Activities for Fixing, Activating and Practising Vocabulary

Activities for Recycling Vocabulary

Activities for Fixing, Activating and Practising Vocabulary

On day 1 of the workshops, a wide variety of activities for practising vocabulary were demonstrated, both by trainers and workshop participants.

These are the kinds of activities that you can use immediately after your presentation to give immediate practice or to activate or to help fix vocabulary in students’ minds.

Here are some of those activities. Try some of them with your classes. We hope you and your students enjoy them!

Mercury plus 2

Ms Le Thi Le Dung, VTTN Trainer from Yen Bai adapted the
“September minus 4” activity from the 2002 VTTN National
Conference to make a practice activity for Lesson 9, Tieng Anh 12

Tell students that Mercury = 1, Venus = 2, Earth = 3 etc.

Give them a ‘mathematical’ problem, e.g.:

“What is Mercury + 2?”
Answer: Mercury + 2 = Earth

“What is Pluto - 7?”
Answer: Pluto - 7 = Venus

Put students in pairs to set problems for each other to solve.

Alternative
You can use this activity to practise any vocabulary set that
occurs in a fixed sequence, for example days of the week, ranks
in the army, types of school, qualifications....

Slap the Board

Slap the board is an energetic vocabulary activity - it can be used for revision, presentation and testing - it involves students running to and hitting the board.
This activity was put to the test by Nguyen Thi Hong Tien, Nguyen Ngo Vy and Nguyen Quang Tuyen in Thai Nguyen.

You put the vocabulary items on the board in any order - jumbled and sometimes a little bit higher than the tallest student can reach, so that they'll have to jump. Form groups. Give a Vietnamese translation for one of the words on the board. The students have got to recognise the word which translates to that word. They then run to the board and slap the correct word. The first person in each group to slap the right word gets a point.
Alternatively, you can form teams and one person from the team runs to the board, as a representative. The first team to hit the correct word gets the point.

Alternatives
You can reverse the translation, by putting the mother tongue on the board. And of course, you could use definitions or opposites if you want to avoid using the mother tongue. You can do it with pictures so you put the pictures on the board and call out the English word and the students slap the picture. The teacher
doesn't have to call out the English, you can get other students to call out so they're getting practice speaking too.

Thanks to ELTTP for this activity.

The Whisper and Slap Game

This adaptation of the Slap the Board game comes from Diem Chi and
Thu Huong, who tried it out in Hue during the 2002 VTTN workshops.

Stick 7 pictures on the board
(e.g. a clock, a boat, a jet, a tent, an eraser, a uniform).
Divide the class into groups of about 6 students. Each group stands in a line. The teacher whispers one of the words on the board to the first student in the row. Students pass the word along their team mates by whispering. The last person in the row runs to the board and slaps the picture. The first team gets one point. Move to the next word until the end of the game.

Bingo

This old favourite provided great
enjoyment for teachers in Binh Dinh

Draw a 3 x 3 grid on the board and ask students to copy:

Ask students to write down new
vocabulary from the last unit - one word in each box.
Read out your list of vocabulary. When students hear one of their words, they cross it out. When they have crossed out all the words in their grid, they shout ‘BINGO’ and they are the winner.

Alternatives

1 Ask students to choose words from a category (e.g. animals, food).

2 Ask students to shout ‘BINGO’ when they have crossed out three words in the same line/ column/ diagonal.

3 Instead of reading out the words, you could read out the Vietnamese
translation, a synonym/ antonym, or a definition.

Nice Words, Nasty Words

This activity was road tested by Dang Thi Mao in Yen Bai

After working on a text or after a
vocabulary presentation, choose a word or phrase that students particularly like or don’t like. When they have chosen they should get into a pair and explain why they have chosen their word (they could do this in Vietnamese).

Collocation* Match And Rub-Out

On the left-hand side of the board, in a column, write down the first part of the collocations. On the right-hand side of the board, in a big bubble, write down the second parts - all jumbled up. Ask students to work in pairs to match up all the collocations. Check as a whole class. Now rub out the left-hand column and ask students to work in pairs to try to remember the whole collocation list.

*Collocation = two words that often go together
(e.g. happy + birthday, salt + pepper)

Picture Rub-Out Drill

Idea from Nguyen Thi Thanh Ngoc
in Thanh Hoa

Draw pictures of new vocabulary on the board. Drill the vocabulary as a class and individually. When you think most students have ‘got’ the vocabulary, turn over one picture at a time (or rub it out) and continue the drill, so that
students have to remember the words.

Instead of pictures, you could just write up the words themselves on the board, or
translations...

Lucky Numbers

This popular VTTN game was used as a vocabulary activity by Khue Tram and Khoi Thuc in Khanh Hoa. This activity could be used for practising or recycling vocabulary.

