VOCABULARY ACTIVITY: ENGAGING THE 21ST LEARNERS IN ENGLISH CLASSES

JENIFER M. MANGALUS

Are there really helpful activities that will let students attain knowledge on vocabulary? How can a teacher help the 21st students engage in vocabulary enhancement activities? These are but a few questions we ask whenever an English teacher encounter students who struggle in learning vocabulary. Of all the three basic language units— pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary— the latter is deemed to be the most important because all the skills involve vocabulary. To address the issue, many techniques have been proven effective that help students gain mastery and confidence in the English language.

One technique that I personally do as preliminary activity is the facility of what I coin as #GiveL.O.V.E. (Learn One Vocabulary Everyday). Compared to the usual vocabulary drill where teachers give the word and use it in sentences, the activity involve students to research on their own and present the new word to their classmates. This is done in group and each group is tasked to find a word (preferably the ones that they will encounter in the lesson), find its etymology, its first usage and its pronunciation as well. They are also required to use the given word in three different sentences with context clues. The class can guess the given word with the either a synonym or a Filipino word counterpart.

What makes the activity more interesting for the student is the challenge for their classmates to guess the meaning of the word. If the word is not guessed, the point will be obtained by the group who shared the word for the day. This makes the presenters find a new word for the class while they use the word on their own sentences. The earned points can be added to their written activity scores at the end of the quarter.

In the advent of the activity that I have been doing as preliminary activity since 2013, my students always show their interest to perform this task even without reminding them to present. So while the classic technique is always effective, I have also proven that the more we engage our hyperactive, attention-seeker and short-attention span learners to do their parts in an interesting and interactive way, the more that they engage themselves in the class, and later on with the participation in class outputs and performances.

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The author (M.A. English/ Applied Linguistics), LPT is Secondary School Teacher III at Emigdio A. Bondoc High School, San Luis (Senior HS), Division of Pampanga