so they can better understand it. Some words studnets may undertsant from the context of the sentence.
ReplyDeleteI would like to start to use dictioanries in the classroom but studnets are careless and they wont take dictionaries to classes or eve encourage them to use it at home, because through using them students can learn more words and rich their vocabulary. The best dictionaries to use is the monolingual one only english so u can gess form the description of the wrod that is given in what does the word means.
The best way to learn and remeber the words is using them more so we wont forget them easily, for example when we learn a new word we can write a sentence in that way the studnet will rember better the word and he will have it in mind and when he will need that word he'll remember the sentecen and he will use it, this is my opinion i think this way will work better.
I am a teacher in a primary school, teaching students from the first until the eighth grade. Since I teach different level of students, I have had the opportunity to use different ways of teaching vocabulary. The way how vocabulary words are taught depends a lot on the students’ level, their needs and their desires.
ReplyDeleteYoung learners prefer learning and repeating new words through games. They enjoy playing games, and meantime repeat the words they have learned. Another way how the very young learners learn new words is by drawing things on their notebook. They love drawing and coloring things, and this gives them the opportunity to learn things they have drawn in the target language. Picture cards and video presentations are also considered to be very important, because the students have the opportunity to see things concretely and try to memorize them better. The fifth and the sixth grade students are more interested in learning words which are related to everyday life situations and things which are in accordance to their age. They love learning words related to music, films, houses and sport. These students require a more direct explanation of the words, often using their native language.
The seventh and the eighth grade students enjoy learning new words by filling the gaps, because this seems to be more useful and more interesting for them. This method helps them understand the meaning from the context and does not require an immediate translation in native language. They make use of dictionaries, often bilingual dictionaries. I have advised them to use Corpus data, and they have found it very useful. It has helped them very much to search the web and expand their knowledge in a specific topic.
What I would incorporate in my classes are books which are more concentrated on vocabulary. Since I am obliged to use books which are too focused on grammar, I would like to change the material and use books that focus more on vocabulary rather than grammar. This would be useful especially with the students from the fifth grade until the eighth grade, since the very young learners have an adequate material for learning new vocabulary words which is in accordance to their level. Moreover, I would like to have the students focus much more on using the computer and finding useful information electronically.
In these two chapters I have found sources of words which I already use in my classes, and also some other sources which I found interesting and I would like to use. In the chapter 3 is explained how teachers can use lists to teach students new words. At the beginning of the semester, my students always learnt new words from lists because they were used to learn new words in this way. Every time my students faced with unknown words, they asked me to translate those words into their mother tongue, and then they learnt these words from the list. Students were used to learn in this way; moreover, they wanted to continue to learn new words from lists because they thought that this was the easiest way of learning new words. But, I think that it is not useful to use always the same method of learning new words. Therefore, I often ask my students to guess the meaning of new words from the context, and if somebody still has difficulties to find out the meaning of the new words, I will ask other students to help their classmates. This idea is mentioned in the chapter, and I found it very useful. Furthermore, I use it in my classes because students sometimes remember things better if they are explained by their classmates. But in cases when all the students do not know the meaning of that word I translate it, or ask the students to find the meaning of this word in the dictionary. I tell my students to use the dictionary when they find unknown words because while they are trying to find the new word in the dictionary, they will repeat this word, and in this way, they will learn the word. In the chapter 3, there are also some other sources of words, such as books on phrasal verbs which I found interesting, and I would like to use in my classes. I think that using books on phrasal verbs is useful because sometimes we can not find the meaning of a phrasal verb even if we know the meaning of words it contains. Therefore, using these books will help the students to find the meaning of phrasal verbs and learn them as one unit. Another thing that I found useful, and I want to start using in my class is corpus data. I think that it is a good idea to connect computers with learning new word because all the students can use the computer; moreover, they like to use it. Using computers to learn new words will be very enjoyable way of leaning; moreover, the students will be more motivated to learn.
ReplyDeleteI can honestly say that I use all of the sources mentioned in the chapters. We as teachers always try to do our best for our students, and we adjust our classes to our students’ needs and wishes, following a certain curriculum, which is provided for our classes by the schools in which we teach. As most of my classmates said, we teach different vocabulary to different levels. The young learners like color flashcards, so we often use these flashcards to teach vocabulary. They also enjoy more hands-on activities. The young adults like activities which incorporate vocabulary related to fashion, music, celebrities, i.e. things that interest them. Adults are more or less in favor of activities which incorporate vocabulary that they need in order to be able to have a meaningful conversation with their boss or colleague, write an appropriate business letter or e-mail, and so on. However, I would like to mention that different mentalities have different interests, and most importantly different study habits.
