Speed Dating as Vocabulary Review

This fun and useful exercise really works well as a filler or after you've taught a number of lessons and want to check your students have learned the vocabulary taught - either the emerged lexis if you're a dogme teacher, or with items from textbook exercises.

If you're teaching a group of regular students who are coming back after a long break, this activity works as a nice warmer-upper.

SET UP

Ask your students to write down 5 - 7 words that they've recently learned.   

Instruct them that they shouldn't write the explanations or translations on this paper/ phones/ laptops - however they should know these - so as they write, do allow them to use (e)dictionaries. 

If you've been working with a textbook, you can also get different students to go through different units. If you're working dogme, then get them to go through their notes.  If you've been working online, get them to browse through their blogs/flashcards/google.docs.

Set up the classroom's chairs like this:

PROCESS

Give students around 5 minutes to tell each other the meaning of the words they wrote down.   After this time (using a buzzer or bell), get your students to switch pairs/mini-groups.  

Continue doing this until each student has talked to a maximum number of other students.

Feedback

Once you have your students back in the room/ back to the original classroom set up, ask each to tell you the most interesting word(s) they learned and to also create a sentence using this word.

Variations
On a nice day, it's really fun to do this activity outside/ in another area of your school/ courtyard or on rainy days in the hallway and obviously they can also do it while standing up!

Useful links related to this posting: 
What does it mean to know a word?
What do you do with emergent language?
Complicated Vocabulary, Make Cartoons!
Powerpointing me

Best,
Karenne

Have you ever done this activity, how well did it work?   Have you got another variant or perhaps an extra suggestion to add - please don't hesitate to let us know your ideas on how to expand this.   If you like, don't hesitate to print this exercise out/email it and share it with colleagues- see the buttons below.

What does it mean to "know" a word?

The other day I was in the middle of a conversation with someone...

the person I was speaking to suddenly said  

"then how do you know if someone
knows something or not?

The question came because I'd  been ranting that standardized testing was mainly just a test of memory skills or the ability to regurgitate somone else's information without fully understanding it, verifying it for a real truth and that more often than not, tests don't test knowledge.  

So I deserved this question flying back at me to test my own knowledge.

Big, deep breath as the flood of everything I've learned or experienced about learning, everything I disagree with and everything, thought-through, everything I've experimented with and found merit in... all these other-people's-ideas jostling around for top priority 

(pick me! pick me!) 

...in the end, leaving me paralyzed and unable to answer.  I mean, if you've ever been there too, you know the dilemma right?   My god, my god: there's literally a theory for everything under the sun when it comes down to pedagogy (and andragogy) and whoa, this trails all the way back to Socrates and beyond.

I mean what to answer with first? 

There isn't a one right answer.

There are many.

Which probably isn't terribly useful for you... so I should probably leave this post alone except for the fact that my fingers ache from not having blogged for so long and I've gotta share with you - you give me my buzz and keep me thinkin'...

My life has recently turned into this time-consuming, exciting, brain challenging world 

of creating e-learning and m-learning products and we 

(Voxy - I'm their academic consultant, if you missed that update) 

are radically changing the status quo of language learning autonomously
~what we're working on producing next is seriously going to blow your minds :-)

...and, actually, I drafted this post out so very long ago and then never published it.

This is part of the H2LE (How-to-learn-English) posts and is a guide for learners on vocabulary acquistion.   I've been working on it since 2003 and have used it for training teachers on the use of dictionaries in Ecuador and here in Germany use it as a learning-to-learn doc for adult language learners:

I can cheerfully add that everytime I learn something new, it'll change!

• To view in full-screen, see the icon on the right of the black box with slide numbers.
• To embed it on your own site, click on menu to grab the code.
• To embed in a Ning or other learning platform save your own copy and upload into the GoogleDocs app.
• To share this blog post with colleagues, tap on "bookmark" button at the bottom of this post - above the retweet button - and click on the social-networking/envelope/print icon.
• To send just the document to your students, right click over THIS LINK and select the option to copy the link-address then insert this into an email.

