I have been hard at work coming up with new ways to introduce vocabulary in the classroom.  In the past, I would introduce vocabulary with a PowerPoint presentation. I would make a slide- with a picture- for each word.  The students would be asked to “Répétez après moi” and write the meaning of each word on their vocab list.  The kids were great at memorizing the words to vomit back up on a quiz later in the week, but could never recall more than a smattering of words after the week.  I soon came to realize 3 big problems with this approach:

• I was just telling the kids the words; students never had to negotiate meaning on their own
• Kids were not using the words in any meaningful way
• They never saw the words in real-world contexts.

Currently, my main go-to is to try to find an authentic resource to use and have the students decipher the meanings of some priority vocabulary from the resource.  I use songs, commercials, infographics, children’s books, articles, videos, etc.  Sometimes though, it is hard to find a resource or (come on- let’s be real) sometimes I just do not have the time to search for a resource.  So I have a few tricks where the students themselves become the resource for “Play-Doh Vocabulary”.  I used this in both my Level 1 and Level 2 classes today.  Level 1 is studying why we go places in cities and Level 2 is studying daily routine.  In both cases, this is how I proceeded:

1. I give the students a list of expressions and ask them to try to guess the meaning just by looking at the word.  Here is an example:

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Students work with partners.  They are given one of the expressions, the English equivalent and some Play-Doh.  They have 15 minutes to depict the activity with the Play-Doh.

3.  Students go around the room and look at the Play-Doh sculptures.  They then determine if their initial guess was correct and/or make another guess using the sculpture as a guide.

4.  We discuss our answers and make sure everyone has the right meanings.

I would follow-up with a small presentation writing or an interpretive activity where students are using the expressions.  This is a fun activity, but it also makes the students look at words, make an educated guess at the meanings and then make another guess with some help.

Here is a quick video I made showing some of the sculptures and my students.

As always, please email me with questions, comments or suggestions!  jesuismsmadame@gmail.com