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Guiza
Joined: 20 May 2011
Posts: 44
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 Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 1:38 pm Post subject: vocab activities for one-to-one class |
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I have a one-to-one class with a young teenager of low intermediate level.
She's motivated, studies a lot and we get on well. I give her a lot of new vocab input based on topics she's chooses. But I feel I am giving her enough chances or variation of interesting activities to practice using the new language in class. I've been teaching her for about 3 weeks.
We have made Qs and used them to play board games, we play backs to the board and taboo. We've done some ranking activities and venn diagrams. I discovered something nice the other day, erasing some words and letters from the board before the start of the next class and she had to fill in the gaps when she arrived. BUT...
...I'm looking for more ideas about vocab games that would work in this context. My repertoire of vocab games, especially for one-to-one class is lacking.
She has a learning notebook / journal. I get her to make mind maps and we've talked about other useful tips that can help when recording vocab, things like noting synonyms, word families, drawing pictures, demo sentences, collocations. She needs practice essay writing so I set her homework opinion writing using the vocab from class, so I think outside of class she's doing enough. It's in the class I feel something's lacking.
Any websites / resource / theory books anyone can recommend?
Or example activities that have worked well for you?
Thanks for helping  |
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adaruby
Joined: 21 Apr 2014
Posts: 171
Location: has served on a hiring committee
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 2:39 pm Post subject: Re: vocab activities for one-to-one class |
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| Guiza wrote: |
I have a one-to-one class with a young teenager of low intermediate level.
She's motivated, studies a lot and we get on well. I give her a lot of new vocab input based on topics she's chooses. But I feel I am giving her enough chances or variation of interesting activities to practice using the new language in class. I've been teaching her for about 3 weeks.
We have made Qs and used them to play board games, we play backs to the board and taboo. We've done some ranking activities and venn diagrams. I discovered something nice the other day, erasing some words and letters from the board before the start of the next class and she had to fill in the gaps when she arrived. BUT...
...I'm looking for more ideas about vocab games that would work in this context. My repertoire of vocab games, especially for one-to-one class is lacking.
She has a learning notebook / journal. I get her to make mind maps and we've talked about other useful tips that can help when recording vocab, things like noting synonyms, word families, drawing pictures, demo sentences, collocations. She needs practice essay writing so I set her homework opinion writing using the vocab from class, so I think outside of class she's doing enough. It's in the class I feel something's lacking.
Any websites / resource / theory books anyone can recommend?
Or example activities that have worked well for you?
Thanks for helping |
Go with delexicalised verbs and their various collocates. Collocations bingo, board rushes and matching activities followed by different types of drills.
You could use the context of routines and lead in from above, then give her a dictation about your own routine (with a small group you could do a dictogloss) or a reading text, after which she speaks/writes about her own routine having seen the collocations in context.
For homework she could make questions and interview her friends about their routines. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Guiza
Joined: 20 May 2011
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for your replies.
| Quote: |
| Collocations bingo |
nice
I had a little search for collocation bingo and found this useful little article on collocation activities:
http://cs3.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/eal/eal-4-1/VasiljevicCP_2008_vol_4_1.pdf
Do you play collocation bingo in the same way as the article suggests? Seems like it would be a good end of unit / topic review activity.
With collocation bingo and the game where students have to choose the odd one (collocation) out, do you think students should've encountered all the collocates you give them before? Is there some value in having students use some instinct / hunch with unknown words among the vocab you want them to work on?
| Quote: |
Go with delexicalised verbs and their various collocates. Collocations bingo, board rushes and matching activities followed by different types of drills.
You could use the context of routines and lead in from above, then give her a dictation about your own routine (with a small group you could do a dictogloss) or a reading text, after which she speaks/writes about her own routine having seen the collocations in context.
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By "lead in from above", do you mean using the activities mentioned above or having some general top-down discussion about the topic?
I'm guessing the former, so testing her knowledge of the language before she's read or listened to it?
Another thing, today she read a short article about clothes. It had a nice structure in it: the more...... the more.... "the more outlandish people dress, the more respect they get."