Useful links:

• Previous posts on vocabulary

• N is for Noah Webster by Adam Simpson on Vicki Hollett's blog
• Repetition video with Scott Thornbury
  
• Larry Ferlazzo Student-Created Online Content (many, many, many posts!)
• Voxy's word nerds
  
• Ozge Karaoglu's alphabet of web2.0 tools
• Nik Peachey's daily activities (web 2.0 tools for students to explore!)

But going back to my original opening... 

What does it mean to know something?

You know it when you can apply it in a different context, 

at a different time and place.  

You know it when you own it.

Agree?

As always anything to add or share with me - please do!  If you've written a post or two about this subject, don't hesitate to add the link.

Karenne

Luciana Podschun's Vocabulary Tree

Since I joined twitter a couple of months ago and started building up my PLN, I became incredibly addicted to it.  I discovered awesome educators and wonderful people who are sharing their experiences, fantastic tools for web 2.0, thoughtful  blogs and interesting discussions all in one place - on “twitter”.

I must confess that besides twitter, I am now also hooked on reading blogs. Little by little I started submitting comments and participating in some of the discussions on twitter such as #eltchat #ntchat# and #edchat. I still don’t feel comfortable enough to start my own blog, but I do love sharing my experiences and writing on other educators’ blogs. So, here I am, I’m writing for the first time as a guest on Kalinago English Blog.

Today, I am sharing an activity which is suitable for all levels and is pretty useful to widen student's vocabulary through its practice, it's called Vocabulary Tree. Once when I was searching on the web for different ways to memorize words I came across to this technique. After reading some other blogs about it, I decided to adopt it for my private students.  I started with my beginner group last month and they really enjoyed it because it’s was a good way to memorize the words.

The overall experience for my students and their initial reaction was great.  The students were thrilled as they realized the interrelation of the different words.  It was good fun for everyone and the students learned in the process. The classes went by very fast!

All we need is to put the subject in the center of the paper.  We can also write a short introduction using as many words related to the subject as we can. Using the introduction we can arrange the main ideas related to the subject in a Vocabulary Tree.

In order to enrich students’ vocabulary we start asking about the ones they know and gradually introduce the new words by asking questions. It’s also a great way to get the students accustomed to the usage of a monolingual dictionary.   We can also add some pictures related to the words for those students who learn better in a visual way.

In the illustration below,  I wrote jobs and occupations in the center of the sheet of paper; with a arrow I put the words which are related and its workplace, so they could learn also the workplace related to the jobs.

I hope you try out this activity, the students get motivated once they learn the interrelation between words. 



Luciana Podschun
@inglesinteract


By the way, I would love to hear from you if you've done something like this too or have any suggestions for me on how to adapt it.

Complicated vocabulary? Make cartoons!

Almost no teacher of adult learners would stand in front of her classroom, take out the crayons and proceed to tell students to get out a sheet of paper and draw pictures of challenging vocabulary...

However last week when I noticed the verbs look at/look for/look after being consistently used incorrectly in our conversation, this is exactly what I resorted to.  

Normally, I would have reached for the computer, Google and PowerPoint (my dearest friends) but last week I was actually in a classroom with a chalkboard, not a whiteboard let alone a computer and projector and none of them had their laptops.  I kid you not.   

Baffled... I still had to make my learners see the difference.   

There is a good reason we drew as kids - that whole spending time thinking about concepts and then creating something out of those thoughts marks the brain in ways that receiving oral explanations never will and we shouldn't ever let those skills go to waste just because we're working with adults.

Step 1

Whenever you notice a group of words with similar meaning but they're not quite the same / a set of common errors between English and the students' native language / phrasal verbs that have distinct meanings first talk about what is wrong in their conversations: give or elicit an explanation.

Step 2
Get your students to draw cartoons demonstrating the differences.

Step 3
Encourage your students to share their drawings with each other.



That's it: have fun!

Best,
Karenne
education  

Online Dictionaries and the Advanced Language Learner

Conversation between myself and C, an advanced English tele-student.

