Fun ways of building word power
Leena Thorat
“Children, copy these 30 words from the blackboard and write them down 10 times each for homework. We’ll have a dictation test tomorrow and you will have to rewrite each word 10 times again if you score less than 10!” Sounds familiar? This might remind you of the typical Indian method of ‘teaching’ new words to students between classes II and IV. This method might successfully get you through the test; however, in the long run such passive learning and ‘mugging up’ methods are not of much use.
Vocabulary building is an integral component of the learning system and hence such mundane class assignments need to be modified and put across in a different manner. School education essentially aims to form the basis for higher education and our future professions. Irrespective of the field or career, vocabulary development plays a key role as it inculcates the habit of understanding a concept and putting it across in one’s own words without depending on the typical ratta-maro style prevalent among most students. This reminds me of the famous American educator, Johnson O’Connor who rightly termed vocabulary as the ‘tools of our thought’ and so he proposed, “Your learning speed and efficient vocabulary determines your ability for effective communication with your peers.”
So forget the traditional English vocabulary class and pick up these fun ways of teaching and learning new words. I list five simple and practical classroom ideas that will enable both teachers and students to approach vocabulary building in a systematic and effective way. Classroom games are amazingly rewarding and a prize as small as a chocolate, a pen, or a bookmark can work wonders!
Making sense of words
Learning and remembering becomes a simplified task if we can link a word to its etymology, i.e., the source or origin of the word. This method includes splitting up of a word to understand its meaning and then make sense of the word as a whole.
Teacher’s preparation: Make a list of relevant words which can be easily remembered by the etymology-based approach.
Classroom fun activity: Divide the class into groups and turn by turn provide them with a long/complicated word which can be split for better understanding.
Eg. #1: Bio-logy- ‘bios’ means ‘life’ and ‘logos’ means ‘study’.
Eg. #2: Photo-synthesis- ‘photo’ refers to ‘light’ and ‘synthesis’ means ‘to produce’.
Testing your vocabulary
We tend to forget words if we do not revise or use them in regular conversation. A useful strategy to overcome this could be to split one long word into as many small words as you can.
Teacher’s preparation: Compile all the long words from a chapter which can be broken down into smaller meaningful words.
Classroom fun activity: Divide the class into groups or carry out this activity at the individual level. Provide a long word and encourage the students to generate as many words as possible. Rules – the words generated should have a meaning and each letter from the long word can be used only once in the small word.
Eg. #1: ‘Onomatopoeia’ – small words at, in, pot, tap, mat, pat, ant, pin, pea, pet, etc.
Eg. #2: ‘Exaggeration’ – small words at, in, rat, ten, exert, ration, get, gate, etc.
Clearing the confusion
Homonyms are words with the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings depending on the context in which they are being used. Thus is it necessary to clarify such concepts during the vocabulary class.
Teacher’s preparation: Compile a list of homonyms and their possible meanings used under different contexts.
Classroom fun activity: Perform the activity in groups or individually. Assign students a word and give them appropriate time to come up with all possible meanings and usages of the given word in different contexts. Another way could be to provide the students with two different sentences which have one common word. Help them to identify the meaning of the common words with reference to each sentence. Additionally, you can also give them a word and ask them to frame a minimum of two sentences where the same word has different meanings.
Eg. #1: Explain how ‘Right’ – can have two different meanings depending on the context in which it is being used in the sentence, i.e., ‘right’ could mean ‘correct’ or ‘indicative of direction’.
Eg. #2: Explain the meaning of the word ‘leaves’ in the following contexts.
i) The children drew leaves in their books.
ii) The kid is unhappy when his father leaves for work.
Eg. #3: Ask the students to use the word ‘rose’ to make two different sentences
i) My favourite flower is rose (here rose is a ‘flower’).
ii) The kids rose quickly from their seats to see the clown (here rose is the past tense of ‘to rise’)
Preparing your personalized Word Bank
You can encourage students to compile all the newly learnt words in a special book – the Word Bank. This will help them have their vocabulary list as a ready reference which they can easily refer to during activities such as newspaper reading.
Teacher’s preparation: Compile a prototype of the Word Bank as a reference for your students.
Classroom fun activity: Divide students into small groups and help them prepare their Word Bank. If possible, encourage them to read short articles from the newspapers and discuss the new words they come across or words whose meanings are not known to them. At the end, include these new words too in the Word Bank.
One simple way to tabulate the Word Bank could be as follows:
| Word | Meaning/s | Antonym/s | Synonym/s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tired | i) in need of sleep or rest ii) bored or impatient with |
i) energetic ii) fresh iii) lively |
weary, sleepy, low |
| Broke | i) to be left without any money ii) past tense of ‘break’ iii) to divide something into different parts or pieces |
i) rich ii) wealthy iii) repair |
poor, needy, bankrupt, split, separate |
Making active use of your vocabulary
With regular revision of vocabulary, students can easily recollect and relate to words and their context-dependent meanings. This is the time to make constructive use of their vocabulary. An exciting and effective way could be to encourage students to prepare their own crosswords, puzzles, etc., using their newly learnt vocabulary. This activity could also be given to students as home assignments during vacations.
Teacher’s preparation: All that the teacher has to do is to encourage the students to prepare a crossword on their own. You might have to explain the method of doing it to the students. It could be as short as a 10×10 grid but the challenge and excitement it involves will keep the students actively engaged.
Classroom fun activity:The crossword can be filled by solving the interesting equations with the help of the three hint-words provided. The combination of the two words on the left-hand side form the word on the right-hand side which is your answer that goes into the crossword grid.
This way, students get introduced to new words and at the same time it boosts their confidence by helping them realize that they can indeed remember words from their existing vocabulary.
So go ahead and enjoy!
The author is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Biotechnology, Savitribai Phule Pune University (Formerly the University of Pune), Pune. She can be reached at leenathorat@gmail.com.