ReplyDeleteCouple of years ago I worked with North American students, but at the moment I teach Macedonian and Asian students of all levels. Their mentalities are different, so I adjust my teaching to their needs and wishes. The Macedonian students are very easy going, they are very talkative and they always have comments about any activity I give them. We follow the textbook, which is assigned for the class, and we practice the grammar activities. We also have literature units, which are basically reading short stories, and we have discussion questions, and vocabulary. They would also bring a magazine to class, and we would discuss one of the topics. They even share jokes from the Internet. The chapter in our book mentioned reading horoscopes with the students. They love reading horoscopes and they pick up the idiomatic expressions so easily, and so unconsciously. It is like a game to them. Recently we added speaking classes, and they enjoy them a lot. Our activities are diverse, but they get fed up with everything quite easily, because they are a bit careless and they don’t really care if they offend anyone with their behavior, and they do not like to use dictionaries. They do like to use online dictionaries, because they think it is funny to hear the pronunciation of a word, since online dictionaries provide the pronunciation of a word as well. We are also planning a field trip to Bulgaria. We will visit the American University in Blagoevgrad, so that they can speak English, and hopefully pick up few phrases and idiomatic expressions along the way. This field trip might not be one of the corpora activities, but it is really original, because they will be involved in real life situations and they will have to use English outside of the classroom.
The Asian students are totally the opposite. I have a different curriculum for them. With them we have grammar twice a week, one speaking class per week, one writing class per week, and one class per week to study expressions, phrasal verbs, and idioms. Also, they must learn 50 words per day, as part of their regular schools’ homework assignments; any 50 words per day. They write interesting stories on their own, using the vocabulary we studied in class together, and the vocabulary they have studied on their own. The also like to use dictionaries, bilingual and monolingual. They even read books on their own, and look up the vocabulary they are not familiar with. They make up little stories and they e-mail them to me so that I can correct them. They don’t like to share their stories in class. With them I use many corpora activities, especially when we study the phrasal verbs and the idiomatic expressions. They are so inquisitive and they love these activities. These are internal corpora activities, made by the University’s staff.
While the Macedonian and Asian students study English as a Foreign Language, the North American students study English as their mother language. Thus, the classes were different and the vocabulary they learned was greater in comparison to second language learners’ vocabulary. But, vocabulary is vocabulary. Even native speakers have vocabulary that they don’t know, especially 7th graders. With them we usually had one month of literature and one month of grammar. We would come across many unfamiliar words during the grammar activities, and we would go over the words and explain them. But, when we had our literature units our focus was mainly on discussion and vocabulary. We read books and shorts stories, they saw movies based on the books and stories, and they had vocabulary lists which were part of that unit and they had to learn them. They would look up the words using regular dictionaries or online dictionaries, write the definitions, use the words in sentences, make paragraphs with the sentences, and make synonyms and antonyms. They used to make the funnies stories with the synonyms and antonyms. We used to have a vocabulary quiz once a week. One of the books we read was The Outsiders, and I did a lesson plan on the slang used in The Outsiders, and they loved it. They even started using the slang from The Outsiders in their everyday language. They also participated in an online program called Accelerated Reader. This was and it still is a program based on the stories and books they do in class, and the program tests the vocabulary, discussion questions, and situations from the books. The points they earn are extra credit.
To conclude, I will say that no matter how many sources we use, books, dictionaries, textbooks, magazines, journals, internet, corpora, and so on, there will always be someone somewhere who will take our efforts for granted and simply not learn, and mentalities and study habits play an important role in learning. We as teacher must provide our students with diverse sources and opportunities, and truth be told we all do this, we provide immense possibilities. However, we cannot learn instead of our students.
I’m teaching students form the first grade until the eighth grade and I use different types of methods while teaching them vocabulary; it depends on my student’s level and their age. I have student’s who are only six years old and they like to learn the new words by using games or songs. It’s the way that they can memorize the new words easier. I also teach vocabulary by using flash cards especially for the young learners (1, 2, 3, 4 grade) because I think that it is very important for them to get the idea what they are going to learn and what the word is about. The other learners, I’m referring to the fifth, sixth, seventh and the eighth grade I use different methods; sometimes I ask them to read the text and underline the unknown words, after they underline the new words I explain them the words in the target language by using synonyms, sometimes by giving them a definition for the word. I also give them different exercises with multiple choices or filling the gaps and I think that it is useful by using these kinds of methods because it involves all students to find the meaning of the words based on the context.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading the chapter 3 I saw many sources that might be useful while teaching vocabulary, such as books on phrasal verbs and I think that these books would help to my seventh and eighth grade students.
