Essay: Vocabulary teaching

ARGUMENT
Motto: ‘Without grammar very little can be conveyed,
without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.’
(David Wilkins)
Changes are quick and inevitable in the 21st century. The need to teach in general and teach English language to young learners effectively in particular is the challenge posed to all the teachers. Today, it has become mandatory for the teachers to rethink their teaching strategies with the changing times. As there has been a continuous change in the teaching methods and techniques, vocabulary teaching methods and techniques need desirable changes in a view of the demanding job market in the globalized world.
The traditional teaching style, according to which the teacher is the ‘knower’ and has the task of passing over her/his knowledge to the students it is not applicable anymore, since the times have changed, people have changed and society as a whole has changed. The methods that worked well and were effective yesterday are no longer apposite for today and the methods and techniques that are suitable today will not meet the society’s needs tomorrow.
Teaching young learners is obviously an intensely practical undertaking. We think many teachers believe, or assume, that the practice of teaching is, or should be, based on the application of theories elaborated in parent or feeder disciplines, especially linguistics and psychology. This type of top-down approach to professional education, whereby knowledge is handed down to practitioners by experts remote from the everyday realities of the workplace, is common in many fields apart from teaching. In this ‘applied science model’ , professional competence develops through practice informed by the results derived from scientific knowledge and experimentation. Since scientific knowledge is in a continuous state of flux and development, professional competence needs to undergo periodic in-service updating. And committed teachers who are keen to optimize and develop their professional competence tend to look to the purveyors of seminars and training courses, and the authors of teaching materials and books for teachers, as the immediate source of the latest knowledge.
In Romania, more and more emphasis is paid on teaching foreign languages and especially English. Since 2015 English language teaching has become mandatory at all levels of primary, secondary and high school education. Therefore nurturing young learners has become more important than ever.
The transition from home to school, whether it occurs at a preschool or in the primary school, marks an important turning point in terms of language development when it comes to young learners. At home, children develop both their physical and conversational skills in unstructured circumstances. Learning, is spontaneous and unstructured, is nevertheless steady and involving for the child.
So, the role of teachers is also to broaden children’s range of experiences, introduce new possibilities, systematize the process of learning, help develop thinking skills and, ultimately, empower students to take responsibility for their own learning.
The strategies children have developed at home make sense of their world, to talk about their experiences and to wonder about what is new or imaginary continue to be effective. These strategies should not be supplanted but augmented by teachers in helping all children discover their potential.
The motivation of the present paper is based on the background presented above, in the conditions of a growing interest regarding the methods applied when teaching foreign languages to young learners. This growing interest is justified by the recognized importance of a good start in the process of language acquisition, as a prerogative of a successful learning experience. In this respect, the scope of the present paper is to illustrate, in a theoretical and practical form, the specific conditions and the factors that accompany and determine the correct choice of methodologies, materials and activities involved in teaching English to young learners. Moreover, it aims to demonstrate that a professional approach to teaching young learners, based on modern theories and practices, encompassing young learners’ specific needs and considering individual differences will give the expected results.
The main objectives of this paper are:
– to summarize the theoretical approaches regarding the particularities of teaching young learners;
– to provide a series of interactive methods of teaching vocabulary through interactive methods;
– to demonstrate the advantages of applying the multiple intelligences theory when teaching young learners;
– to highlight that each type of intelligence has its characteristics and it is different from the others;
– to find ways to develop students’ creativity and critical thinking through interactive methods;
In contemplation of achieving the above-mentioned objectives, various strategies and steps were approached. Firstly, it is well known that without a theoretical part one cannot succeed in having a good practical part. That is why for writing the first three chapters of this paper several books, methodologies were consulted, especially Jeremy Harmer’s ‘The practice of English Language Teaching’ and Scott Thornbury’s book ‘How to teach vocabulary’. Even if Harmer’s book was published in the 1990’s it still remains an indispensable for teachers. Not only book, methodologies were consulted but different websites, since we know that the internet has become a very useful tool nowadays. By reading, lecturing, searching different activities were worked out with students. By classroom observation and by applying a questionnaire students’ type of intelligence was approached for a better understanding of their way of thinking and their needs.
Not only the above-mentioned strategies were approached but also the numerous courses, seminars, and conference participations resulted in writing this paper.
An additional reason why teaching young learners is important is owing to the fact that it is quite different from teaching secondary or high school students. Young children have a tendency to change their mood in less than no time and they find it extremely difficult to sit still. It is also widely known that teaching young learners is a great challenge. They jiggle. They twist. They mumble. They dream. They play. Of course, they do so! They are children! For that reason, teachers should take advantage of their energy and enthusiasm and let it work for them instead of working against them. On the other hand, they show greater motivation than older students to do things that appeal to them, since it is almost impossible to cater to the interests for more or less than thirty young learners; the teacher has to be inventive and creative in selecting interesting activities, and has to provide a great variety of activities.
Young learners have strengths and weaknesses and the best way to take advantage of their strengths and help them learn effectively is to cater to their learning styles or multiples intelligences. By getting to know your students better gives you invaluable possibilities to effectively plan your lessons considering their needs. This is one advantage of integrating the theory of multiple intelligences in classroom teaching. Furthermore, by integrating this theory in classroom teaching each and every child from that class has the same opportunity to grasp the information, process it and reuse it.
A child’s first English teacher bears a heavy responsibility, as a lot depends on the teacher’s ability to attract students to learn English, to raise their enthusiasm for it, and keep them interested in learning. If young learner’s first experiences of learning are enjoyable and entertaining then there are less chances to lose their interest, apart from that teachers still have to maintain the same line, otherwise they quickly lose interest. On the other hand, if their first experience is unpleasant, they may grow up with powerfully negative feelings towards the language.
Keeping children interested and motivated involves a lot of energy, painstaking planning, time, creativity and imagination on both sides, but especially the teacher has to plan effective, interesting, entertaining and motivating activities. On the other hand, we cannot learn for our students. Only they can do that. What we can do is help create the conditions in which they might be able to learn. This could be by responding to their requirements, by understanding them, by involving them in the learning process, by enabling them to work at their own speed, by encouraging them to talk, interact, do things, and communicate.
Apart from the all mentioned above, one important part of language improvement, perhaps the most important one, is developing ones vocabulary. Undoubtedly fun vocabulary activities can be used to develop a positive effect in the young learner. Interactive teaching techniques have become a part of our everyday teaching, incorporating a multitude of goals beneath a single roof. Interactive classes are designed around a simple principle, without practical application, students often fail to comprehend the depths of the study material.
It has been proven that interactive methods are highly efficient, yet the teaching process could be made more efficient through better knowledge of students. For this, we are fortunate to have the multiple intelligences theory proposed by Howard Gardner, according to whom all people possess seven (eight) type of intelligences. Getting to know or sense the stronger types of intelligence that your students possess it is something extraordinary and very valuable.
Having these two valuable tools in our hands, namely interactive techniques and the theory of multiple intelligences, there are fewer chances to fail in our didactic approach. By getting to know our students better, helps both us and the students in nurturing their language development as well as their human side.
When thinking back on my own experiences of being taught, it is the teaching techniques that I remember least, probably owing to the fact that there was a lack of techniques and perhaps teachers were the ‘knowers’ and the majority were not interested in developing student’s abilities, skills or motivate them, the main reason for entering the classroom was to teach the lesson and so. But I certainly remember teachers who made subject matter come alive, through their great knowledge and enthusiasm.
In all probability, one of the reasons for writing about teaching young learners and interactive methods amalgamated with multiple intelligences is the fact that I myself like playing with children. I do care if they enjoy the lesson or not, I do care if they understood or not what they were taught and I do care to share my knowledge with the children. I myself never considered that the teacher is much more superior to students, however if it comes to knowledge, life experience, abilities, and skills then ‘Yes’, the teacher is superior, but we should never forget that first of all we are all human beings, both students and teachers, and we have the same feelings yet different personalities and interests.
Secondly, teaching young children is highly rewarding and motivating. Seeing the joy and happiness on their tiny faces, seeing how their eyes sparkle like diamonds when they have a thought-provoking task to undertake, gives the teacher a real satisfaction and the feeling that it is worth all the effort.
All in all, I would like to dedicate this paper on young learners to that particular type of teacher who thinks that it is important whether the children understand what they are taught, whether they enjoy the lesson or they are bored to death, whether they find a way to motivate and help develop student’s abilities and skills. Briefly to that kind of teacher who ‘Does care’.
CHAPTER 1
AN OVERVIEW ON YOUNG LEARNERS
Motto: ‘It is the supreme art of the teacher
to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.’
(Albert Einstein)
1.1. Who are young learners?
There are different points of view regarding the classification of young learners. Some say that there are two categories others say that young learners can be split into three categories. According to Cambridge University, the categories are divided between very young learners (under 7 years) and young learners (aged between 7 and 11-12). It is also being said that every child up to eighteen is considered to be a young learner, whereas after eighteen one is thought to be an adult. Nevertheless, to be sure that attention is focused on the right category researches in this paper had been made considering children between 7 and 10 years old, that is to say, students attending primary school.
Covering a wide age range young learners need to be treated differently. There is a big difference between what a six-year-old child knows or can do and what a child of eleven. Furthermore, their development should be considered, too. Some children develop faster, others need more time, and some develop gradually while others in leaps and bounds. It is likewise impossible to say that all 7 years children can do or know the same things. On the other hand, it is possible to point out certain characteristics of young learners, which should be taken into consideration when teaching.
According to Wendy A. Scott and Lisbeth H. Ytreberg there are two main groups of young learners, five to seven and eight to ten. The authors also mention several characteristics of young learners, but only a few of them will be listed here.
Five to seven years old:
– They can talk about what they are doing.
– They can tell you about what they have done or heard.
– They can argue for something and tell you why they think what they think.
– They can use logical reasoning.
– They can use their vivid imagination.
– They know that the world is governed by rules. They may not always understand the rules, but they know that they are there to be obeyed, and the rules help to nurture a feeling of security.
– They understand situations more quickly than they understand the language used.
– They love to play and learn best when they are enjoying themselves.
– Young children sometimes have difficulty in knowing what is fact and what is fiction.
Eight to eleven years old:
– Their basic concepts are formed. They have very decided views of the world.
– They can tell the difference between fact and fiction.
– They ask questions all the time.
– They are able to work with others and learn from others.
– They rely on the spoken word as well as the physical world to convey and understand meaning.
– They are able to make some decisions about their own learning.
– They have definite views about what they like and do not like.
– They have a developed sense of fairness about what happens in the classroom and begin to question the teacher’s decisions.
All the features presented above are general characteristics of young learners, but we also have to take into account the fact that each and every child has his or her own rhythm of evolution and there are quite a variety of things that influence children’s development.
To sum up, according to Wendy A Scott and Lisbeth H Ytreberg ‘Children of five are little children. Children of ten are relatively mature children with an adult side and a childish side.’
1.1. Children as young learners
As it is well – known children’s primary interest is playing, no matter where they are, outside with their friends, at home or in the classroom, their attention is mainly focused on playing. However, at some point children’s endless play must be interrupted by the teachers, besides their attention must be focused on other important facts as well. Therefore, here are some important facts that can help educators in their teaching process in order to attract and maintain student’s attention. So, according to Slattery children are learners who:
– love to play and use imagination
– are naturally curious
– enjoy repetition and routines
– are developing quickly as individuals
– learn in a variety of ways, for example, by watching, by listening, by imitating, by doing things
– are not able to understand grammatical rules and explanations about language
– have quite a short attention span and so they need a variety of activities
– talk in their mother tongue about what they understand and do ‘ this helps them learn
– can generally imitate the sounds they hear quite accurately and copy the way adults speak
There are also other features that are worth considering. According to Brumfit and Tongue there are characteristics which most primary level learners share:
– In the first years of schooling, it is possible to reach and mould developmental changes of children and so create their expectations of life.
– Young children want to learn and work with enthusiasm. They do not tend to have similar inhibitions as their older schoolmates.
– As a group, they are potentially more differentiated than secondary or adult learners, for they are closer to their varied home cultures and new to the conformity increasingly imposed across cultural groupings by the school.
– Because they are at the beginning of formal schooling it is essential that their learning is closely linked with the development of ideas and concepts.
– To make learning enjoyable and motivating it is needed to use physical movements and activities that stimulate learner’s thinking.
Young learners tend to have short attention spans and a lot of physical energy. In addition, children are very much liked to their surroundings and are more interested in the physical and tangible. Their own understanding comes through hands, and eyes, and ears. The physical world is dominant at all times. In order to maintain young learner’s attention, the chosen activities should be short, because they easily get bored. If an activity is kept short, children will want to get back to it soon. Young children like to do activities over and over again. Feel free to repeat activities as long as the children are still interested.
1.2. Facts to be considered when teaching young learners
‘Children have a reputation for being natural language learners, for a very good reason. Almost without exception, they have learned their native language with apparent ease, and by the time they are 6 years old they have brought it to a level of fluency that is the envy of non-native speakers.’ Therefore, it is believed that young learners have a much higher capacity in learning languages, than adults have. In fact, the younger the children are the more holistic learners they will be.
When teaching young children there are several points to be considered, according to Phillips the following facts should be well thought out when teaching young learners:
– The activities should be simple enough for children to understand what is expected of them.
– The tasks should be amusing and within children’s abilities, so that the learners can easily reach their goals.
– The task should be stimulating and motivating for learners to feel satisfied with their work.
– Written activities should be used only in a small amount. In the sixth or seventh year of age, the children are not yet so good at writing in their native language.
– Mostly the speaking activities should prevail ‘ indeed, with very young children listening activities will take up a large proportion of class time.
