back to articles

on teaching

VOCABULARY PROPS. SPICING VOCABULARY  THROUGH MIND MAPPING TECHNIQUES.TESOL Greece Newsletter. Issue 129. January – March 2016

 

Do we ever ponder how many words we teach an academic year? For instance is it  3000 or 4000 for a B1 Level? Do we have a rough estimate of how many of these  words  have been assimilated  and  are actively used  by our students and how many  will still stay with them in a couple of years? Personally, I have no clear picture because time constraints restrain me from researching the matter. What I do know however, is that vocabulary is a class milestone since greater vocabulary leads to greater comprehension and that teaching words in context works wonders. I also know that human memory is not a  “vessel” to be filled, but rather a complex set of interrelated memory systems. So, I work a lot on  the conceptual knowledge that comes in with a word so that students develop an understanding of how a word works. I teach them to associate and  to  move from the part to the whole when assimilating  new words. To guard against shallow word knowledge I provide content rich material and multi-faceted exposure to vocabulary. Repeated opportunities to use new words in listening, speaking, reading and writing, helps  transfer words to students’  long-term memory.