Put a Word on Your Keychain

Without a doubt the most important thing an L2 can do to build on his language skills is to enlarge his vocabulary. One neat way of keeping track of new words and watching progress, is to keep index cards. Many years ago I started assigning my younger students the task of keeping each new vocabulary word on a separate card. The new word would be printed on the front of the card. The back of the card would be divided into four parts. In the upper left students would write a pronunciation key with accent marks and any notes they might want to make. In the upper right I asked them to make a simple sketch of what the word meant or symbolized to them. In the lower left would be two synonyms and two antonyms. Finally in the lower right would be a sentence in which the meaning of the target word could easily be understood from context. Holes were punched in the upper left hand side of the cards and then kept on a key chain or metal circle clamp. As we studied new words, they would be added to the stack and students would become very proud of their visible progress. Interestingly when I mentioned this to one of my evening ESL classes, the students eagerly said that they too wanted to keep track of their words on cards. We now use these as flashcards for test review and for a few simple games. One quick and easy game we play is one minute password and it is similar to the standard password game played on TV and in many American homes. Students sit in groups of four. They may each choose five cards from their own collection, but must not tell their group mates which cards they have chosen. There should be about 20 cards in the playing stack. All the cards are shuffled and put into a pile face down in front of the student who will begin. The teacher then signals all groups to start. The “it” person in each group now takes the top card and turns it over, carefully not allowing others in the group to see. It is a good idea to have a blank card to put behind the cards as they are drawn, as students have been instructed to put much writing on the back. The person holding the card must now try to get his teammates to say the word on the card. He may not say the word himself, nor any part of it. He must think of clues in the way of synonyms, antonyms, sentences in context etc. (Much body language seems to also take place.) If his teammates do guess correctly, the card is placed face up on the table and equals one point for the group. If his teammates cannot guess after a reasonable length of time, the card goes back to the bottom of the deck. The player giving clues has one minute to elicit responses. He may give clues to as many cards as he can in one minute. When the teacher calls time, the student on the left of the last one who was it, now has one minute to get fellow students to guess the next vocabulary word. Play should go on at least until all players have had a turn. The winning team will have accrued the most points. I have found this to be a high energy fast paced way to raise the overall level of student involvement. Another plus is that the students love it. So get your students to put some vocabulary on their keychains!