I liked my colleagues'comments.As I have mentioned before,I work in a primary school in Kumanova.I teach the 1st,2nd,3rd,and the 4th class pupils.I enjoy teaching them the English language.They like it very much.
ReplyDeleteMy first and second grade pupils ennjoy drawing andcolouring things in their notebook.I check their drawings and give them excellent grades.
They like playing games in the class,listening to music as well.I use picture cards,flash-cards,radio,videos and so on.
My third grade pupils like to write something in English,pronounce that word,draw and colour as well.My fourth grade pupils like to learn new words,make dialogues,listen to the tape,and watching different movies.
It depends on their age,interests,level of English.Each of them have their own expectations,interest at the English language.We as teachers should help them and be beside them every moment.They need our guide.There are moments when I use lists to teach them a new word,but mostly,I use realia,flashcards,picture cards.
I help them find books with vocabulary or guide them and advise to use dictionaries at home.Mostly,I do this with my 4th grade pupils because they are more grown up than the three other ones(1st -3rd class).They like to do different explorations,do projects or other activities.I am amazed because they are really interested in the English language.I notice this because they ask questions.They want to do a group work or to do something ndividually
at home;look up new words in the dictionary,
draw something and write the phrasal verb or the sentence next to it(the picture).
I noticed that they like to imitate me(the 4th grade pupils).For example,If I say:"Are you finished?"or "Excellent!",they like to pronounce that word or expression.
I think that external reading is very important and helpful for learning the foreign language.I think tha books which contain 200 words(easystarts)and 300 words are very useful for the very young beginners.The 4th grade pupils can start to read them and that way they will become more friendly with the dictionaries.They will have to look up the new word there because if they don't understand it,they would not understand the story completely.Moreover,narrow reading is very useful.I give my 4th grade pupils these kind of tasks to do at home.They have to read around the same topic over the course of a number of texts.
Two years ago,I worked in a high school.I used to use word formations.I used follow-up,text -based activities with my 1st -4th grade high school students.I think that this way learners improve their listening,speaking,
writing and reading skills.
I used and would like to use a large lexical field of words such as food items,clothing,
jobs.I would choose letters of the alphabet for each 'round' of the game.In their groups,students will have to come up with items that begin only with that letter such as B or D.
I used to use short texts in class.Learners read the text from the book,and decided what kind of a text it is,which style it belongs and so on.Finally,we as teachers should be careful in our teaching and be capable to guide and motivate them every time.
I can say that I am not a very experienced teacher since I have started with teaching recently but I will recall on my teaching that I have been doing so far. More precisely, I teach English to young learners at age of 6, 8 and 9. Therefore, I teach beginners and I use course books as a source of words. I teach the new vocabulary words as they are given in the books usually in lexical sets and words that are thematically connected. Afterwards, I imply many different activities so that pupils would learn and not confuse the new vocabulary words. Regarding presentation of vocabulary, I present the new vocabulary through using flashcards, and through demonstration. I consider it as very useful way to present the new vocabulary words especially when it comes to children since they may easily interfere with the outside world. Therefore, children may easily learn words that have connection with things they see in their real life. Another thing that I consider as very important and I use in my teaching is using games. Children love to play games and therefore I use games a lot, and it seems to be effective way for learning vocabulary. Another thing that I use a lot is repetition that is I repeat the words with the children repeatedly, since children rely on forgetting things easily. Finally, I play songs and play cartoons on DVD that are specially designed for them and go together with the book and consists the vocabulary they learn. All to all, I can say it is a very good way to incorporate vocabulary since they are beginners and it is a way which is with correspondence to their level and needs
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand when it comes to other students with different levels, I think that teacher should have knowledge based on all source of words and should imply them adequately each in correspondence to students’ proficiency level, students’ needs, students’ attitudes and students’ motivation.
