Chat on Twitter

   

     I joined ELTchat on Wednesday. It discussed ways to help our learners record new vocabulary in the classroom. I like this topic since when you learn a new language, vocabulary is the foundation. However, students feel headache and bored when they memorize new words.    

      I agree with some teachers' opinions that students are given little vocabulary books in which they record new stuff in, but she is unsure how much they learn from that. Some teachers also notice that learners make endless lists of random words or phrases that they never actually use. She give an example of a student who spend ages looking for a word she had noted down but could not recall. Honestly, I have the same experience when I was in middle school and high school. I wrote down every new word I learned everyday. However, when I reviewed them, I could just recall 30 to 40 percent of them. With time passing by, I realize that I don't need to memorize all of the vocabularies which I encounter, especially at the beginning learning stage. Since some words are seldom used in daily life and academics. So now I will suggest my friends who just came to America with low English level to remember the words from daily conversation and put them into context and practice.  I also learned a lot of new and useful tools and apps to record and organize new words from this chat like Quizelet, Kahoot, Plickers and Memrise. 

     Another thing I like ELTchat is that I feel I am a part of this community since every Saturday, one of the moderators will put up a blog post on the #ELTchat Blog asking teachers who follow #ELTchat to propose some topics for the next chats. Then people can go to the post and suggest topics in the comments. On Sunday evening, the moderators turn that into an online poll and everyone can vote on the website until Wednesday morning. The top two become this weeks #ELTChat. Maybe someday people will discuss the topic which I suggest. However, I feel the topics discussed on ELTchat are very helpful and practical for teachers. I can always update my thoughts and learn a lot from people at the same field as mine from ELTchat.