CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES FOR
EXPANSION, PRESENTATION,
REVIEW, ENRICHMENT
Penny Ur
Bnei Brak, February 2015
1. Expanding students’
vocabulary
Sources 1: Texts
• List the most important items to teach
• Including ‘chunks’
• Make sure they are reviewed
Sources 2: Teacher initiative
• ‘Word of the day’ (words, idioms, proverbs)
• Current events, ‘hot’ topics
• Unexpected opportunities
• Vocabulary expansion tasks
Vocabulary expansion tasks
• Brainstorm associations (lots!) and add
Associations
appetite
food
kitchen
eat
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Vocabulary expansion tasks
• Brainstorm associations (lots!) and add
• Brainstorm associations (collocations) and
add
Collocations
A clear /…/…/… explanation
A beautiful /…/…/… landscape
A small /…/…/… child
You can leave home /…/…/…
Some people are afraid of mice /…/…/…
To speak loudly … /…/…/…
Vocabulary expansion tasks
• Brainstorm associations (lots!) and add
• Brainstorm associations (collocations) and
add
• Look up a word you know in the dictionary –
find new meanings
• Look a word you know in the dictionary – find
new expressions
• Find ten new words that begin with a given
prefix
Useful prefixes
reunmisdisin-, ir- , il- (=not)
downintercon-, com-, cor-, col-
transexmegamicrononminisub
super-
Vocabulary expansion tasks
• Brainstorm associations (lots!) and add
• Brainstorm associations (collocations) and add
• Look up a word you know in the dictionary – find
new meanings
• Look a word you know in the dictionary – find
new expressions
• Find ten new words that begin with a given
prefix
• Find ten new words that end with a given suffix
Useful suffixes
-less
-able/ -ible
-er/ -or
-ology
-ist
-ment
-tion, -sion
-ance / -ence
-ness
-ize
-ate
-ly
-ive
-al
-y
-ful
Vocabulary expansion tasks
• Brainstorm associations (lots!) and add
• Brainstorm associations (collocations) and add
• Look up a word you know in the dictionary – find
new meanings
• Look a word you know in the dictionary – find
new expressions
• Find ten new words that begin with a given
prefix
• Find ten new words that end with a given suffix
• Find a translation for a word / expression in L1
Sources 3: Student-initiated
1. Sharing:
‘Show and tell’
2. Individual: vocabulary notebooks
Extensive reading (using dictionary)
(International) news
2. Presenting new vocabulary
Known from research
• New items are not learnt very effectively
through ‘incidental’ encounter, so…
• …Attention is necessary for learning
• ‘Knowing’ an item involves a number of
different aspects
• But spelling, pronunciation and most
common meaning – most important.
The process
1. In most cases, items are encountered first in
a context.
2. Then we take time to focus on them out of
context (isolated).
3. Later (review) used again, usually in context.
This section is mainly about stage 2.
Aims
Attention / noticing
Immediate mapping of form onto meaning
Impact and ‘imprinting’ (beginning to
remember)
So…
• Clear display of the written and spoken
form of the item + its basic meaning
• Dramatic / humorous / pleasing
presentation
• Writing on the board – and leaving there
How to present meaning: various
options
• Picture?
• Realia?
• Explanation + examples?
• Context?
• Mime?
• Translation?
How would you present the following
items…
Incredible
Walk
A thing
An apple
To describe
Only
To edit
Very
Unnecessary
Reasonable
How to present meaning: various
options
• Picture?
• Realia?
• Explanation + examples?
• Context?
• Mime?
• Translation?
Often best: a combination of translation with
one or more of the others
Why might these NOT be good ideas
for a first presentation of an item in
class?
1. Look up the new word in a dictionary: e.g.
discuss
2. Guess the meaning from a sentence context
e.g. We discussed the problem.
3. Give them meaning and a scrambled word,
they have to sort it out
e.g. ‫ לדון‬scidsus
Beware….
• Don’t teach words together that might be
confused :
• pairs of opposites (e.g. tall + short)
• groups that all mean the same kind of thing (e.g.
shirt + pants + coat + sweater)
• words that sound similar (e.g. accept + except)
• Don’t waste time on ‘not knowing’ (guessing,
puzzling out …)
Some strategies that can help
‘Keywords’
‘Retrieval’
Vocabulary notebooks
Keywords
Link the new word with an image, that
associates with something in the L1
For example:
Gate: imagine a baguette stuck in a gate
Star: imagine a star drawn on a banknote ‫שטר‬
Let students think of their own examples
Retrieval
Getting students to recall meanings or forms from
memory just after they’ve been taught the new
items.
For example:
You’ve just taught ten new items.
• Delete them, and challenge students to recall
them
• Delete meanings, leaving only target words (or
vice versa); challenge students to recall
• Do a dictation or translation dictation
First encounter: To recap:
The priority is immediate and clear mapping of
meaning onto form
Both written and spoken
Maximum impact
Opportunities for quick, immediate retrieval
