Teaching Vocabulary

1. Teaching Vocabulary Motivating and effective Ways of Teaching Vocabulary Concepts and Activities for learning and teaching vocabulary with joy By Marisa Zuazo

4. Teaching Vocabulary • Natural aproach • What is a collocation? • Why is it important to teach collocations? • When do I start? • How do I insert collocation in a lesson? • Activities that go well with collocations.

5. Teaching Vocabulary What is a collocation? It refers to the way English words are naturally associated with each other. e.g.: blond hair;heavy rain; fast food etc. And NOT: yellow hair; strong rain; quick food . • Compounds x idioms x phrasal verbs Compounds are two or more words that together form units of meanings. They can be written separately, with hyphen or as one word. Normally if you know the meaning of the two words used in it you can guess the meaning of this compound. e.g.: post office, narrow-minded, teapot. Some are fixed as in take a photo, where no other word than take collocates with photo with the same meaning. Some are open, where many other words collocate well with the same meaning, as in keep/stick to the rules. Sometimes a pair of words may sound unnatural to native speakers but not totally incorrect. As in the sentence “I did many mistakes”, it will be understood but the natural collocation in this case would beto make mistakes. In the other hand, idioms are groups of words in a fixed order that does not allow to guess their meaning by knowing the meanings of individual words. e.g.: On the double! (Hurry!) Besides being considered individual lexical items compound nouns and phrasal verbs frequently collocate with other words. e.g.: play the stock market (compound); come up with (phrasal verb) a suggestion.

6. Teaching Vocabulary Why is it important to teach collocations? • The words we chose define the people we are. • You will improve your students style in writing. • They will sound more natural. • They can decide how they want to sound during their speech. (precise, fluent, eloquent, exotic, etc.?) • It will shorten the communication barrier. • It will increase their range of English vocabulary. • They will understand when a skillful writer departs from normal patterns of collocation by not choosing an expected collocation to create an effect. e.g.: There’s no place like Rome (allusion to there’s no place like home)

7. Teaching Vocabulary When do I start? As you may have already noticed, you probably have taught collocations before. The key point is to decide if you made it part of a lesson, a unit, a class or a course or if it eventually appeared as a teaching point. If you want your student to sound more natural, to choose the best combination of words and to understand authentic materials better, you have to start preparing your classes including collocation teaching time asps! The challenge is to think about interesting ways to teach focusing in collocation. Choosing appropriate activities suitable to different levels, teaching topics and skills.

8. Teaching Vocabulary How do I insert collocation in a lesson? There are several points to take into consideration when teaching collocation. Motivation Vocabulary Relevance Adjectives + Nouns Nouns + Verbs Nouns + Nouns ... Teacher Students Time Opportunity Interest

9. Teaching Vocabulary How do I insert collocation in a lesson? Students Level Approach Elementary Intermediate Advanced Variety of activities Visual component

10. Teaching Vocabulary • Elementary (Sports)

11. Teaching Vocabulary • Elementary (Do x Make) Images 1, 2 and 3 from English Collocations in use - Cambridge

12. Teaching Vocabulary

13. Memory game – Look at the phrases below and memorize them. You have 2 minutes to do so. *You will easily remember if you associate them to people you know. Time is up!!! Check how good your memories are. Write as many phrases as you can remember in a paper and have a look to see if your partner did better than you. Bear a grudge Good sense of humor Good company Highly intelligent Loose your temper Vivid imagination Selfish streak Outgoing personality Razor sharp mind Snap decisions Keep your temper Fiercely loyal Brutally honest Keep your word

14. Let’s try a challenge! A harder memory game for you. Look at the definitions and match them to the phrases you memorized from the previous activity. *Remember: the more you concentrate, the better! People enjoy being with you You sometimes act in a selfish way Stronger than extremely Trying to deceive or trick you Honest in a way that may heart Do what you say you will do Not get angry Quick decisions Resent for a long time bad things people did to you

15. Now read the following text and talk to your partner. Think of people you know who were born in the same month and whose personality fits to the descriptions. Think of those who don`t fit at all and tell your partner why.

16. Teaching Vocabulary Hands on! • Form groups of 5. • Choose an activity from the handout. • Come up with ideas in order to make it more communicative, attractiveand fun. • Share your ideas. • Which activity would you definitely try with your groups?

18. Teaching Vocabulary References • LINDSAY, Cora; KNIGHT, Paul. Learning and Teaching English. OUP. 2006 • HARMER, Jeremy. The practice of English Language. Pearson Longman. 2007 • GILLET, Amy. Speak English Like an American. Language Success Press. 2007 • LEWIS, Michael. Teaching Collocation: further developments in the Lexical Approach. Hove. 2000 • LIMA, Denilso. Por que assim e não assado? Campus. 2008 • McCARTHY, Michael; O’DELLl, Felicity English Collocations in Use. Cambridge.2008 • McCARTHY, Michael; O’DELLl, Felicity English Collocations in Use Advanced. Cambridge.2008 • SPEARS, Richard A. NTC’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. NTC. 2000 • UR, Penny; Wright, Andrew. Five-minute activities

19. Teaching Vocabulary Thank you for your wonderful participation! marisa.zuazo@gmail.com