How can help children to like remembering English words?

[liuyanli]

I am an English teacher of primary school, and I have taught for 16 years old. I find many chidren like English at the beginning of their studying, but they begin to dislike it when they have to remember lots of English words, they feel boring,and they can't remember them successfully. What can I do for them?

[Sally Olsen]

Some children like a challenge outside of the learning of English so putting the words into some kind of lists that they can learn together can be fun.

It is highly recommended that the words come in context first - some kind of story that they would be interested in and can relate to.

Once you have the lists you can then establish some kind of challenge. We made English passports with 20 words a page and they could visit all sorts of countries until they finished the passport. You could have sports passports or dance or transport and so on. We also had a contest between classes and the class that had the highest score got a prize (a big dictionary) or if the class got to a certain score they got a prize (an outing to a favourite place, making an English story out of their visit).

One teacher put the list up next to the door so the children could read it as they went in and out. She usually put the words in a sentence and the students could add sentences. She had it on a blackboard so the words and sentences could be erased and added to. The students could add their initials to words they thought they knew.

Another teacher had the children create games from the words, cross word puzzles, scrabble type of games, flash cards with pictures of the words for those you can, - see enchantedlearning.com for ideas. The
children played the games during breaks or if they finished their work. She kept each week's word games in a box and had a review every two months or so.

We made curtains with the words - the students wrote the words in various scripts to make them "pretty" and changed the curtains every
week.

I once made a skirt with words that the students had written on material
- early graffiti I guess.

You can buy blackboard paint in all colours now and it makes writing on the wall easy.

[naruhodo-eigo]

Dear Liuyanli,

Your kids need games, a lot of games. Games let children practice vocabulary with plenty of repetition without getting bored and by knowing a large variety of games means that you'll have many ways to get the students to practice. Mix in some skits, chants, and singing and you'll find that your kids will burst into English class full of energy.

If you need more ideas, my site www.naruhodo-eigo.com should help you out.

Other strategies for helping students remember their vocabulary, are to use TPR, total physical response, so that by using a gesture, you can prompt their memory. You can also use other students or teachers to help your students with their English. For example, if you ask a student a question and the student is unable to answer, rather than translate, ask another child or teacher the same question, so the student can hear the answer, in context, to the question. Similarly, you could answer the questions yourself.

Hope this helps,

Bill Ralens,
webmaster, naruhodo-eigo.com

[liuyanli]

Bill Ralens,
You are so kind, thanks a lot!

[wang shaoyun]

When the students begin to learn English ,they have more interest.We teacher often encourage them.Yet we don't use this way in the later because we have to give the students more and more exams .