“EXPANDING YOUR VOCABULARY”Using a website in the teaching

of English as a Foreign Language

Lourdes Gamboa Arreaza

Caracas, December 15th. 2009

Universidad Central de Venezuela Facultad de Humanidades y EducaciónComisión de estudios de postgradoMaestría en inglés: Mención inglés como lengua extranjera.Asignatura: Introducción a las nuevas tecnologías.

EXPANDING YOUR VOCABULARY (An easy, fun way)

For 7th. Grade students

INTRODUCTION

• Expanding vocabulary is useful to improve communication skills and help develop reading and writing ability. It does not matter at what stage of education, or personal growth you are, vocabulary develop can benefit everyone. Using vocabulary software is a very effective way of achieving these goals and benefiting from the results.

PERCENTAGE OF RETENTION

Taken from JCU (2009)

We can only remember a fraction of what we read. As we can see in this figure, it is important to combine all types of activities in order to obtain maximum learning.

Expanding your vocabulary

1. DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE 2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

2.1. AIM2.2. OBJECTIVES

3. METHODOLOGY 4. CONTENTS5. DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED MATERIALS6. ACTIVITIES 7. EVALUATION

DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE• The course is formed by 20 Middle School

students, attending 7th year in Colegio “Ambrosio Plaza” in Los Teques, Venezuela, whose ages range from 10 to 12 years old. Most of them have received English classes since Pre–school.

• This strategy is designed as a result of the need to teach English vocabulary through a dynamic, fun activity in order to increase and maintain the motivation towards the subject. Accordingly to their ages, students show more interest in topics as extreme sports, music, movies and TV shows, and favored the use of audiovisual activities and materials.

COURSE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

1. AIMTo introduce the spelling and meaning of new

English words to students of 7th. Grade using a web page.

2. OBJECTIVES2.a. To encourage the practice of listening skills using audio and video tools via Internet.2.b. To encourage the practice of speaking skills.2.c. To encourage the practice of reading and writing through the use of especially designed electronic tools.

METHODOLOGY

• In this particular school, The English Department applies an eclectic course design approach, paying attention to the skills required to master the learning of the language, and to the process involved in the acquisition of competence. Its model of language teaching is a mix of functional – notional for grammar and vocabulary learning, and a communicative approach for their use in verbal interactions.

DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED MATERIALS

• http://www.abababc.com is a web site available to help students learn English in the most efficient way. Vocabulary lists cover American K-12, SAT, GMAT, GRE, IELTS , TOEFL, China College Admission, China Post Graduate Test Level 4, 6 and 8 and a list of the most frequently used words in daily life. You can create your own word list to practice with.

• Each learning category has been sorted by word frequency. The most frequently used words are shown first. Only the most common meaning of each word will be displayed. The definition of each word usually has less than 70 characters.

DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED MATERIALS

• Students will see all assignments created by their teacher and will be able to work on them.They will see, hear and type the words, as well as read its most common meaning. Teachers will be able to track student’s work and see how they perform.

• Teachers can also create their own customized assignments for students. A running report lets them see the grades the students achieve in each category or the customized assignments created for them.

ACTIVITIES

1.- Classroom activity: Teacher and students will read a short authentic text including some of the new words that appear in the Web page. Look for the gist of the reading and

discussing the pertinent contents. Students will highlight the unknown words as they read.

2.- Online activity: Students will access the website and work on the assignments designed by the teacher. They will write down the meaning of the previously highlighted unknown words.

FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES

1.- During the next class, the teacher will write on the board a list with all the new words of the class, and discuss the contents of the reading, asking some reading comprehension questions to see if the recently acquired words have added any new meaning to it.

2.- Teacher will encourage students to practice using the new vocabulary words each day in general conversations.

EVALUATION

• Students performance will be assessed through three different instruments:

• 1.- the website

• 2.- their answers to the reading comprehension questions

• 3.- regular tests