Vocabulary
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Activities from our session
Microteaching:
I remember that the leader of the learning center, Alena, was wery well prepared so I could enjoy the whole process of her teaching and be inspired by her excellent teaching.
At the very beginning she introduced the topic "I was in the shop and I've bought different kinds of products".
Then she distributed the "products" which was a great idea because we could see the products (the words we were supposed to learn) and we could even touch them. I really appreciated this way of learning because I hold the idea that the more senses we use the better we learn. After that we had to name the products and the next step was to guess whether a particular word is countable or uncoutable.
She divided her vocabulary teaching into stages so we could learn the words effectively step by step. She wasn't nervous during her teaching and she behaved confidently so I had a positive feeling that she knew her job really well - that there is a good teacher in front of me.
Our Teacher's presentation of teaching vocabulary:
The activity provided by our teacher was amazing. The stages of the activity were easily recognisable and it was also funny which is something I really like. We could see the words as a part of sentences and I strongly believe that this kind of teaching vocabulary is more effective - to learn them in context. Not only could we see the sentences but also pictures so I could remember the words much easier. We also had to guess the words when the teacher showed us only the pictures and we had to pronounce the words aloud. The teaching was based more or less on these rules: HEAR – SAY – READ - WRITE
It was a great example how to teach vocabulary but I think that it this kind of teaching requires a lot of time. Maybe it's not a problem when teaching at elementary school but this kind of activity would be impossible for my present teaching. I am teaching adults - beginners and they have to go through two levels A1+A2 in three months. It's practically impossible to learn so many words in such a short time (there are about 2000 words to learn) but it's just a task I've been given from their superiors and I do my best. I have to teach them (better to say "show" them) a great number of words and they have to learn them at home. It means that in my course this activity would be too time consuming but I agree that it's the best way to learn/teach English. It's always very sad when people who don't understand teaching determine how to teach and what to teach.
Reading:
Key words:
Denotation, appropriateness, massed learning vs. distributed learning, personal significance, odd one out
The teaching from "READER" was very useful because there are many practical examples of lerning vocabulary. As I am not a very experienced teacher, there were many new things I've learned. Especially the section "What needs to be taught" includes a lot of information which are new to me. Ur mentions six areas that should be covered when teaching vocabulary:
1.) Form: pronunciation and spelling
2.) Grammar
3.) Collocation
4.) Aspects of meaning: denotation, connotation, appropriateness
5.) Aspects of meaning: meaning relationships
6.) Word formation
I was really interested in the section "Remembering vocabulary" because in my opinion this part of learning is very important, at least for me. I don't have problems to learn vocabulary but it's very difficult for me to remember them.
Learning vocabulary is neverending process and I strongly believe that the only way to improve vocabulary is to read as many books as possible and use as many senses as possible when learning vocabulary. It's also important not to learn new words separately but in sentences.
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Books and other sources I use
These are the main examples of books I use for teaching vocabulary but I also use many videos from youtube, because my students like activities with videos they are interested in (movie trailers, songs etc.)
I would like to mention the source with many worksheets which are very helpful for my teaching:
https://en.islcollective.com/
and here is a video with a good example of teaching vocabulary:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbRxBPY1vsc
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