A source of words is very important component in teaching vocabulary. So, teacher should think just on ways and methods about teaching vocabulary, but they also should decide about the appropriate source. This decision should be twisted based on a lot of factors such as learners’ level, interests, motivation, learning style and so on. I work in primary school and I use the course book as the thick source of words. I think that it is appropriate source about my students. In chapter 3 these words are regarded as: usefulness, frequency, learnability, and teachability. I agree with this and think that these words provide the best way about teaching and learning vocabulary. Learners consider the book as their prime tool that conduct their learning, I think that learners are focused more on these kind of words, they are related with their level, which means that these kinds of words are useful, they can be easily used from students and also can be easily demonstrated. In course book words are used frequently if they are used in one unit their use will continue in other units too. This frequency bid that these words are learnable. Course book words are integrated with other language skills. I also use short texts as resource of vocabulary; I try to choose texts with topics that are interested about students like teen’s problems, fashion, music, friendship. I don’t use poetry but I would like to use it, I think that rhyme will make learners to pay more attention on the words and to focus on new vocabulary. Vocabulary book-I don’t use this kind of resource but I would like to use because these books provide a good way about phrasal verbs and chunks. This source will help students to learn better chunks and phrasal verbs. My presence in class also provide source of vocabulary: directions that I give; when we discuss on particular topic and students ask for my opinion; when I tell them a story…
ReplyDeleteStudents are very effective source for each other. Students can learn from their friends, I think that they are interested to know the words said by their friends. This is evident especially with beginners. If one of the students says a word that other students don’t know others will ask immediately what does the word mean and writes it on the notebook. I also recommend to my students extensive reading, but it is very difficult in my city to find appropriate books about their level. I use dictionary, but not very often. I use them about word formation: suffixes, prefixes, to find new words. I don’t use corpus data but I would like to use it because they present to the students the real language use, and I think that this will be interesting about students.
Attempts to teach students to speak and pronounce accurate sentences I consider as a very complex. In order to make this process easier and young learners to feel confident in speaking teachers should recognize that many skills and layers of knowledge need to be combined so students to produce a formal and accurate pronunciation. With my high school students I use several techniques in teaching vocabulary. Pre-teaching vocabulary I consider as an effective way on emphasizing on the development of communicative skills which may equate to more language knowledge and a greater ease in performance e.g. high level of fluency and proficiency. Brainstorming is another technique in learning new words. My students enjoy brainstorming because they don’t have to think hard to guess a word or a phrase. If a text contains quite a lot new vocabulary even though some students should be able to understand a lot of it from context, but we might want to pre-teach, especially with weaker students. We can use pictures from the student’s book and mime to check the more difficult vocabulary. Extensive reading is another useful way in learning new vocabulary. I think that uses of readings may help learners to enrich their vocabulary so students learning from texts might be reflected in discussion tasks. But, on the other hand, the reverse position - students learn content information from vocabulary exercises without involving the reading of text materials is less easily accepted because I think that the text might be considered here as a stimulation or encourage less confident learners to read with ease and confidence and in the end produce something that would be valuable to them. I usually give them titles from Oxford University press, books that are already retold from other writers. Then, after two or three weeks, ask them to report back with their written assignment, and often I give them feedback and I always respond positively and encouragingly to the content of what the students have written and other times students give their feedback to peers or groups and I’ve realized that learners often appreciate giving paired answers like this since, by sharing their knowledge, they are also sharing their responsibility for the answers. Natasha mentioned that she would like to try corpus data with her students, but I don’t think that would be a good idea because I’ve noted that classrooms with computers are buzzing with communication and there are other factors that keep students distracted from learning new things, such as: the Internet, computer games etc.
ReplyDeletei started with the teaching this year, so i have no much experience on the teaching process. also i teach just two classes per week. when i started teaching i thought my students already know a little English (by the way I'm teaching 1st year high school students). and i thought to talk only in English in the class. and that was what i did in the first class. after a while one of the students stood up and said " profesoresh, ne nuk kuptojm asgje( teacher, we do not understand anything)". i was surprised... anyway, i understood that it doesn't work. so i started to teach them from the very beginning, talking in their mother languages(Albanian, Turkish , and Macedonian). and what i did with the vocabulary... i was translating them the words in their mother language, the worst thing is that i had to translate the words in three languages: Albanian, Turkish and Macedonian. this makes my teaching process go very slowly. but it makes me happy that there is a progress. now i talk sometimes in English and they do understand me. firstly i used the list learning style.
ReplyDeletealso when using a phrase i try to demonstrate that, for example; i say, OPEN YOUR BOOKS( i show the book and open it) ON PAGE # 12( and show them the number of the page); also i keep repeating this two or three times. now i do not use the list learning style, always i give them homework to find out the new words for the next class. this is better because it is time consuming. I've used the BINGO game, they loved that. i will be using different styles for teaching them vocabulary, because they get bored from one style only. however, i have so many things to teach them and not much time. it goes slowly, but the important thing for me is their progress.
