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    Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Items To 4 Graders

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    romelia2013
    This document presents techniques for teaching vocabulary to 4th grade students. It divides the techniques into the four skills of listening, writing, reading and speaking. Activities described include having students cut out clothing items from newspapers and name them, hiding items and having students identify missing clothes, describing characters' clothing, and writing sentences using target vocabulary words. Tests were used to assess vocabulary acquisition, with most students demonstrating learning of the new words but some requiring extra support.

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    Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Items To 4 Graders

    Uploaded by

    romelia2013
    24 views7 pages
    This document presents techniques for teaching vocabulary to 4th grade students. It divides the techniques into the four skills of listening, writing, reading and speaking. Activities described include having students cut out clothing items from newspapers and name them, hiding items and having students identify missing clothes, describing characters' clothing, and writing sentences using target vocabulary words. Tests were used to assess vocabulary acquisition, with most students demonstrating learning of the new words but some requiring extra support.

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    This document presents techniques for teaching vocabulary to 4th grade students. It divides the techniques into the four skills of listening, writing, reading and speaking. Activities described include having students cut out clothing items from newspapers and name them, hiding items and having students identify missing clothes, describing characters' clothing, and writing sentences using target vocabulary words. Tests were used to assess vocabulary acquisition, with most students demonstrating learning of the new words but some requiring extra support.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    24 views7 pages

    Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Items To 4 Graders

    Uploaded by

    romelia2013
    This document presents techniques for teaching vocabulary to 4th grade students. It divides the techniques into the four skills of listening, writing, reading and speaking. Activities described include having students cut out clothing items from newspapers and name them, hiding items and having students identify missing clothes, describing characters' clothing, and writing sentences using target vocabulary words. Tests were used to assess vocabulary acquisition, with most students demonstrating learning of the new words but some requiring extra support.

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    Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Items to 4th Graders

    Summary:
    This article presents techniques used in the classroom to introduce new vocabulary items
    to the 4th –grade students. The activities are divided according to the four skills –
    listening, writing, reading and speaking - but we are not suggesting that any of them
    should be taught or learned in isolation. This division is simply a convenient and
    systematic way of presenting the teaching methods in this paper.

    Key words: vocabulary, skills, techniques.

    I will give in this article several examples of activities that can be used in the 4 th grade when
    teaching clothes. For introducing the new items or for revising them it is a good idea to ask
    students to cut a page of a newspaper in the shape of a hat, gloves, trousers etc. Then, using a
    washing line and clothes pegs, the teacher asks students to hang their projects on the washing
    line. The students repeat the names of the clothes after the teacher, in chorus, then
    individually. After introducing the clothes related vocabulary the teacher can ask students to
    close their eyes, while he/she hides some of the clothes. A few seconds later, s/he asks them to
    open their eyes and name the missing clothes.
    This warm-up activity always has a great impact on my students as they seem to have a lot of
    fun and, at the same time, they produce and practice the vocabulary I am interested in an
    enjoyable context.

    Teaching the 4th graders

    Not many things differ from the 3rd grade but now students are more aware of language
    structures (e.g. what a sentence is, that it should have a subject and a verb, word order in
    simple sentences, make the connection between verb and person, etc) and this enables them to
    make more complex sentences and therefore their vocabulary needs increase. That is why I
    usually build on the previous vocabulary and teach new items which suit the level and the
    necessities of the class.

    Vocabulary
    -the 3rd grade-revision
    -blouse -trousers
    -skirt -cap
    -socks -shorts
    -shoes -boots
    -shirt -scarf
    -jacket
    and new words:
    -gloves
    -T-shirt -a pair of
    -jeans skirt -swimsuit
    -fashion designer -jumper
    -to design -stocking
    -clothes -coat

    Speaking
    This exercise is a good opportunity to revise vocabulary and introduce, if only visually, the
    new words. Students look at the line of characters in their books. Ask them to name them. Ask
    questions about their clothes, e.g. Who has a pink skirt? Sue. Who has a green dress? Andy’s
    Grandma.

