Practices for Teaching Vocabulary
Mr Ashok Pandya
Department of Communication Skills, MEFGI - Rajkot
Words
have power to destroy and heal. - The Buddha
Whatever
and wherever we are today it’s because of our words that we have used in our
life. Using minimum words and conveying maximum thought is heart of
communication. One of the problem with vocabulary is that students (we also) do
not remember new words for longer time, I had question in mind that how we can
teach vocabulary in such way that students can remember
it for longer time. I tried to find out answer. There are some techniques that
I have come across which teacher can experiment for example teaching words with
different images, showing movie scenes in which character uses that particular word,
using it in their conversation, recording that conversation, creating story by
using that particular word, creating what’s app group etc. I have experimented
some of the techniques.
1. Teaching
words with different images:
Science
says whatever we see we can remember it for longer time. When I teach anything
and when I use any word that students find difficult I explain that word by
showing image of that word for example ‘LIONIZE’ means to treat someone as
celebrity, after explaining usage of that word, I showed an image of that word
on projector screen (type particular word on Google and click on image)
I also explain it with white board.
2. Creating
WhatsApp group:
In
my lab, Students have created WhatsApp group for learning vocabulary. I have
advised them to introduce any new words with images in group and then they are
supposed to make sentence of that words.
3. Teaching
through particular movie scene:
Students
like when you talk about movie. Movies are source of learning. Students might
not remember text but they remember dialogues of the movies. For example, I
taught word ‘ENTREPRENEUR’ by showing movie clip of English Vinglish.
Now
questions are: have they learnt words in a better way? Are they able to use
effective words? Are they now able to remember words for longer time? Answers
of these questions will be written in my next article.
