Word of the week
One of the things I really want to do with this blog is put classroom ideas out there. They might be good ideas so you can steal them, or they might be bad ideas so you can learn from my mistakes. Either way any feedback is appreciated so that, good or bad, my classroom ideas can be better.
I noticed recently that lots of my pupils don’t know certain pieces of vocabulary. Weirdly they all seem to not know the same things. They already do a lot of vocabulary work with a list of maybe 100 words to memorise each month, but I thought that adding a really useful extra word each week might be a good thing. I made some posters with ‘Word of the week’ written on, laminated them. The plan is to scribble a word and it’s Korean translation on with a blackboard marker each week.
The first word of the week was ‘rude 무례하다*’ because I was fed up of blank looks whenever I said ‘Don’t be rude!’ The first week of trying this out has gone pretty well, sort of. My pupils (especially 6th graders) think it’s hilarious to shout ‘Don’t be rude’ at each other (and me *sigh*) for no reason. My classes might not be that much more polite but at least they probably won’t forget how to say ‘rude’ now.
*Just for the record’례’ is some tough Hangul to get your mouth round.
The next word of the week is going to be ‘least favourite’ because everyone knows ‘favourite’ but is confused if I add a ‘least’ in front of it. I’ll update soon and let you know how it goes. Before I do, has anyone tried anything similar to this before? Do you have any ideas for words that might work as word of the week? Do you have an idea about how this could work better? Let me know in the comments.
tjhampson 
David Harbinson 5:18 am on October 1, 2014 Permalink |
I think what you’re doing sounds good. I like that you’re introducing it in a phrase/in context, and I would imagine that this will help the students retain it more easily and possibly in the future use the pattern and adapt it. And it’s great that the students are already shouting it out freely. I’m sure I read another post quite recently where the teacher talked about the students shouting things out in class, at first for fun, but it eventually turned in to something more meaningful. I can’t for the life of me remember where I read it though, but if I find the post, I’ll let you know.
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timothyhampson 12:32 am on October 3, 2014 Permalink |
Thanks David, I think it’s better to present it in context too. Maybe a phrase of the week would be better. If something is funny it seems easier to remember so hopefully I can inject some humour into it in the future.
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