– The activities should be simple enough for the children so that they understand what to do and what is expected of them.
The above-mentioned facts are mostly related to the lesson but not one idea particularly refers to the children as learners. Not to mention the fact that one of the most important realities to be taken in consideration is student’s interests. It is well known that children’s primordial interests are games, fun, music and their enthusiasm for everything that deals with playing and having fun. Hence, introducing these kinds of activities during the lesson is essential when teaching young children. The more games, songs or funny activities you introduce during a lesson, the more interested and motived the children will be.
Younger learners also have a shorter attention span than adults, which recommends that a diversity of short activities throughout a class would be better than one long activity. However, as years pass, children’s attention span turns out to be longer, their motor skills develop, and they are able to do more reading and writing. So, teachers’ main emphasis should be on teaching the students through interactive methods, games, role plays and music, at that time teachers give students the opportunity to learn and have fun at the same time.
Timing is another important issue to be considered, one thing should be always in the teacher’s mind that is he/she handles young learners. Why is this important? First of all, it is essential for the teacher to take into account the minutes she/he has got for the lesson. In Romania almost in every school, the length of a lesson is fifty minutes. For a teacher who teaches young learners, and not only, it is vital to plan her/his lesson according to the available time, but more important than this is the number of activities a teacher plans for a fifty minute session.
It would be an enormous mistake to plan only one activity, because as it is well known, young learners get easily bored. That is why during a fifty-minute session the teacher should bring into classroom a variety of activities in order to raise and preserve the children’s attention and interest that is why an activity should last no more than fifteen minutes.
Motivation is another key factor when it comes to teaching young learners. Motivation provides the primary impetus to initiate learning a second language and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process. Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals and, neither are appropriate curricula and good teaching enough on their own to ensure student’s achievement.
Classroom management
The atmosphere of the classroom, the attitude of the teacher, children’s interest and their previously acquired knowledge as well the organisation of the lesson all affect youngsters’ learning.
When talking about classroom management the first significant point to be considered is the classroom itself. First of all, teachers ought to try and achieve a warm, friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Additionally, the teacher should assure that the chairs and tables are appropriately placed as well as there is enough light and heating/ventilation. For a successful classroom management these things appear to be only few but nonetheless they are primordial facts for achieving your goal, which is to provide children a comfortable space where to learn.
We all know very well that nurturing and teaching young learners it is not an easy undertaking. For that reason the position and behaviour of the teacher is another key component in classroom management. There are a few steps to be followed in order to create a proper environment for youngsters and handle their playfulness during classes.
In the following lines, a few key facts will be presented in order to help teachers to have a successful teaching process; these aspects are seen from Phillips’s point of view:
– Routines should be created for children to be recognized. Although they take time to explain and to establish, routines make the children feel secure and save a lot of time and explanation in the long run.
– The beginning of the lesson should be marked, for example with a song, by correcting homework, or with a brief recall of the previous lesson.
– The ‘core’ of the lesson will vary, but always start by telling the children what activities they are going to do.
– Mark a stage of the lesson clearly, so that the children know when one activity finishes and another starts.
– Give clear instructions for each activity and check that the children have understood by asking questions, or demonstrating the activity.
– Make sure that the children know how long they can spend on an activity, and try and keep to the time limit as much as possible.
– Establish a signal or routine for finishing activities, for example clapping your hands twice or turn off the light and so on.
– If the children are working in pairs or groups, walk around the classroom making comments, praising and encouraging.
– Have something for the early finishers to do, for example an extra worksheet with a word game or puzzle.
– Ending the lesson well is as important as starting it well. It could be a good idea to end with a whole class activity such as a chant, a song or a quick game.
Having in mind all these facts handling young learners should be an easy undertaking, but we cannot always make a sweeping statement, meaning that some methods can work very well in one class and the same strategy can fail with another class. Young learners are unalike; they have different personalities, what works for a child is not a proper approach for another one. Therefore, knowing your children is essential in order to have a successful classroom management.
1.3. Motivating young children to learn
To start with, let us first define motivation: ‘Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge.’
Motivation involves the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate behaviour. In everyday usage, the term motivation is frequently used to describe why a person does something.
Young children learn from everything they do. They are naturally curious; they want to explore and discover. If their explorations bring pleasure or success, they will want to learn more. During these early years, children form attitudes about learning that will last a lifetime. Children who receive the right sort of support and encouragement during these years will be creative, adventurous learners throughout their lives. Children who do not receive this sort of support and interaction are likely to have a much different attitude about learning later in life.
We can make a distinction between different types of motivation based on the different reasons or goals that brings about an action. The most rudimentary distinction is between intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external) motivation.
Children do many things simply because they want to do them. Selecting a toy or a T-shirt to wear is the result of “intrinsic motivation.” The child makes her own choice and achieves satisfaction from both the act of choosing and from the opportunity to play with the toy or wear the T-shirt. Since the activity is generating motivation, it is mostly self-sustaining for as long as the child wants to continue the activity.
Children also engage in some activities because adults tell them to, or in an effort to please another person. These activities are “extrinsically motivated.” When a child is extrinsically motivated, the reward comes from outside the child, it has to be provided by someone else, and has to be continually given for the child to remain motivated enough to continue the activity. It is more difficult for a child to sustain extrinsically motivated activity because of this reliance upon some outside force.
Since intrinsically motivated activity is more rewarding in and of itself, children learn more from this sort of activity, and they retain that learning better. Intrinsically motivated children are more involved in their own learning and development. In other words, a child is more likely to learn and retain information when he or she is intrinsically motivated, when he/she believes he/she is pleasing himself/herself. Parents can build on this sense of confidence by guiding their child’s play and activities while still giving the child a range of options. This unstructured play is an essential element of the child’s motivation, learning, and development.
1.4. Why teach English to young learners?
To help children acquire English, let them hear and experience the language since they are very small. It is argued that young children are better in learning languages than older people. ‘Why argued’? ‘ because there are different points of view regarding this topic. Some linguists say that it is just a myth, whereas others sustain the above-mentioned topic.
Having in mind the different points of view let us try to find a few reasons why children are better language learners:
– Children have more opportunities and more time for learning than adults.
– They do not have any worries about failure or they do not have the feeling of responsibility.
– People around young learners as are their teachers, parents or their friends, can help them with their learning.
– They want to learn the language that people around them speak. The success is certain, when the children can hear the second language every day. The social pressure urges them to use the language for achievement of their aims.
– Children spend more time by learning than the adults and they ‘want’ to learn. They are better at learning languages if they get exposed to them naturally and long-term.
– The brain is capable to absorb much more information before and during puberty than after and children acquire the language in a natural way.
– Learning a language is joined with the real communication and the environment influences it.
– Children have no negative experiences with foreign language and culture than adult learners do and that is why they are better motivated in learning it.
Nevertheless, Brumfit, Moon and Tongue suppose a number of reasons, why teaching English is necessary not only within schooling and educational system:
– The need to expose children from an early age to an understanding of foreign cultures so that they grow up tolerant and sympathetic to others.
– The need to link communication to the understanding of new concepts.
– The need for maximum learning time for important languages ‘ the earlier you start the more time you get.
– The advantage of starting with early second language instruction so that later the language can be used as a medium of teaching.
All in all, even if the question whether children are better language learners than adults it is a debatable one, there is no shortcoming in teaching children a second language from an early age. But the teaching process should be an interactive one, a memorable and enjoyable activity for the children. In this way, we can charm the young ones and make them wish to learn English.
CHAPTER 2
AN OUTLINE OF VOCABULARY TEACHING
Motto: ‘Vocabulary acquisition is the largest and most important task facing the language learner.’ (Michael Swan)
2.1. What is vocabulary and what needs to be taught?
The word vocabulary is defined by the Merriam ‘ Webster dictionary as – the words that make up a language or all of the words known and used by a person, as well as words that are related to a particular subject. In fact, vocabulary does not mean only simple or individual words, there is more than that since there are compound words as well as multi-word idioms, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea. Furthermore, it is not enough to know the majority of the words from the dictionary in order to use words and communicate efficiently in a language. If someone looks up for a new word in a dictionary, one will seize that a word has several meanings. Considering this approach words must be taught in context, otherwise there is no point in knowing hundreds of words without the ability of using them in context or even during a short conversation.
When it comes to young learners each phase of teaching a foreign language, especially vocabulary, must be taken step by step, otherwise children would be confused and nothing would make sense for them.
Nevertheless teaching young learners is not as difficult as it was years ago, for the reason that nowadays children are quite familiar with English language learning. Children growing up in the 21st are taught English from an early age, starting from kindergarten and continuing until adulthood, therefore we could straightforwardly say that it is a lifelong learning process. As a result, young learners do not come to the classroom empty-handed, they bring with them their previously acquired knowledge along with their already well-established set of instincts, skills and characteristics which are some advantages in learning a language.
What is needed to be taught, first and foremost, is form, ‘young learners have to know what a word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like (its spelling).’ Nonetheless, according to the Romanian National Curriculum children are taught the written form only after the age of nine that is in the third grade. Throughout the first two years of primary school children are taught only two important skills, speaking and listening. Afterwards a new stage of learning process is introduced to children, which is writing and reading.
The noteworthy point in teaching vocabulary is the selection of words we as teachers want to teach. It is fairly easy to teach concrete words at lower level and then become more abstract.
Moreover, frequency needs to be considered too. It is up to the teacher which words are being taught but on the basis of frequency, how often the words are used by the students has to be taken into consideration. Particularly young learners should be taught words that they are familiar with and they can associate to their daily activities. Typically words are taught according to themes and topics and considering the national curriculum.
In this day and age all the student books are organised into themes and they provide vocabulary according to it. If there is a theme such as ‘Food’, then we can expect words related to fruits, vegetables, healthy versus fast food, menus and so on. Words that have quite specific meaning should be avoided with young learners.
2.2. The importance and role of vocabulary in the classroom
Vocabulary is an important part of the teaching process, especially for students, it is more important than grammar for communication purposes, particularly in the early stages when students are motivated to learn the basic words they need to get by in the language. Also, as the lexical system is always ‘open’, there is always something new to learn when students have learnt the grammar.
Vocabulary not only supports the four language skills, listening, speaking, writing and reading, but also mediates between students and content-area classes in that these students often find that lack of vocabulary knowledge is an obstacle in learning. So, we could conclude that vocabulary teaching and learning should be more emphasized than it is nowadays.
The teacher’s use of language provides an important model for children’s vocabulary development. By modelling the use of sophisticated words, teachers can encourage students’ vocabulary development and word awareness.
Considering the fact that vocabulary plays a pivotal role in the classroom Jim Scrivener mentions five roles of the lexis in the classroom:
– Lexis is important and needs to be dealt systematically in its own right; it is not simply an add-on grammar or skills lessons.
– Our job does not finish as soon as students have first met some new lexis; we need to help them practice, learn, store, recall and use the items.
– Training in the use of English-English dictionaries provides students with a vital tool for self-study.
– We need to distinguish between lexis for productive use and for receptive recognition, and adapt our classroom work appropriately.
– We need to deal not only with single-word lexical items, but also with longer, multiword items.
Learner’s receptive vocabulary are generally much larger than their productive vocabulary, language learners can usually understand many more words than they actively use. And students are idiosyncratic in the way they remember vocabulary, no two students are exactly the same. Actually, as students become more advanced, their individual interest and needs will help determine what kind of words they will want to understand, remember and use.
2.3. Presenting new vocabulary
‘By presentation we mean those pre-planned lesson stages in which learners are taught pre-selected vocabulary items.’
First of all, teachers ought to consider how many words should be presented during the lesson. This is closely connected with several factors, such as:
– The level of the pupils ‘ beginners, intermediate and so on.
– Their familiarity with the words ‘ have they come across these words or are they completely new?
– Words difficulty ‘ are the words abstract, are they easily pronounced, can we find similar words in the learner��s native language etc.?
– Can the words be easily demonstrated?
– Shall we use realia or anything that the pupils can become familiar with?
– Can pictures be used to elicit vocabulary?
Gairns and Stuart states that is impossible to be dogmatic about the number of new vocabulary items that should be presented during a lesson. An average number of eight to twelve productive items would be advisable for presenting a reasonable input, the lower number being more suitable for elementary students. Than we could conclude that even a lower number would be advisable for beginner level, somewhere between five and seven words.
Choosing the suitable vocabulary or at least the parts of vocabulary seems to be significant for motivating students to learn. Before deciding which teaching techniques to choose, as Harmer states, teachers should follow some principles that are essential for selecting valuable vocabulary. They are:
– frequency ‘ words which are most frequently used in everyday life
– coverage ‘ words which have more than one meaning and may be used in different contexts
– choice ‘ words which have been chosen by students, for instance words that they like or find worth knowing
Another factor that is worth considering is the age of the learners. Younger ones react quite well when we show them concrete illustrations, the older ones can manage pretty well abstract explanations or even definitions.
A number of techniques can be adopted to give grounding in new vocabulary items. There are techniques that are more widespread and more often used than others. Furthermore, the decision of which technique to be used lays in the teacher’s hands but always the effectiveness of teaching should be considered. Every teacher leans towards and prefers certain techniques that one finds interesting and/or more resourceful. On the other hand, there are techniques that teachers try to avoid. There is an occurrence of techniques that are particularly appropriate for certain types of words ‘ for example actions can be explained through pantomime. The following part of the paper will briefly deal with a few teaching techniques.
2.4. Techniques in teaching vocabulary
There are numerous techniques concerning vocabulary presentation. Not all techniques are similarly helpful for every student or suitable for every lesson.
There are various ways to present and practice vocabulary, the internet is an inexhaustible resource for these kind of activities, and not only the internet but the various books that were written regarding this topic. In the following lines, a few techniques will be offered about how to teach and practice vocabulary with young learners.
