Throughout my career I have been taken by surprise how creative my students are and how much effort they have sometimes put on the tasks they have created.

In the previous article I argued that we teachers need to give space for the creativity of our students. Letting the students design exercises for others is an excellent opportunity for the students’ creativity to bloom provided we give them some ideas how to do it. That is why I am continuing with the vocab learning strategy list with some more ideas and justifications for using the ideas. Points 11 – 22.

It takes some time at first to introduce this possibility of producing vocab tasks but in the long run it is rewarding and the work done is so intensive that the students will remember it for the rest of their lives.

Maximized focus on something leads to learning. I remember every orienteering route, hill and ditch in competitions by looking at the map since I had to be so focused not to get lost. I can even remember why I got lost. Poor me!

Take your time to teach any of these techniques to your students. It gives them great variation for the lessons and home practice too.

Practical vocab task hints for the students and the teacher

1. Points………Photos, pictures
2. 1 – 10 ……….Mother tongue hints
3. were ………..Word lists and mindmaps
4. dealt ………. Association technique
5. with ……….. Recording word lists
6. in ……………..Covering up word lists
7. the …………..Self-made tests
8. previous …Use the word in sentence
9. article ……..Make a story
10. ………………….Two-sided cards in a game
11. Learn words in groups (linked with a topic, nouns, adjectives etc.). Write them down in a grid or an excel file. Fruit: banana, orange, apple, pear … Traffic: vehicle, pedestrian, cycle path, lane, speeding … Combined with the use of dictionary this is a great exercise.
12. Use word formation technique. One word leads to a family of words. My favourite example is Latin word ‘volvare’ meaning ‘to go around’: car trade mark ‘Volvo’ means I go around‘, a revolver: the cartridge chamber goes around, a revolution: society goes around in a way, adj., revolutionary: turning around or overthrowing old ideas; revolutionize, revolutionist, counter-revolution, post-revolutionary etc. Word formation technique is an extremely powerful tool in expanding knowledge of words.
13. Find synonyms or opposites for the word. This can be done at any levels and practised in pairs. It actually means finding near synonyms or opposites. Pleased – content, contended, satisfied, happy, glad …)
14. Make a gap exercise of the lyrics of a song. In grammar school at the age of 12 I started to write down the lyrics of songs and learnt thousands of words and phrases, and nearly all grammar subconsciously.
15. Consult a dictionary (online or hard copy). Allow the students to use online dictionaries in the lessons. That’s something we all do in normal life. Teach how dictionaries work!
16. By doing various exercises (crossword puzzles, gap filling, hidden grid or a maze etc.) Finnish students love crossword puzzles and so do I. Just make sure the hints are not too difficult. I will have another article on crossword puzzle options. Gap fillings and hiding words in a maze appeals to weaker students in particular.
17. Guess the meaning of new words on the basis of the context. Rationalized guessing is to be encouraged in language learning. My ‘horrible’ example puzzles the minds of my students for a while: ‘The Queen was beheaded in the Tower.’ The students need to know something about the history of London, the Tower and laws in the Middle Ages. Secondly the need to notice that the word ‘head’ is hidden in the unknown word. So, what happens to ‘head’ in the Tower? Sorry, they were cut off, the Queen was executed with an axe.
18. Make use of free computer vocab exercises. Seach the internet for free programmes and encourage your students to make use of them in their free time too.
19. Give a definition of a word and your pair has to guess which it is (e.g. it is an adjective which means the same as ‘adequate’ – ‘enough’ or ‘sufficient’). The students need a few phrases to do this well. Pantomime or acting out without words is also great fun.
20. Your say a word and your pair has to give a definition for it or explain it in another way (a vaccination – well, it is a shot given with a needle so that you do not get a disease) This technique is also needed if you do not know the word and try to explain it.
21. Make use of the free vocab learning computer programmes in the internet. What you need to do is to google the internet (vocabulary learning programme) and find programmes that work at your school or in students’ homes. Many of them are free and commercial ones are also available.
22. When reading extra English materials such as magazines or books, take out your notebook and write down new words and phrases that you find interesting and useful. Surprisingly many students find this way of learning very effective. It is even more motivating if you let the students compare their lists, phrases and sentences at school and explain others how they utilize them. After all my advice to my students when they write essays is to use 10 fancy words (rare words that suit the text fine) and a few phrases to show they master some authentic language and vary their sentence structure to avoid monotonous flow of sentences.