As most of the others, I am also not so experienced teacher, having in mind that I've started to teach since October. I teach at University and I teach 3 different levels. I consider vocabulary as a very important part of my teaching, and i may say that the main focus on my teaching is to make students to use the vocabulary for communication but with a main caution to constructing grammatical correct sentences. As a vocabulary source I use the course books, and the monolingual mini dictionaries most often, and also I use texts taken from internet, songs and so on. The vocabulary that the course book offers is really good thought for learning. The vocabulary given is in correlation with its use in a daily life. Each unit has its own title as holidays, remembering and so on. These words we are using to do the exercises in the book. Sometimes I'm forcing a discussion in order to see in which situation one word might be used. On this way students are realizing that the word has its own use and they are remembering it faster. Also, sometimes I give them to write a text where they will use all the new words. On this way they will remeber the new words and aslo they will use some other words that usually go together with those ones. I consider the communication by discussions, paraphrasing, debates and a little bit writting as good ways for learning, improving and developing the new vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would like to add in my teaching vocabulary is using pictures on a projector in order to make a story. For example the students will write a story according to those pictures, and by using this method they will search for a vocabulary which they can use for that particular story. I consider this as a a very useful for rising the motivation and the creativeness for learning new words.
I teach in elementary school and I think that one of the better books I use is the book for the 5th grade “Welcome 2”. So, it is a kind of a course book with a premise of vocabulary book. The book contains some parts which are typical for vocabulary book. First of all, there are activities and steps like a typical course book, the lessons are arranged around lexical content in the syllabus and grammar is included as secondary activity with one or two exercises in each lesson. As I mentioned the syllabus is arranged around lexical content, for example some of the lesson titles are: “At the market”, “I want to be a firefighter’, “cows are fatter than goats”. One of the premises of the vocabulary books is that the beginning of the lesson starts with an activity of presenting a new vocabulary supported by pictures and under each picture is the written form of the vocabulary item. The teacher presents the items with flashcards and students repeat them or they do the same drill but with class CD.
ReplyDeleteI personally think that this book is effective because its activities apply first segregated type of activities and then integrated activities. Also, the final step offers opportunity fir using words in context. In the first step words are presented in lexical sets, for example school subjects like: Science, English, PE, and History; they are supporter by a picture. Then, the words are integrated in a short text. This is an effective way because once students know to recognize and produce vocabulary items; they are learning the use of word, its collocation and the context in which it occurs. In the final stage there are few contextualized exercises in which students deal with the decisions about the words. Students have to decide and choose the context in which words occur. Also I have to add that for each lesson I have posters with the lexical sets and the poster is hanged on the wall during the classes. I think that the posters help students to recall and also help them to recycle items easily.
I like those different methods of using words but what I want I can never realize in actual period of time. It would be wonderful if we break the monotony from using course books. There are many different ways how to motivate the learner in a second language. Too often I have been thinking of how it could be for a lesson to watch a film related with the lesson, teaching outside in the schoolyard when I have to explain demonstrative words or using magazines. But it is impossible using such kinds of ways. First of all the books we possess are planned for a lesson of fifty minutes and our lesson is forty minutes. And these students have not enough time to develop reading skills. I admit that the third grade learners read better than the students from the fourth grade. Also for them is the first level of English Language and there is too much for a class hour to cover all the aspects of grammar- learning rules and doing exercises about that unit which was impossible for students to understand while going through briefly. Also, in the books there is not mentioned that there is some space for revisions. The grading must be based on tests. But what about those who fail on tests, they are maybe better orally revisions. It’s not fair not to use revisions in the classroom. Or maybe students do want a higher grade, and now how can I find some minutes to ask him? Or less using work book exercises. I am for to offer help my students. I do not really prefer learning words from the list, but having in mind that in these way learners can learn many words for a short period of time. For example: if we are learning about living room things I prefer students to cut the written words and glue them to the appropriate things. In this way when they open the door they will see that how it is called the door in English and it will be better memorized using this way. The facts that English Language possesses a really complicated alphabet to make my students easier understand I refer them that unknown words to write for many times and very often to draw the pictures as well. Writing many times the same word and demonstrating it by picturing make the learners to know how the word is written, pronounced and what does it mean. Looking words from dictionary I thing it is boring searching letter by letter. It takes too much time just looking some of many words. For that reason it is useful the use of online dictionary. It makes the work easier. But my work does depend on my student’s desire. Almost all the time I try lesson to transform in the games and I have seen that students love it and the words are used in such kinds of practicing they memorize better. It’s good to ask what students love.
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