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TEFL Program - Having fun with vocabulary

This version was saved 12 years, 11 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Chris Moore
on May 2, 2011 at 12:24:57 pm
 

Great Vocabulary Activities

 

There are many ways of practising new words, so students are able to recall and use them later. These activities can also be a lot of fun, and bring a great energy into the classroom. 

 

Please write down 5 vocabulary practice activities you use in your classrooms.

 

1.

 

2.

 

3.

 

4.

 

5.

 

 

Of these 5, which is your favourite and why? And which is your least favourite and why?

 

 

 

 

Here are some vocabulary activities, at least some of which will be familiar to you.

 

  • Match pictures with words, then ask students to contextualise the words in simple sentences or dialogues

 

  • Matching words to other words (antonyms, synonyms, collocations, lexical sets, etc.), and again, contextualise where possible

 

  • Classifying words - show students a mixed selection of different words, and ask them to put them into particular lists according to specific categories. These could be by meaning, grammatical type, or pronunciation, for example.

 

  • Cloze exercises with particular words. This is a standard gap-fill activity, but can be very controlled, so a set of sentences written especially for a particular area of vocabulary, or much less controlled, so an authentic piece of text, such as a short article, song, or authentic dialogue.

 

  • Mini-crosswords: first write a word vertically on board, eg. SCHOOL. Then put students into teams. Together they must write related words horizontally using letters from the original. the first team to do so scores a point. This could look like this:

               lesSon

                Class

          matHs

              hOmework

          histOry            

        penciL

 

 

  • Word grids - make a grid of 10 squares by 10 on a piece of paper, or draw one on the board. You will put a letter in each square. As you do this, include a number of words you want your students to remember horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Write them backwards if you want. And the fill the remaining spaces wirth random letters. Now put your students in teams and ask them to find as many words as possible in a given time limit.

 

Here's an example which contains words connected with the weather (words are highlighted in bold - though don't do this for your students!).

 

S

U

N

A

B

C

S

D

N

E

F

R

G

H

T

I

O

J

K

A

K

M

O

N

W

O

P

I

Q

W

R

R

S

T

U

N

V

I

M

M

I

W

F

X

Y

N

Z

I

C

C

L

O

U

D

A

S

E

B

C

D

G

E

F

T

 

Students can olf course make these word grids for each other.

 

  • Memory games with objects
  • Memory games with words
  • Memory games wiht texts

 

 

 

  • Definition exercises - you define sth - students guess what/who it is, then do the same
  • Back to the board (‘hotseat´) - one student has back to board on which several words are written - teacher selects word and team defines it for student to say what it is
  • Categories (orally - each student has 5 seconds to think of new word in given category - or on paper - words in given categories starting with given letters)
  • Category list - say 10 words - students say the connection - then do own lists
  • Anagrams - individual words or sentences (could be several individual words but in incorrect order)
  • Rearrange jumbled sentences - can be done by giving each student a word, then calling one to the front, where others have to join him/her with their words in order to create a sentence
  • Creating dialogues using specific vocab
  • Creating stories using specific vocab

 

  • Bingo - with new words, irregular nouns, opposites, etc.
  • Examine word families (hot-hotter-hottest-heat-heating-heater-to heat)
  • Brainstorm words - give one word, eg. school, get students to volunteer related vocab
  • Vocab chains - he went to the shop and bought a banana, he went to the shop and bought a banana and an orange, he went to .
  • Odd man out - meaning, pronunciation, spelling, etc.
  • Read story/description - at the end, students draw what they see
  • 'Simon Says'
  • Find words, eg. from international´ (in, on, at, ten, etc.)
  • Board Race - 2/3 teams - have to race to the board to write up specific lexical set

 

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