June 28, 2009

More than words…

Teaching vocabulary is far more than just teaching isolated words. Our students may have different ways of acquiring vocabulary and it's our duty to train them in new strategies for doing it. Teaching vocabulary is about making connections and building relations with our words; it is about giving students the tool for mental processing of lexical units.

Teacher who had gone through a Teachers' Training College should be aware of some Language teachers' love for long list of ways of… In a collaborative way, students at the LCB TTC have created a wiki page in which I've made some contributions towards a list that we can call "Ways of Teaching Vocabulary".

You are more than welcome to visit it and leave your comment!!!

"Vocabulary enables us to interpret and to express.

If you have a limited vocabulary,

you will also have a limited vision and a limited future." -

Jim Rohn (Business Philosopher)

Based on Tricia Hedge, Teaching and Learning in Language Classroom, Oxford, 2000
(Chapter 4)

4 comments:

  1. Hi Yohi!
    I really loved the quotation with which you rounded off your post! It is so true that if we lack vocabulary we lack half of what we need to succeed in all of life's aspects!
    I found it really funny that you mentioned "Ways of..." endless lists! Haha it reminded me of all the times we destroy efficient and meaningful learning of vocabulary when we want our students to aimlessly remember a certain number of words. Why do we ask them to do such a useless thing if that prevents them from using them spontaneously? We need to keep in mind that we have to teach them how to use vocabulary and not merely how to remember it ;)

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  2. Alez.... the KEY element in our thoughts is.... MEANING!!!!!

    Love sharing ideas with U!!!

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  3. Contributions to the wiki page have certainly shown there are countless ways of teaching vocabulary, hasn't it? As you've mentioned here, the question is which of those ways are effective for the students we happen to be working with to actually learn it, right?

    Thanks for the extensive research shared at the wiki... I guess now you've been looking into the ¨Lexical Approach as well you have even more ideas about how to approach the teaching of lexis!

    Kudos to you!
    Gladys

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  4. Some years ago I've learnt from my Ethics teacher that being aware of the different options is what makes a decision a choice. THIS IS WHAT WE'VE DONE IN THIS WIKI.... BECOMING AWARE....

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