Divide the class into two teams. Write
numbers from 1 to 12 on the board. Each team takes turns to choose a number. For each number, the teacher should prepare
a question.

e.g. What big animals can you see hopping all across Australia?
(Answer - kangaroos!)

The answer to each question is one of the words that you want to recycle. For each question a team gets right, they get one mark. If a group chooses a ‘lucky number’, the correct answer is worth 4 marks!

Write The Story Before You Read It

This activity was used by Thieu Thu Dung and Hoang Thi Huong in Yen Bai

Give students 8 or 10 words that you have presented or from a text you are about to read. Give them a topic (e.g. “Helen’s birthday party”) and ask them to write a story using the all the words you have given them. When they have written their
stories, students can share with a partner or you can ask them to share some of them with the whole class.

To make it even more challenging, you can give students a word limit, or you could give them the first and last sentences of the story before they begin.

The Banana Game

My Favourite Vocabulary Activity
by British Council Teacher, Jackie McAvoy

I'm bananas about this new vocab
revision activity:

1 Write a number of sentences using recent vocab but
exchange the target language for the word banana.

2 Put the sentences up around the walls and set up
running dictation.

3 Once the students have all the sentences written down, they then decide what each banana is.

4 They then write their own banana sentences.

I did geographical features (Jackie's family live on a banana; Laos is a landlocked country, it has no banana), the students thought it was very funny and enjoyed writing their own
sentences although they had to be careful you could work out what the banana means (Italy has bananas is far too difficult, but Venice is famous for it's bananas is easier)

Have a go!

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Activities for Recycling Vocabulary

On day 2, workshop participants turned their attention to questions of vocabulary ‘recycling’.

Why is it that you teach
vocabulary one day only to find that most of your students have forgotten it by the very next
lesson?

How can we help our students to increase the amount of
vocabulary that they remember?

What activities can we use in our classes to help our students to remember?

Again, activities of all sorts were discovered, shared and tried out by trainers and teachers across the 10 VTTN provinces. Here are some of them

Stop The Bus

This fun game was given a go in Danang

Draw four columns on the board and label them with four recently studied categories, e.g. “advertising”, “food”, “money”, “clothes”. Put students in teams. Give them a letter from the alphabet - e.g. Letter “B”. As quickly as
possible, they should think of one word
connected with each category beginning with the letter “B” and write them down, e.g. “Billboard”, “Butter”, “Bank” and “Blouse”. The first team to write down one word for each
column should shout “STOP THE BUS”. If their words are correct, give the team one point, then choose another letter.

Alternative

Instead of letters, you could give students phonemic symbols and ask them to think of a word containing the sound.

Categories

A similar game to this one was used by Cam Ha and Lan Phuong in Danang.

Divide the board in half. In each half, insert four columns with a column heading.

Divide the class into two and ask students to stand in two lines at the front of each table. Teacher shouts a word and the students from each team take it in turns to write the word in the right column. The team with the most correctly spelled words in the correct columns wins the game.

Lexical Furniture

A very interesting activity to recycle and revise vocabulary as well as to stimulate speaking. It will appeal to the students in your class with a strongly visual way of thinking.

1 Ask each student to draw a ground plan of his or her
house/flat/home.

2 Put on the blackboard a set of about twenty words for
revision (you could take words from a recently studied text)

3 Working alone, the students should then place the words in
appropriate positions on their drawings.

4 In pairs, students look at each other’s drawings and discuss
why they have put certain words in certain places.

For example, if you take the following words (from Tieng Anh 12, Lesson 1): factory, unemployment, queuing. One student might write factory in the kitchen because this is where dinners are
produced for a very large family; unemployment next to the
television, because this is what you would watch a lot of if you had no job; and queuing outside the bathroom, because in the morning this is a very busy room and you have to wait your turn! Another student will have different associations with the words, so will write them down in different parts of the house.

Alternative
Instead of drawing a plan of a house, you could ask your
students to draw their journey to school, their favourite place etc.

Picture Dictation

You will need a simple picture and a short description of the picture.

Ask students to take a sheet of paper and pen and to listen carefully. Describe your picture to the students and ask them to draw it. Read each sentence of your description twice. When you have finished, ask students to
compare their pictures and to choose the best one. Show them your own picture to compare.

Word Rush / Pictionary

You will need 20 cards with recently
introduced words or them.

Divide students into 2 groups. Show one member from each team a word card. He or she must draw the word on the board - no
writing, speaking, gesturing or whispering - only drawing. Others in the team must guess the word. The first team to guess correctly gets one point. Change the ‘artist’, change the word and repeat the game again and again.

Draw the Word

Mr Hien in Yen Bai used this activity
to good effect during the Yen Bai peer
teaching - so did teachers in Khanh Hoa province.