C: My client in Amsterdam asked me if I use an online dictionary.

Me: Really, why?  Did you ask why she asked?

C: Yes, she said sometimes I use really strange words in my emails.

Me: (laughs gently)  Are you using Leo?

C: Is that a bad dictionary? Do you know a better one?

Me: Leo's good but  I usually use Google Translate.  Well, sometimes.

C: I should talk around the words when I don't know them. (repeating a former instruction of mine)

Me: Yeeh..es - that's a very good strategy.

C: But, sometimes that takes too long.  I would prefer to know the right word.

Me: I understand.

C: I can't learn the right word if I never find it out.

Me: What about an English-English online dictionary? Like Macmillan - that's a good one, it even does pronunciation. And they have a nice blog - I must remember to feed that into our Ning.

C: But if I don't know what the word I want to say is, in English, how can I search the word I want?

Me: There is that! (laughs out loud).  You could try a thesaurus?

C: That takes too long, it's the same problem with using the Leo, I still won't know the word I want.

Me: Mmm.

C: I can't know the word if I don't ever learn it.

Me: Yes.  Hmm...that's why we're having these classes but I know exactly the way you feel.  Sometimes when I have to deal, in German, with my taxes or do stuff to do with my business...  I need an online option too.

C:  Does it work for you?

Me: I don't know - no one tells me when I use strange words.  But I think what your client is noticing is the old fashioned words.  Leo gives you all sorts of options and that includes words that aren't wrong, they're just not... not said anymore.  To be honest, I'm probably doing the same thing as you are. 

I have a good German-English dictionary on my desk but these days I tend to be too lazy to look in it - it's just so big and heavy.

C: What's tend?

 Me: (quiet panic, hesitation).. um, tend is like attend, like pay attention but in this context, I mean more that... I mean that usually I am too lazy or that often I am too lazy to look in my heavy dictionary.

C: It is quicker to use Leo.

Me: Hmm.  Yes, you tend to use Leo when you're stuck for a word. But your client thinks it sounds strange.

C: What about if I talk around the words with you and then you tell me what the right word is?

Me: We can do that.   You can also copy and paste your emails into your blog - just take out the confidential details but I can look specifically for the words that don't fit your context and I'll give you feedback on those.

C: I would like that.  I can store them in my blog.

Me: Exactly.  And when you have enough - I know Google Docs Spreadsheets has a really cool program - all you do is put these words in a list and we can also add the words from our Google Doc feedback sheet - then you can make a game to play at home. 

C: Yes!  I want to do that.  You have to teach me how to make this game.  Did you have a nice week?  Did you finish your article yet?

Readers, have you ever been in this sort of situation? 

What do you think the best way would be for me to handle C's advanced level vocabulary acquisition without really knowing what words she specifically needs to use beforehand in these emails?  To be honest, I fear this (the above, waiting for the words to emerge) might actually be a really long process. 

How do you handle mass-vocabulary acquisition?  As you know by now, being a dogme teacher, I tend not to be too fond of presenting random lists to be learned off by heart without context... Still, I'm in a quandary - isn't there a way for me to deal with this?  Do please share your top tips...

And by the way, are you pro- or anti- dictionary usage in the classroom (online or otherwise)?   Why?



Useful links related to this posting: 
Jason Renshaw: The best compliments are complements
Scott Thornbury: A is for Attention
Google Docs Educational Gadgets
Inside Google Translate
Internet may phase out Oxford Dictionary

Best,
Karenne
education

Hi English Fans! (Motivation in Adult EFL)

alternative title: UP, DOWN, TOP/BOTTOM, CHANGES & NO CHANGES


There have been some rather hot and heavy discussions recently about whether or not it's a good idea to use technology in teaching.

And if you're a regular visitor to my blog then you pretty much already know what I think.

For those who're new: I drum it in hard and heavy. It's the world we live in, it's the world we better be teaching in.



This time, though, I won't be socking you with my opinions. I'll just show you the result.

