Since the Movement Control Order (MCO) was imposed, there is an abundance of opportunities for learning online. Perky Piung Words Adventure took that opportunities to launch a series of vocabulary challenges to learners of the English Language.
These challenges were presented on Google Forms. The platform was chosen due to its familiarity among users. Furthermore, it has add-ons that enable special features to be used in rewarding learners and data manipulation. I find the platform easy to use and hassle-free.
Here are the challenges that have been presented to the learners since April. Click on the thumbnail, to direct you to the specific challenge. There will be additions so do come back and check out often for new challenges!
Oh! All of these challenges do give away certificates to learners as proof of their achievements! Yay!
These challenges were presented on Google Forms. The platform was chosen due to its familiarity among users. Furthermore, it has add-ons that enable special features to be used in rewarding learners and data manipulation. I find the platform easy to use and hassle-free.
Here are the challenges that have been presented to the learners since April. Click on the thumbnail, to direct you to the specific challenge. There will be additions so do come back and check out often for new challenges!
Oh! All of these challenges do give away certificates to learners as proof of their achievements! Yay!
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Well, learning vocabulary is not restricted to these 4 techniques. But by identifying the techniques help teachers to focus on the TnL and give the students something to hold on to.
I find explicit training in vocabulary works because it made you aware of the process and how to go about in doing it. No more time wasted on try and error method that frustrate a lot of our students. In this post, I will identify the techniques and elaborate on how to do it.
You can choose to apply one technique at a time or try all in the chronological order of my elaboration.
Okay...
Let us look at the first one
WORD MAGNET
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| You need 4 items, I left out the fridge magnet |
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| Write and draw the words you want or need to learn |
Stick it on the fridge door.
Say each word for 5 times, every time you open the fridge door.
RECORD YOURSELF
Before you record, plan your video. What do you want to say? Maybe say the words, its meaning by showing pictures or even gestures. Be creative!
When you are done the planning, record your video in a duration of 15 to 30 seconds. A short video will serve the purpose just fine.
Replay the video to listen to the pronunciation. if you are dissatisfied, re-record.
Watch the video over and over again. or share it with your friends on social media. Who knows, with the motivation of 'likes' you might learn your vocabulary effectively.
PLAY GAMES
There are a lot of vocabulary games available. Here are some great ones which I found on the internet.
10 Best Vocabulary Game online by FluentU
Before you record, plan your video. What do you want to say? Maybe say the words, its meaning by showing pictures or even gestures. Be creative!
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| Anybody use a camera nowadays? Pic credit clipartpanda.com |
Replay the video to listen to the pronunciation. if you are dissatisfied, re-record.
Watch the video over and over again. or share it with your friends on social media. Who knows, with the motivation of 'likes' you might learn your vocabulary effectively.
PLAY GAMES
There are a lot of vocabulary games available. Here are some great ones which I found on the internet.
10 Best Vocabulary Game online by FluentU
10 Best Vocabulary Game online by FluentU
Word games on British Council
Word Shake
How strong is your vocabulary?
Knoword
SPEAK IT
Practice
Practice makes progress.
To practice effectively, we need to practice with the people around us. The safest bet would be our friends and our teachers. I am not saying you can't practice with others but, friends and teachers will be a good place, to begin with.
Choose a topic for practice on a particular day, practice using the same vocabulary over and over again. Observe others reaction towards your pronunciation and usage. We need to practice with other people because it provides instant feedback. Encourage your friends to help you practice.
I hope these suggestions will get you motivated to master your vocabulary. There are no shortcuts to mastery and I hope you are up to it. Every language learners will need to do and redo these steps even their language mastery has become better after some time.
Word games on British Council
Word Shake
How strong is your vocabulary?
Knoword
SPEAK IT
Practice
Practice makes progress.
To practice effectively, we need to practice with the people around us. The safest bet would be our friends and our teachers. I am not saying you can't practice with others but, friends and teachers will be a good place, to begin with.
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| A friend in need is a friend indeed. Pic credit 123rf.com |
Choose a topic for practice on a particular day, practice using the same vocabulary over and over again. Observe others reaction towards your pronunciation and usage. We need to practice with other people because it provides instant feedback. Encourage your friends to help you practice.
I hope these suggestions will get you motivated to master your vocabulary. There are no shortcuts to mastery and I hope you are up to it. Every language learners will need to do and redo these steps even their language mastery has become better after some time.
What interesting about word webbing is its ability to make the activity fun. While pupils can use their prior knowledge to extract meaning and uses of words, at the same time they can learn to be creative by exploring of what they do not know. It is a 360 degree spin from the word=meaning mundane activity.
What is word webbing?
- Identify a word or phrase.
- Write down any word associated with the word/phrase identified.
VERY SIMPLE!
The question is, how can we make it fun? Here are 5 ways to make it engaging for your class. While my ideas focus on young learners, I think adults language learners too will like the fun.
Circle Time.
- Pupils are seated in small groups of 4.
- Every pupil will have a different colored pen.
- Pupils identify a word from the text.
- Pupils write the word at the center on a project paper.
- The design of the word web is based on the group preferences (some templates will be suggested at the end of this post).
- Taking a turn, pupils write a word they think associated with the word identified.
- Round 2, pupils check the words written by its relevant and spelling.
- Repeat step 6 and 7 until the time is up.
Run to the Board!
- Pupils are seated in a small group of 6.
- Every group will have a different colored pen.
- Teacher identifies a word/phrase from the text and writes it on the board.
- In 5 minutes, pupil brainstorms the word associated with the word/phrase identified.
- When the time is up, 1 person from every group will run to the board and write down a word.
- In groups, they will take a turn until the time is up.
- The teacher may reward the group with the most words on the board.
