Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Having a large vocabulary is the key to your students’ success in every four skills on an IELTS exam. They need vocabulary-building exercises as well as enough exposure to the words they’re learning; Activities such as listening to the radio, watching movies, extensive reading, or joining conversations are great for students’ vocabulary development. With a large vocabulary, they can comprehend the listening & reading tasks easier; and a powerful vocabulary is a versatile tool that enables learners to successfully pass both writing and speaking tests.
Let’s see what “you” can do for your students to help them improve their vocabulary.
Install a vocabulary application and use it together
You may have noticed your students constantly check their phones even during serious sessions like IELTS prep courses; So why don’t you grab the opportunity to optimize learning the long list of IELTS vocabulary together on a single application? There are a plethora of vocabulary applications available online that you can choose from. Applications such as WordUp take advantage of technological innovations & the best scientifically proven methods to help students to learn more words in the least possible time. WordUp has the list of all the essential vocabulary needed for any exam; Besides, If you join the WordUp Certified Coach Program, you will be granted several opportunities both for you and for your students; While you will get a WordUp eagle membership, your students also can enjoy discounts. This program starts with an online course that covers all you need to know about vocabulary learning and teaching; it will also enable you to keep track of your student’s progress.
Identify students’ level
Students who join IELTS courses often are upper-intermediate; You need detailed information about the words they actively use and the ones they need to practice to be activated; I want to introduce another feature of WordUp that can be helpful in this case; WordUp is the first application of its kind to introduce Knowledge Map. It’s a personalized plan for each starting with an engaging and funny placement test that identifies the vocabulary size of your students. After the test, the rank of each individual will be identified on a list of 25000 most common English words, and the journey will then begin! They will be involved with vocabulary regularly daily and you can monitor their progress.
Have students master each word thoroughly
Nowadays everyone can access the list of essential IELTS vocabulary on a lot of different websites, applications, and books. But it’s a waste of time trying to convince your students to just memorize all the words. Knowing a word is more than memorizing its dictionary definition and no IELTS examiner asks to define any word. Learners should immerse themselves in lots of contextual examples for any single word to be able to retrieve it in any exam and use it actively in their writing (with proper grammar and spelling) and speaking (with correct pronunciation and intonation). WordUp uses AI algorithms to bring over 10 million videos from the most popular YouTube channels to help everyone learn a word in context and to use it efficiently: Another good reason to introduce it to your students and join our Certified Coach program!
Teach what matters most
Many learners who want to pass the IELTS exam are busy grown-ups that most of them have a job and may also attend college at the same time. They don’t have enough time to waste on random words; So you should try to focus only on teaching the essential IELTS vocabulary and make sure they’re making progress. Here again, WordUp is a great help! It has a list of essential IELTS (and any other exam) vocabulary. Learners can mark each word on the “IELTS” list as “already knew” & “ should learn” and continue to learn the words regularly and daily.
Active reading and listening
Anyone ambitious enough to get a good mark on IELTS should pay close attention to what they’re reading and listening and they should try to seek out and identify new words while reading and listening and use them productively. As a teacher, you can try to teach them how to actively engage themselves in reading and listening.
Review the learned words on an optimal schedule
Practice always does not make perfect! You may be surprised but scholars found that our memory system works better with some specific patterns in reviewing what is learned! They even had offered an optimal reviewing schedule known as “spaced-repetition”: Reviewing information at systematic intervals. At the beginning of the learning process, the information is reviewed at close intervals (in hours after learning), then the intervals become systematically longer. (3 days, one week, 2 weeks, etc.). This technique is especially useful for those preparing for exams such as IELTS; You can apply it in your teaching activities, and review the words in a more efficient schedule. Strangely enough, WordUp is also based on the Spaced-repetition method for reviewing words. It reminds the words users just learned using the best spaced-review schedule until they learn every single word for life!
To make a long story short, students learn more vocabulary by hearing it used in conversation and being active participants in its use than they do from copying definitions out of a book. Applications that offer a wide range of features and are based on the best scientific methods can have a great contribution to vocabulary development. So it seems that practice plus the smart application will definitely make perfect! Even if it seems impossible, anybody can pass any exam using smart ways!