    Speaking-Reading

    Hold up your book and point to the shirt. Ask What’s this? Students find in the picture above
    and read the word: Shirt. It’s a shirt. Repeat with the other items and deal with the plural
    items in the same way: What are these? Shoes. They’re shoes. Special attention is given here
    to grammar topics, such as plurals of nouns (trousers, socks, shoes, shorts, glasses) and
    demonstrative pronouns (this/these). The concord between subject and predicate is often a
    problem which persists even for more advanced graders so it is useful to start drawing their
    attention to this matter even from this age.

    Reading
    Students read the descriptions of the characters and colour the pictures accordingly. Ask them
    to read the sentences aloud first. This exercise is always enjoyed by all the students as they
    simply adore using colour pencils and practice their artistic abilities. It is also suitable for
    weaker or less confidents students as they do not have to produce language on their own but
    still they can learn about clothes and colours just by doing something practical related to
    them.

    Writing

    Look at the picture. Use the words in the box to describe Sarah.
    This exercise also provides the opportunity to practice reading skills as students can read what
    they have written.

    shoes T-shirt jeans socks


    Sarah is very pretty.
    She is wearing a blue………… , a
    ………….skirt,white……………and
    black …………… .
    I like her, she’s friendly.

    Teacher asks students to work individually and match the two parts of the words and write
    them in their notebooks and then s/he checks them by asking different students to go to the
    blackboard and write them down so that everybody in the class can have the correct answers.
    Which of the clothes in the picture do you need to put on when you go to play with snow?
    Then s/he asks students to write sentences in which to mention which clothes they need when
    they go to play in the snow. This can be done individually or in pairs to facilitate
    communication and speaking practice but, again, the teacher should monitor this very closely,
    as students tend to use their mother tongue instead of English.

    Listening

    Teacher divides students into groups and asks them to listen to the conversation and then
    answer the questions.

    Listen and answer the questions:


    What is Maria’s mom?
    What does she do?

    Teacher checks answers focusing on possible unknown words such as fashion designer and to
    design.

    When testing vocabulary acquisition I applied the following tests


    the 4th grade
    TEST

    What do you want to receive at Christmas? Use these clothes to write five sentences.

    Example: I hope Santa will bring me a shirt.


    1) ________________________________
    2) ________________________________
    3) ________________________________
    4) ________________________________
    5) ________________________________

    and the results below were obtained:

    Out of 26 students a percentage of 88.89 did pretty well proving that they acquired the
    necessary vocabulary items while the rest of 11.11% did not manage to pass. These four
    students require special attention as they are students with special needs and their progress at
    English is very slow and they usually work separately on much easier tasks.
    Bibliography:

    1. McCarthy M.- “Vocabulary”, OUP, 1990.


    2. Thornbury S.- “How to teach vocabulary”, Harlow:Longman, 2002.
    3. Allen J.- “Words, Words, Words. Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12”, Portland:
    Stenhouse Publishers, 1999.
    4. Allen V. F.- “Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary”, OUP, 1983.
    5. Moon J.- “Children Learning English”, Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2000.
    6. Nation I. S. P. (ed.).- “New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary”, Alexandria, VA: TESOL,
    1994.
    7. Gairns R., Redman S.- “A Guide to teaching and learning vocabulary”, Cambridge:
    Cambridge University Press, 1986.
    8. Scott, W. A. and Ytreberg, L. S.- “Teaching English to Children”, London: Longman,
    1990.
    9. Abbs B., Barker C. & Freebairn I.- “Snapshot-Starter”, England: PEL, Longman,
    2001.
    10. Achim A. et al.- “Pathway to English-English Agenda”, Bucureşti, Editura Didactică
    şi Pedagogică, 2003.
    11. Abbs B., Barker C., Freebairn I. & Johnston O.- “Snapshot-Starter Language
    booster”, England: PEL, Longman, 1997.

    Prof. Panuta Romelia

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