The teacher should choose the most suitable techniques to encourage learning. The techniques have to facilitate student’s improvement of their vocabulary knowledge. Furthermore, it is advisable not to use only one technique during the process of teaching vocabulary. Gairns and Redman suggest three possibilities for vocabulary presentation: visual techniques, verbal techniques and translation.
The above mentioned authors uphold the idea that these three categories pertain to traditional approaches and techniques since they are teacher centred activities. Partly agreeing with their idea, some examples of visual and verbal techniques were added. Even if these ways of presenting vocabulary are considered traditional, with a little creativity from the teacher’s side they can be transformed in interactive ways of teaching.
The easiest way to make it interactive can be by asking the learners to participate in the teaching process. For instance, if visuals are going to be used, we can simply ask the students to hold the cards or real objects for us in this way especially, young learners will be delighted and the activity is not teacher centred anymore, since the students are involved too.
Thus, here follows the three possibilities of presenting vocabulary followed by a few specific examples, but as referred before only the three main options, meaning visual, verbal and translation, pertain to Gairns and Redman.
2.4.1. Visual techniques
Visual techniques for the presentation of new vocabulary items belong to visual memory, which is considered helpful particularly with vocabulary remembering. Learners expressly the young ones can recall the presented material far more effectively if it has been presented with the aid of visuals. They help students associate presented material in a meaningful way and integrate it into their existing system of language. There are several visual techniques such as; pictures, flashcards, posters, word pictures, blackboard drawings, photographs, magazine pictures, wall charts, and several realia that teachers can hold up or point to. Mime, action and gestures can be used particularly for demonstrating actions.
2.4.1.1. Real objects
For helping students understand the meaning of a word, we sometimes prefer real objects to pictures or flashcards. Real objects are better than pictures whenever we have them in the classroom. When there are real windows, doors, desks, chair, books, pencils, and so on, it is unwise not to use them. But in some classes, unfortunately, the students seem never to be asked to look at them, point them, walk to them, and touch them. Only the textbook pictures are used. This is a waste of excellent opportunities. In most cases, a picture of something is less helpful than the thing itself.
There are several ways in which real objects from the classroom can be used, but you can also bring real objects into the classroom. For instance, when teaching fruits and/or vegetables, you can ask children to bring several types of fruits and/or vegetables into the classroom, you can name this game as Supermarket. First of all you can teach the children the new vocabulary using real ‘objects’, than you can practice it by playing a game. Put all the fruits/vegetables on a desk, which will be the supermarket or form groups of 4 and then you provide the class with more supermarkets. There will be buyers and shop assistants in each group; you can change roles as well. Provide the buyers with some paper money and explain the children that they are going to buy some fruits/vegetables. They should name the fruits/vegetables correctly; otherwise they will not get the desired item. This game will provide children with a lot of fun and enjoyment.
2.4.1.2. Pictures and flashcards
It was stated before, that real objects are more desirable than pictures and/or flashcards; however, there are cases when we cannot make use of real objects. In this case, it is better to have pictures or flashcards, than having nothing. Children can focus their attention better, learn more easily and remember better when they see things, they possess great visual skills therefore we can facilitate the learning process.
Charts, pictures, flashcards and maps can be used to improve students’ understanding of a specific concept or word. There are numerous worthy picture dictionaries available, therefore, teacher should make use of such dictionaries.
There are words that work well with pictures, particularly nouns. This can also be a good way to introduce related words, which is frequently used in language classes, such as nouns and verbs related to the classroom or the house. Pictures can also be used in printable handouts and flashcards, where pictures are matched to the word they represent.
2.4.1.3. Multimedia
Living in the 21st century, a period dominated by multimedia, it is impossible not to mention the benefits of the teaching process through multimedia. Nowadays computers, gadgets and mobile phones have become indispensable, that is why having these items in your classroom is another benefit in gaining your student’s attention.
The internet is an inexhaustible resource for this kind of activities. Let us have a simple example; if you access the British council’s website you can find there numerous activities, from animated stories, songs to games and even online exercises, to teach your students.
On the other hand, if you want to be more creative delightful games can be created with the power point programme. Or even a simple power point presentation with pictures will delight your young learners.
2.4.2. Verbal techniques
Amongst verbal techniques the use of illustrative situations, either oral or written are more helpful when items become more abstract. To make sure that students understand, teachers should always use more than one situation or context to check if students understood the meaning.
Furthermore, Gairns and Redman also suggest the use of synonyms, antonyms, scales, definitions and examples when it comes to verbal techniques. The make the idea clearer in the following lines a few examples are presented.
2.4.2.1. Commands
When we ask students to respond physically to oral commands, which use the new words, the activity is very much like what happens when one is learning one’s mother tongue.
Each of us, while learning our own language, heard orders and followed them for many months before we spoke a single word. Even after we started to talk, it was a long time before we mastered the words and constructions that we heard from adults.
Children have frequent experiences in obeying commands during the early years of learning the mother tongue. Those experiences seem to play an important part in the learning of vocabulary. Similar experiences should be provided in the second language classroom for students of all ages.
One appropriate example for this kind of activity is the Simon Says Game. This is a children’s game for three or more players where one player takes the role of “Simon” and issues instructions (usually physical actions such as “jump in the air” or “stick out your tongue”) to the other players, which should only be followed if prefaced with the phrase “Simon says”, for example, “Simon says, touch your nose”. Players are eliminated from the game by either following instructions that are not immediately preceded by the phrase, or by failing to follow an instruction, which does include the phrase “Simon says”.
The object for the player acting as Simon is to get all the other players out as quickly as possible; the winner of the game is usually the last player who has successfully followed all of the given commands. Occasionally however, two or more of the last players may all be eliminated by following a command without “Simon Says”, therefore resulting in Simon winning the game.
2.4.2.2. Demonstration
Teacher can perform some words. It can be fun and frisk. It makes the class student centred. Teacher can act and learners try to imitate it. For example, you want to teach children verbs of movement. You can perform the miming or you can ask a student to help you. For example, the following verbs of movement are wanted to be taught: fly, swim, walk, talk, and jump; start with the first word and perform the action, ask the children guess what you are doing, let them say the word in their mother tongue, then give them the English correspondent. Go through the entire list of words and as a reinforcement you can ask students to do the actions with you and pronounce the new words. You may as well not perform the actions just tell them the words and they should perform the action and repeat the words after you.
Miming works well with younger students. You can mime out even emotions and everyday activities to teach new words. This method can be practiced at ease. It can win the favour of the students as learners like dramatizations and can easily learn through them. Many situations can be dramatized or demonstrated. This works well with young students or students studying a foreign language to help introduce them to new concepts.
2.4.2.3. Songs/chants
Young students adore songs and chants therefore bringing songs/chants into the classroom will always cheer up your students. Young children are very receptive to songs, they like to learn and sing them, and so it is advisable for teachers to make use of this technique. It is not so difficult to download some songs from the internet and take them to the classroom. You may listen the songs with the children and you may teach the lyrics to them. You can also associate the songs with movements, where possible. Bringing into the classroom a specific song facilitates the way children learn certain vocabulary topics. This implies that you have to take into the classroom songs that are related to the part of vocabulary you are teaching.
If the children have already learnt to write, you could use this in their interest and prepare handouts with songs or chants for them. Choose a vocabulary theme and prepare the handout. Write down the lyrics and erase the words related to the topic vocabulary. Give each student a handout and let them know that they are going to listen to a song/chant and they have to fill in the missing spaces. At first listening just let the students listen without writing down anything. For the second listening they can fill in. You may have a third listening as well to check the missing words. If you do not want to have a third listening then just ask the students to tell you the missing words.
2.4.2.4. Role play
Incorporating role-play into the classroom adds variety, a change of pace and opportunities for a lot of language production and also a lot of fun. It can be an integral part of the class and not a ‘one-off’ event. If the teacher believes that the activity will work and the necessary support is provided, it can be very successful.
It is generally agreed that learning takes place when activities are charming and memorable. Jeremy Harmer promotes the use of role-play for the following reasons:
– It’s fun and motivating
– Quieter students get the chance to express themselves in a more forthright way
– The world of the classroom is broadened to include the outside world – thus offering a much wider range of language opportunities
2.4.3. Translation
This technique is avoided to be used recently, even though it is quick, easy and it can save valuable time that might otherwise be spent on a tortuous and largely unsuccessful explanation in English. Nonetheless there are drawbacks as well in using translation in the classroom such as if the students continue to use the mother tongue as a framework on which to attach the second language, they will not develop the necessary framework to take account of sense relations between different items in the new language.
If teachers rely too heavily on the use of translation and deliver most explanations in the mother tongue, their students are surely losing some of the essential spirit and atmosphere of being in a language learning classroom. Used sensibly though, translation is far too valuable not to be exploited.
2.5. Remembering vocabulary
Although repeating it again and again and being able to hold it in our short-term memory, keeping information in our long-term memory is much more difficult. Notwithstanding there seems to be an unlimited amount of information that can be stored there, getting things into our long-term memory and back again can be a difficult process.
Thornbury’s point of view about storing the vocabulary items should be taken into consideration. According to Thornbury, the required words can be moved into our long-term memory through a few principles:
Repetition ‘ only repetition has not any long-term effect; but there is one exception ‘ the repetition of encounters with a word. If words have been met at least for seven times over spaced intervals, for example, when reading, they are on good way to long-term memory.
Retrieval practice effect ‘ a kind of repetition that means the retrieval of word from memory, which helps the learner to recall it again later;
Spacing ‘ means not to teach too many vocabulary items together but in small groups and with pauses between them;
Pacing ‘ means to provide the pupils enough time for particular work because each of them has his or her own pace and to enable them to work silently and individually;
Use ‘ means to put words to use in some interesting way.
This is one principle to be considered since there are various reasons why we remember some words better than others. According to Ur, the following reasons could be taken into consideration: ‘the nature of the words themselves, under what circumstances they are learnt, the method of teaching and so on. ‘
Young learners and people in general remember words better if these words can be linked to real life, have personal or emotive significance. Furthermore, an additional important fact is that when we teach young learners the words that are taught should have clear, easily comprehensible meanings.
Another important factor for remembering new vocabulary is that new important words should be taught at the beginning of a lesson, because children tend to remember better the first word they get into contact with. Also it is better to teach vocabulary in separated sessions than to teach it all at once. For example, the new vocabulary items are taught briefly at the beginning of a lesson, reviewed later in the same lesson, and again in the next than if the same total amount of time is used for learning the words all at once.
Therefore, it is not enough a session teaching for children to remember new vocabulary. New vocabulary is taught to children but in order to be remembered it has to be revised and revised all the time, practice is the key of success.
On the other hand, teachers as well have an important role in helping the children remember new vocabulary. There are many things that teachers can do to make the learning process more memorable for young learners. Using pictures, interesting contexts and stories can help memory in addition giving the students the opportunity to practice the new vocabulary in personalised and meaningful tasks are also essential tools. This also is a powerful argument for using guided discovery techniques that require the children to find the meaning of vocabulary and to own the learning process.
2.6. Revising and testing vocabulary
It is not needed to remind the importance of testing of learned material. It is a kind of motivation for learners to review vocabulary. If the pupils did not know that they could be tested they would have not be forced to learn. According to Thornbury, ‘vocabulary covered in the previous lesson should be tested at the beginning of the next one. If not, the chances of retaining the new vocabulary are greatly reduced.’
Since young children in the early stages of learning are not in the position to take any of the traditional forms of testing, the evaluation practices should be seen by learners as an integral part of the learning process and not as a separate process that involves passing judgement on their standing in the classroom.
Furthermore, we need to evaluate the success of an activity which focuses on language form, whether we do it formally or informally. That is one reason why records should be kept.
Evaluation of an activity answers questions such as whether or not the exercises or activities helped students learn the new language, whether it was clear, if the students were engaged by it, or if we want to use it again. Part of this evaluation involves us in thinking about how we might modify the activity the next time.
There are several ways to evaluate and test the vocabulary at the beginning, during or at the end of the lesson. Moreover, assessment can be oral or written, formal or informal, formative or summative, with objective or subjective items. How, when and what to evaluate depends only on the teacher. The teacher takes the most important decisions in what way or when to evaluate students, since she/he is in the classroom day by day and monitors students. Still one extremely important point should be mentioned, that is: teachers should always evaluate what has been taught and the evaluation should always reflect what knowledge have children grabbed in.
CHAPTER 3
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES AND YOUNG LEARNERS
Motto: ‘An intelligence is the ability to solve problems,
or to create products, that are valued within one or
more cultural settings …’
(Howard Gardner)
3.1. The theory of Multiple Intelligences and young learners
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by psychologist Howard Gardner, Professor of Education at Harvard University, in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Gardner’s early work in psychology and later in human cognition led to the development of the initial seven intelligences. Today there are eight or nine intelligences and the possibility of others may eventually expand the list. Why eight or nine? For one simple reason, because that the ninth intelligence, meaning the Existential one, has been alluded to by Gardner, yet has never been fully confirmed, endorsed or described.
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences theory is a very useful model for developing a systematic approach to nurturing and teaching children and honouring their individual needs and strengths within a classroom setting. The theory of Multiple Intelligences includes the notion that each person is smart in all seven (or nine) types of intelligences. According to Gardner, each individual possesses each type of intelligence in varying degrees, stronger in some ways and less developed in others.
