OOY – 1,2

In the first week, we talked about effective presentation techniques. While

presenting vocabulary, there are some points we should take into consideration.
First of all, we should use realia in the classroom, because real things are often
more interesting than material from text books, realia increases the chances of
our students remembering the new words we have taught them and encourages
creativity by involving the senses. Secondly, our presentations shouldn’t be too
long, because it can make our learners feel bored or sleepy. Thirdly, we should
give enough and relevant examples in order to make learners understand us
easily. They should be directly related to the subject. Fourthly, we should use
visuals, because using visuals in our presentations instead of words can double
the chances of learning. And they should be clear and interesting so that learners
understand easily and give their attention to the lesson. Fifthly, we should use
drama in the class, because it simulates reality, involves ideas, emotions, and
feelings and develops self-expression. Then we should give instruction and
explanations clearly and then check that our learners have understood us
correctly. Another thing we should do is to be memorable, dramatic and exciting.

When we come to “what to teach”, it is all about types of words. These are
adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns, phrasal verbs, idioms, collocations, proverbs,
similes, context-bound utterances, slang and euphemism. When we teach a
word, we should state type of the word. For example, explain (v), flexible (adj),
practice (n) etc.

Thirdly, we discussed what it means when someone says I know this word.
First of all, when someone says I know this word, (s)he should know the meaning
of the word. Then (s)he should know its register; that’s to say, the word is formal
or informal, slang or not, polite or impolite. After that, its pronunciation and
spelling should be known. Finally, (s)he should know its part of speech and
appropriateness; that’s to say, where to put the word and how to use the word in
a sentence or context. Collocation (If it collocates with any other words) should
be also known.

Fourthly, we talked about how we teach. There are two ways of presenting
vocabulary. The first one is deductive (explicit) teaching and the second one is
inductive (implicit) teaching by using contextual clues. At this point, we say that
it is necessary to use a context when teaching vocabulary, because a context
specifies one of a word which has more than one meaning, the intended
connotation, and register. It also shows us collocations of the words, grammatical
roles of the words and morphological alterations of the words. To understand if
our students have understood or not the words they learnt, we should create a
context in which they can use them.

Then we talked about different ways of presenting vocabulary. 1. Realia

and Visuals: We can show real objects or pictures, drawings, charts, photos,
graphs to our learners in order to make the lesson more interesting and make
learning permanent. 2. Word building: We can use parts of words to help
learners build words or guess their meaning. e.g. un-believ-able. 3. Matching:
Learners can match words to words or sentences or pictures. 4. Songs: Using
songs can be an enjoyable activity for learners. 5. Guessing from the context:
We can use a context surrounding a word to guess its meaning. Guessing the
meaning from the context gives learners the sense of accomplishment and
courage and motivates them. 6. Demonstrating: We can act out, mime or
demonstrate words. 7. Synonyms: We can use words learners already know to
teach them similar words. 8. Familiar or famous words: We can use well-
known English song titles, books or people (e.g. rolling= The Rolling Stones,
captain= Captain Cook). 9. Examples: We can give examples of words we want
to introduce. 10. Pictograms: We can draw the words to represent their
meaning. 11. Translating: Of course, we do not think that translating is a good
way of teaching vocabulary. 12. Dictionaries: Learners can use dictionaries to
check meaning. So the point is “Dictionary Training”. We should make use of
dictionaries and teach how to use them. Finally, we should not forget that which
technique we will use depends on our purpose.

In the second week, firstly we did some exercises. Thinking that we will
present the words given in the book, we talked about the techniques we can use
for each word. As a result of this, we decided that students love matching
exercises. In the technique of synonyms, synonyms should be clear. If students
don’t know the meaning of synonym, it’s not possible for them to understand the
word. In addition, unless students understand, acting does not make any sense.
Then some of us tried to teach these words in the class.

Secondly, we mentioned about DOUBLE CHECK. Double check is important

to make sure that our students have understood or learnt the words we are
teaching. Therefore, what we should do is to ask concept questions using the
words we are teaching. After talking about this, we wrote down four concept
checking questions for the words given in the book, again imagining that we have
just presented the words.

Thirdly, we talked about how we practice the words. These ways of

practicing are fill in the gap exercises, cloze exercises, matching exercises,
multiple choice exercises, games, puzzles, role plays, picture labeling, story
building based on a few vocabulary items, class competitions, odd one out and
grouping the related ones.

Finally, we talked about the steps in vocabulary teaching. The first step is
“lead in”. While teaching vocabulary, the first thing we should do is to do a pre-
activity in order to let our learners have an idea what we will do. For example, we
can use a context that includes the words we will teach and highlight or underline
these words to get our students’ attention. In the second step-conveying
meaning-, we choose teaching techniques and use different techniques
depending on the word. We should try to use different techniques for each word.
The next step is to “repeat the words”. We should make sure that our students
have no difficulty in pronunciation of the words. In addition, since we are models,
firstly we should know the correct pronunciation of the words we will teach. The
fourth step is “double check” which means that we should make our learners
have understood the words we are teaching; so at this step, we should prepare
some concept questions. The other steps are “use” and “model sentence”.
Finally, we should do some practices and exercises.

Munise ÖZTÜRK