A look at traditional review and Note-taking vs. Mindmaps!!

Observing students in class writing down the new vocabulary that comes up, more often than not, a student will write down the new word with the translation in his own language next to it. Of course, writing things down is necessary if you want to review later. But at the end of one lesson, the student has a couple of pages of new words that are completely at random – apple, happy, gun, gloat, keyboard, violet, etc. Impossible to retain a list of words like this. Even if you tried to memorise them, the fact that they are irrelevant to each other makes it difficult to remember them. So, what can we do as educators? My answer is: A LOT.

Stimulating students to use mind maps to make "vocabulary networks" is a better way to help them retain new vocabulary items. This involves writing a single word, your theme, in the centre of the page and linking words that go with it. Let's take "theft" as an example. Draw a line from the word "theft" to a new bubble with a description in it - "Theft from a bank" - then write the word "robbery" next to it. Then the word for the person, "robber", the verb, "to rob".

You can continue to fill the page with "shoplifting", "mugging", "pick pocketing", "burglary", etc, noting all the related words you can think of. Use a dictionary to find the words in the language you are studying. Now you have a page of words that are relevant to each other, thus making them easier to recall when you are talking in your new language. Mind-maps are even more effective if you add little drawings and lots of colour - your brain likes to be entertained!

A very nice tool to get your students started is available at www.text2mindmap.com. This site is a web application that converts text to mind map. You simple input your list of keywords and Text to Mind Map (Text2MindMap) will draw a mind map for you.

Have a try! I highly recommend using it for review classes before final tests!

Source: eslbase.com

THE RING GAME! Let’s play!

Objectives of the Game: Catch the person with the ring. This game can be used to practice or review vocabulary or grammar. If the teacher wants a more controlled practice he may prepare some questions in advance. If he wishes to use for warm-up or wrap-up than the students’ production can be free.
Items Needed: 1 ring, any kind.
Directions: Pick one person to be "it" and everyone else makes a circle around the person. The "it" person closes their eyes while they count to 10. The others pass the ring to the student beside him, hiding it in their hands, and the "it" person, after counting, opens their eyes and tries to guess who has the ring. It the “it” person guesses who is holding the ring, he chooses the next person to be “it”. If the student doesn’t guess he has to answer a question or perform a simple task like: say a word you learned from today’s lesson. Then the person who was actually holding the ring will be “it”. I love playing this game as wrap-up but it can be easily adapted to any other moment of the lesson. Hope you have lots of fun with your students!