I've seen many other examples of very useful, usable phrases / sentence starters like that, but short of giving students the template and asking them to fill in the blanks in various personal ways, I haven't come up with other ways for them remember how, when and where to use such phrases. Just recycle constantly and point out any opportunities that come up for them to use if meaningfully? |
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adaruby
Joined: 21 Apr 2014
Posts: 171
Location: has served on a hiring committee
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| Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 1:02 am Post subject: |
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| Guiza wrote: |
Thanks for your replies.
| Quote: |
| Collocations bingo |
nice
I had a little search for collocation bingo and found this useful little article on collocation activities:
http://cs3.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/eal/eal-4-1/VasiljevicCP_2008_vol_4_1.pdf
Do you play collocation bingo in the same way as the article suggests? Seems like it would be a good end of unit / topic review activity.
With collocation bingo and the game where students have to choose the odd one (collocation) out, do you think students should've encountered all the collocates you give them before? Is there some value in having students use some instinct / hunch with unknown words among the vocab you want them to work on?
| Quote: |
Go with delexicalised verbs and their various collocates. Collocations bingo, board rushes and matching activities followed by different types of drills.
You could use the context of routines and lead in from above, then give her a dictation about your own routine (with a small group you could do a dictogloss) or a reading text, after which she speaks/writes about her own routine having seen the collocations in context.
|
By "lead in from above", do you mean using the activities mentioned above or having some general top-down discussion about the topic?
I'm guessing the former, so testing her knowledge of the language before she's read or listened to it?
Another thing, today she read a short article about clothes. It had a nice structure in it: the more...... the more.... "the more outlandish people dress, the more respect they get."
I've seen many other examples of very useful, usable phrases / sentence starters like that, but short of giving students the template and asking them to fill in the blanks in various personal ways, I haven't come up with other ways for them remember how, when and where to use such phrases. Just recycle constantly and point out any opportunities that come up for them to use if meaningfully? |
Hi,
yes, I would play Bingo in a similar way.
As for how I would do the lesson, it depends on what you've done with her so far. You seem to have the general idea, so just ensure that she actually sees the collocations in context before having the chance to use them herself, and that each stage of the lesson is building on the previous one.
If it was someone fairly new to collocations, I would do a reading text/dictation with a couple of gist Qs to check her understanding, and have her underline/match the nouns and their verbs. She then completes a series of stem questions with the full collocations, which might include questions and negatives.
Don't forget to drill the language either. You say a noun and she says the verb. If you've done a board rush, ask her to turn around after the activity. While she's looking the other way, you remove a part of the collocation and ask her "what's missing?" She turns around and tells you the whole collocation. At the productive stage she would go on to do a short writing piece. A lot of it is awareness raising so don't forget to highlight the differences between her own L1 and the arbitrary nature of collocations.
Finish with a bingo review, and next week you might ask her to do a board rush at the start of class, but add one or two new collocations and change the topic of the lesson. Recycling and building, all the time.
Obviously, you want to include some collocations that she may not have used before or will struggle with because, like everything you do, it should be pitched a little higher than her current level so she is leaving the classroom with more language than she entered with. Depending on her L1, she will make mistakes with v/n collocations such as make a party/homework.
A couple of useful websites:
http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/fun-classroom-practice-collocations.html
http://busyteacher.org/6061-10-tips-to-teach-collocations.html
Regarding your final functional language question, gapped sentences work, but you can extend this to a dialogue so that she once again sees the context. Get her then to make her own. Have her match phrases to their functions of course.
Youtube has lots of videos where you will also find listening tasks she can attempt. |
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Guiza
Joined: 20 May 2011
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah it's all so clear when someone explains it, I will start trying to implement these collocation influences into not only this class but others. So thank you for your input and the links, i'm sure it will lead me to further useful sources. I'll hopefully be able to pass on some useful links and ideas.
I'm going to transfer this thread to the activities forum and see if anyone else has anything to add.
Cheers |
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Guiza
Joined: 20 May 2011
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, maybe not...
Do I have to register separately for the teacher forums?
How can I transfer a thread over to the Activities and Games forum over there? |
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