Tag Archives: video lesson

Revisiting a “Horizontal” Lexical Activity -“The Egghunt”

Words.

Lots of words.

Lists of words.

Words for the students and words for me:

It’s the “Why”, the “Which”, the “How” and the “When” of vocabulary acquisition for EFL students that I need to carefully consider and plan for when I teach.  In order to do that effectively, I need all the information, support, and inspiration I can get, from the experts.

Experts such as the one-and-only Batya Laufer, from Haifa University,  who will be presenting at the upcoming ETAI 2023 International Conference & Mediterranean SymposiumHer plenary talk Lexical Targets: Why they are necessary and how they can be implemented” will be targeting those pesky “WH Questions”!

Targeting vocabulary? Naomi’s Photos

The updated activity I am sharing today was inspired by previous sessions at ETAI Conferences,  from another amazing speaker at the upcoming conference, Leo Selivan, aka “Lexical Leo”. His clear and practical conference talks have inspired many a lesson in my classes.

Here is an updated version of “The Egghunt”, created with Leo Selivan’s post Horizontal Alternatives to Vertical Lists in mind.

See you at ETAI!

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The Egghunt

This activity was designed to focus on vocabulary presented not according to semantic sets, (transportation, colors, food etc.), which is the vertical approach, but rather by introducing the words with other words they go with (horizontally).

I chose a short animated film that I feel is age-appropriate (elementary school) and suitable for use in schools.

I then wrote a list of twenty-three vocabulary items that either relate to or appear in the film.

All but three of these words appear in the Ministry of Education’s approved word list. These three words are needed in this context (they are marked with an asterisk in the word list below).

The decision to have all the activities connected to the film is grounded in a belief that what is made memorable is learned best. I do this often with homework assignments for my own students, with various language elements I’m trying to teach, not just vocabulary. The visuals in films (I always use ones without dialogue, my students don’t hear well!) supply a clear context.

 

1) Here’s the list of vocabulary items FOR THE TEACHER:

Egg buy Take care! hungry
Caveman* Hunt * Be careful! long
Spear* fall That’s not fair! angry
film smile How many sad
food watch sure
another break true
see

 

2. Here is the pre-reading activity for the students. Click on the title below to get a downloadable PDF.

Egghunt:  Pre-Reading Activity

3) The animated film (no dialogue, remember?)

4) Questions related to the film embedded in the film, courtesy of Edpuzzle. Edpuzzle has made it so much easier to work with film!

 

Confused: Teaching Vocabulary “Horizontally” or “In Context”?

 

Out of context (but pretty!) I took this one!
Out of context (but pretty!)
I took this one!

Now that I have completed my first installment of an activity set related to the word list appearing in the updated curriculum, I feel confused by terminology.

I approached the preparation of  this first set of activities for tutors of children who struggle with vocabulary acquisition in class (with a hearing loss or not) with Leo Selivan’s post Horizontal Alternatives to Vertical Lists in mind.

My goal was to work on the vocabulary not according to semantic sets, (transportation, colors, food etc.), which is the vertical approach, but rather teach the words with other words they go with (horizontally). I hope it will aid retention.

I chose a short animated film that I feel is age appropriate (elementary school) and suitable for use in schools. It is the centerpiece of the activity set. The I then decided upon 23 vocabulary items that relate /appear in the film. The activities you see below present and practice these items in different ways. Additional activities may be added later.

The decision to have all the activities connected to the film is grounded in a belief that what is made memorable is learnt best. I do this often with homework assignments for my own students, with many elements I’m trying to teach, not just vocabulary. The visuals in films (I always use ones without dialogue!) add a powerful element.

This decision led me to add three words that do not appear in the Ministry of Education’s word list. They are needed in this context (they are marked with an asterisk).

Which leads me back to my original question.

Have I simply put the words in context and not taught them horizontally? I feel the two terms overlap a great deal, but  perhaps there is a specific emphasis I should be adding?

I need to figure this out before continuing to create a new set of activities for this very long list of vocabulary items.

The Egghunt

1) Here’s the list of vocabulary items FOR THE TEACHER:

Egg buy Take care! hungry
Caveman* Hunt * Be careful! long
Spear* fall That’s not fair! angry
film smile How many sad
food watch sure
another break true
see

2. Here is the lead-in activity for the students. It must be done BEFORE watching the film.

3) The animated film (no dialogue, remember?)


4) Questions related to the film embedded in the film, courtesy of Edpuzzle. Edpuzzle has made it so much easier to work with film. Now that the activities are embeddable I can use them for my counseling job (with students I don’t teach or meet), not just with my own. They keep updating the possible ways to use the films and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s coming next.

5) A dustbin classifying game using ClassTools.net

http://www.classtools.net/widgets/dustbin_2/NOwZV.htm

Thanks to Chiew Pang and his wealth of resources for introducing me to the game.

6) A set of the vocabulary items on Quizlet.com

http://quizlet.com/44000574/egghunt-vocabulary-flash-cards/

7) A “search-a-word” online activity which is temporary because I’m not pleased with the results. I may perhaps go back to the printed version as it didn’t limit me to so few words. Still thinking about that one.

http://www.proprofs.com/games/word-search/egghunt-vocabulary/

Here is a printable verison of this with QR codes.
Egghunt QR codes English