Learn more about the differences between teaching young learners and adults. Teens, on the other hand, need vocabulary to help them understand the music they listen to and the shows or movies they watch, as well as words that can help them communicate with others and express their feelings.Īdults need the appropriate English vocabulary to help them relate on both a personal and business level, and they rely on you to give them the best and most common words and phrases that will help them improve their communication skills. Hands-on activities, songs, or colorful visuals work well for kids. Young learners are innately curious and love to learn the names of things that surround them. Choose vocabulary that is connected to your students’ lives and can be easily applied to their world outside of the classroom. Teach relevant ESL vocabularyīe aware that if you focus on vocabulary that can’t be put to immediate and repetitive use in your students’ day-to-day lives, it will be relegated to the quicksand of short-term memory and soon forgotten, thus rendering all your hard work useless.
You want to create a contextual experience (an interesting story, a series of images, a dialogue) that leaves a deep impression so that when the time comes for your class to recall a particular list of words, they’ll be able to access these words with little trouble. In other words, don’t teach new words in a vacuum. It’s a good idea to think about how students will recall a word when sitting for an exam and use this as your starting point to determine how you want your students to remember what you have taught them. What is the best way to teach ESL vocabulary? Create context around words you teach Points to remember when teaching ESL vocabulary.What are other ways ESL students can improve their vocabulary?.How can I make vocabulary fun with ESL vocabulary games?.Use antonyms and synonyms to teach and review ESL vocabulary.Use translation from the students’ first language (yes, sometimes it’s okay!).Introduce new words in the context of a story or article students read.What are the techniques for introducing and teaching new ESL vocabulary?.What is the best way to teach ESL vocabulary?.