Making Vocabulary Learning Interesting

IDEAS TO BRING TO THE CLASSROOM TO MAKE VOCABULARY INTERESTING AND REWARDING

Acquiring new vocabulary needs to fun for student and teacher alike. Otherwise all lessons become staid and uneventful experiences. Therefore a wide range of learning activities need to be organised and effectively implemented to teach vocabulary. You must remember the purpose is to get students to understand and use words and expressions in many diverse situations. Our job is arouse the learner’s senses and creative tools/aids can be used to stimulate, improve and retain the necessary information. They may include some or all of the subsequent.

Games

All teachers and students like to use and participate in games as they can teach and strengthen the vocabulary points. Examples are wide and ranging and could include vocabulary bingo, prefix and suffix games, card games, vocabulary crosswords etc. Why use them? Well they motivate you and challenge the brain by making you consider the language you are using. Beckeridge, Buckby ,Wright (2006) state ‘games can help the teacher to create contexts in which language is useful and meaningful’ other interesting aids we could us to underpin vocabulary would be the use of films, television and videos.

Films. Television and Videos

Different types of audio-visual products are available to support the teacher in teaching. For example specific educational learning videos that concentrate on areas of English. The problem with these is they can be quite boring for the viewer a bit like those in-house company training videos. It’s better to offer more variety possibly clips from well known films or television programs. English is global a language and most students are familiar with Western movies and TV. They provide a good cultural reference point that students can talk about. They can show real life situations in the case of documentaries. The teacher can select pieces of vocabulary to concentrate on. Another teaching aid to mix-up a particular lesson could be the use of audio resources.

Audio Resources

Audio tools are very useful in the classroom. They are accessible by all levels of students. By using the radio or a tape recording interesting news pieces can be selected to concentrate on whole chunks of vocabulary. Whilst giving students an opportunity to engage cultural dialog. Listening to music. or Audio Books. These teaching aids enable classroom participation and can help us to clarify specific subject areas. Another complimentary approach could be the use of objects in lessons to enforce learning points.

Objects

A teacher of English can make the most of (realia). Realia are real objects / items that can be used in the classroom to illustrate and teach vocabulary. They help us to make links or connection between words and everyday objects. To put it simply they can give us information that maybe absent from our understanding.
Visual Aids have been around for a while in language teaching and are used by teachers frequently.

Visual

Most learners are visual minded and one of the most popular methods to make vocabulary learning interesting is the use different visual aids such as pictures, photographs, cartoons, word walls, flash cards, wall charts etc. Jeremy Harmer (2007) states ‘teachers have always used pictures or graphics to facilitate learning and make it interesting’ students take direct experience from the lesson. One of the growing trends in language teaching is the use of Drama or Role Play in language teaching.

Drama /Role Play

Using drama as a teaching tool activates many human senses often neglected by traditional methods of teaching. This fun alternative style can bring to the classroom ‘real life situations’ by using role play scenarios, whereas improvisation enables students to come up with their own thoughts of what has taken place. They may also acquire additional skills like teamwork, listening, communication and confidence. Drama provides an opportunity to use all four areas of language learning reading, writing, listening and speaking. Fernandez and Coils stated ‘that drama encourages students to exercise their sensitivity and imagination and thus makes learning more realistic and meaningful’. One of the biggest advances in language teaching over the last twenty years has been the introduction of digital media or the internet.

Digital Media/Internet

The amount of choice today on the internet to aid learners is enormous. You can aid vocabulary development
By exploring the plentiful opportunities to read everything from interactive language quizzes, interactive language pictures, online dictionaries, thesauruses, newspapers, magazines. Websites can be specific to a language topic such as www.vocabulary.com it is an online resource for working on groups of related vocabulary words in a puzzle format, the web site, is broken into beginning, intermediate, and advance levels great fun and easy to use. Newer developments include interactive white-boards; these allow the student to personally interact in a lesson with the results of learning instantly visible to the whole class.

Conclusion

These are just a few suggestions you could implement to create more participative learning. The student needs to be engaged at all times instead of having their head in book just repeating word drills and no interaction taking place these methods definitely make for a more interesting and rewarding classroom experience

References

Betteridge, D, Buckby, M and Wright, A. “Games for Language Learning”, 3rd ed , pp. 128, Cambridge University Press, UK, (2006).

Fernandez, L. and Coil, A. "Drama in the classroom". Practical Teaching 6:3, pp.18-21. Newbury House Publishing,, USA, (1986).

Harmer J. “The Practice of English Language Teaching”, pp. 178, Pearson Longman, UK, (2007).

References: Betteridge, D, Buckby, M and Wright, A. “Games for Language Learning”, 3rd ed , pp. 128, Cambridge University Press, UK, (2006). Fernandez, L. and Coil, A. "Drama in the classroom". Practical Teaching 6:3, pp.18-21. Newbury House Publishing,, USA, (1986). Harmer J. “The Practice of English Language Teaching”, pp. 178, Pearson Longman, UK, (2007).