By broadening one’s view of intelligence, as well as valuing and nurturing abilities other than mathematics and reading, doors can be opened by using the strength of children as a means of complementing their less developed area. Furthermore, by applying the theory of Multiple Intelligences, towards students, leads to a better understanding of them, of their needs and of their perception of the world. Moreover, this approach provides a framework to build on their strongest assets, to help them become more intelligent by exposing them to a variety of ways of learning. Therefore, such an approach could be a key factor in teaching young learners.
3.2. Characteristics of Multiple Intelligences and teaching strategies
MI theory opens the door to a wide range of teaching strategies that can be easily implemented in the classroom. In many cases, these are strategies that have been used for ages by teachers, but without knowing the term of MI theory. In other cases, the theory of multiple intelligences can offer teachers an opportunity to develop innovative teaching strategies that are relatively new for them and students.
For a better understanding of Multiple Intelligences a detailed description is given according to Howard Gardner and some teaching strategies from Thomas Armstrong’s point of view.
3.2.1. Linguistic intelligence or Word Smart
Learning style and preferences: words and language
Description: words and languages, written and spoken; retention, interpretation and explanation of ideas and information via language, understands relationship between communication and meaning;
Typical roles: writers, lawyers, journalists, speakers, trainers, copy-writers, teachers, poets, editors, linguists, translators, PR consultants, media consultants, TV and radio presenters, voice-over artists;
Tasks, activities and assessments: write a set of instructions, speak on a subject, edit written piece or work, write a speech, give an oral presentation, and list the weaknesses and strengths of a product, write directions to a map and so on;
Teaching strategies: Books, Brainstorming, Choral reading, Debates, Extemporaneous speaking, Individualized reading, Journal keeping, Large- and small-group discussions, Lectures, Manuals, Memorizing linguistic facts, Publishing, Reading to the class, Sharing time, Storytelling, Student speeches, Talking books, Tape recording one’s words, Using word processing software, Word games, Worksheets, Writing activities;
3.2.2. Logical- mathematical intelligence or Number/Reasoning Smart
Learning style and preferences: numbers and logic
Description: logical thinking, detecting patterns, scientific reasoning and deduction, analyse problems, perform mathematical calculations, understands relationship between cause and effect towards a tangible outcome or result;
Typical roles: scientists, engineers, computer experts, accountants, statisticians, researchers, analysts, traders, bankers, insurance brokers, negotiators, deal-makers, directors;
Tasks, activities and assessments: analyse how a machine works, create a process, devise a strategy to achieve an aim, assess the value of a business or a proportion, and perform a mental mathematical calculation;
Teaching strategies: Classifications and categorizations, Computer programming languages, Creating codes, Heuristics, Logic puzzles and games, Logical problem-solving exercises, Logical-sequential presentation of subject matter, Mathematical problems on the board, Piagetian cognitive exercises, Calculations and quantifications, Science thinking;
3.2.3. Musical intelligence or Musical Smart
Leaning style and preferences: music, sound, rhythm
Description: musical ability, awareness, appreciation and use of sound, recognition of tonal and rhythmic patterns, understands relationship between sound and feeling;
Typical roles: acoustic engineers, composers, DJs, entertainers, environment and noise analysts, music producers, musical instrument repair specialists, musical performers, singers, voice coaches;
Tasks, activities and assessments: perform a musical piece; sing a song; review a musical work; coach someone to play a musical instrument; specify mood music for telephone systems and receptions;
Teaching strategies: Creating new melodies for concepts, Discographies, Group singing, Linking old tunes with concepts, Listening to inner musical imagery, Mood music, Music appreciation, Musical composition software, Musical concepts, Playing live music on piano, guitar, or other instruments, Playing percussion instruments, Playing recorded music, Rhythms, songs, raps, and chants, Singing, humming, or whistling, Using background music;
3.2.4. Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence or Body Smart
Learning style and preferences: body movement control
Description: body movement control, manual dexterity, physical agility and balance; eye and body coordination;
Typical roles: dancers, demonstrators, actors, athletes, divers, sportspeople, soldiers, fire-fighters, PTI’s, performance artistes; ergonomists, osteopaths, fishermen, drivers, craftspeople; gardeners, chefs, acupuncturists, healers, adventurers;
Tasks, activities and assessments: juggle; demonstrate a sports technique; flip a beer-mat; create a mime to explain something; toss a pancake; fly a kite; coach workplace posture, assess work-station ergonomics, arrange workplace furniture, demonstrate a sports technique, design a window display, prepare samples for magnification and testing, put together a piece of modular furniture;
Teaching strategies: Body answers, Body maps, Classroom theatre, Competitive and cooperative games, Cooking, gardening, and other ‘messy’ activities, Crafts, Creative movement, Field trips, Hands-on activities of all kinds, Hands-on thinking, Kinaesthetic concepts, Manipulatives, Mime, Physical awareness exercises, Tactile materials and experiences, Use of kinaesthetic imagery, Using body language/hand signals to communicate, Virtual reality software;
3.2.5. Spatial visual intelligence or Picture Smart
Learning style and preferences: pictures, shapes, images, 3D space
Description: interpretation and creation of visual images, pictorial imagination and expression, understands relationships between images and meanings and between space and effect;
Typical roles: artists, designers, cartoonists, story-boarders, architects, photographers, sculptors, town-planners, visionaries, inventors, engineers, cosmetics and beauty consultants, architects, graphic designers;
Tasks, activities and assessments: design a costume; interpret a painting; create a room layout; create a corporate logo; design a building; pack a suitcase or the boot of a car;
Teaching strategies: 3-D construction kits, Art appreciation, Charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps, Colour cues, Computer graphics software, Creative daydreaming, Draw-and-paint/computer-assisted-design software, Graphic symbols, Idea sketching, Imaginative storytelling, Mind-maps and other visual organizers, Optical illusions, Painting, collage, and other visual arts, Photography, Picture literacy experiences, Picture metaphors, Videos, slides, and movies, Visual awareness activities, Visual pattern seeking, Visual puzzles and mazes, Visual thinking exercises, Visualization;
3.2.6. Interpersonal intelligence or People Smart
Learning style and preferences: human contact, communications, cooperation, teamwork;
Description: perception of other people’s feelings; ability to relate to others; interpretation of behaviour and communications; understands the relationships between people and their situations, including other people;
Typical roles: advertising professionals, care givers, coaches and mentors, counsellors, educators, health providers, HR professional, mediators, politicians, psychologists, sales-people, teachers, therapists, trainers;
Tasks, activities and assessments: interpret moods from facial expressions; demonstrate feelings through body language; affect the feelings of others in a planned way; coach or counsel another person;
Teaching strategies: Academic clubs, Apprenticeships, Board games, Community involvement, Conflict mediation, Cooperative groups, Cross-age tutoring, Group brainstorming sessions, Interactive software or Internet platforms, Interpersonal interaction, Parties or social gatherings as context for learning, Peer sharing, People sculptures, Simulations;
3.2.7. Intrapersonal intelligence or Self Smart
Learning style and preferences: self-reflection, self-discovery
Description: self-awareness, personal cognisance, personal objectivity, the capability to understand oneself, one’s relationship to others and the world, and one’s own need for, and reaction to change;
Typical roles: one who is self-aware and involved in the process of changing personal thoughts, beliefs, and behaviour in relation to their situation, other people, their purpose and aims;
Tasks, activities and assessments: consider and decide one’s own aims and personal changes required to achieve them (not necessarily reveal this to others), consider and decide one’s own position in relation to the Emotional Intelligence Model;
Teaching strategies: Choice time, Exposure to inspirational/motivational curricula, Feeling-toned moments, Goal-setting sessions, Independent study, Individualized projects and games, Interest centres, One-minute reflection periods, Options for homework, Personal connections, Private spaces for study, Self-esteem activities, Self-paced instruction, Self-teaching programmed instruction;
3.2.8. Naturalist intelligence or Nature Smart
Learning style and preferences: exploring things, classification, categories and hierarchies related to natural world or animals;
Description: sensing patterns in and making connections to elements in nature, in connection with natural world and animals;
Typical roles: landscaper, gardener, archaeologist, farmer, conservationist, biologist/marine biologist, animal Trainer/handler, chef, environmental inspector, fisherman, photographer, vet, zoo keeper, zoologist;
Tasks, activities and assessments: enjoys camping, gardening, hiking and exploring the outdoors, doesn’t enjoy learning unfamiliar topics that have no connection to nature;
Teaching strategies: Aquariums, terrariums, and other portable ecosystems, Class weather station, Eco-study, Gardening, Nature-oriented software, Nature study tools (binoculars, telescope, microscope), Nature videos, films, and movies, Nature walks, Pet-in-the-classroom, Plants as props, Windows onto learning;
3.2.9. Existential intelligence or Cosmic Smart
Description: focus on big pictures and how the world works, sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence, such as the meaning of life, why do we die, and how did we get here. ”individuals who exhibit the proclivity to pose and ponder questions about life, death, and ultimate realities'” as it is stated by Howard Gardner.
Typical roles: philosophers, anthropologists
3.3. Applied MI questionnaire to young learners and its analysis
According to Howard Gardner, every single person has some strong intelligences (strengths) and some are not well developed (weaknesses). Gardner also believes that the intelligence profile can be changed and improved through education.
Furthermore, Gardner states that each person’s potentials can be activated and this depends on several aspects such as ‘the values of a particular culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decisions made by individuals and/or their families, schoolteachers, and others.’
Everybody knows that teaching young learners it is not an easy undertaking but it can be a rewarding one. A good teacher will always try to find a way to make his or her lessons captivating and motivating for the young ones. For a better understanding and perception of young learners and their needs, to nurture their intelligences, as well as to determine student’s type of intelligence a questionnaire (Appendix I) was given to them to be filled in. The above mentioned questionnaire refers to Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences.
However, one important fact must be mentioned, since there was no other available possibility to measure student’s type of intelligence or learning style, since learning styles and multiple intelligences have some common features, the results of the survey may not be considered 100 percent reliable. Though it is stated that one’s intelligence cannot be measured throughout a questionnaire but through practical activities, yet filling in this survey by the students, it had been a helpful resource for the teacher.
Therefore, the teacher had a more clear vision over the students and these results going hand in hand with classroom observation had been an advantage for a better classroom teaching and learning.
In the following lines, the results of the questionnaire will be presented. As mentioned before the survey was applied to first and third graders, in the expectation that their type of intelligence or their learning style will be found out.
Questionnaire applied to first graders
The above mentioned questionnaire had been applied to twenty-three students, boys and girls aged between seven and eight years, twelve boys and eleven girls. The survey indicates that in this class each of the initial seven intelligences can be found. Naturalist and Existential intelligence were not included in the questionnaire.
– Linguistic intelligence (Word Smart) ‘ 11 children
– Logical-mathematical intelligence (Number/Reasoning Smart) ‘ 6 children
– Musical (Music Smart) ‘ 1 child
– Bodily-kinaesthetic (Body Smart) ‘ 1 child
– Spatial-visual intelligence (Picture Smart)- 5 children
– Interpersonal intelligence (People Smart)’ 5 children
– Intrapersonal intelligence (Self Smart) ‘ 3 children
Questionnaire applied to third graders.
The questionnaire had been applied to twenty-six students, boys and girls aged between eight (8years and 8 months) and ten years, 14 boys and 12 girls. The survey indicates that in this class each of the initial seven intelligences can be found. Naturalist and Existential intelligence were not included in the questionnaire:
– Linguistic intelligence (Word Smart) ‘ 7 children
– Logical-mathematical intelligence (Number/Reasoning Smart) ‘ 6 children
– Musical (Music Smart) ‘ 1 child
– Bodily-kinaesthetic (Body Smart) ‘ 3 children
– Spatial-visual intelligence (Picture Smart)- 5 children
– Interpersonal intelligence (People Smart)’ 1 child
– Intrapersonal intelligence (Self Smart) ‘ 8 children
If we take into account Gardner’s point of view regarding the measurement of intelligence, meaning that we cannot measure someone’s intelligence through a questionnaire, we can see that the results are not exactly the desired ones. The anticipated results would show only one ‘strength’, but in reality, the statistics show us something else. In both classes, there are several children who have got the same score for more than one type of intelligence.
On the other hand, Gardner has never said that a person can have only one prevailing type of intelligence, he has stated that we have strong intelligences and less developed ones.
Bearing in mind the results of the questionnaire and classroom observation it was a little bit difficult to work in activity centres, that is why all students were implied in all type of activities. In this way, the students had the opportunity to develop their strengths and their weaknesses as well. Not to mention the fact that the learners had a great time in accomplishing their tasks. For the teacher, it was a good occasion to know the children better and help them improve their types of intelligence.
CHAPTER 4
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES AND VOCABULARY: A PRACTICAL APPROACH
Motto: ‘I never teach my pupils,
I only attempt to provide the conditions
in which they can learn.’
(Albert Einstein)
In the previous chapters, we have discussed about young learners, their characteristics, the way we should teach them and why we should teach foreign languages to them. Moreover, we have discussed about some teaching techniques and activities as well. To complete these in the third chapter the multiple intelligences theory was approached and described in order to integrate the theory in classroom teaching, also a questionnaire’s results were discussed.
We all know that young learners need unlimited attention from the teacher since their primary interest is playing. However, sooner or later their boundless play must be interrupted, but if it is not interposed teachers can use children’s playfulness in their favour during classroom activities.
Additionally, if teachers are aware of their students’ personality, style of learning and why not type of intelligence this could be an outstanding tool during the educational process. Having these theoretical aspects in mind, the next step to be considered is how to integrate these features in our teaching styles.
In what follows, an overview will be taken of the main possibilities of teaching, practising and revising vocabulary through activities that involve the MI theory and interactive teaching techniques. A collection of activities have been drawn together for teaching, practising and revising vocabulary with young learners by means of multiple intelligences.
