Eva Buyuksimkesyan words

My Words

 

We all know that teaching vocabulary is one of the most difficult part of our job. I don’t know why but the students tend to ignore that they have to learn words and instead they focus more on grammar. However, without words grammar serves as math formulas. Here is a very quick activity that can be used with students to deal with new words or revise the ones they’ve already learned.

Tell them to list five-ten words that they love (depending on their level) and then write why they have chosen these words. You can use it with every level but the beginners will need more guidance. You can give them a handout (not necessarily, they can easily jot down in their notebooks) and ask them to fill or complete it. As a follow up they can create word posters using Wordle or any other tool or you can ask them to write a mini saga using these five words.

Here you can find a sample handout?

 

Eva Buyuksimkesyan cooking, digital storytelling, efl, fun activities, ideas, lesson ideas, lesson plans, listening, pairwork, teenagers, vocabulary, web 2.0 tools

Ready, Steady, Cook

 

Materials: Prepare small ingredient cards. (One ingredient on card/with pictures if you want or you can either bring food to the classroom)

1 computer for 2 students 😉 or you may supply them with some magazines even in L1

Level: Upper-int and above

 

Watch a part from Ready Steady Cook. Tell them to jot down any cooking vocabulary they hear. After watching the segment talk about the programme. What do the participants do?

 

Brainstorm cooking vocabulary and utensils. Give them an exercise.

Brainstorm basic ingredients that they think they usually find in their own kitchen. Tell them the words on the board will be the ingredients of their kitchen cabinet.

 

Put them in pairs

Tell them to choose 4 ingredients from your box. ( The cards or the food)

Tell them they will search the web/ magazines and find a suitable recipe for a 2 course meal with the ingredients from their kitchen cabinet and they’ve chosen.

When they come up with their recipes, they have to present it to their friends.

 

Follow up:

1. As a class they can choose some best recipes from the presentations and create a mini cookery book.They can create a page explaining cooking techniques, utensils and basic ingredients.

2. They can create a class cookery slide show using photopeach.

3. Each team can create a glogter with pictures and their own videos explaining how to cook.

4. They can create a powerpoint presentation and record their voice explaining their recipes.

5. You can create a voicethread for the class and each team can record one of their recipes.

Eva Buyuksimkesyan web.:2:0

A quickie – Preparing a Christmas Vocabulary Exercise

 

Last week I found great ideas, worksheets and links for Christmas activities. Today while I was adapting one of them for my class, I came across with wordsmith.org. The site helps you find hundreds of anagrams for the word or phrase you have chosen, then even it animates the anagram and even allows you to choose font, text and background colour.

You can download the worksheet and use in your class. You can find more worksheets on christmas vocabulary from

http://www.tes.co.uk/home.aspx

http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/christmas.html

 

Eva Buyuksimkesyan songs, teenagers, vocabulary, young learners

Lyric Race

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a fun activity I’ve learned recently which can be used with songs. It sounds it will work well with young learners yet sometimes the teenagers also would like to do something like this.

 
Wordle: lyric race

 

 

 

 

• Choose some words from the song you will use in the class and prepare word cards. Stick the words to the board.

• Divide students into two teams (or groups if you have a big class). Work with the words for a while. Give definition, a handout, etc. Any vocabulary exercise will do according to the level of the class.

• When the class is ready tell them each team will stand in a line in front of the board.

• Play the song.

• When a student at the front of the line hears a word in the song, s/he runs to the board and takes the card for the team. Then s/he goes to the back.

• Game continues until all the words have been removed from the board.

• The team with the most cards wins.

• Give each team a copy of the lyrics with blanks. Tell them to complete the gaps with the words they have collected. When they finish, play the song again and check if they have done it correctly.

image credit : http://www.allthingschristmas.com/pics/christmas-lyrics1.jpg