Basic principles and ideas for teaching vocabulary in the ESL classroom
Choosing options for vocabulary input:
Visual Aids
Understand and remember concepts more easily.
For example flashcards, posters or images from the internet.
A situation
Use visual material
Talk about stories and show real images, so that when they hear a word they have a memory of the image seen in their imagination and memorize.
real objects
For the set of materials (plastic, cotton and woollen) it’s better to work with real objects presented in the class.
Putting ideas to work
In order for students to remember words, they need not only to understand the word but to work with it.
For example, students are given a picture with the body and the parts of the human body have to be marked with lines.
Implementing tasks with depth
Research tells us that tasks with more cognitive and affective depth can help students learn vocabulary faster when the task involves high order thinking skills and engages them affectively.