The activities presented here are grouped according to the vocabulary topic taught; furthermore, since we have been talking about young learners the target level is beginner but this does not necessarily mean that the activities cannot work well with higher-level students too.
The activities offered here worked well during classroom teaching and practice besides that, children had a great time undertaking their tasks. When working with young learners fun is an indispensable aspect for them, they do not even realise that they are learning, they have the feeling that they are playing, and yes it is true, but they are playing in a constructive way.
Each activity here describes in detail the vocabulary taught or practiced, the timing of the main activity, interaction, the skills involved, the type of intelligence involved, the materials needed in order to accomplish the activity, the preparation if any, the procedure and some notes.
4.1. Animals
Each part of vocabulary is important in its way, teaching the vocabulary related to animals either wild or farm animals it is always a pleasure for the young ones, probably because children love animals and they always aspire to have a pet. Perhaps this is the reason why they relish this theme; they are always enthusiastic to talk about their favourite animals or their pets.
ANIMAL HUNT
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary, the animals
Class: 1st graders
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 15-20 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal- linguistic, bodily-kinaesthetic, visual ‘ spatial and interpersonal
Interaction: Group work
Material: two sets of toy animals (Fig. 3), pictures (Fig.4)
Preparation: prepare two pictures; one picture illustrated with a farm and another one illustrating the wildlife. Hide the animals before children arrive. Find two different locations for the two groups. In this way, none of the group’s path will cross the other ones.
Procedure:
Step 1:
1. If your school has a courtyard and the majority have one, and the weather allows you, take the children outside for this activity.
2. Tell the children that a few animals from the Zoo and a nearby farm have escaped and they have to find them.
3. Then split the class into two groups.
4. If the courtyard is too big limit the area and let the students know the exact part of the courtyard where to look for the animals.
5. You can also set a time limit or you can finish the activity when all the toy animals are found.
Step 2:
1. After the children find all the animals align them in two rows, according to their groups.
3. Put the pictures illustrating the farm and the wildlife between the two rows.
4. Tell the students that in turns they have to choose an animal, show it to the other group, name it (Fig. 1) and put it on the right picture (Fig. 2)
5. If they name the animal correctly, their group will get a point. If they do not name the animal properly, then the group loses a point and the point goes to the other team.
6. They continue the activity until each animal is appointed and placed on the correct picture.
7. The group, which has the most points, is the winner.
Variation: You can follow the same instructions until Step 2:2. What can be changed here is step 2:3, where a child from group A can call out a student from group B to name an animal. The student from group A points out an animal and the student from group B has to name it and put it on the right picture.
Figure 4
Note: When using an outdoor activity the teacher should pay attention to the risks that exist. When you choose the courtyard make sure that there are no dangers for the children. If it is possible, for this activity, take another teacher with you. For example, for the first part of this game I was helped by the class teacher. While the children were looking for the animals, she supervised one of the groups, while I was supervising the other one.
Children adore being outside, especially when the weather is fine, so this is one advantage to use this activity with your children. Another advantage could be that each child from the class is involved in the activity. A drawback for this activity could be that if children do not pay enough attention, while looking for the animals (because they run) they could stumble, fall over and hurt themselves.
This is a perfect activity for the bodily ‘ kinaesthetic type of intelligence since they like the freedom of movement. For the interpersonal and verbal – linguistic type is appropriate because they have to work in groups and in the same time they have to communicate, and for the visual ‘ spatial one it is suitable because they are known for their good capacity of orientation.
A LOT OF ANIMALS
Aim: to introduce/practice or revise vocabulary
Class: 3rd graders
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: writing
Timing: 10 ‘ 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal- linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual ‘ spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal
Interaction: Group work
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Divide the class into groups. Each group has a sheet of paper.
2. Children write as many animals as they can think of in one minute.
3. They then pass the sheet of paper to the group on their right.
4. The children read their peers’ suggestions and add more animals to the list, if they know.
5. Continue rotating the sheet of paper until it returns to the original group.
6. Create a summary grid on the board. (Fig.5)
7. Ask the students to call out the name of an animal that falls into the following category: Farm animals, Pets, Wild animals, and record these into the grid.
Variation: This activity can be done as a one minute reflection activity as well, meaning that you set a time limit one minute or even three minutes. This time you do not group the students but you let them work individually. This is a good exercise for intrapersonal intelligence. Students have to reflect upon the topic individually and write down all the animal names they know. Then you can group them and let them consult their lists and complete it. Then do the activity in the same way you did earlier.
Note: This is a good brainstorming activity and especially for intrapersonal intelligence, when it is an individual work. When it is a pair/group work it is more suitable for interpersonal and verbal ‘ linguistic type, since this activity gives students the opportunity to make use of the previously acquired knowledge.
BINGO
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Class: any
Level: any
Skills: listening
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal- linguistic, visual ‘ spatial, intrapersonal
Interaction: individual work
Material: Bingo cards
Preparation: prepare 3×3 sets of bingo cards , one set per student (Fig.6)
Procedure:
1. Give each student a bingo card.
2. Call out the names of the animals.
3. If students have the specific animal on their card, they cross it out. If not they wait until an animal from their cards is called out.
4. Continue calling out the animals until the first student has three animals in a row (horizontally, vertically or diagonally), then she/he shouts Bingo and she/he is the winner
Variation 1: You can finish the activity either when the first student has three animals in a row or you can let the activity move on until each learner has Bingo.
Variation 2: You can make this game more difficult, if the children are 3rd graders or higher. You can give them a short description of the animal, and according the explanation they have to figure out which animal are you talking about. You can mention their colour, size, parts of the body (e.g. It is brown/yellow/grey’, It has got four/two legs. It has/hasn’t got tail; It lives on the farm/forest’ and so on)
BINGO ‘ FARM ANIMALS
BINGO ‘ WILD ANIMALS
Figure 6
Note: Bingo or Noughts and crosses, or Tic ‘Tac ‘Toe, is an activity which can be applied to any vocabulary item and at any level. The higher the level of the student’s is the more difficult the game can become. The only requirement is that students should know at least nine words related to the vocabulary topic since there are nine grids on a bingo card.
WHO AM I?
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal- linguistic, bodily-kinaesthetic, visual ‘ spatial, interpersonal
Interaction: whole class activity
Material: pictures, pins
Preparation: prepare pictures with animals
Procedure:
1. Let the students know that they are going to play a game in which they have to find out what kind of animal they have on their backs (Fig. 8)
2. Pin a picture on each student’s back. Be careful the students do not have to see what kind of picture they have on their backs.
3. Choose two sides of the classroom, and tell the students that one side is a farm, whereas the other side is the wilderness. You can even choose two pictures to put to the sides, this way the children will not forget where they have to go. (Fig. 7)
4. Tell the students that in order to find out what animal they have on their backs, they have to walk around the classroom and ask their colleagues the following question ‘Do I have a/an ‘.?
Figure 8
5. If the answer is YES, they have to decide if it is a farm animal or a wild animal and they have to choose the appropriate side of the classroom and go there. If the answer is NO, then the children have to continue the procedure until they find out the name of the animal from their backs.
6. When all the children have found out the animal they are wearing on their back and they joined the correct group the farm and wilderness are complete.
Variation 1: You can set a time limit or you can award the first three students who have accomplished their tasks.
Variation 2: The activity could be continued in the following way. When the groups are ready line them up and tell them that you are going to make some sounds. If they can associate the sound with the type of animal they have on their back then they have to name the animal.
Note: This is good communicating activity, which helps students develop their communicative skills. It also can be applied to multiple vocabulary topics. As the student’s level increase the activity can be done in a more difficult ways.
If you are a teacher who does not like noise than you will have a problem with this activity, because children have to stand up, mingle and talk, and all this cannot be done without noise.
SOUNDS FUN ANIMALS
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: listening
Timing: 10- 20 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal- linguistic, logical ‘ mathematical, interpersonal
Interaction: group work
Material: sounds fun animals set (Fig.9) ‘ 4 double sided game boards, pack of 36 counters, 90 track CD of animal sounds
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell the students that they are going to listen and match the animal sounds to the pictures.
2. Form four groups; give each group a game board. (Fig. 10)
3. Give each group nine counters.
4. Start the CD at any point between track 1 and 71 for a different game each time.
5. Players listen to the animal sounds and use a counter to cover the matching picture if it appears on the board. Counters must be laid before time runs out and the answer is heard.
6. The first group to cover all 9 pictures on their board wins the game.
Note: The boards are double sided, on one side there are pictures with animals and on the other side there are words. With low beginners you can play the side with the pictures and with more advanced beginners or elementary the game can be played with words.
The advantage of using this game is that develops students listening skill and the fact that students have to associate sounds with animals. On the other hand, the disadvantage of the game is that not all the students will be able to associate the sounds with the animals.
Figure 10
PUZZLES
Aim: to introduce new vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 5 – 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal- linguistic, logical ‘ mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal
Interaction: group work
Material: puzzles
Preparation: Prepare the puzzle you need, look for the animals you need, copy them in a word document (Fig.11), print out several pictures and line the back of the images. Then take the scissors and cut the pictures in small/large pieces.
Procedure:
1. Divide the class in groups of four.
2. Give the students the sets of puzzles (fig.12).
3. Tell them they are going to solve a puzzle (Fig.13). Before starting the activity, ask the children to try to guess what will be the result of the picture. You could even reward the team with a point.
4. You can either set a time limit or wait until each of the groups finishes their doings.
5. When everybody is ready, tell the children to name the animals that they know, if they know any.
6. For the animals they do not know help them discover. Give them instructions, for e.g. ‘Next to the dog there is a white little animal, that’s the rabbit.’ Ask children to point the animal and repeat the word after you.
7. Proceed like this with all the animals from the picture.
Note: Either you can buy a ready-made puzzle or you can create one. In this case the puzzle was created by the teacher. I wanted specific animals to appear in the puzzle, so I created one.
This activity goes very well when you want to introduce new language; it can be applied to any part of vocabulary. The children have to find out what they are going to learn, so this means learning by discovery.
Figure 13
FINISH THE DRAWING
Aim: to introduce/practice/revise vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: listening
Timing: 10- 20 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual ‘ spatial, logical ‘ mathematical, intrapersonal, interpersonal
Interaction: individual work
Material: photocopiable handouts
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Before giving, the handouts to the students revise the farm animals, colours and parts of the body.
2. Give the students the handouts and ask them to finish the drawings (Fig.14)
3. As follow up you can ask students to colour the animals. You can give them the freedom to colour the animals as they wish.
4. After they finish colouring the animals in turns, they will describe their animals.
Figure 14
Variation 1: After the children finish drawing instead of letting them colour as they wish, you can give them the directions how to colour the animals. For e.g., Colour the dog’s eye blue. Colour its nose black. Colour its mouth red. Colour the dog brown. , Continue until the children have coloured all the animals.
Variation 2: You can make a combination of the activities described above. The students will colour half of the animals as you say, and for the other half you can give them the freedom to colour after their wish.
Variation 3: Another possibility is to let the children say each other how to colour the animals. For each animal choose a different student who will the others the instructions about how to colour the animals.
Note: This is yet again an activity, which can be applied to several vocabulary parts. Either you are teaching furniture, classroom object, fruit, vegetables or any other topic it is an easy yet useful task, and young learners enjoy drawing, so do not hesitate in using this undertaking.
4.2. Seasons & Weather
The weather is a great topic for English Language Learners; it is undoubtedly an issue that affects us every day, it is a part of our everyday life. There are great opportunities to discuss it all the time. Praising a nice day is nice, but who does not love to complain about a bad one? And the topic provides easy reading, writing, speaking and listening opportunities.
SCRAMBLED WORDS
Aim: to introduce/ practice/revise vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: writing
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual – spatial, logical ‘ mathematical, intrapersonal
Interaction: individual work
Material: photocopiable handouts (Fig.15)
Preparation: You have to make some codes in order to create the handouts
Procedure:
1. Give each student a handout. Tell them they are going to decode some numbers.
2. Read the request with the children and give them a concrete example, write it on the board.
3. If you want to do this activity as a competition set a time limit, or just let the children take their time. In both ways reward the first three children to accomplish the task.
Variation: There is another way to have a scrambled word activity. This goes well when you want to practice the newly acquired vocabulary. Prepare a handout with jumbled words. Write the vocabulary words and jumble the letters in the words. Children have to put the letters in the correct order to find out the right word.
Figure 15
Note: There are various ways to create such kind of handouts. Instead of numbers/symbols you can also use colours (if you have got a colour printer), objects, fruits, vegetables and many other things. This handout as well as many from these sections can be functional with any lexis.
CHANGING SEASONS
Aim: to introduce/ practice/revise vocabulary
Class: 4th grade
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: writing
Timing: 10 – 20 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual – spatial, verbal – linguistic, interpersonal
Interaction: group work
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Divide the class into four groups and allocate one season to each group.
2. In their groups, students have to brainstorm sentences to describe the seasons.
3. The sentences can be related to the weather, nature, animals, anything the children can recall.
4. When the children are ready, they pass their description to the next group and see if they can add to the one that is passed to their group.
5. Students exchange the list until each season gets to each of the four groups.
6. In the end students from each group, choose a leader (Fig. 16) who will go in front of the class and present the sentences that were written about each season.
Variation: If you want to involve more types of intelligences in this activity, than you can ask the students to realize a drawing of the season as well. Other students could try to make up a short poem about the season, and others could make up some rhymes for the poem or for another one.
Note: The activity can also be done as a competitive one. You could allocate several minutes to the groups to accomplish their task. This is a proper activity for interpersonal type of intelligence and for verbal ‘ linguistic.
