Before looking at this just remind yourself of what happens when you ask students whether they understand a word or not. Most students will say yes or stare at you blankly and so we need to check the students’ understanding of lexical items.
We can use:
VISUALS
It is usually much easier to show the meaning of a word rather than try to explain it.
e.g.or consider more abstract representations: XXXXXXX
Angry
.
MIME AND GESTURE
e.g. actions, feelings,
Not only done by the teacher but also by the student to see if the students have understood. Think about a game like Simon says..
EXPLANATION AND DEFINITION
Often in textbooks there are exercises such as matching definitions to the items, labeling games etc.
SYNONYMS AND ANTNONYMS
These are very helpful for finding out whether students have understood or not for example instead of asking students what a word means you can say ‘Do you know the opposite or near opposite or a similar word to..?’. Even if their answer is not exact it makes it clear whether the student has an idea of the word or not.
In exercises you might want students to do a matching activity i.e. opposites or synonyms.
TRANSLATIONS
Some coursebooks ask students to translate the words they have learnt into their own language for homework. You could experiment with this but I am sure you can see the shortcomings.
CONCEPT CHECK QUESTIONS
Another way of checking students’ understanding.
Angry- When do I feel this?
Do I like this feeling?
Is it positive or negative?
USING DICTIONAIRIES IN THE CLASS
It’s a very good idea to get students used to using English/English dictionaries so that they can find the exact definitions rather than L1/English; again this checks students’ understanding.
TEACHING STUDENTS HOW TO WORK OUT MEANING FROM THE CONTEXT.
This will help you check they understand. Students read a text and then you select words that the students define from the context. This is usually a task for higher levels.