There are three principles involved in teaching and learning vocabulary in context: practice, understand, and infer (going beyond the text). ESL vocabulary activities, read alouds and games are all art of this vocabulary learning
As a general rule of thumb, vocabulary can be taught inductively (through some process of discovery) or deductively (example: providing a picture - 'this is a _________' )
For young ESL learners, this is pretty hard to do, but when vocabulary is taught routinely and creatively, it can be a fun and enriching experience.
Another general rule of thumb is that the discovery process has a general appeal to learners especially when the words have been previously taught.
Next steps: Putting learned words through context. Teachers use a listening comprehension story to present the words in another context.
Fun Vocabulary Techniques
Students use pictures to relate it to specific words. For younger kids for example, students can talk about the animals on Old McDonald's farm in context with the animals.
- Personalize: Teacher can ask students: "Do you have a dog at home?" or, "What animal do you like the best?"
- Teacher numbers each picture: students say the number of each word as it is called or show the number of fingers if the teacher wants to keep the noise level down.
- Students can describe the colors of Old McDonald's farm.
- Interactive: students come and put the dog in a place the teacher says.
- I'm thinking of a word: teacher describes the word and students guess the meaning.
- Use imagination: for example, imagine you are in a cabin. Students have ten minutes for creating a story using as many words as possible.
Important Teaching Tips
What are some of the aims of the teacher. How many of the things listed does the teacher expect the learner to be able to do? With which words?
- How many new words per lesson? (5-7 words is ideal)
- What is the ongoing need?
- Provide frequent exposure and repetition.
- Presentation in Context
