Teaching Vocabulary to Children materials Children pick up new words at an amazing pace in both their first and second language and they can understand the concept of words well before the concept of grammar. They are interested in the meaning and function of the new language more holistically, in order to play a game, sing a song, or act out a story. The teacher, therefore, should present the vocabulary as varied as possible. He can first introduce things children can see, feel, play with, touch, and experience every day. Meaning can be made apparent without the use of the first language. Teachers can use toys, such as dolls to present parts of the body, or puppets to act out a dialogue. They can also use classroom objects such as the desks, the pictures, and posters. When appropriate, teachers can bring in real objects such as apples, carrots, baskets, bags, hats, bottles, and cups. Pictures and picture cards are often supplied with young learners’ course books together with a set of games and exercises for use. These can also be made at home or teachers can ask children help to make them.
Techniques of explaining the meaning of new words to children By demonstration or pictures
. using an object
. using a cut-out figure
. using gesture
. performing an action
. using photographs
. drawing diagrams on the board
. pictures from books
. analytical definition (to these moving images, from TV, video or computer should be added) By verbal explanation
. putting the new word in a defining context(e.g. we use a pen to write)
. translating into another languageexplanations are useful when introducing abstract ideas such as ‘person’, ‘place’, etc.except (10) require the learner to do some mental work in constructing a meaning for the new foreign language word. The more learners have to think about a word and its meaning, the more likely they are to remember it. The immediate translation of a new word takes away from the child any need or motivation to think about the meaning of the foreign language word or to hold the new word in mind.need to hear a new word in isolation as well as in a discourse context, so that they can notice the sounds at the beginning and end, the stress pattern of the word, and the syllables that make up the word. For example, when explaining the word ‘tomato’:banana is a fruit.. Ba-na-na. It’s a banana.vocabulary should be accurate, and the child should be given enough information to prevent confusion.
