This week’s phone difficulties have been resolved, but I didn’t have the opportunity to video my vocabulary sections of teaching time. Usually I feel comfortable teaching vocabulary, and find my interests in storytelling and reading an asset to my MIC techniques. Perhaps it was arrogance, but I expected to “need” to learn less about vocabulary teaching than teaching other areas of proficiency; of course, I found that to be manifestly untrue. In a time-crunch situation, which is USUALLY the situation in our 40-minute curriculum-driven classes, I often spend less actual time teaching vocabulary and try to find ways to make words vibrant in order for students to remember easily.

In one particular second-year kindergarten class, conversation teachers are supporting Korean teachers by teaching out of a Phonics 4 book. We teach songs and writing/reading/listening activities that build understanding of high-level phonics for Korean aged eight-year-olds. One unfortunate part of this curriculum is the book’s usage of relatively obscure words to teach phonics blends. How many beginner EFL learners will know the word “hare” or verb “bear” at age eight? The lesson , a –are/-ere/-air/-ear focused lesson, included dozens of such words that would be a new experience for most native-English speakers. Of course, those students would be more likely to grasp concepts quickly since explanation of could be made easy through using OTHER familiar words to explain unknowns.

In my case, I try to cut frustration by playing a “freeze” game when learning new phonics words. Since this is less than HALF of my 40 minute lesson’s objective (I teach from an additional conversation book) I must manage time and move quickly. Since my objective for the phonics section is two-fold –1)  to teach the phonics blends, assisting students in recognizing and distinguishing spellings and usages while 2)  making unfamiliar vocabulary familiar – I need to move quickly. I usually feel a bit hampered by time and unable to do many comprehension checks.

On this occasion, we sang the “Catch the Bear” song for the book unit, and I used the blackboard to elicit student answers for words with our featured phonics blends. We made lists of words from the song, and words they remembered from other sources. Some students gave wrong answers based on spelling similarity, so we compared and corrected those together. Next, I played the book CD and asked the students to follow along, pointing to the words and repeating pronunciation. When they reached an unfamiliar word, they shouted “FREEZE!” and I’d stop the CD and we’d discuss the word. I used the blackboard to draw certain concepts and compare spellings, such as in AIR- sounding and EER-sounding    “-ear” words. When we encountered a word that could be made comprehensible by physical demonstration, I’d ask them questions like, “Do you have fair hair?” and have them compare classmates’ and teachers’ hair, or demonstrate “stare” to each other.

Time was short, but even so, I could feel and see my students lagging and tiring from too much input. I thought a lot about what the readings suggested for keeping lists short, and I think in succeeding lessons, I’ll break study of the weekly word list into several days, even though students will encounter some of those words in daily writing/listening activities. Sheer volume of input doesn’t help them absorb. If I do daily comprehension check for vocabulary and recycle phonics word vocabulary during a two-minute quiz time or some such activity, I might be able to help them retain learned words.