For those who don't know any back story, I'm very proudly a dogmeist which is a kind of radical movement in teaching, started up by Scott Thornbury back in 2000 (see his website and articles here).

Dogme has the goal of student-centered learning, conversation-driven lessons and a clear focus on emergent language.

Trouble is, I'm also a technologist and most dogmeists aren't.


Now, although Scott Thornbury is my thought leader (there really isn't anyone else like him or his work in our field) we've had a few, somewhat public, arguments about the tech side of things.

I enjoy these discussions - he makes valid points which force me to up my anty each time: just because I think I'm right, doesn't mean that I am.

Being wrong is a point of growth and opportunity to develop - it's specifically because of these arguments, every time they flare up, that I keep copious notes on what's happening in the classroom, how my students are responding, how much they're retaining, where they're improving and constantly question my teaching practice and its effectiveness.

Today's post is about student motivation in my hybrid dogme meets technology teaching.

This blog mostly contains lessons I've done again and again, things that I have experimented with way before you get to see them ;-) however today... I'm going to go out on a wing and admit I don't know what my students will produce next week.

Today, I'll simply ask you to look at the level of motivation my students are displaying due to the fact that we focus on things that they are interested in learning, work on language they need to learn and reuse this in ways applicable to their lives.

We use technology when it fits to do so, not because it's fancy.

Part 1

Language objective:

Mastery over phrases used in statistical reporting /Financial English.

In class procedure:

• Get each student to draw trend expressions as given onto large sheets of paper then present to the rest of the class. If we had had computers in class with us that day, these could have been done in excel.
  

• Discussion and agreement /disagreement. Building contextual examples.

• Cross checking via BlackBerry for expressions when validity of use uncertain.

The expressions in drawings:





Setting up the pretask activity:
(I dislike the word homework)

Brainstorm potential sources for reports.



Pre Task

Find pre-existing graphs, pie-charts, annual reports and download from the internet, preferably in English but not necessarily.

The task is not to create a graph (they know how to do that) but instead to choose any figures and trends personally interesting and think about how to best describe change.

Next week we'll discuss their findings in English.

Student involvement

See emails from Eva, the self appointed moderator, who decided to make sure that all students (including those missing) are on the same page for next week. I did not request for this email to be written, although I wasn't surprised to see it - she often follows up on the lessons.

We live in a world with email. We live in a world where digital photographs can be taken and shared, where .pdfs can be downloaded and distributed.

We live in a world where our phones are micro-sized computers.

We live in a world where the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented but can instead be analyzed - where the focus in language learning can actually be on the language.

Next week I will show you what happens next In Task - what they produce, if they reused the language, how they present these and anything else.


Best,
Karenne
p.s. Can I just say this cracks me up: Hi English Fans! My German/Polish students in this class are aged 40+ and work in the Financial sector.

Water Words (on using images in ESP: Financial English)

One of the absolute best supplementary books to use when teaching banking or financial types is Financial English by Ian MacKenzie.


However, despite the absolute wealth of vocabulary it contains, the exercises can be a bit difficult for students to do, especially if they've never seen the words before and also the book is, quite frankly, a wee dry.

If you've been reading my blog for a while then you've probably already gleaned by now that I like to have a bit of fun in my lessons... and I've noticed you do too... while still sticking to the core learning objectives.

So in this posting I'm going to hone in on two different approaches to working with lists of words, when presenting a visual lexis.

For this example, we'll look at the language in unit 2.10 of Financial English, Liquid Metaphors.

Step one:
Divide up the following words by the number of students you have:

2.10 includes:
channel, dry up, flood, flow, pour, run out of, swim, trickle down, drain, ebb and flow, pool, source, awash, crest, depth, under(water), fluid, sank, plug.

*To mix things up, I also brainstorm a list of related lexis with my students and provide extras before evenly distributing these amongst the students e.g. (water)fall, drop, river, cross that bridge, laundry, ocean, wave & drown.

Step two (the dogme version)

Hand out the vocabulary and ask your students to draw pictures matching each word.






