Korean Job Discussion Forums

[YTMND]

I have taught Korean high school students (high level, they study in China so they have to learn English and Chinese) and low level to intermediate Chinese high school students in public school classes (40-45 in each class). Now, I have a student who has low vocabulary who I am teaching privately.

I can show her examples and make conversation with her, but it's the speed that I am worried about. She is at an international school. The book she uses has no Chinese. She has to use an electronic dictionary to look up every word she doesn't know. Perhaps her teacher at school explains in Chinese, but still I can tell she needs to build her vocabulary.

I have vocabulary words categorized for the beginner level student. She is a high beginner speaking and low intermediate when it comes to reading comprehension. She could be high if she just understood vocabulary more.

I don't have time to investigate which words a student should learn beyond the basics, and I was wondering what other teachers use to help boost their students' level when it comes to vocabulary words. Right now, a site like Breaking News English has sufficient words for her to grasp, but I think a site like VOA is too difficult for her now. If I could get her level up, then I think I could read the VOA articles and explain words she doesn't understand.

[nathanrutledge]

Im a proponent of using a frequency list. I have the Frequency Dictionary of American English by Davies and Gardner. It's got the top 5000 words in spoken and written American English. It also has words grouped into lists (animals, foods, emotions, etc) as well as broken down into verbs/nouns/adjectives/etc. I use that for vocabulary. No sense teaching someone words they'll never use. These words are far more useful. If you teach the first 100 words, that comprises something like 85% of written English. Of course, it's the next 4900 that make up the next 10%, but still - better than TOEIC lists, IMHO.

[YTMND]

[ddeubel]

YTMND,

More common a problem than most might think.

I will suggest EnglishCentral, you won't get a better tool than that - think of it like a video corpus with vocabulary building at the student's level. Vocabulary is now free for basic students under our new pricing structure.

She can set her level and study words at that level. Either by category/topic on the vocabulary page or by video, studying the words after watching a video. Click on any word in the video for a definition.

Her words that are studied, in progress etc... are tracked and available as lists (top left corner). Also, watch clips of any word, many examples of the word, in video form, to see it used differently and in different contexts.

http://www.englishcentral.com/vocabulary

Wordahead is quite good too but very basic.
http://www.vocabahead.com/Teachers/tabid/118/Default.aspx

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[YTMND]

:::biting tongue:::

Yea yea, ok, ddeubel. Finally got me. I haven't been too thrilled with that site personally, but I am not going to stand in the way if it helps her