Erin Bouma's Recommended
VOCABULARY
This column focuses on learning and practicing new vocabulary and other interesting lexical material.
VIDEO
http://www.englishmedialab.com/elementaryvideos.html
Simple vocabulary videos (with audio) introducing words and then offering short dialogues. Topics: How do you help at home? Buying vegetables, Food & quantity, What are you wearing? Where is the Printer? How do I get to the station?
http://www.englishmedialab.com/higherlevels.html
Intermediate level introducing vocabulary (with audio) and useful phrases: Where are my travel documents? What place are we going to visit? Summer vacation activities.
www.englishmedialab.com/vocabulary.html
26 Vocabulary-based video lessons. With further quizzes on Alternative medicine, Verb opposites, Culture Questions, Money and Banking, Descriptions, etc.
INTERACTIVE SITES
English vocabulary quizzes with pictures.
This site displays simple vocabulary in categories such as: nouns, buildings, sports, body
parts, clothes, verbs and adjectives. If you get one wrong, you get another chance at the
end. Gives you a score.
English Vocabulary Games with Pictures
Here you can check your speed of recognition and reading (matching displayed word to pic).
Seven game variations (some harder than others) for each category, such as: Animals, food
& drink, house, transport.
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone
English Language Centre Study Zone
There are 5 levels of exercises (grammar, reading, vocabulary, puzzles) from “200”
(low intermediate), to “570” (advanced). Exercises include skimming, cloze, etc.
www.esltower.com/VOCABSHEETS/olympics/olympics.html
Olympic Games worksheets for sports
www.teachnology.com/worksheets/language_arts/vocab
A wealth of classroom worksheets (intermediate level and up) for many grade levels, on lang. topics, but also science, social studies, history and holidays. Also gapped stories.
www.languageguide.org/english/eng or www.languageguide.org/english/ru (for Russian interface)
The English here is American and audio is provided. Visuals by category: many animal groups, the car, baby, religion, medicine, fantasy 1 & 2 (fairy tales and Halloween), and some detail vocabulary, as well.
http://www.esltower.com/vocabulary.html
Lots of printable vocabulary worksheets on many topics, beginning and intermediate level. Topics include: housework, health & sickness, computer parts, musical instruments, weather, phrasal verbs and prefixes and suffixes.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol40/no2/p34.htm#top
“Vocabulary Practice Games,” FORUM Magazine by Shalva Shaptoshvili (Georgia).
9 creative approaches for classroom fun: word association, miming, chains, exaggeration,
etc.
INFORMATIVE, NON-INTERACTIVE
http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/britishcanadianamericanvocab.html
Karen’s Linguistic Issues. This large resource helps you find the comparable term in
the 3 variants of English. Listing based alphabetically on British terms.
ex: Brit-stockings, Can-nylons, Amer-nylons; Brit-smack, Can-spank, Amer-spank.
Good for fun or travel. “Talk like the locals in cities around the world.” The current Slang of Athens, London, Beijing, New York (Big Apple), Havana, Hollywood and many more places. If the local language is not English, it is given in transcription.
A site devoted to “lexpionage”, introducing new words and phrases appearing
recently in printed sources, with explanations and examples.
Microboredom: boredom caused by having nothing to do over a short period of time; empty
moments.
Staycation: a stay-at-home-vacation.