3. Vocabulary review activities
In order to acquire a word, a learner
needs to review it
Probably at least ten times
Common words like there – no problem, likely
to come up in texts.
But more advanced words like research:
problem!
Students also need to learn further aspects of
the word: its connotations, collocations,
appropriate contexts of use….
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How can we find the time?
A myth
You have to practice new vocabulary in context
(sentences, full texts)
Not always.
It’s also useful to practice it in isolation, or
within brief phrases.
Features of effective review activities
• Validity (time is used to review vocabulary,
not for puzzling out, searching, ‘busy’ work)
So…
Games like ‘Hangman’ are not ‘valid’, mostly a
waste of time.
This applies to a lot of word games.
What about ‘wordsearch’?
Computer-generated wordsearch
1 picture
2 computer
3 dog
4 clothes
5 house
6 sun
7 moon
8 bag
9 bottle
10 foot
11 tree
12 flower
13 cup
14 key
15 cat
16 present (n)
17 eyes
18 ball
19 telephone
20 fish
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Computer-generated wordsearch
1 picture
2 computer
3 dog
4 clothes
5 house
6 sun
7 moon
8 bag
9 bottle
10 foot
11 tree
12 flower
13 cup
14 key
15 cat
16 present (n)
17 eyes
18 ball
19 telephone
20 fish
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2 computer
3 dog
4 clothes
5 house
6 sun
7 moon
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9 bottle
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11 tree
12 flower
13 cup
14 key
15 cat
16 present (n)
17 eyes
18 ball
19 telephone
20 fish
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3 dog
4 clothes
5 house
6 sun
7 moon
8 bag
9 bottle
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11 tree
12 flower
13 cup
14 key
15 cat
16 present (n)
17 eyes
18 ball
19 telephone
20 fish
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Features of effective review activities
• Validity (time is used to review vocabulary,
not for puzzling out, searching, ‘busy’ work)
• Quantity (number of items, number of times
‘engaged’ with)
So…
Try to use the activity for plenty of items,
‘engaged with’ more than once.
So…
Try to use the activity for plenty of items,
‘engaged with’ more than once.
For example:
‘Recall and share’
bicycle
because
people
independent
friend
embarrassed
encourage
privilege
building
enough
Features of effective review activities
• Validity (time is used to review vocabulary,
not for puzzling out, searching, ‘busy’ work)
• Quantity (number of items, number of times
‘engaged’ with)
• Success-orientation
• Heterogeneity (can be done at various levels)
Copy the words into the correct column
a clock, a dog, a dress, a mother, black, a pen, bread, pants,
a bag, a husband, red, boots, a cat, rice, a fish, a baby, pink,
a teenager, a hat, a banana, a book, a sheep, meat, kids,
a desk, green, an elephant, salt, a t-shirt, white
animals colours
things
food
clothes
people
Find at least three things to put in each column
a clock, a dog, a dress, a mother, black, a pen, bread, pants,
a bag, a husband, red, boots, a cat, rice, a fish, a baby, pink,
a teenager, a hat, a banana, a book, a sheep, meat, kids,
a desk, green, an elephant, salt, a t-shirt, white
animals colours
things
food
clothes
people
Features of effective review activities
• Validity (time is used to review vocabulary, not
for puzzling out, searching, ‘busy’ work)
• Quantity (number of items, number of times
‘engaged’ with)
• Success-orientation
• Heterogeneity (can be done at various levels)
• Interest (a stimulating task, often involving
higher-order thinking skills).
Which is the odd one out?
(Where there is no one obvious answer!)
All the others are…
It’s the only one which …
house, tree, stone, dog, pencil
flute, accordion, violin, guitar, drums
door, window, gate, entrance,
seat, chair, stool, sofa, bench
earthquake, fire, storm, flood, drought
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Features of effective review activities
• Validity (time is used to review vocabulary, not for
puzzling out, searching, ‘busy’ work)
• Quantity (number of items, number of times ‘engaged’
with)
• Success-orientation
• Heterogeneity (can be done at various levels)
• Interest (a stimulating task, often involving higherorder thinking skills).
• Simplicity (not too much preparation or elaborate
materials)
Some review activities
• How many can you remember?
• ‘Recall and share’
• Quick Bingo
• Dictations (and variations)
Review activities using higherorder thinking skills
• Link two
• Make a true sentence about yourself using…
• Create false statements using..
• Ask questions to which the answer would
be…
• Sort into positive, negative, neutral
• What is the connection between…?
• How is a … like a…?
Link two
cellphone
life
facts
countries
remote areas
earthquake
all over the world
location
the invention of
communicate with
photographs
for example
important events
hurricane
save lives
rescue party

