GOOD IDEA FOR UPPER INTERMEDIATE CLASSES
new vocabulary
Submitted on 21 August, 2009 - 11:36
Hi Paul,
I have noticed in my classes that using this technique as a way of learning (or even better 'strengthening') the vocabulary for a certain unit makes students wonder what kind of sentences they should make (affirmative, negative or interrogative), should they be short or long, etc. In other words, when telling them to put a word in a specific sentence they lose focus and start asking unimportant questions not connected to the word itself! This led me to search for better ways of learning new vocabulary, and I came up with the idea of writing four words on the board (words that are new to them and have all been mentioned in the one specific lesson), which they should not yet write down in their notebooks (concentrating on the visual aspect of the word at this point). I then read a fill-in-the-gap sentence which contains a blank that they must fill in with one of the words on the board. But try not to forget to make the four words on the board similar in meaning, otherwise the activity would be too easy for them! In most cases in my experience they do make the right choice of word, but they think about it for a moment! Afterwards I dictate the sentence out to them, they write it down with the correct word, and after that they should write three other sentences (for the remaining three unused words in separate sentences). It is at this point that the hard part of the activity is to create 3 totally different sentences using the three words that are left, but to follow the first example and to make the meaning of the new word clear in each sentence.
Now this will get them thinking!
Best, Aneta Naumoska