As great masterpieces aren't expected, you'd be surprised how much 50+ year old bankers enjoy doing this type of activity, LOL!





For the words they have difficulty drawing (because they don't know them) either encourage them to help each other out, mime the words or allow them to use a dictionary.

OR

Step two (the techno-teacher version)

Give your students their share of the words and set image searching as their pre-task activity.

They can use Google images (use safe search), any photo based web 2.0 platform and/or my personal favorite, flickr. Remind them to look for images that are creative commons licensed.

Ask them to copy the pictures into Powerpoint, create slides & label if wished.

n.b. if you don't have a computer in the classroom this pre-task can be set as a home based activity.



Step three

Spread the pictures across the table or if you have one, pin them up on a corkboard.

Encourage your students to present their drawings or slides and to share their understanding of the words they've learned with each other.





Step four

Do the exercise provided by the book* - if feasible, get them working in pairs of groups discussing the different solutions applying the words to a financial context, referencing the pictures on the table.

*obviously although I'm using Financial English as the example here, you can do this activity with any vocabulary book.



Step five

Build awareness by highlighting and discussing the common expresssions i.e. trickle down, run out of, riding on the crest of a wave, pulling the plug on something, a huge pool of resources etc - encourage them to come up with alternative sentences using these.

Step six

Now ask your students to write up a short essay reusing the metaphors. For example, in this case, they could describe:

• their company's financial situation
• a project they're currently working on
• their country's economy
• the financial crisis and the global economy
• a current financial news item (e.g. a company heading toward bankruptcy or being listed on the stock exchange)
  

Step seven

Correct their pieces and get them to share what they wrote with each other - encourage further conversation on the opinions stated - reusing the collocative phrases as often as possible.

Best,
Karenne

Side note: I've done both of these methods with my learners and they all reported 1) increased awareness of the vocabulary and 2) a noticing of the lexis in later financial news articles.

For me, these approaches of working with images, while similar probably have different effects on memory.

I've been thinking about it and reckon that they probably trigger different learning processes (one involves some physical learning and discovery of the lexis, the image searching would result in immediate association between the word and image) however, honestly, as I'm not a scientist nor do I have a masters in second language acquisition, I'd really love to know your professional take on this issue.

Do you know of supportive texts that back these ideas up?

Have you/would you also do this type of activity with kids or teens? Why, why not?


Useful links related to this posting:

• Jeremy Day's excellent tips on using Imagery in Financial English
  
• Murder of a Superhero (using drama in the classroom)
• Other teaching tips with a dogme angle added
  
• Other vocabulary teaching tips

• Scott Thornbury on Repetition, great YouTube video!

• The Weboword Ning - for vocabulary enthusiasts, lovers and learners! This is the world's first community dedicated to Visual Vocabulary.

• Jamie Keddie's post: Reasons for buying flowers (grammar + images)
  
• Vicky Saumell on Using Phasr
  

Use it: Don't Let Them Lose It!

Scenario:
You've just done a really weighty, vocabulary rich text with your English language learners.

It was a great article from Business Spotlight or maybe something you downloaded from an online news source.

Perhaps it was a reading out of a textbook a little above their level (oops!) or you had them review sections from an authentic, bestselling, business book in their field.

You were so keen - it was exactly their interests, you sigh, yet it was just too much vocabulary.

Now you're all feeling a bit overwhelmed and they're looking at you like you are the meanest English teacher in the world.

So you buckled down and successfully explained the words, spent a chunk of class time dissecting the meanings, giving/getting examples with some of the students hitting their translators or looking in their dictionaries.

At the end of the lesson, you had them list the new words in their language journals.

Done. Ready to scurry on out of that failed lesson?

STOP.

There were at least 12 words they had never seen before. It might have been 20. *Blush*

Deep down you know there's a real good chance they may not know them next week either, let alone in a month's time.

Was it important vocabulary, I mean did you choose the article because it was stuff they expressed an interest in, it's topical and relevant to their lives?

So they would benefit from knowing that great lexis. Right?

It's your task now to transfer some of those into their active vocabularies.

