Vocabulary for beginners

Questions and answers
Vocabulary for beginners
The question
Vocabulary for beginners
Mohamed, Morocco
I'm a trainee student teacher of English. I would like to know the best approaches for teaching English vocabulary to beginners. Thanks.
Your answers
Mohammed Nadi, Morocco
Well, teaching vocabulary to beginners undergoes disparate techniques...

1- Use of realia. It is done by bringing real objects to classroom (like postcard + book + pen + schoolbag + vegetables and everything that is worth to be brought to the classroom.
2- Pictures. This is very effective in the way that it facilitates the process of learning for kids. You can teach them animals only through showing them pictures of animals.
3- Context. Though challenging sometimes , it is really a good technique especially when it comes to abstract words like happiness or lucky or to go on a trip .
4- Mime & pantomime. It is done through gestures and facial expressions and also via actions.
Grace, China
I'd like to tell you what I think about the problem. The approaches you choose largely depend on who are the beginners and what teaching aims you set. For example, if your beginners are some kindergarten children, try to teach through playing. If you teach the word "tomato", bring a tomato with you and show it to the children, and give it to a child as a reward. If you want to teach verbs such as "sit, stand, throw, catch, bring, take...", you can play games with children. I believe they can learn better through body movements. Show the children some pictures, tell them easy and interesting stories, and so on. Try to make your lesson lively and interesting. On the other hand, if the beginners are middle school students with certain learning skills, maybe you can present the words directly. Use the words in a real environment or context. Don't forget to help them find useful strategies to memorize the words. Give them some suitable exercises according to their ability to consolidate what they learn. At the same time, try to inspire their motivation and arouse their interest.
Rasty, N.Iraq
I used to make my students memorise much needed words, starting with irregular verbs then nouns, adjectives etc. Everyday they learnt 3 to 5 words .Whenever they had memorized enough words (as I planned, according to their stages) I made a test. I used to participate with them in memorising words inside the classroom, the first five minutes of the lesson is for thewords they have learnt over the weeks. Remind and test them at every chance, ata picnic, playing in friendly weather, in the school corridor. I have good clever students now in English Arts Department.
Ana Maria, Brazil
Something I usually do with my beginners is to suggest that they use the last pages of their notebooks to create their own glossary, using just the words that are interesting for them or the ones that they really want to incorporate in their everyday vocabulary. It gives them autonomy to choose and to be more active in the process of learning. Good luck!
Nasrullah Korai, Pakistan
I would like to suggest that you make an area to show the pictures for a particular subject that you have to teach the students, then give a number to each picture and, finally, outline all the numbers, and their names, below the set of pictures and finally explain/demonstrate the words to the students. Keep the sets of pictures on display for students to refer to. Students can also make their own picture sets.