- If the pupils write the same word, the teacher may cross out one and award no marks.
Fan me, please...
- Pupils are seated in small groups of 4.
- Each group is given 4 blank cards.
- On card 1: Pupils write [What is the word?] On card 2: Pupils write [The word is.....] On card 3: Pupils write [This word can be associated with .......] On card 4: Pupils write [That's great! The word....is associated with the word ...... OR I don't think so. The word ....is associated with the word ......]
- Every pupil will take a card. Use the card for cues.
- After one round, they will jot their answer in a notebook/worksheet provided.
- For the second round, the person who had card 1 will receive card 4, the person who had card 2 will receive card 1, the person who had card 3 will receive card 2 and the person who had card 4 will receive card 1.
Word Worm.
- Pupils are seated in small groups of 4.
- Each group is given a different word.
- In 5 minutes, the group will brainstorm the word associated with the word given.
- When the time is up, 1 person (the Word Worm) from each group will go to the other group to learn new word and its word association.
- The Word worm will write the new word learned and write notes/complete template by the teacher.
- After 5 minutes, the word worm will return to its original group and teach the rest of the group members.
- For the second round, another person will become the word worm.
- Repeat step 6 and 7.
Who's with me?
- The teacher prepares a stack of cards.
- Each pupil receives a blank card.
- Teacher writes a word on the board.
- Individually pupils write a word (on the card) associated with the word on the board.
- Teacher calls out a category and pupils need to regroup themselves. For example, the word on board is Playground. Teacher calls activity at the playground! Pupils who write the activity will regroup themselves.
- At the end, the teacher can assess pupils knowledge depth and breadth of the word.
EXTENSION
The activities suggested will take short class time. The teacher needs to plan other activities to support word webbing. Assessment is crucial in identifying the word study and teacher may incorporate sentence building in the assessment.
SUGGESTED WORD WEBBING TEMPLATES
Vocabulary building is pertinent in mastering a language. One must spend a considerable amount of time understanding and studying of vocabulary before automaticity to take effect. Consider the activities suggested and Insya Allah, you will see the difference!
SaveSave
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I presented this during a meeting and the response was good. The audience suggested some improvisations and I love it!
- Instead of using boxes, we agreed to paste the word on the board according to the three categories.
- The suggested words will be verbs and be done in collaboration with another teacher.
Yeay! Alhamdulillah. I hope this to take off soon with my teachers and I am certain to sell this idea on a full scale after this. Wish me luck!
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| My family word cloud |
The word cloud is
generated from ABCya! It is easy to make, just type the words you want to
appear and edit the colours, font and layout and there you have it! A word
cloud.
So, how teachers can use this for the
classroom?
- Name of pupils in class. Instead of those boring list of names posted on the classroom board, why not use this for a change?
- Teachers' day card or any card. Laminate it and give it away. A little different, hence the attention right?
- Vocabulary in focus. Teachers can make vocabulary list based on topic. Just use the colours and font to differentiate the topics.
That's all I can think for now. If you have
brighter ideas, please let me know. Sometimes, alone in this blog can get a
little misdirected.
Cheers!
Many of us struggle keeping our learners remember. This forgetfulness stem from our lack of system in retaining their memory. I came across Leitner System the other day and I think it is workable. After some discussions with my teachers, I learned that this idea can be expanded into teaching speaking, reading and writing.
In this post, I will demonstrate the teaching of vocabulary using the system.
If you are computer savvy, you can try making flashcards online. You can use it to pre-teach the words to make it interesting. Click on the picture to go to the site.
In this post, I will demonstrate the teaching of vocabulary using the system.
If you are computer savvy, you can try making flashcards online. You can use it to pre-teach the words to make it interesting. Click on the picture to go to the site.
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| Check out the app on play store too! |
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| Enhance vocabulary with VOCBOC |
In the midst of searching materials to read, I found this video. The video showcased 9 ways of teaching grammar based on a textbook. I am unsure of the textbook but the ideas presented are practical to be used in TnL activities.
I made a list of the 9 activities and detail out the steps in executing them. I hope you find it useful.
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| Pic from GISCafe.com |
Mistakes
a. Write a sentence with a mistake.
b.
Get the pupils to identify the mistake.
Slowly revealing
a.
Get children to think about word order.
b.
Reveal word by word and solicit next word from
pupils.
What’s missing?
a.
b. Then pupils close their eyes, teacher take out the words and ask them to identify the missing words.
What’s wrong?
a.
Ask the pupils to close their eyes, switch the
cards and let pupils to identify whats wrong
Finish the sentence
a.
Teacher write the starter for a sentence, e.g. I
read… and encourage pupils to finish the sentence. This helps pupils to
understand how a sentence can go together.
Order the words
a.
Teacher writes a question then draws the lines
for the answers based on the number of words and include a line for the
punctuation as well.
b.
Teacher prepared words to be rearrange in cards.
c. Pupils rearrange the words to make a sentence.
Whats number one?
a.
Almost similar to the activity above only pupils
put the words not in sequence.
b. Pupils identify words to be put into numbered
lines randomly.
Arrow game
a.
Paste a picture.
b.
Then pupils arrange the word cards based on the
lines drawn by the teacher.
c.
For e.g. What is it? Then for the answer (teacher
don't have another word card for the word it, so teacher ask the pupils to use an
arrow to show the placement of the word it in the answer.
Good opportunity to highlight punctuation
Describe an animal
a.
E.g. describing a dinosaur
b.
Teacher provides sentence pattern to describe the
dinosaur.
c. Teacher shows another animal picture and ask
the pupils to change the sentence patterns to describe the new animal.
Give it a try!
(sorry about the alignment of the words, did it on words and copied to here and....)