Instead of using a whole lesson dissecting words (or rather you teaching them the vocabulary) why not work on a few and put these into active use.

Here's one tip on how to do this:

1. What's important?

Not all of that lexis is stuff they're going to be able to use again. Get your students to individually decide which words are most relevant and encourage them to choose no more than 8 that they can see as being useful.

All the better if they can choose whole phrases, i.e. a prudent investment is stickier than "prudent."

2. Let's share what was so hard
Get one of the students to go up to the board eliciting words and phrases that the rest of the class want to learn. Encourage students to share at least 4 - add numbers when you hear a word or phrase repeated.

At the end of this, draw a circle around these highest ranking words.

3. Why those words?
Look at the highest ranking words and phrases. Ask students why they chose these, getting them to repeat them as they explain their reasons.

4. What's the situation?
Ask your students to brainstorm circumstances when these phrases might be used in a conversation.

Would it be on the telephone? In a meeting? A meeting about what?

At a business dinner? Throw out some ideas and get them to tell you others.

5. Who's using those words?
Tell them they're eavesdropping on a conversation. It's awfully interesting. Who's speaking?

6. What are they saying?
Divide your students into groups and tell them to write out a dialogue. Get volunteers from each group to become the secretaries.

7. The screenwriting event.
The secretaries' post-task activity is to type up the mini-screenplays and bring in copies for the rest of the class.

The rest of the students should either

a) look for examples of these words in context on google (see here) or
b) use at least two words/phrases during the week with their colleagues or clients and report back with the who and how in the next lesson.

You know what's coming next, right?

8. The Oscars
In the next class, check and edit the screenplays. Encourage students to mix into different groups to read and review each others dialogues. Ask for volunteers to do one as a quick play.

Ask some of the students if and how they used the words they chose during the week or if they read them anywhere else.

Over the coming lessons, throughout the following weeks, you now have two different here's-one-I-made-earlier ice-breakers/ warmers /fillers at hand and can get different students acting out the various dialogues or discussing how students have managed to use the vocabulary.

They love that part, especially if they inject the words into a later conversation and you notice.

As always, hope this works for you as well as it does for me!

You can apply these steps to any lesson which involves teaching a lot of lexis in one go.

Before you dash off though, do you have another tip or suggestion for us on making vocabulary sticky?

Share your ideas by clicking comments and thanks very much!






Useful links related to this posting:

What to do with emergent language
Beam their errors on to the wall
Finding articles in your students fields
Noticing the News
Reading turned into speaking

Best,
Karenne

In the age of Twitter and Facebook, what's happening to English vocabulary?

In one of the LinkedIn groups I belong to, the question was asked about whether on not platforms such as Twitter/Facebook/Orkut or Instant Messenger services are bad for one's vocabulary.

Anirudh Maitra, entrepreneur and designer of weboword feels very strongly about holding on to the 'old' vocabulary.

He believes that the usage of web2.0 platforms will affect spelling and due to the speed required in response, young people will repetitively use the same vocabulary from a restrictive pool.

Considering the fact that the number of words in the English language is growing exponentially, as a direct result of the lexis coming in from all of these new technologies, coupled with the effect of globablization (other cultures learning English and bringing along with them a variety of new words of their own), I think that's nonsense.

So this is what I responded:

• Language is dynamic. Words that remain necessary, stay.

• Those we no longer need, go. It's simply the nature of the game.

• We don't need to hold on, we need to move with the river - the river has its own force. Fight the river: drown.

And it seems that we're not the only ones pontificating the question. The Boston Globe is asking whether language is dead or simply just evolving here and Grammar Girl's come up with her own Strunk and Twite.


What do you think?

Do we really still need words like eleemonosynary?*



Useful books related to this posting:

The Adventure of English. The Biography of a Language (Sceptre) Absolute genius

Mother Tongue: The English Language

A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach (Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics)


Best,
Karenne
p.s. Thanks Neal for the crazy word via twitter - and no I am not going to give you the meaning as it all too perfectly supports my point!