How to teach Vocabulary?

Vocabulary is one of the fundamentals of English. Students need to be prepared with a wide and vivid vocabulary to compete in the world's marketplace. The challenge of teaching vocabulary is creating lesson plans that are both effective and entertaining. Vocabulary must be taught and learned.
Using games to teach vocabulary can help make the whole process more engaging for you and your students and using age-appropriate vocabulary words for the activities:

Bang Game

·         Select at least 20 vocabulary words that you wish to practice. Write each word on a separate wooden craft stick. Write the word "bang" on at least three additional craft sticks. Place all of the sticks into an empty coffee can. The first student draws a stick from the can, reading the vocabulary word. If the student reads the word correctly, she keeps the stick. The stick is returned to the can if she cannot read it. Game play continues with each child drawing a stick and reading the word. If a stick with the word "bang" is drawn, the student places all of his sticks back in the can. The bang stick remains out of the can. Continue playing until all of the sticks are used. The person with the most sticks wins.

Memory Matching Game

·         Play a memory game by creating one set of flashcards with just the definitions written on them and another set with just the words written on them. Lay out both sets in front of you facedown, then flip over one card at a time. When you see the definition card for a vocabulary word card you have seen previously (or the other way around), match the two cards and remove them from play. Continue until you have matched all of the cards in front of you. Keep a list of the words with their definition nearby in case you need to check a match for correctness.

Fill-in-the-Blanks

·         Have a study partner, tutor or teacher write a short story using the vocabulary words you would like to learn, then write another version where the words are replaced by blanks and a word bank given on the page. Read through the story and fill in the appropriate vocabulary words. Writing a story with vocabulary words for your study partner will help you learn the words as well.

Puzzles

·         You can use software tools or online resources to create puzzles from vocabulary words. If you are a student, have a study partner or tutor create the puzzles for you so that you do not know the answers. Try making crossword puzzles using the vocabulary words and their definitions. Word search puzzles may not be as useful for learning word definitions, but for students of a foreign language they help to increase familiarity and recognition of vocabulary words.

In my opinion, teaching vocabulary has to be very easy and funny because students need to be comfortable learning new words. So, those activities are very useful and helpful for students to learn and understand the meaning of the new words.

How to teach Grammar?

                                                             How to teach grammar?

Grammar is one of the most important parts of the English learning process, but if we talk about grammar it sounds hard and bored, but time is changing and nowadays there is a lot of resources to use.  A lot of students are scared about the word “GRAMMAR”, but not only them because teachers are scared too. They could even think that is almost impossible to learn all the rules and exceptions. I know that Grammar is not the most exciting subject in the world, but it's very important for learning a new language.

                                                             

                                               

                                   Grammar Activities

Celebrity profiles

Another great way of teaching grammar is by finding out which celebrities or sports stars your students admire. The teacher should look for a short biography or either writes one summarizing the main celebrity’s achievements. Thus, students will have good examples of present perfect and simple past tenses.

Food Tasting

First, check with a department head to get permission to bring food to class. Be sure that you are aware of any student food allergies. Place students into groups of four or five. Hand each group a finger-food item to taste. Include family foods like chocolates, marshmallows and pickles as well as foods they may not be familiar with like vegetable chips or ribbon candy. Give each group three minutes to brainstorm as many adjectives as possible to describe each food item before moving on to the next one. At the end of the tasting, award prizes (like homework passes) to the group with the most adjectives as well as to the group with the most creative but accurate descriptions.

Teaching grammar through song and rhymes

 

Songs are one of the most enchanting and culturally rich resources that can easily be used in language classrooms. Songs offer a change from routine classroom activities. They are precious resources to develop students’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. They can also be used to teach a variety of language items such as sentence patterns, vocabulary, pronunciation, rhythm, adjectives, and adverbs.

Reflection

In my opinion, there are many activities to teach grammar and the teacher can decide which methods he or she wants to use.I like the grammar activities with songs because the students can develop listening,vocabulary and they can participate and practice their skills and grammar knowledge.