65. Teaching vocabulary through guessing


Joe has just told us,
"There is a particular game that helps much to interiorize new words. Have a go.
You say things about a word you the class are learning lately. They have to guess what the word is.
You say about its use, color, shape, size, what the thing is made out of, examples, opposites, mimicry... It's so amusing.
Then, one of your kids, or your adult learners will act as though she was the teacher in that way presenting a word."
The bells tower of a church in Val d'Aran, a valley in the Catalonian Pyrenees.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

581. Calm down

Image
One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “A teacher needs to have gravity, albeit he or she may be young. That teacher talks and moves with gravity and seriousness, with serenity. He or she would not scream and loose their temper. With passing time he or she acquires the skill to conduct the class in a somehow smooth way. However, if their students find out they can exploit their teacher’s anger, and it turns to be like a funny game, be cautious. To sum up, the class is not a struggle whose core is setting quietness, but a time for learning English. I know all this may be not as simple as that, but anyway, put this view of things in your mind, like a sound target to reach.” / Photo from: North by Northwest (1959). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint.
Read more

3713. Do You Love Your Students from the First Class Day?

  For those of you who are in the northern hemisphere I wish you teachers all a nice back to school.  Today I’d like to say something about classroom management. I do know how some teachers have to struggle to keep a working pace at high school, at the classroom. I’m typing something that might perhaps help you out, if Granada now earthquakes let me write – I mean, we are okay, just we’ve have ten days of some small earthquakes, a few bigger ones. My mind goes to Venezuela, Colombia, Perú and Indonesia and their people, and I keep praying for you all.  Well, I guess in class the main point is the teacher achieve to keep his or her students working, studying, learning. And a lot of you teachers already are attaining this, and you could tell us and share with us about that point.  I’ve already written a lot on classroom managing in this blog, and clear is it that you cannot be those young people’s buddy. You cannot enter the classroom and, so as to gain your students, ...
Read more

816. The school is getting cleaner and cleaner

Image
One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “As you know we teachers in our school try to pass on values, a nice living together at the school, joy, how to study... Last week a teacher told me something I think it’s important, and so I wanted to tell you about: the school bathrooms. We teachers try the students should treat us and their classmates with respect and politeness, all in a kind and nice conducting at the school. As well the students have also to learn to recognize the lady cleaners’ work too. They are real people, and just not ‘someone’ over there I don’t care at all. One day I decided to take a few students that had just left a bathroom. I called and talked with them a bit about using the facilities and the school places in a proper way, you know, by means of questions and answers. Then I asked them please to go back with me to the bathroom. I told them that if there were pieces of clean tissue on the floor, the ladies would have to collect them, so it would...
Read more

1930. The necessity of engagement

Something very beautiful. When a man and a woman love each other, they may get married, if they were single. For the rest of their lives. Moreover Jesus Christ elevated this something natural to a sacrament, and thus both spouses have the grace and help from God to live a happy marriage, although you for sure will have life pains to endure. Besides marriage for Christians and everybody else is a vocation and a way to become holy on this earth. Wow! Rewritten September 7, 2026. 
Read more

3566. We Adults May Be Superior to Children at Learning...

Two posts ago I told you that we adults have a lot of positive features in our favor to learn a second or foreign language, and we do have indeed!  Also lately I’m commenting on H. D. Brown (1989). You can peek at the last posts from this blog. From that great book now I’m quoting something else about the way we grownups learn that language. Here you are, “It’s not ridiculous, is it, that adults are potentially superior to children in foreign language learning? If we could only harness that ability! Research on successful language learners shows that a significant portion of adult success is attributable to optimal conscious learning. You need to be just childlike enough to relax with the language and not be overly worried about all of its details. But at the right moment, you need to be able to monitor yourself or your language with your zoom lens, then take corrective action. In short, try not to think too much about your language learning process, but allow yourself optimal o...
Read more