MIME
Aim: to introduce/ practice/revise vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual – spatial, logical ‘ mathematical, interpersonal, bodily – kinaesthetic
Interaction: whole class
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. This is a short teaching technique. Teach the children the weather and associate a mime for each word referring to weather, such:
For sunny- draw in the air a sun, for windy(Fig.17) ‘ move your arms from right to left and vice versa. For cloudy ‘ draw a cloud in the air. For rainy (Fig.18) – move your fingers from up to down. For snowy – sprinkle in the air. ‘
2. Once you have presented and demonstrated the new words to children ask them to join you in the activity.
3. Practice several times with the children then you just mime and the children do both tasks, say the words and mime, or you can just the words and the children perform both tasks.
Note: Since it is well known that children have short attention spans, it is also very difficult for them to stay still for a longer period of time, therefore this miming activity is always welcomed, because they can make movements and also have fun.
Miming is preferred by most of the students and this can be done at any time of the lesson and related to several vocabulary items.
HANGMAN
Aim: to introduce/ practice/revise vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: any
Skills: writing, speaking
Timing: 10 -15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal- linguistic, interpersonal
Interaction: group work
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Divide the class in two teams.
2. The teacher is the executor, the person who gives the words.
3. The teacher marks out blanks (short lines) for each letter, she gives the initial and final letter of the word. She also draws a gibbet on the blackboard (Fig. 19).
4. Write any wrongly guessed letters under the picture so that students do not repeat them.
5. Students from each team say letters in turns. If there is a letter in the word then the teacher writes on a line, if not then she starts drawing the man.
6. If one team guesses the word, they can say the word when their turn comes.
7. The team, which guesses the word, first wins a point and the teacher gives another word. If they do not guess the word then the man will be sacrificed.
Note: Hangman is a fun game that you can use to sneak learning into playtime with the children. This game teaches kids about spelling and helps to develop vocabulary and skills in decoding variations of words.
It has the advantage that you do not have to prepare anything, the only things you need are blackboard/whiteboard and chalk/marker. Children enjoy guessing letters and if you use your imagination and you draw the man in a funny way, and then kids will have more fun. The focus does not stay on who wins the game but on practicing vocabulary.
4.3. Houses & Furniture
Not all teachers think that schooling beginner students about ‘house, room and furniture’ vocabulary is important. Nevertheless, it is important if students are to learn to communicate in English. After all, think about it. Just to have a basic conversation a student wants to be able to say where his family lives, his/her book is on the table and, by the way, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’- This is another important question, isn’t it?
PICTURE DICTATION
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to intermediate
Skills: listening
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, visual ‘ spatial, intrapersonal logical-mathematical
Interaction: individual work
Material: a sheet of paper
Preparation: draw a furnished room
Procedure:
1. Tell the children they are going to draw a room. The teacher can draw together with the students or can take a ready drawn picture into the classroom.
2. Tell the children that you are going to tell them what and where to draw. And also tell them that when they are ready with their drawings you are going to show them yours and their pictures have to be similar with your picture.
3. Instructions to draw the picture:
– Draw a round table into the middle of the room.
– Next to the table on the left side, there is a chair.
– In front of the table, there is a TV table and there is a TV on it.
– Behind the table, there is a sofa.
– Next to the sofa on the right, there is a wardrobe.
– Next to the sofa on the left, there is a cupboard.
Note: Kids like picture dictation because it is positive and interesting; they also find the work pleasant and rewarding. There might be students who are not very good at drawing but from my experience, this was not an impediment for them. They did their best to accomplish the task, and the focus was not on the beauty of the drawing but on the correct way. You have to mention this to your students that you are not interested in the aesthetic of the drawing but in the way, they follow correctly/wrongly the instructions. A problem that you could encounter is that some students do not know which their left/right is, and then the picture they draw will be a mirror picture of yours.
THIS IS MY HOUSE
Aim: to introduce vocabulary
Class: primary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, musical, visual – spatial, logical ‘ mathematical, interpersonal
Interaction: whole class
Material: a paper house, paper furniture, glue-tech, song-lyrics (Fig. 20)
Preparation: Draw a house on a flipchart; draw all the rooms in the house (hall, living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, study). On smaller papers, draw the furniture (Fig. 21).
Procedure:
1. Stick the flipchart on blackboard and tell the students that they are going to learn a new song.
2. Present each room from the house pointing them. Ask the children to repeat after you.
3. Point on the rooms in the house and ask the students to name the rooms.
4. Introduce the song by singing and miming the first verse. Sing it once again and ask the students to join you in.
5. Do the above mentioned procedures until you sing the entire song together with the kids.
6. As a follow up divide the class in seven groups. Tell each group which part of the song they are going to sing and mine (Fig.22).
7. The groups sing their part of the song accompanied by the teacher.
Note: Songs are the best way for the musical intelligence to learn and develop their abilities. They learn better if they can associate words with rhythm that is why teachers should use as many songs possible during classroom teaching. Being a good way to learn for the musical intelligence type does not mean that those children who have this side less developed would not enjoy singing. Almost every child likes singing or humming tunes that is why it is so important to make use of songs.
WORD TENNIS
Aim: to practice/revise any vocabulary group
Level: any
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 ‘ 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, logical ‘ mathematical
Interaction: group work
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Divide the class into two teams, Team A and Team B. Call out a word group , such as: rooms in the house, furniture in the bedroom, stuffs in the bathroom, furniture in the living room and so on
2. Team A ‘serves’ by saying a word in that group, such as: kitchen
3. Team B ‘returns the serve’ by saying another word, like hall. Then it is the other teams turn again.
4. The game continues until one team (in five seconds) cannot think of another word in that category.
5. Then call out another word group. Continue with the game until you see that children are interested in and have fun. Do not let it last for too long, that way the children will get bored.
Note: Teaching children to make connections between words, categorize them and use them in a constructive way does not refer only to teaching vocabulary. From this kind of activities children will also learn how to measure things and how to categorize them as positive and negative ones. By helping them to develop this creative side maybe they will learn in an easier way how to weigh their possibilities when they grow older.
DREAM HOUSE
Aim: to introduce/practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 ‘ 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, musical, visual – spatial, logical ‘ mathematical, interpersonal
Interaction: whole class
Material: a paper house, paper furniture, glue-tech
Preparation: Draw a house on a flipchart; draw all the rooms in the house (hall, living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, study). On smaller papers, draw the furniture.
Procedure:
1. Stick the flipchart with the house on blackboard (Fig. 23) and the smaller pieces of paper with furniture next to it.
2. Sing the ‘This is My House’ song (the children have previously learned the song), with the children and mime (Fig.24) the actions.
3. Tell the students that this is going to be their dream house and they can furnish it as they wish.
4. In turns, the students go to the blackboard and pin a piece of furniture where they wish.
5. When they choose a piece of furniture, the teacher names it and asks the student to repeat the word.
6. When the house is completely furnished sing the song once again.
7. As a follow up you can ask question about where the furniture is in the house. For example: Where is the desk/bath, armchair’?
Variation 1: Do the same procedure until step 2, then call the students, in turns, to blackboard and tell them to pick a piece of furniture, one named by the teacher. Then tell the pupil where to put it. Proceed like this until all the furniture is pined on the flipchart.
Variation 2: Make the activity funnier for the kids. When you call them to the blackboard to pin pieces of furniture on the house tell them silly sentences such as: ‘Put the bath into the kitchen. Put the sink into the bedroom. Put the armchair into the bathroom ‘.’ This will give an extra amusement to the activity and children enjoy doing silly things.
As a follow up for this activity, you can ask the students to look carefully to the furnished house for 2 minutes. Then remove the furniture and ask the children to remember where the objects were in the house. Call out students to pin the pictures where they initially were.
LISTEN AND DRAW
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: any
Skills: listening
Timing: 10 ‘ 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual – spatial, intrapersonal, and musical
Interaction: individual work
Material: a white sheet of paper
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell the students to relax and demonstrate the meaning. Tell them they should stay in a very comfortable position.
2. Tell them that you are going to play the CD and what they have to do is to close their eyes, listen to description and imagine.
3. Close your eyes. Ten…nine’eight’seven’six’five’.four’three’two’one. imagine that ‘you can see a room’ . Is it in a palace? A houseboat? A tent? Imagine a bed in you room. Is it green ‘ Red?…Yellow?…Orange?…Purple?… What else is there? Is there a table? What colour is it? Imagine that there are also armchairs. How many are there? What colour are they? Is there a cupboard? What colour is it? And is there a bath? …Take your time’and now count from one to ten.’one’.two.’three’.four.’five’.six.’seven’..’
eight’nine’.ten. Open your eyes.
4. Now the students have to draw (Fig. 25) their room. The room is in their imagination.
5. While the children are drawing their rooms circulate and ask them question, such as: Is there a bed? What colour is it? , etc.
Note: This is a guided visualisation bringing together the topic and the language of the lesson in a creative way, to encourage students to use their imagination. It also encourages self ‘ expression, so the students are encouraged to draw freely, with no sense of ‘a right answer’.
4.4. Toys
Why is it important to teach children vocabulary related to toys? Let us not forget that they are children so ‘What is their primary concern?’- Playing. So, that is why it is important to teach young learners about items they are interested in.
Toys and play in general, are important when it comes to growing up and learning about the world around us. Children use toys and play to discover their identity, to help their bodies grow strong, to learn cause and effect, to explore relationships, and practice skills they will need as adults.
MEMO GAME
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: spatial ‘ visual, logical – mathematical
Interaction: group work
Material: memo cards (Fig. 26)
Preparation: If you are teaching a certain vocabulary topic and you cannot find ready-made memo card than you will have to create them.
Procedure:
1. Divide the class in to teams of four.
2. Give each team a set of memo cards and tell them to lay out the cards down in rows forming a large rectangle on the table. Than explain the rules:
3. Tell the students that are going to play in turns. They have to choose a card, turn it over than name the toy found in the picture. Then they have to select another card, turn it over and name the picture. If the two cards are a matching pair than they take the two cards and gain a point. If the cards are not matching pairs than they have to turn them upside down again. Then is another student’s turn.
4. Proceed like this until there are no cards left. The student who has got the most cards is the group’s winner.
Note: Memo games are very useful tools for classrooms activities. Engaging the students in these kinds of activities, not only gives pleasure to children, gives the joy of playing, but also helps students practice and develop their vocabulary, besides enabling them to stay focused and giving them the opportunity to effectively use their brain.
Memo games can be played with any lexis if you have several similar sets of memo cards. To own so many sets of memo cards it is costly, but there a simple way to have them with little money. All you have to do is, search for the pictures related to your vocabulary, on google for example, place them all in a words document, than print them in as many copies as to be enough for each of the children from the class.
WHAT HAVE YOU GOT?
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginners
Skills: listening, speaking
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: musical, verbal – linguistic
Interaction: whole class
Material: toys, CD player, CD ‘ rom
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. If there is any available space, sit children in a large circle.
2. Hand out six toys. Point to a student who has got a toy and ask ‘What have you got?’ and wait for the student’s answer. After that do the same with the others who have toys.
3. Tell the students that you are going to play some music. When the music stops, the students who have got a toy have to name the toy and pass it to the student from his/her left.
4. Continue with the above mentioned procedure until the song ends or until each child gets a toy at least once.
LOOKING FOR MY TEAM
Aim: to introduce/practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, bodily ‘ kinaesthetic, logical ‘ mathematical and interpersonal
Interaction: whole class, group work
Material: several cards with toys
Preparation: you can buy or make yourself the cards
Procedure:
1. Give each child a picture card. Tell them to be careful because nobody should see their cards.
2. Tell the children to stand up and mingle around (Fig. 27) asking the following questions ‘Have you got a doll? Have you got a bike? Have you got a ball? Have you got a car? Have you got a kite? Have you got a teddy bear?
3. If the child who is asked has the same picture than they continue the activity together. If not than they step away and start asking again.
4. When a team (Fig. 28) is complete, they step away in a part of the classroom and wait until everybody is ready.
5. Then the teacher calls out the toys and the children who have the toy mentioned make a step ahead.
6. As a follow up you can tell the children to separate and form a big circle. Then tell them that you are going to call out toys and those who have that picture have to run in the middle of the circle.
4.5. Clothes
The great thing about this topic is that there are already loads of great things designed for outside the classroom that can usefully be brought into the lesson, such as picture books, catalogues and magazines, real clothes, toys (e.g. dolls) and their clothes, 2D figures with 2D clothes (e.g. cut-out figures or stickers), Computer games/Online games which involve dressing people up and so on.
FASHION
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 20 -25 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, spatial ‘visual
Interaction: whole class
Material: clothes (skirt, shirt, blouse, T-shirt, trousers, hat, cap, gloves, scarf, jacket, coat, tie, dress)
Preparation: At the end of the foregoing lesson tell the children to bring clothes. Tell each child what piece of clothing to bring
Procedure:
1. Tell the children that they are going to have a fashion show today.
2. Ask the children to put all the pieces of clothing on a desk.
3. After that choose a student and ask him/her to come in front of the class.
4. Tell him/her to put on a clothing item ( or you can choose another student to give the instructions)
5. In turns, the children go in front and put on a clothing item. When all the children have a new clothing item on them, they are going to walk on the catwalk presenting their clothes.
Variation: You can make this activity a competitive one. When you ask students to bring pieces of clothing make sure that there will be two similar pieces of clothing , such as: two trousers, two shirts and so on.
Split the class into two teams and put the same type of clothes on different desks for each of the team. Then tell them that from each team a student have to come in front and dress with a piece of clothing indicated by the teacher. Tell the students that this is a competition and the student who is the quickest wins a point for his/her team. So, when the teacher names the item they have to choose the correct item and dress up as quickly as possible.
