Transcript Vocabulary Games for Primary Level

Vocabulary games
and activities for
primary level
Peter Lucantoni
Peter Lucantoni
• Started teaching in 1979 in UK, MA TESOL
University of Edinburgh, lived and worked in
Europe and Middle East, now based in Cyprus
• Author, Educational Consultant & Teacher
Trainer for Cambridge University Press
• Cambridge TKT, CELTYL, CELTA & DELTA
trainer and Cambridge CELTYL assessor
• Examiner for Cambridge ESOL speaking
examinations
What are these?
kʊəbɪæ
Make a word
Use these phonemes to create one
complete word:
krvʊəbəjɪlæ
vəkæbjʊlərɪ
Make a word
How many individual words can you make from
vocabulary
‘
For example: cab
’?
Make a word
• Which of these vocabulary items could you give
to students to make words from? Give reasons
for your choices
• paragraph
• transport
• cotton
• chocolate
• Is this a good vocabulary activity? Why/not? For
which level/s?
When students travel, they don’t carry
grammar books, they carry
dictionaries
Professor Stephen Krashen, British Council conference, Milan 1997
Developing
meanings
• Children hear adults use words as discrete units,
eg, ball, juice, dog(gie)
• Children ask what words mean & develop
understanding
• In reading, the word is key to building up
knowledge & skills
• Infants go through a period of rapid vocabulary
growth
Developing
meanings
• Learning to point coincides with rapid increase in
noun acquisition
• Acquisition occurs through seeing & touching
• Children may use same words as adults but with
different meanings (Vygotsky)
• Word meanings are dynamic, not static
Developing
meanings
• Acquisition of meaning takes longer than
acquisition of spoken form (Locke)
• Production races ahead of comprehension
• Vocabulary development is not only about
acquisition, but also knowledge
Letter change
activity
• In this activity you are going to change one
letter in a word in order to create a new
word
• Pictures are used as support in making the
new words
• Look at the example first:
box
boy
toy
Letter change
activity
Teaching & learning
• Hatch & Brown identify 5 essential steps in
vocabulary learning:
1. Input
2. Clear image
3. Learning meaning
4. Making connection between forms & meanings
5. Using the words
Learning strategies
• guess meaning using all information in a picture
or text
• note grammatical information about a word based
on the way it is used
• note similarities with L1
• remember where word encountered previously
• group words with other similar words, lexical sets,
etc
Where does it go?
activity
1
wallet
2
money
milk
pencil case
pen
money
carton
milk
pen
Where does it go? activity
• Take a variety of objects into the classroom, as
in the examples
• Students then connect the objects, for example:
wallet + money
• Next, students can say and write answers to
questions, for example:
What goes in a wallet? Money
She
grandmother
………………..
………………..
………………..
………………..
………………..
Family circles
activity
He
………………..
………………..
………………..
………………..
………………..
……………….
grandmother, grandson, grandchild, son, sister, aunt,
cousin, uncle, dad, daughter, Mr, mum, grandparent,
Mrs, parent, grandfather, brother, wife, husband
Teachers should …
• model strategies – how?
• teach sub-skills useful in applying strategies –
how?
• use classroom activities to encourage use of
strategies – how?
• get learners to reflect on what they have learned
– how?
Remember that …
• a student's maximum level of reading
comprehension is determined by their knowledge
of words
• this word knowledge allows students to
comprehend text
• teachers can explicitly teach word meanings to
improve comprehension
Adjectives activity
Here are three words:
mountain,
dinosaur,
medal
Which adjectives could you use
to describe the three pictures?
Make a list for each picture
Adjectives activity
• Look at these adjectives from a primary course:
plastic, strong, healthy, endangered, famous,
small, dangerous, beautiful, extinct, old,
important, friendly
• Which of these adjectives could you use to
describe each picture?
• Write a short description for each picture. You
can only use the adjectives from this activity.
Draw three pictures!
Prediction activity
• You are going to read a short text about
extinction (from Kid’s Box 5, Cambridge
University press, 2009)
• Before you read, make a list of five words which
you think will appear in the text, for example, old.
Here is the first paragraph:
• EXTINCTION – Animals can become extinct
when all of their species or family die. When an
animal is in danger of extinction we call it an
endangered species.
Kid’s Box 5 pg 68
• A species can become extinct because of
many different things: more animals eat it,
sudden changes in the weather, natural
disasters, new diseases, and the actions
of people.
• The most famous extinct animals are the
dinosaurs which died out about 65 million
years ago. People have different ideas
about why the dinosaurs became extinct.
Kid’s Box 5 pg 68
Broken words
• Give me another word for ‘pretty’.
• What’s the opposite of ‘wet’?
• My brother is 2 metres – he’s very ... .
• You can swim here in the summer
• This is made from milk.
• At the end of each arm I have a ... .
• It lives in the sea and has eight legs.
wet
Broken words
et
appy
othes w
ess
ghurt
ble
Where’s the banana?
activity
Where’s the banana?
activity
Where’s the banana?
• Listen carefully! On your worksheet, colour the
fruit
• Now, find the fruit in the picnic picture and
colour each piece the same colour as in the
individual fruit pictures
Teaching & learning
• Hatch & Brown identify 5 essential steps in
vocabulary learning:
1. Input
2. Clear image
3. Learning meaning
4. Making connection between forms & meanings
5. Using the words
Summary
• Vocabulary is fundamental in language learning
• Early vocabulary learning may be ineffective if
words are not consolidated and used regularly
• It should not be assumed that learners know what
they have been taught. They know what they
have learnt
• Words must be linked with meaning/s
• Words need to be recycled in different texts and
contexts to keep them active
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