Vocabulary Building Strategies

Vocabulary Building Strategies

“I have a spelling checker, It came with my PC 
It plainly marks for my revue, Mistakes I cannot sea 
I’ve run this poem threw it, I’m sure your please to no, 
It’s letter perfect in it’s weigh, My checker tolled me sew” 
— anonymous

You may be an English language learner or an English language teacher – all of you can find resources here to strengthen your or your students’ vocabulary range and acquisition skills! You should never sit or you should never have your students sit and memorize a list of words. Also, avoid translating words to your language. Chances are, the next day you will remember the list of words in your first language 

So, what then? There are a lot of fun activities you can do alone or with other ELLs (English Language Learners)! You can easily learn new words and how to use them correctly in sentences by doing the following:

• learn prefixes and suffixes
• learn the root and other parts of speech/forms of the same word
• use a dictionary or online dictionaries to determine meaning, class, word forms and collocations
• learn an easy definition of the words
• learn the synonyms and antonyms if possible
• create word cards
• use them in discussion
• use them in writing/composition
• use them in analogies! Challenging but rewarding and fun 
• focus on usage not just understanding

This video is a word card building tutorial.  Creating a word card initially takes 20 minutes at least, then it becomes more easy and faster! I always ask my students to watch it before they start building word cards as part of their homework:

These two documents offer a more thorough explanation for synonyms, antonyms, collocations and analogies. Inside each document I recommend several websites and online dictionaries:

These two documents show you a vocabulary building strategy using google images. Teachers should assign no more than 15-20 words per week for students to learn. If you are a teacher, and you want to have your students learn more, well, make sure you give them enough fun practice in class. You can do this exercise in many different ways. Learners can do it alone or in groups of 2-3 students. After your students learn the words, type the weekly target words in Google images one by one and choose a good image. You can ask students to describe an image using one target word that you had in mind, or use several of the weekly words.

The first document includes the images/pictures only, the second one includes student answers as well:

This one is called “Guess the Word!” You can even assign it as a quick quiz. Show students the images and have them write down the word – or a complete sentence.

You should NEVER test your students’ vocabulary skills by dictating a list of words in English and ask them to give you the equivalent of those in your first language or vice versa. Instead let me show you a comprehensive way of testing their knowledge of both understanding and usage.

There are many more ways to strengthen those skills, so let me share one more with you; it’s called Vocabulary Composition or Story Time. You can easily do this as a student at home or assign it in class if you are a teacher. Basically, you can have your students keep either a regular or an online journal or blog and write paragraph long texts to practice using the weekly target words in sentences/paragraphs. You can ask them to write about a certain topic that you discussed in class that week, or the topic the textbook discussed.

Or, you can make it a bit more specific or focused for them and start a story (2-3 sentences) and have your students finish it! Then they can share their journal entry or blog entry and compare how they finished the story! It is always a favorite 

For instance: It was a beautiful warm sunny Monday morning. Jack just left the house, and he was walking to school very slowly. He was kicking the fallen chestnuts on the ground. He did not want to go to school, and he found kicking them really fun! He was even thinking about skipping school or being late for it and playing soccer with the tiny brown “balls”. Suddenly, he looked up and this sweet red headed girl was walking in front of him. Finish the story! What happened to Jack and the girl? Use the following words from this week’s target words list and write at least 5 sentences:  attitude – prefer – betray – aggravate – disapprove – eager – vanish – miserable

Alternatively, you can have 2-3 students write it together! They can even use a Google doc on Google drive where they can cooperate