Note: This kind of activity is especially appropriate for girls, but there are boys as well who like them. It is more likely to be enjoyed by the boys if you make it funnier. For instance, the boys were asked to put on a skirt or dressed and girls to put on a tie or boy’s shoes.
A weak point is that if the child is too introverted than he/she refuses to put on clothes that he/she does not consider proper. On the other side, there are more open minded children who make fun by putting on the other gender’s clothes. But, if you know your students well than you will not ask a shy student to put on the other gender’s clothes
CLOTHES MEMORY
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10- 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, spatial ‘visual, logical – mathematical
Interaction: whole class
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell the students that they are going test their memory through a game.
2. Choose a student (The Blind person) to come in front of the class and look at his/her colleagues for a minute. Then the student has to close his/her eyes and/or turn around.
3. The student closes his/her eyes and is tested on what his/her teacher and/or classmates are wearing. This can be done with the questions being asked by the teacher, or by other student.
4. The Blind person could be asked to describe only one classmate or asked several questions about different classmates.
Note: This game can be done as a competitive one as well. For each correct description or answer, the student wins a point. The winner will be the student who wins the most points.
It’s easy to take memory for granted. Introducing your child to sensory games will encourage them to use and sharpen their growing memory skills in an enjoyable context.
These kinds of educational games for kids are the best and most efficient way of helping them learn and remember organizational skills. If children learn and experience how fun organizing and matching up things can be, they will be more willing to express these basic skills on their own.
WHO IS IT?
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10- 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, spatial ‘visual
Interaction: whole class
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell students that they are going to play a guessing game.
2. The activity starts with the teacher as game leader.
3. Teacher describes a student from the classroom, such as: He/She is wearing dark blue trousers. He/She is wearing a white shirt (until this point almost all students are dressed in the same way, since they are wearing their uniform). He/She is wearing blue and white trainers. He/She is wearing a green blouse.
4. When the teacher finishes with the prompts then she chooses a student to tell who she is speaking about. If the student guesses the described person then it is his/her turn to be the game leader, if not the teacher asks another student until somebody has the correct answer.
Note: By saying he/she you make the game a little bit more difficult. Try to start with common things, than gradually move to more particular ones.
By playing this game you also develop student’s attention span, since they have to stay focused and listen carefully to the description otherwise they cannot have the correct answer.
This is also a good activity if you want to practice physical appearance with the children, moreover with elementary students you can talk about others interior features.
4.6. Parts of the body
Not only is this topic great for classes of all ability levels, but it is also vital for giving classroom instructions in English during the rest of the course, for example: while explaining action songs or physical games. There are also loads of games, craft activities, stories and songs kids love and which can be easily be adapted for classes.
.
FUNNY ANIMALS/MONSTERS
Aim: to introduce/practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: listening
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual – spatial
Interaction: individual work
Material: a white sheet of paper per student and pencils
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell the children that they are going to draw something. Do not reveal the details from the beginning. Their enjoyment will be greater when they are on the point to discover what they are drawing.
2. Example sentences: Draw a small head. Draw to big eyes. Draw a long nose. Draw a long neck. Draw a fat body. Draw two long arms. Draw four short legs.
3. When the drawings are ready (Fig. 29) the students discover that they have just drawn some strange animals/monsters
4. As a follow up you can either tell the students to colour their animals as they wish or you can give them the clues again.
Note: Drawing is one activity that children adore, even if they are not the best artist although they like drawing. This is a good activity for Picture Smart students but not only for them but for every child. This is a guided drawing but if they are let to draw what they want than you can see how their creativity arises through drawing.
I CAN DO IT!!!
Aim: to introduce/practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: reading
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual ‘ spatial, logical – mathematical, intrapersonal and interpersonal
Interaction: individual work, pair work;
Material: The ‘I CAN DO’ poem on slips of paper, flashcards, glue
Preparation: prepare a short poem or story, this one is my invention, write the poem/story on a slip of paper erasing the words related to the vocabulary topic, and then prepare enough copies for everybody. Write the vocabulary words on separate pieces of paper and give them too, to each child/pair
Procedure:
1. Decide whether you want the children to work individually or in pairs. Then give each child/pair a handout with the poem, the little slips of paper with the deleted words. Also, tell them that they need glue.
I can do it!
I can clap with my hands
I can eat with my mouth
I can chew with my teeth
I can hear with my ears
I can see with my eyes
I can walk on my feet
I can do all these things
Using my body parts.
2. Tell the children that they have to stick the words in the blank spaces marked with lines.
3. When they are ready they can check their answers in pairs/groups
4. Check the answers with the whole class. While checking hold up flashcards for each part of the body.
Variation: Instead of deleting the words you can mix the letters in the words. Then the children have to put the letters in the correct order to find out the appropriate word.
I can do it!/I can clap with my danhs/I can eat with my outhm/I can chew with my heett /I can hear with my sear/I can see with my seey/I can walk on my teef
I can do all these things/Using my ybod parts.
Note: This creative activity it is to best preferred by those children who possess a higher level of logical ‘ mathematical intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence if the children work alone, since the characteristic of intrapersonal intelligence is to be and work by himself/herself. On the other hand it is appropriate for interpersonal intelligence too, if the children work in pairs.
SIMON SAYS
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: listening
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, bodily – kinaesthetic
Interaction: whole class
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell the children that they are going to play a game called ‘Simon Says’.
2. Tell them the rules.
3. Teacher takes the role of ‘Simon’ and issues instructions such as, ‘touch your nose’, ‘touch your head’, ‘touch your eyes’, ‘touch your neck’ and so on.
4. Children follow the instructions only if it is prefaced with the phrase ‘Simon says’; ‘Simon says touch your hair’
5. Players are eliminated from the game by either following instructions that are not preceded by the phrase, or by failing to follow an instruction, or if they do something else then it is said.
6. The winner of the game is the last player who has successfully followed all of the given commands
Note: Simon says is a classic game that works really well as a fun classroom activity. When the children are introduced other verbs as well you can make the game more difficult. It goes well with parts of the body but it can be played with other vocabulary items too. For instance, you can practice prepositions, school objects, action verbs and so on. It is one of the most suitable games for bodily ‘ kinaesthetic intelligence, since they are in a permanent bustle.
YES/NO
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: listening
Timing: 10 -15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual ‘ spatial, bodily ‘ kinaesthetic, interpersonal
Interaction: group work
Material: YES/NO words (Fig. 31), A4 paper format glue ‘ tech, body ‘ part flashcards
Preparation: prepare two A4 coloured papers. You can choose green for YES, and red for NO (the colours are related to the traffic lights)
Procedure:
1. Pin the A4 papers on the blackboard. Divide the class into two groups
YES
NO
2. Tell the students that there is going to be a competition between the two groups.
3. Call two students at a time from each group (Fig. 30).
4. The teacher shows up flashcards and says a word related to the parts of the body. If the word is the same with the picture than students have to touch YES, if not they have to touch NO.
5. The student to touch first the correct word wins a point for his/her team.
6. Proceed as above until all students have the opportunity to go to the blackboard.
7. The team, which has the most points, wins the competition.
Note: If suddenly comes into your mind to play the games at the beginning or end of the lesson and you do not have any of the materials mentioned above, do not panic, the activity can be done without any material too.
Divide the blackboard into two parts, take a green and red chalk (all primary classes have coloured chalk, but if it happens not to have, than just take a simple white chalk) and write on the blackboard YES and NO. Now if you do not have the flashcards either it is the easiest way just to point your parts of the body and say the words.
Since the weather allowed us and we were getting to the end of the school year, we played the game outdoors as well, and the children had a really great time.
4.7. Food
Who does not like delicious food? I think everybody. What about beautiful ripe fruits and vegetables. Both children and adults love delightful food and especially children when they can bring fruits and vegetables to school. If the teacher asks them to bring a fruit or vegetable for the next class, they will bring them with great pleasure. If the teacher does not mention what type of food or vegetable they should bring, the children will certainly bring their favourite ones. A lesson with real objects or in this case food will always cheer up the little ones.
SUPERMARKET!
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: speaking, listening
Timing: 25 – 30 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, interpersonal, bodily ‘ kinaesthetic, visual – spatial
Interaction: group work
Material: toy fruits, play money, sticky labels for price tags
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell the children that they are going shopping. Split the children into two groups. If it is a numerous class, form four groups.
2. Tell them that for each group they have to choose a shop assistant and the other members of the group are the customers. Give the players play money.
3. First, groups prepare the stall, placing the items on sale, their price and label everything accordingly.
4. They all go shopping except for the shop assistants who must sell all the items. In order to attract customers, encourage shop assistants to advertise their products and offer discounts in case the products do not sell as planned.
5. Students mingle and buy as many products as they can with the money they have.
Note: The ‘Supermarket’ game can be played with different vocabulary items, such as: fruits, vegetables, stationary, clothes, toys and so on; every topic that encourages students to communicate.
This activity implies role-play and the majority of the young learners like playing roles. Opposed to this, it is not an appropriate activity for those children who have a higher level of intrapersonal intelligence. But if these children want to take part in the activity, and from my experience I can tell that none of my students have ever refused to participate in playing this game, than there is a high probability that they wish to leave their so called ‘comfort zone’ meaning that they just need a little encouragement.
BLINDFOLDED
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to intermediate
Skills: speaking
Timing: 20 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, spatial ‘ visual, bodily – kinaesthetic
Interaction: group work
Material: realia, blindfold; gloves, vegetables
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell students you have several fruits in a box that they have to guess by touching them but not seeing them.
2. Divide the class in two teams. Ask one student to come to your desk. Blindfold him/ her. Take a fruit out of the box and give it to him / her to touch and identify it. For more challenge, use gloves to make the feeling difficult.
3. Encourage students to describe what they feel: shape, weight, length, etc. and speculate about the object. ‘I think it’s a ‘ It can’t be a’ It might be a”
4. If students cannot tell what the fruit is, they can ask their team one ‘Yes /No’ questions: e.g. ‘Is it red/brown’..?’.
5. Students score one point for their team for each correct guess.
Variation 1: Put several objects on your desk without letting students see them and cover them with a cloth. Invite one student to feel an object through the cloth and name it. If the guess is correct, remove the item. Continue the same way with other students.
Variation 2: Put food samples (e.g. coffee, salt, sugar, honey, flour, mustard, ketch-up, paprika, butter, garlic salt, chilli powder, or other spices, orange juice, water, vinegar, oil, etc.) in clean containers (Kinder Egg capsules will do.) and prepare several separately wrapped toothpicks students could use to taste the samples. Organize groups. Blindfold students and hold the food sample near their noses. If they cannot identify the food, have them taste it by inserting a toothpick into the container. Students score one point for each correct guess.
4.8. Jobs
When we are little each of us has a dream job, later in life our wish may or may not fulfil, yet at early ages children always have an answer for the so common question ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Therefore, why wouldn’t it be useful to kids, telling this in English as well? It is important because this opens another door for communication, which is one of the best ways to help students develop their vocabulary.
DON’T SAY A WORD
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: speaking
Timing: 15 ‘ 20 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: visual ‘ spatial, bodily ‘ kinaesthetic, interpersonal
Interaction: group work
Material: cards
Preparation: Write ten jobs on separate pieces of card. Make one set of jobs per group.
Procedure:
1. Divide the class into groups of four or up to six if it is a numerous class.
2. Give each group a set of cards face down in an envelope.
3. Tell students that they are going to pick up cards in turns.
4. Say ‘start’ and the first student from the group picks up a card and has forty seconds to draw the word on a sheet of paper. The student must not speak or use any words or letters in the drawing.
5. While the student is drawing, the other members of the group have to try to guess the word, saying exactly what is on the card.
6. After forty seconds shout, ‘Stop!’ Ask each group if they guessed the word correctly and give them one point if they did.
7. Then the next student takes a card and they proceed as above until there is no card left.
8. The team with the most points at the end is the winner.
Variation 1: A quick version of this game is to sit students in pairs. A has his/her back to the board, B can see the board. Write a word on the board and B draws it for A who has between 20 ‘ 40 seconds (it is up to you, and also depends on student’s level) to guess. Then swap roles.
Variation 2: The same game can be done but this time change the drawing part miming.
Note: Some students may be good at drawing, others not, anyway each of the students will try do his/her best to accomplish the task and win points for his/her team. This is again an activity, which can be functional with numerous vocabulary topics, such as: animals, furniture, means of transport, food, clothes and so on and so forth.
WHAT’S MY JOB?
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: speaking, writing
Timing: 15 ‘ 20 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal – linguistic
Interaction: whole class
Material: none
Preparation: none
Procedure:
1. Tell students that you have got a new job.
2. Write the job on a piece of paper but keep it hidden.
3. Students have to guess the job in less than ten questions. You can only give short YES/NO answers.
4. Help students to ask questions, you could write them on the board.
Do you work in an/a””?/Do you work outside/inside?/Do you work in the morning/at the weekend/at night?/Do you get a high/low salary?/Do you wear a uniform/drive/speak languages/cook?/ Are you a”’?
Is your job interesting/difficult/dangerous/nice?
5. Students can only make two direct guesses about the job.
Note: Students then can play in groups. The first student chooses a job from Word bank (or any other job, which the class have learned) and writes it down. The others have to guess it. When you think they can manage without the questions on the board, rub them out or leave some words as prompts.
AUCTION
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: any
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 ‘ 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved:
Interaction: group work
Material: PowerPoint presentation, projector, laptop, paper money or none
Preparation: prepare the power point presentation with the sentences. Write a correct/incorrect sentence per slide.
