Five easy ideas to help your IB DP learners with vocabulary learning

Elemi International Schools Publisher share some simple strategies to boost vocabulary learning.

Vocabulary work is often something your learners are expected to do independently – some of course, have no problem, but others find it quite challenging. On top of that, they often struggle to retain the vocabulary they learn into grammatically and syntactically correct sentences in their extended writing. Of course, it’s worth them persisting with their vocabulary learning, since research has proven that intentional learning through bilingual lists can lead to better recall.

So how can we encourage our learners to constantly revisit their vocab book or lists – thereby allowing more opportunities for recycling - which is so crucial to retention, and at the same time, help them operate in the four skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking? Here are a few practical suggestions for classroom activities:

1. Suite logique (Follow-up)

In class: When doing work on collocations, select phrases/sentences from the vocab book (or list) with which students are already familiar. Read out the beginning of the phrase/sentence and ask them to say or write (using whiteboards) what they think will follow. Accept all possibilities that make sense.

For example, for the topic Les communautés expatriées:

You: avoir le mal                                              Students: ► du pays

You: les citadins aiment faire un retour           Students: ► aux sources

You: on se sent déraciné et on perd               Students: ► ses repères

2. Au suivant! (Next!)

At home: Students prepare by working on a section of their vocab book/list, possibly a theme which needs revisiting.

In class: Divide the class into two teams. The aim is to make sentences that are relevant to the topic, using the vocabulary revised. A student from team A says the first word of the sentence; a student from team B must then follow with another word; then back to team A for a third word, and so on, until a whole sentence is made. The team with the last word wins (which will encourage students to make extended sentences).

For example, for the topic Les avantages d’un monde connecté:

Team A: L’internet

Team B: L’internet permet

Team A: L’internet permet de

Team B: L’internet permet de travailler

Team A: L’internet permet de travailler à

Team B: L’internet permet de travailler à domicile et

Team A: L’internet permet de travailler à domicile et de

Team B: L’internet permet de travailler à domicile et de communiquer

Team A: L’internet permet de travailler à domicile et de communiquer avec

Team B: L’internet permet de travailler à domicile et de communiquer avec sa

Team A: L’internet permet de travailler à domicile et de communiquer avec sa famille.

3. Soleil de phrases (Sun sentences)

At home: Students revise a selection of phrases from a list of ‘show off’ or ‘wow’ phrases. (These are phrases that you know will really show off what they know and help them achieve more marks in their assessments.) Ideally, these are phrases/expressions which are transferable across topics, such as sentence starters, opinion phrases, or more advanced grammatical features.

(For a free download of suggested ‘show off’ phrases in French suitable for IB Diploma French B learners, go to www.elemi-isp.com.) 

In class: Draw a sun on the board (the number of rays should correspond to the number of topics you want covered). Students in pairs or groups write a sentence for each of the rays using the ‘show off’ phrase you wrote in the centre of the sun. 

C’est inadmissible que ► l’on puisse envisager le clonage humain.

C’est inadmissible que ► tant de gens doivent compter sur l’action de bénévoles pour se nourrir.

4. Zapping (Switch over!)

At home: Students learn a section of their vocabulary book/list which you have selected to prepare them for work on a new topic or to recycle a topic previously visited.

In class: Divide the class into two teams. Each team plays for a few minutes then you switch over to the other team.

Start with team A: read out words/phrases/sentences from the section of the vocabulary book/list in French and ask students to translate them into English. Stop after five minutes, for example, and note the number of correct translations and award points. Keep a note of which sentences were not translated correctly.

Then switch over to Team B: read out the same words/phrases/sentences but this time the English side and ask students to translate them into French. (Team B will do well to listen to what you say with Team A!) Stop after the same amount of time and note the number of correct translations given.

Read the words/phrases/sentences that were not translated correctly and students from both teams can race to translate them to increase their score. This can be played differently, with switching from one team to the other each time a word/phrase/sentence is translated incorrectly.

5. L’imposteur (Interloper)

At home: Ask students to study a specific section in the vocab book/list. They then write down sentences from that section, changing one element of each sentence.

In class: Students read out their sentence and the class (in teams) try and spot the difference to the original phrase/sentence.

For example, for the topic L’identité culturelle: la francophonie

Original phrase: Le français est valorisé aux dépens des langues maternelles et cela crée du ressentiment.

Students write ► Le français est valorisé aux dépens des langues maternelles et cela crée de bons sentiments.

Class finds the imposteur (► de bons sentiments) and provides a replacement.

Examples given are for French, but the ideas will work for any language, of course. I hope that these few suggestions may prove helpful to students who struggle with remembering vocabulary from word lists, by engaging them and providing them with ways to boost their recall through meaningful fun. Danièle Bourdais, FrenchMatters (author, consultant, and tutor)

Danièle is the author of A-Z for French B and A-Z for French Ab Initio, published by Elemi International Schools Publisher. These books provide essential vocabulary and language carefully curated and organised by topic for IB Diploma learners. Sample pages available on the Elemi website.

Vocabulary books also available for Spanish, German, and English B – with Japanese and Italian coming soon!