[WendHong]

hi there,
I'm teaching Ss at age of 12-14 years old. The class period is about 40 minutes every day. They like to speak english but dislike keeping vocabulary in mind . Can anybody give me some advice to encourage Ss to remember words . Many thanks!

[michèle 2]

I use the " Memory card" game. They have to say the word to get points!!!

[marie777]

I teach 8-11 year olds. I use flashcards first for new vocabulary but also write on the board, so the new vocabulary is in sight throughout the lesson. Then I play lots of different games using the new vocabulary, if they get stuck I point to the board as a clue but they still have to find the right word to get a point.

At the next lesson I check that they have remembered the vocabulary from the last lesson, if they haven't more work to be done.

[WendHong]

Many thanks !
Can you show the teaching procedures in details or give me some examples. I've tried some games but SS can just read, they couldn't spell well. How do you solve the word spelling problem?
Truthfully

[michèle 2]

l. How do you solve the word spelling problem?

Apart from getting them write the words. I can't see anything to solve the word spelling problem.
Does anyone have an idea?

[marie777]

Sorry I don't know how to answer that question either. There are spelling games you can play, like race to the board, but it means they would just have to copy the vocabulary you wrote on the board earlier.

I think someone will be able to advise you. I would think there needs to be some form of repetition for them to be able to recall and spell.

[the Obscure]

I team-teach in Japan, so my job is mainly to encourage my kiddies to get over their shyness and actually speak, and to make English fun so that they actually want to be in class. Most of my kids can't spell to save their life, and I've just learned to accept the fact that my kids really like "animars" especially "hamstars."

I make my kids ask me how to spell stuff when they're doing writing exercises, and sometimes I'll just force them to deal with phonics by sounding out the word for them instead of spelling it out. And if I see that they've written that they like "hamstars" then I'll tell them I've never seen a "hamSTAR" before and ask them what it is. They all know they can't spell, and that they're too lazy to look it up, so they know that if I go around pronouncing words weird it's because they've spelled it wrong.

Since my kids would never be caught dead doing homework (such as writing the the words 5 times), I just have to make the most out of the class time I have with them.

Board races have worked pretty well for me as a way to force them to spell correctly. For example, I give them a letter to start with, such as "a," then they write "apple" and the next S writes a word that starts with "e," such as "elephant," and then the next student writes "today," and so on. If they spell a word wrong I won't let them switch partners until it's been corrected.

I think that repetition is pretty important (at least, it is for me when I learn foreign languages). My Tibetan teacher made us write the words over and over and over, and in class we had to spell outloud a bunch, too. We all hated him for it, but we could spell. So, if you're able to, then make the kiddies do a spelling bee or something and bribe them with spectacular prize. Bribery is pretty cool.

[jo goodwin]

Hi,
the key is called "repetition without boring"!! You need to think of as many ways as possible to incorporate the vocab into the lesson. Have a competition to see who can spell the words. Break the words up into small chunks eg kan ga roo, com pet it ion, ele ph ant. Kids can easily remember up to 3 pieces of information in each chunk rather than a huge word of 8 or 9 letters.Get the kids to have a go at writing the words on the whiteboard. They will all be keen. Revisit prior learnt vocab each lesson. Slow down and remember how long it took for you to learn vocab in another language.

[susan53]

Hi WendHong,
You asked for the teaching procedure for the Memory Game - it's described here for practising numbers, but is easily adaptable to other vocab - just use pictures on one side of the card with the word on the other.

[Marie-anne]

Quote WendHong

hi there,
I'm teaching Ss at age of 12-14 years old. The class period is about 40 minutes every day. They like to speak english but dislike keeping vocabulary in mind . Can anybody give me some advice to encourage Ss to remember words . Many thanks!

Try Backs to the Board. Depending on the number of sts. Write your words randomly on the board. Divide the class into two teams. I have the teams in a circle. Select one person from each team to stand up and have their back facing the board. Then advise that you will circle a word for e.g. team A with a different boardmarker and for team B you will circle a different word with a different coloured boardmarker. The competition in on! and the team memebers have to explain the word circled for their team without mentioning the word. I award 5 points for each word that is used correctly in a sentence and 1 point for the word that is finally worked out. Be warned, keep your ears open to both teams descriptions and stop any cheating, e.g. breaking up the word into syllabuls and it sounds like... ect. Good Luck

[Manes]

What about... that old rainy day Brazilian game: each student gets a 1/2 A4 paper with as many collumns as the classes of words they know. E.g: one collumn for people's name, one for animals, one for school objects, one for foods, one for professions, etc... Horizontal lines separate areas to write in. First turn: everyone must write words beginning with the letter L (or any other sorted by any means). Ther's a time set(10' and: 1,2 3, go! they start writing. At the end of the time or when someone finished and says: I'm done! Everyone stops writing. Teacher asks each player what did you write in the collumn Names? After each student answers AND spell it correctly they get 5 point for right spelling (if the word belogs to that column) and 10 points if no one else wrote that word. Teacher goes through all columns. At the end of the turn each player adds up all the points done. The game can be done in small groups of 2 or 3 thinking together. And can be done one turn each day, working in the same piece of paper.

[mouni]

Reading many examples of the word being used will help the children to remember it. According to the web site GRE Vocabulary Home, making up your own examples can also improve your memory of words by 670%.