How do I help learners to increase their vocabulary?

One way to develop their language proficiency is to help learners to enlarge Chinese vocabulary. We suggest three that we use in our classes:

Take advantage of lexical characteristics.

Give choices.

Encourage correct use in context.

1.      Take advantage of lexical characteristics

For example, many Chinese phrases are interpretive, Words derive from other words. This kind of expansion of vocabulary is effortless. Don’t avoid it.

Verb to Noun 动词变为名词：如：

学→大学、大学生；中学、中学生、小学、小学生；

Verb to Adjective 动词变为形容词：如：

看→好看、不好看、难看；听→好听、不好听、难听。

2.      Give choices

K-12 learners don’t always like to repeat what other people are saying. Give them choices. Give them a list of vocabulary, let them select as many as they want to learn and use.

There are only minimum requirements, never maximum limits in language use. Students remember more solidly what they want to learn and ask for more when learning successfully.

3.      Encourage correct use in context

Encourage correct use in context by providing situations and language tasks in order to make leaning and vocabulary use meaningful. Encourage the use of words to express their personal feelings and stories. Connect teaching to their real-life situations. Through personal functional use, the words lead to their own self-expression.

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