Procedure:
1. Divide the students in groups and give them the same amount of paper money (or write on the board the money limit under each group’s name and during the auction, keep the evidence of the money left for each group).
2. Explain that they are going to bid for sentences; some are correct but others are not (you can have a Power point presentation or just write them on the board).
3. Conduct the auction in a quick, funny way. Do not let students feel there is a difference in the ‘value’ of the sentences, i.e. some are ‘more correct’ than others.
4. Students work together and plan which sentences they are going to bid for. The aim is to buy as many correct sentences as possible.
5. After all the sentences are sold, ask groups to add up their money.
6. Check the sentences with the children and decide which sentences are correct and which are wrong.
7. Establish the winner ‘ the group with most correct sentences; if there are two or more groups with the same number of correct sentences, choose the group who has the most amount of money left.
4.9. Action verbs
Looking at the second word of this subchapter one may say ‘Verbs? ‘Aren’t verbs a part of grammar? Yes, they are. But in the same time they are an important part of vocabulary as well. Without these action verbs we could not express ourselves. We neither could say what we want, what we do, nor what our needs are. That is why teaching these item to young learners is an important part when it comes to vocabulary and communication.
FIND SOMEONE WHO’.
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: any
Skills: speaking
Timing: 10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, bodily ‘ kinaesthetic, visual -spatial
Interaction: individual work
Material: handout
Preparation: prepare handouts for each of the students (Fig. 32)
Procedure:
1. Give students the handouts or the cards. Example sentences:
Find someone who can jump. Find someone who can swim. Find someone who can crawl. Find someone who can fly. Find someone who can dance. Find someone who can talk.
2. Set a time limit or let the all the students finish the activity. Pupils have to walk around the classroom and exchange information with their classmates, finding people who meet to the requirements set out. They cannot write the same student twice.
3. Students mingle, exchange information and complete their cards. (Fig. 33)
4. The first 3 to finish completing their cards are the winners.
5. They report their findings to the rest of the class.
Note: ‘Find someone who’.’ ,is a worthy interactive game in which children not only have fun but also interact and develop their speaking skill. It can be applied to several vocabulary topics and not only, it also goes well in practising certain structures, because students have to ask questions, such as: Can you’? Have you got..? Do you like’? and so on.
MATCHING
Aim: to introduce/practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: reading
Timing: 3-5 minutes
Type of intelligence involved:
Interaction: pair work or individual work
Material: pictures and words
Preparation: prepare pictures with the new vocabulary taught, cut them in separate pieces, and then write down the word on separate pieces of paper
Procedure:
1. Tell the children that they have to match some pictures (Fig. 34) with words.
2. Form pairs or let the children work alone.
3. Give them a set of picture and words.
4. The first three children or pairs to finish the activity first (Fig. 35) are the winners and give them some extra points.
5. Check if the children paired correctly the pictures with the words.
Note: This is a simple but efficient way to introduce new vocabulary to young learners. They have to discover by themselves the meaning of the pictures, discovery learning, which is considered a constructivist, based approach to education.
DESCRIBE
Aim: to practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginners to elementary
Skills: writing, speaking
Timing: 5-10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: verbal ‘ linguistic, spatial ‘ visual, interpersonal, logical ‘ mathematical and intrapersonal
Interaction: individual work, pair work or group work
Material: handouts (Fig. 36)
Preparation: prepare the handout for each child, pair or group
Procedure:
1. Give each pair a picture.
2. Tell the children that they have to look carefully at the picture and write down six sentences about what the children are doing.
3. When they have finished writing down the sentences ask them to report to you.
Variation: Let the students work alone. Show them the picture for a minute. Tell them to pay attention to any detail. Then turn the picture upside down and ask the children to write down as many sentences they can, about what the children are doing in the picture.
Note: This activity can be done as competitive one as well. Tell the children that the first three pairs to finish first are going to be awarded, but their sentences must be correct. Otherwise, there is no reward.
The above mentioned activity can be realized with several lexical topics. For example, if you teach Food, you can have a picture with a refrigerator with open doors. Show the students the picture for one minute and then tell them that they have to write down as many items as they remember having seen in the fridge.
REORDER THE SENTENCES
Aim: to introduce/practice/revise vocabulary
Level: beginner to elementary
Skills: speaking, listening
Timing: 10 – 15 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: musical
Interaction: pair work, whole class
Material: the words from the song cut into pieces, video projector, laptop, DVD
Preparation: Prepare the song; write the song in a word document, print it out and then cut it into pieces (word by word) (Fig. 37)
Procedure:
Step 1
1. Divide the students into groups of four. Each group has to choose a leader.
2. Give each group one or two sentences from the song, cut into pieces (word by word).
3. Tell the students that they have to put the words into the correct order (Fig, 38). If they put the words correctly, the words will result in a line of the song. (They have already heard the song before).
4. The teacher mingles around the classroom and checks if the students have put the words into the correct order.
Step 2
5. After checking the correct order of the words, ask the leader of each group to come to a separate desk.
6. They have to put each line into the correct order (Fig. 39).
7. When they are ready the teacher plays the DVD, students listen, watch and check if they put the sentences into the correct order.
Step 3
8. In the last part of the activity children have to choose the words written with red, they have to mime the actions and write new sentences with the words.
CAN YOU GUESS?
Aim: to introduce vocabulary
Level: any
Skills: listening, speaking
Timing: 5-10 minutes
Type of intelligence involved: musical
Interaction: individual work, pair work;
Material: handout (Fig. 40)
Preparation: Prepare the handout. Copy the lyrics of the song you want to listen and erase the words related to vocabulary part you want to teach.
Procedure:
1. Give the children the handouts and tell them that they are going to listen to a song.
2. Before listening the song ask the students to have a look at the pictures. Ask them to describe what they see in the pictures.
3. After that tell them to read the lyrics and if they think that they know what words are missing they can fill in the blanks.
4. Tell the children that you are going to play the CD twice. At first they just have to listen and watch the lyrics and during the second listening they have to fill in the gaps.
5. With younger children, you may probably have to play the CD a third time too.
6. When they have finished filling in the gaps, tell them to discuss with their desk mates the correct answers (Fig. 41). Give them about two minutes.
7. To end this doings check the answers with the entire class.
Note: Listening to a song and filling in the gaps is an activity, which can be used with several vocabulary topics. You just have to find the appropriate song, delete the words and have fun during classroom teaching. This is a delightful method to start the lesson and when you want to introduce new vocabulary or even grammar. This kind of activity is preferred by more advanced students too.
CONCLUSIONS
Motto: ‘Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimension’
(Oliver W. Holmes)
In this time of rapid changes and great pressure it can be quite a challenge to keep abreast of professional development and to keep growing as a teacher, while at the same time finding joy and success in working with one’s students. Development is a distinct concept in our thinking about teachers’ careers, their training to become ‘good teachers’ and get rid of their lead habits. Having chosen not to make a mountain out of a molehill by using traditional teaching methods but to focus my attention on interactive teaching and on student’s needs helped me first of all to know better my students and give them greater motivation.
I divided my research paper into four chapters and several subchapters, trying to bring arguments in favour of teaching vocabulary through interactive methods interleaved with the theory of multiple intelligences.
In the first chapter, dedicated to young learners, several characteristics of young learners, their needs, and their interests where emphasized, in order to have a better understanding of their world. Furthermore, several facts to be considered when teaching young learners, motivation and several reasons why to teach young learners have been highlighted. Having in mind all these aspects of young learners, it is a way to ease teacher’s job when it comes to planning the activity and deal with the children.
The second chapter discusses the importance of vocabulary and the position of teaching vocabulary to young learners. When teaching vocabulary to young children several steps should be followed in order to achieve your goals and aims. These steps are also described in the second chapter. Additionally, a review of teaching techniques and ways of presenting new vocabulary are discussed, both from a theoretical and practical side.
The third chapter of my paper amalgamates a theoretical part with a practical side. The first part of the chapter deals with the presentation of Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, some ways to recognise these intelligences and several teaching strategies. Correspondingly, the importance of integrating the theory into classroom teaching is highlighted through this chapter. In the second part of this chapter, a questionnaire applied to children is analysed and comments are offered for classroom observation in order to have a better understanding of children, their needs and their type of intelligence.
The last chapter of this paper, the fourth one, is a collection of classroom activities that worked well during classroom teaching. They are grouped in subchapters according to the vocabulary topic taught, revised or practiced. Detailed descriptions of these activities are given, accompanied by several notes/comments upon the activities described. These described activities are also accompanied by illustrations, handouts, photos that give a better understanding on how these strategies work. These activities are the outcome of the multitude of English language teaching courses, seminars, workshops and conferences I have attended, in Romania or abroad, combined with self ‘ study of available resources, experimenting, adapting, creating and inventing new materials in order to improve my teaching style and achieve my goals.
To begin with, it has been argued over and over if it is more appropriate to start learning a second language since early childhood, but it has never been totally agreed with the idea, as for me the earlier the better. ‘Learn as much as you can while you are young, since life becomes too busy later’ . In early childhood, kids grasp the meaning with an unbelievable ease. Even when you think that they are doing something else and they are not paying attention on what is happening around them, they record everything and they later reproduce.
During my research and in my paper I tried to point out that young learners have specific needs, they do no act or behave like older students, they possess shorter attention spans; therefore, a lot of attention must be paid on their needs when we plan our lessons.
It is well – known that boring lessons will not have any positive effect upon students, especially when it comes to young learners. They easily get bored, they lose their interest and these could cause some difficulties during classroom teaching. They will not pay attention anymore, they become more restless, and they will try to do anything else instead of accomplishing their tasks.
For this, the students’ place is at the centre of a space, which the teacher has structured. If we develop for our students more self ‘ access materials and in the classroom we shift the focus away from ourselves and concentrate on more student ‘ centred activities, then we will become those persons who not only make the students more responsible for their own learning. But also permit greater attention to individual needs. All these developments and techniques are very relevant to vocabulary teaching.
Secondly, teaching vocabulary is one of the most important facts in learning a language. Without a well-developed vocabulary, students are not able to communicate. They cannot understand what is being said, they cannot express themselves, they are ‘lost’, because without a powerful vocabulary they do not know the language.
What I tried to do during my lessons was to pay a reasonable attention to vocabulary teaching. By bringing into classroom a variety of activities and materials and by teaching through interactive techniques I succeeded in arising my young learner’s interest for learning English. They were always enthusiastic and they were always looking forward to have the English lesson.
Teaching children vocabulary through interactive methods, it is a real challenge for the teacher. Since these types of activities are student centred and not teacher centred as the traditional methods, sometimes the lesson could become a real ‘chaos’, but in a positive and constructive way.
From my modest teaching experience, I can say that students grasp the meaning better if the activities are chosen in a way that attracts them. Although my students are at their early stages of the learning process, they always showed a real interest for communicative activities. Even though they do not have a well ‘ developed vocabulary they always did their best to undertake their tasks. What worked well during my classroom teaching were the activities/games when children had the opportunity to arise from their seats and mingle in the classroom, ask and answer questions. On the other hand, a drawback of these kinds of activities is that they are so involved in accomplishing their tasks that they forget that they are in the classroom and they begin to get really noisy. However, this is not an impediment and children can be warned beforehand that the activity/game is going to stop at the moment when they are starting to get too noisy.
I also could say that the most preferred game by my first graders is the traditional ‘Simon Says’. For several months each time I entered the classroom children’s first question was ‘Are we going to play Simon Says today?’, they only stopped asking when I told them that we cannot always play this game because there are so many other joyful games as well, and I will let them know at the beginning of the lesson when it is time to play Simon Says.
Thirdly, ‘if a child cannot learn in the way we teach, we must teach in a way the child can learn’ and by teaching through interactive methods and incorporating the theory of multiple intelligences into classroom teaching one may achieve unexpected results. That is what I tried to do during my activity in the classroom. I paid a lot of attention on student’s observation, on how they behave during certain activities, if they enjoy or not the task given to them, and having in mind the results of the applied questionnaire, I can affirm that the teaching process was more enjoyable, effective and constructive for both the children and the teacher.
Students apparently were delighted that they can ‘play’ because from their point of view we played during the English lessons, indeed we did, but in an efficient and constructive way.
Since focus was not only on teaching young learns vocabulary throughout interactive methods but also to try to incorporate the theory of multiple intelligences into classroom activities, the activities were planned in such way, that during 50 minutes to cover all the seven types of intelligences, to give every child the same opportunity to grasp the meaning, understand and later reproduce what was being taught.
As the techniques regarding teaching vocabulary are not as numerous as the techniques that involve practice, a lot more attention was paid on practising the newly acquired vocabulary.
At first when considering incorporating the theory of multiple intelligences into classroom teaching, I thought that working in centres would be quite efficient for children. Later when I discovered that the questionnaire applied to students could not be considered a hundred percent reliable, I tried to plan my lessons using different shorter activities in order to involve all of the students in every type of activity. In this way the teaching process was more effective and in the same time enjoyable for the children.
Going back to the main objectives of this paper, from my modest experience, I can tell that these interactive activities do not really have disadvantages. Contrary they give children the opportunity to interact, communicate, have fun, develop their social skills and last but not least to enrich their vocabulary in a joyful and constructive way. The only drawback that I could find during these activities is the noise factor, but it is not a drawback from the student’s point of view. The majority of them do not like silence, they always have something to say and now they have the opportunity to freely express their feelings, emotions and thoughts.
All things considered, the main aim of my work is not to teach others how to educate children but offer an alternative to traditional teaching techniques by implementing modern techniques and the theory of multiple intelligences into classroom teaching for better results and a more effective teaching. In addition to conclude I would like to quote John Lubbock’s famous words, ‘The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.’

...(download the rest of the essay above)