En elblogdetrinity.com recomendamos una variedad de ejercicios y buenas prácticas para la preparación de los exámenes de Trinity College London. En esta ocasión Richard Bradley (Teacher Trainer - Trinity College London Approved Service provider Spain and Portugal) compartirá una serie de post con recomendaciones y pautas muy interesantes para poner en práctica en clase.

TOPIC 9 - The vocabulary sorting activity (pre-A1-C2 level)

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What?  The vocabulary sorting activity (pre-A1-C2 level). 

How?  For preparation the names (or pictures) of many common animals (domestic, farm and wild), are printed on cards. (This is GESE grade 1 lexis).  I suggest having the animal names written in the plural as it helps with grammatical accuracy in the activity.

On the whiteboard/screen the teacher shows a small number of animals and elicits one of two ways that the animals could be divided into groups.  E.g. Pets/non-pets. Or dangerous/not dangerous.  In small groups the students think of other ways the animals could be divided into groups.  This is where children`s imaginations really shine.  I have done this activity with young learners using many different lexical groups and was constantly surprised at their ideas.  In the case of animals they might come up with animals we like/don`t like, edible/non-edible, cuddly/not cuddly, with teeth/without teeth…the list is endless.  Each group is then given a pack of cards with far more animals than have been shown on the whiteboard/screen.  The students have to choose their favourite sorting method and divide the cards accordingly.  A photo could be taken of the sorted cards before they are mixed up again and sorted in a different way.  I suggest this would also be an appropriate time to introduce the use of a Venn diagram, so that the children can express non-verbally the fact that an animal belongs in more than one category.  To give the activity a creative outcome each group could make a poster showing one of their sorting methods.

This activity could be very effective at any level.  For example at GESE grade 11 one of the list B subject areas for the conversation phase is international events.  Simply having a list of international events which the students have to put into their own sub-groups would be a great introduction to a discussion.  Or if a complex text is to be studied, certain words from the text could be written on cards which the students would place into groups.  Lots of thinking, for example prediction, would take place.   

Why?  The more decisions the learner makes about a word, and the more demanding these decisions are (Has it got teeth, or has it not got teeth?) the better the word is remembered.  Putting words to use in an interesting way will help them to move to long-term memory.  Making personalised judgements about a word, e.g. I like snakes, makes it more likely that learners will be able to recall the word at a later stage.  Basically the more we do with words, the more we play with words, for example just moving them around on a table, the more likely we are to remember them.  

The class is divided into groups and each group receives a pack of cards.