Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Subu'ergA Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in E'erduosi Shi — Ordos? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
A lot of vocabulary is acquired by students incidentally through indirect exposure to words. However, developing this skill in a classroom is an important factor in raising student’s self-confidence in all four essential skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking. Proper vocabulary introduction should not only teach the definitions of words but present the word in a context that will help to memorize and foster its usage on an everyday basis. For many students learning vocabulary simply by memorizing the meaning may be uninteresting and they will not have the feeling of how to implement the word in a sentence. As a result, the word won’t be used too often, and as a result, it’s forgotten in favour of the words that are easier but also more basic. The teacher is usually guided by the coursebook which vocabulary should be tough in a certain chapter, however, deviating from the program for a while may get extra attention from the students. Some words may be more appropriate to learn first before the teacher proceeds to the ones provided in the coursebook. The teacher can encourage students to bring the list of new words they came across in the last days and share them with other classmates. This method is better for less advanced students that can learn simple words describing objects surrounding them. It will make participation in the class much more active giving the students a say in a matter of words selection that is more personalized for daily use. The elements that students have to know about each vocabulary item are: meaning, usage, word grammar, interaction with other words, spelling and pronunciation. One of the most common ways of engaging students in learning new vocabulary is a visual presentation of cards, illustration, pictures, real objects or mime. That can be the first step for the creation of a word map. It’s a more advanced graphical way enabling connection of already known words with their advanced synonyms or words from the same group, e.g. weather, animals, office. Defining part of speech and using the word in a sentence as an example is part word map as well. Good activity than can follow the creation of the word map is matching. Here students will be required to connected the word with its definition, synonym, opposite meaning or a picture. To further practice using the word in a sentence, teachers can introduce the activity by filling the blanks. Choice of example sentences is very important as often these will be the ones associated by the student with a specific word. Filling the blanks can come with or without options to fill provided. Development on online materials and tools is handy to easily create gap-fill exercises, crosswords or texts and dialogues materials that go even deeper in using a word in a certain context. Several games can be used in activate stage of the class. One of them is very easy to organize and requires a student to describe pre-teach word in own way when the rest of the class has to guess it. Further activating activities are: discussion, role-play, simulation, story building, material production tasks or debate. Variety of activities should be introduced so that vocabulary learning doesn’t become routine or boring. Keeping it fresh with several changing ways of learning will help students avoid losing attention or getting tired of working with vocabulary. The students very often won't need to produce every word they learn, some they will just need to recognize. Selecting what to teach, based on frequency and usefulness to the needs of particular students is essential.
