Activating your vocabulary – the Learning Circle way

Learning new vocabulary is a never-ending task for language learners. Perhaps you underline newwords when you meet them in a newspaper article or book? Perhaps you have a notebook whereyou write down new words? However, for many learners, the most difficult challenge is toremember and use new words and phrases.

The listening and speaking activities which you do in your Learning Circle will help you practise
vocabulary. But how can you make sure that they also help you to extend your active vocabulary – that is, how can you be sure that you actively practise new vocabulary instead of simply repeating the same words and phrases which you always use?

5TOP TIPS

ACTIVATING VOCABULARY

1. Start a Vocabulary Box Whenever you meet a new word at your meetings, one member of the group should write the word on a piece of paper. On the back of the paper, write a definition or an example sentence and show where the stress is. Put the paper in a Vocabulary Box.At each meeting, take 5 words out of the box and test your group members. Can they remember the meaning and the pronunciation?
2. Start a ‘Useful Phrases’ poster Do you have place in your meeting room for a poster? Get a large piece of blank paper and put it where everyone can see it.At the beginning of each meeting, one member tells the group about a useful word or phrase they have learned since the last meeting then writes it on the poster.The poster provides you with a record of some of the things you have learned in your Learning Circle.
3. Create programme ‘Spidergrams’ A spidergram is a diagram which you can create to link different vocabulary about the same topic. It is called a spidergram because it looks like a spider’s web. Look at the example of a spidergram which one Learning Circle created around the theme of ‘science’. All the words are grouped around the word ‘science’ at the  
   centre.This makes them easier to remember. Before you start listening to a programme in your Learning Circle, take some time to build a vocabulary spidergram around the topic of the programme. Then listen to find out how many of your words are mentioned in the programme.
4. Play ‘Just A Minute’ ‘Just A Minute’ is a long-running radio quiz show which you can hear on the BBC World Service. The aim of the game is for the contestants to speak for one full minute without hesitating or repeating any words which they have used.Try a form of this game in your Learning Circle.Write down different topics on slips of paper. For example, the topics might be ‘My Hobby’ or ‘A job I’d like to have’. Fold the slips of paper. Each member of the group then has to choose a piece of paper and to try to speak for 60 seconds about the topic on the paper. However, if someone repeats a word or phrase, they must stop and the next person in the group must continue until the end of the minute.The person who is speaking at the end of 60 seconds wins a point. But remember – you need to have a watch which shows the time in seconds!
5. Make your own vocabulary puzzles On the next page, we give you instructions for making Wordsquare puzzles.Why not start a competition in your Learning Circle to find who can make the most interesting and useful puzzles for reviewing vocabulary? Put the most successful puzzles on a poster.