Make a true sentence about
yourself
cellphone
life
facts
countries
remote areas
earthquake
all over the world
location
the invention of
communicate with
photographs
for example
important events
hurricane
save lives
rescue party

Make a false statement
cellphone
life
facts
countries
remote areas
earthquake
all over the world
location
the invention of
communicate with
photographs
for example
important events
hurricane
save lives
rescue party

Ask a question to which the
answer would be…
cellphone
life
facts
countries
remote areas
earthquake
all over the world
location
the invention of
communicate with
photographs
for example
important events
hurricane
save lives
rescue party

Sort into positive, negative,
neutral
cellphone
life
facts
countries
remote areas
earthquake
all over the world
location
the invention of
communicate with
photographs
for example
important events
hurricane
save lives
rescue party

What is the connection
between…?
cellphone
life
facts
countries
remote areas
earthquake
all over the world
location
the invention of
communicate with
photographs
for example
important events
hurricane
save lives
rescue party

Make up a story that includes all
the items
cellphone
life
facts
countries
remote areas
earthquake
all over the world
location
the invention of
communicate with
photographs
for example
important events
hurricane
save lives
rescue party

4. Deepening knowledge of
previously learnt items
Deepening of knowledge
Learning more about items whose form and basic
meaning you already know.
Underlying meanings and connotations?
Grammatical connections?
Derivatives?
Collocation?
Appropriateness?
Translation?
For example:
• Look up a word you already know, in a
dictionary; find out more about it.
• Identify the difference in connotation /
meaning between synonyms.
Synonyms
children / kids
lamp / light
macho / masculine
seat / chair
orchestra / band
policeman / police officer
pal / mate
apartment / flat
donate / give
For example:
• Look up a word you already know, in a
dictionary.
• Identify the difference in connotation /
meaning between synonyms.
• Discuss translations (to / from L1).
Translate?
The phrase ‘a born teacher’ is not usually meant to
be taken literally. People who use it do not
seriously mean that someone is born with a certain
teaching DNA configuration in their genes. They
are, rather, referring to stable personality
characteristics, resulting from a combination of
innate and environmental influences, that the
teacher brings to their professional practice and
that produce something that looks like a natural
bent for teaching.

For example:
• Look up a word you already know, in a
dictionary.
• Identify the difference in connotation /
meaning between synonyms.
• Discuss translations (to / from L1).
• Discuss appropriateness of items in a text.
Summary
We need to do a lot of vocabulary activities in class:
for expansion, for initial presentation, for review.
These activities need to be effective in terms of the
amount of learning going on,
But without too much preparation or time-wasting
in class.
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Thank you for your attention
pennyur@gmail.com