Breanna's three step method

Another one of my Spanish 1 students, Breanna, has a great way to learn her vocabulary:

1. Make flash cards, the English side should be blue while the Spanish side should be red. The color red or a bright color should symbolize the word you want to know.
2. Start practicing spelling your Spanish words. Write the English and then write the Spanish word three times beside it.
3. Go through your cards and give yourself a mini quiz. You should have two piles; the 'I don't know' pile and the 'I know' pile. Keep doing this until you have all the cards in the 'I know' pile.

What a fabulous way to take charge of your learning! Excellent work, Breanna!

Samantha's ringed flash cards

Samantha has a great strategy for learning vocabulary. She describes her process as follows:

• On the front, or blank side of the card I put the word in Spanish just how it appears in my textbook. 
• Then in the upper left corner I put that card's number.
• In the lower left corner I put what set it is (A, B, C. And this is an organizational preference).
• Turning the card over I then put the English meaning on the lined side as best centered as possible. 
• Once I have completed all of my flashcards like this, I hole punch a hole in the lower right hand corner of all the cards. I put the hole in that corner because it is much easier to flip the cards from back to front this way and it helps me to study the cards better trying to learn the Spanish way.

What a great example! The ring keeps the cards from getting lost, and reviewing words in the same order helps with internalizing the vocabulary. Way to go, Samantha!

Teaching Vocabulary

As a foreign language teacher, I love words; I always have. When my 10th grade English teacher passed out a 1,000 word list of SAT words, I smiled. I spent hours studying Greek vocabulary cards as a Greek major in college. I still have both that cherished list and the flash cards in a box at home. But I'm a word geek, so I'm drawn to activities like these.

With my classes, I wonder what is the best way to teach vocabulary? Students who know the words well do better on the various assessments I give. Yet, where is the balance between using instructional time so that students can memorize vocabulary and practicing those same terms?

I ask students to complete either lists or flash cards for our upcoming chapter after the previous chapter's exam. I integrate the new vocabulary into our lessons, through videos, audio activities, songs, and conversations. If a student has been studying the words at home, the in-class lessons sink in more and have a greater benefit. I try to let them have time at the end of class (at least once or twice a chapter) to review their flash cards with a partner. We turn it into a game where they see who can end up with the most cards.

I've asked several of my students who have found some great strategies for vocabulary learning to share those with me. I will be posting those this coming week.