Read out some recently studied
vocabulary and ask students to draw a small picture to represent the word. They should not write down the word. Pause after you read out each word. When you have read out about
10-15 words, ask students to get into pairs. They should show each other their pictures, guess which word it represents and explain to each other why they drew what they did. You could do the last discussion part in Vietnamese for lower level students.

I See, I Hear,
I Feel Through My Body

Ask students to draw three columns on a piece of paper and label them “I see”,
“I hear”, and “I feel through my body”. Dictate some recent vocabulary. Students think about the word and which sense it stimulates most. Students write them down in the appropriate column.

Alternatives
Use different column headings, e.g. “male” and “female”; or “past”, “present” and “future”.

Hot Seat

Mrs Hung and Mrs Hoa
in Nghe An province gave this a go. Also tried out in Danang by Pham Thi Trinh and Tran Thi My Tin.

Divide the class into teams (between two and four teams would be best). Choose one
student from each team to sit in the ‘hotseat’. They should sit on chairs with their backs to the blackboard. Others should look at the board. The teacher writes a word on the blackboard (it could be a word that you want to revise). Each team must explain what the word is so that their ‘hotseat’ team mate can guess the word. They must not say the word, translate the word or use hand gestures to help them. Give one point to the first team to
successfully guess the word. Continue with a new word.

Chain Story

Give students the start of a sentence, e.g. “I went to the shop and I bought a banana......”. Ask the next student to repeat the whole sentence and to add one extra vocabulary item, e.g. “I went to the shop and I bought a banana and some milk......”. The next student repeats and adds a word e.g. “I went to the shop and I bought a banana, some milk and a packet of noodles......”. Continue until the chain is too long to remember! (might be an idea to put students in groups to do this activity).

Translation Noughts
and Crosses

Draw a 3x3 grid on the board and write in Vietnamese translations of recently studied words. Divide the class into 2 teams - ‘noughts’ (0) and ‘crosses’ (x):

Ask students from the ‘noughts’ to choose a box. They should give the English translation of the Vietnamese word. If correct they get a ‘0’ in the box. Then it is the next team’s turn. The first team to get 3 in a row is the winner.

Alternatives
Instead of translations, you could use pictures, definitions, opposites,
synonyms.

Divided Vocabulary

You will need a list of about 10
(2-syllable) words.

Divide your words into syllables. Write the first syllable on the left side of the board and the second syllable on the right side of the board, jumbled up. Students have to put the words back together.

Hangman

Idea from teachers in Hue

Choose a word connected with your lesson. Write up one line for each
letter on the blackboard.

Divide the class into two teams. Ask teams to take turns to guess the
letters in the word. Each time a
student gets a correct letter, write it on the board. If they choose an
incorrect letter, draw one line from the diagram to form a ‘hangman’.

The team who guesses the word
soonest gets one point.

Jumbled Words

This idea comes from Dinh Thi Thu Huong, Ngo Kim Thuy, Nguyen Thi Thai Hoa and Phan Trung Thu in Thai Nguyen. Also independently suggested by Bui Thanh Hai in Nha Trang.

Write up some jumbled words on the board. Put students into teams to unscramble the words. The winning team is the first team to successfully identify all the words.

Example: EALSNIMR NOCNOITRESAV SEVERPRES

Answers: Minerals Conservation Preserves

Word Transformation Race

Idea from Nguyen Thi Thanh Thao and
Nguyen Thi Thu Thao in Quy Nhon.

Draw a table on the board as follows:

Divide the class into two teams. Each team has a different coloured piece of chalk and a small group of ‘runners’. In turn, the runners must run to the board and write up one of the transformations, then they must return and give their pen to a
different runner. The rest of the team should help by shouting out words/ spelling etc. When all words are completed the team with the most words in their colour wins.

Word Pies

Idea from Hoang Thi My in Binh Dinh.

Before the class, prepare a number of ‘Word Pies’ - (see picture)
Ask students to add the missing letter to the ‘pie’ to make a complete word from a previous lesson. When they have done this, you could ask them to find their own words from the textbook and to make their own ‘pies’ to test their class mates.

Alphabet Board Race

Idea from Huynh Phuoc Dieu Hong and Hoang Nu Thuy Trang in Hue. Also
tested out by Nguyen Thi Hoang Yen and Nguyen Thi Mong Van in Binh Dinh province.

Teacher writes letters from the alphabet down two sides of the black board, e.g.

Divide the class into 2 teams and appoint one secretary from each team. Choose a
category, e.g. “jobs”. Secretaries have 2
minutes to write the names of jobs on the board starting with each letter of the alphabet. Other team members should help by shouting out suggestions. The team with the most ‘job words’ after 2
minutes is the winner.

Alternatively, you could write a topic word down the side of the board and ask
students to think of words relating to the topic which start with each of its letters.

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