Teaching_vocabulary_through_communicative_activity

Here are some examples for repetition:

1. Quick revision games  “Five things”

Divide the class in two teams. Give each team a set of slips with five (or three or two, depending on their level) things they have to name. 
Examples:

• Name five things that move
• Name five drinks
• Name five things you would be doing if you weren't here
• Name five ways to get rich
• Name five animals

A member of the team reads the category of things they have to name and the whole team shouts the words. While team A is doing this, team B have to remain in silence. Then it's team B's turn. Time each team. The faster team is the winner.

2)“Category game”  
This activity can be used as a review. Students usually get very excited. 
 
The teacher chooses a category (animals, colors, school objects, kitchen gadgets...) and each student has to say a word that belongs to that category.  
 
If a student doesn't know, he / she stands up. Then, the teacher chooses another category the following student starts again. In the following round, the student who's standing will have another chance. If he / she can say a word that belongs to the new category, he / she can sit down.  
It's a great game for revision and to get students tuned into the lesson topic. It may also be used to elicit from the student what they already know about a certain topic.

c) Conversation

Repetition is closely connected with conversation in communicative means. Students sometimes find it difficult to express themselves in particular situations or when they have particular communicative intentions. It has already been mentioned above that the aim of practice is to be able to modify and adjust the language to the actual knowledge and communicative ability of students. The improvement is possible only through practice [23, 33].

For practicing conversation we use a very effective technique. We pick up words either accidentally or deliberately and talk about them.

Another way to start conversation is working with pictures. Pictures showing social situations (a couple on a bench in a park, a girl on a bicycle, a group of people waiting for their bus…) interest students as they offer a possibility to imagine who the people are, what are they doing and why, what happened before and what might happen next. Pictures provide a good source of topics for speaking.

Another useful way for practicing conversation is to work with texts. It is so called learning for comprehension. The teacher firstly reads dialogues and stories so that a student should listen carefully to get an idea what the text is about and provide a short content of the story. Second listening is done over the text – students listen and read consequently. After this reading they should be able to provide more detailed information. According to the difficulty of the text we either discuss unknown words and phrases or continue with the final reading – by a student. This final reading should prepare students to be able enough to retell the story in their own words, to paraphrase it or summarize it.

The presented scheme is usually more or less successful but there are many aspects influencing the process like tiredness, health condition, level of the text, weather… The good thing is that every activity can be simply adjusted to the actual circumstances.

  d) Flash Cards

Flash cards are well known as a very useful tool for learning language. Yet the general opinion is that flash cards have a limited use and work well especially with young learners since they help them to visualize words. I must disagree with that. As cards can contain various things (words, pictures, phrases, functions, sentences, symbols etc.) their use is not limited at all and neither is the age of students they are suitable for. There is probably no reason to explain the principle of working with flash cards, as their use is more or less familiar to everyone. But it might be interesting to realize that cards with simple icons can help e.g. with revising when a simple pointing to a requested gender, tense or sentence form (positive, negative, question, imperative, statement) indicated on cards can represent a fast and non-disturbing way of instructing the student’s production. Obviously, many other icons can be invented to indicate certain requests.

e) Word Walls

A word wall is a systematically organized collection of words, phrases, functions etc. displayed in larger letters on a wall or other well visible place in the classroom. It is a tool which highlights significant points and offers a visual reminder and an instant

exposure of contained notes to students. They can refer to them as often as needed and they usually use them throughout the lesson whenever they are not sure about a certain language item or just for a simple checking of spelling, correctness of structures, etc. I have invented a system of big sheets of paper containing individual selections of various phrases and functions for my students. Whenever we come across a new one, we add it to our word wall in a form of a strip of paper glued to the corresponding group. E.g.:

Saying god-bye:                               It was a pleasure to meet you.

                                                         Take care and see you soon again.

 

Disagreeing:                                       I see it a different way.

                                                            I see what you are saying but…

                                                           I am sorry but I must disagree there.

Expressing somebody’s opinion:   completely

                                                           Absolutely

                                                            entirely

                                                            certainly

 

In this section have been described ideas that could be useful and very supportive for teaching English. As long as teachers dispose of a variety of diverse activities they have a good chance to find just the right one for any situation and increase students’  interest and motivation. Some of the techniques are great for learning in general and it is very good to present them to students and make them familiar with such techniques as they make great teaching support and not only that. They can also be used in real life and become an everyday tool.

 

CONCLUSION

 

English has become an important part of people’s life. Being able to communicate has been found more or less a necessity, which brings many people of all ages to English courses. Unfortunately dealing with a class of students of mixed abilities it is not easy at all neither for teaches nor for students..

There are no doubts that in teaching English it is very important to concentrate on both grammatical structures and vocabulary for a sufficient acquisition of the language. On the other hand this course paper has drawn attention to the fact that mastering grammatical structures does not express meaning unless words are used because using the right words in certain situations can be explicit enough to balance possible inaccuracy in structures. Vocabulary has been stressed over grammar.

There were introduced various teaching methods and approaches in the theoretical part of this work that are being used in teaching English. Their ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ were discussed and resulted into an assumption that there is no single method that would perfectly work for a student. It is always a mixture of methods and approaches that makes the right and suitable method for particular students and it is their teachers’ responsibility to find the right strategy for them.

Vocabulary teaching and acquisition has assumed an important role since 1980s in second language teaching. Communicative Language Teaching, as an eminent second language teaching approach, lays emphasis on learning target language through communicative activities.

Vocabulary, which is the basic material of the language, is, of course, of crucial importance in expressing ideas and thoughts when communicating. The following statement about the relationship between grammar and vocabulary demonstrated by the British linguist Wilkins in 1976 argues that without grammar, there are few things we can express; while without vocabulary, there is nothing we can express.” Wilkins verifies the importance of vocabulary in communication. Insufficient vocabulary or vocabulary difficulties will result in communicational barriers or failures. Without the mediation of vocabulary, no amount of grammatical or other types of linguistic knowledge can be employed in second language communication or discourse.

Some of the most important aspects of teaching students vocabulary were

presented in the practical part.

A few ideas how to teach English effectively were added.

 

 

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