3: Focus on vocabulary - Top 5 Tips for teaching low level conversation classes

49 ESL Conversation Games & Activities - Jackie Bolen 2020

3: Focus on vocabulary
Top 5 Tips for teaching low level conversation classes

One of the main reasons that students cannot converse freely is that they lack the vocabulary to be able to do so. In my experience, this is a far bigger problem for absolute beginners than lack of grammatical knowledge.

Think about your own experiences in learning a language—I'm sure you knew what you wanted to say and perhaps even knew the grammar construction that you needed to use but probably just couldn't access that elusive, but necessary word. If you spend some time each class teaching even a few new words to your students, it will be time well spent.

However, be careful not to overwhelm students with too many because then they won't actually remember anything! I find that the ideal amount is five new words per class, which is an amount that anyone can remember quite easily and it's also often possible to maintain these until the next class. Of course, review words periodically as well so that they remain in the student's working memory and are more readily accessible to them when needed.