Hello Teachers, here is a quick post on how to teach vocabulary online. First, an easy vocabulary game to play in your online classrooms (or real classrooms). The following game is perfect for beginners or any level where you want to enforce or revise vocabulary.

How to Play

First, students draw a grid with eight squares. Then, students write eight different vocabulary words into those squares from a list of words you provide. Now randomly call the vocabulary words from your list. Meanwhile, whenever students hear a word on their grid, they cross it out. The first student to cross everything out wins a prize.

Topics

This game works for any topic, including business English. For example, topics might be common vocabulary words for beginners, to specific business English topics such as aviation, customer service, social media, marketing, medicine, and so on.

Easy ideas for prizes

– Make teams, award points, and keep score.

– If you plan to meet pupils face to face later, consider making a tangible gift. It should be inexpensive and ecological because it’s just a symbolic, easy gift, like a tangerine when in season.

– Send a surprise online gift that changes each time. For instance, one sudoku to do in their free time, a recipe to try at home, instructions for an origami, an invitation to show a photo to the class, or a quiz question.

– Ask the class to submit five ideas each for simple prizes. First, give examples as above. Then, students can find the prize – to save the teacher time. Finally, collect these and use them in the game.

Grammar

Naturally, this game may be used to teach grammar by placing vocabulary words in a sentence. For example, say you are working on the present tense, use the vocabulary word in a sentence in the present tense each time. As a result students hear the word in context, and repeatedly hear the tense you are studying.