Episode Transcript
Ixchell Reyes (00:00)
Your students want to improve their vocabulary, but your class isn’t focused on vocab acquisition. How do you help them? We’re discussing options on this episode of the DIESOL Podcast.
Brent Warner (00:27)
Welcome to the DIESOL podcast where we focus on developing innovation in English as a second or other language. I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL and I’m here with the cheerful Ixchell Reyes. How are you Ixchell? This is what happens when I start reading the script and you’re like, I’m just going to pretend like I’m voice mouthing your thing. All right, so we’re going to get to it.
Ixchell Reyes (00:43)
Always. Cheerful!
Hahaha
Brent Warner (00:56)
So ⁓ Ixchell we, so last time we did an episode dedicated to vocabulary was episode two. It’s a long while. That’s a real, ⁓ it’s more than five years ago. I think we started in six or seven. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, so it’s been a while. ⁓ We should probably should keep track of that. How long we’ve been doing this. But anyways. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (01:03)
It’s been a while. Episode 2! Episode 2! That’s like 5 years ago. Yeah, that’s like 6- yeah, we started in 2019.
Brent Warner (01:24)
Yeah, so vocabulary, we’re back on it. ⁓ It’s fun for us to sometimes just do these like kind of bread and butter conversations, right? Like the nuts and bolts of English language teaching. so, yeah, so we kind of just said, hey, let’s take a little bit of a look at vocabulary. I think we’ve talked about this before a little bit, but one thing that really happens with vocabulary teach or with regular.
Ixchell Reyes (01:29)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (01:50)
English language teaching classes as we get into our other content. whether it be grammar, writing, y’know, speaking things. then it’s like vocabulary feels like it takes up a lot of time, right? It’s like, OK, I’m going to spend all this time explaining one word. But at the same time, students really need that, right? Like they need they need the time to build their vocabulary. They need the exposure to the words, all of these things. And so I think that maybe teachers kind of.
Ixchell Reyes (02:09)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (02:18)
just kind of let it float and they say well let the students discover their own vocabulary words and then when I have it built into my lesson it’s fine but otherwise it’s kind of on them or you know there might just be different things going on with like adding one more thing to the lesson right
Ixchell Reyes (02:35)
Yeah, or on the other hand, you might be teaching vocabulary all the time that you forget. You get stuck in your ways that seem to work or seem more efficient for you. So I think it’s worth looking at other ways to support vocabulary. Thus, thus today’s episode. we know Brent. Is that re-diving right in?
Brent Warner (02:49)
Yeah, for sure, Thus.
Yeah,
we’re diving in. You can dive in first.
Ixchell Reyes (02:59)
We’re diving in! I am diving in! So
we know that students have to internalize their vocabulary in order for a word to become theirs. And I don’t know what the current research says about how many times the students have to experience a word, but I’m gonna guess it’s somewhere between 7 and 12? Something like that.
Brent Warner (03:18)
Mmm.
7 million and 12 million is what you’re saying. That’s how many times they have to hear it.
Ixchell Reyes (03:22)
I mean, I mean,
I mean, in order for them to become you is old.
Brent Warner (03:28)
For my brain these days, that’s what it takes, right? Yeah. Yeah, so real exposure,
seeing it, right? It kind of ties into that advertising mantra, like, they have to see the billboard. They have to see that the hamburger is up there a bunch of times before they’re tempted to go to it. Yeah, so same kind of concept here.
Ixchell Reyes (03:43)
Right.
Right. they also have to produce it, right? The more times that they’re producing it, ⁓ more likely it’s going to become a part of their lexicon. And we know that the goal is not necessarily perfect vocabulary, but usable vocabulary. So let’s talk a little bit about some basics. ⁓ Of course, we all know form, meaning, and use.
Brent Warner (03:56)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (04:11)
Students can memorize words, but do they actually know how to use it? you know, we usually we expect that teachers are going to model the form so that students recognize the word, know the word form. Is it a verb? Is it a noun? Is it an adjective? And ⁓ how it’s pronounced, where the intonation falls, what happens if the intonation changes? ⁓ Also, meaning, right?
Brent Warner (04:36)
Right, right.
Well, let’s hold on on that forum for a second because, I think this conversation too is like just one of the things. And again, this is, you know, kind of fundamental level conversation, but it is worth recognizing that like when we’re dealing with adults, we really do need to say, hey, this is an adverb. This is an adjective, right? We need to understand the structure of them for kids. They can, you know, they can absorb it. They can figure it out without understanding the structure. But we do want to always.
Ixchell Reyes (04:39)
Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Right, they’re acquiring.
Brent Warner (05:06)
Right. But as adults and part of the actual andragogy of the conversation, you need to be able to say, hey, this is actually what’s happening. This is the puzzle that you’re building. And then once you kind of recognize how this fits in, this puzzle fits in with other pieces, then you can plug it in across all the different puzzles of every sentence you build in the future. So clarifying that language does actually make a big difference to students so they can kind of determine, OK, hold on a second. Let’s figure out where that what type of word this is.
Ixchell Reyes (05:10)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (05:36)
then a lot of words to then make it easy to kind of go, okay, well, I guess if I understand that that’s the adverb, then this is probably the noun form or this is probably the other form, right? And so ⁓ building that understanding in, I know it’s fundamentals, I know for many people listening, they’re like, yeah, of course, right? ⁓ But just to kind of reinforce how important that is, ⁓ it is worth keeping in mind because sometimes I think, at least for me, I might get like, yeah, don’t worry, it’s fine, you’ll just get it. And it’s like, no, no, no, let’s be proactive about making
Ixchell Reyes (05:45)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (06:06)
making
sure that it is going to be very clear to the students.
Ixchell Reyes (06:11)
Right, and then you, this, if the student is not ⁓ comfortable with forms of the word, then they’re gonna trip up later because they’re just gonna try to plug things in and then they’re gonna get confused and frustrated because they don’t know. They just feel like the word should go there, but they don’t know why. So that’s actually very important. ⁓ Then of course we have meaning and this is where we normally ask comprehension questions, right?
Brent Warner (06:22)
That’s right.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (06:40)
⁓ to see whether the student understands the various meanings of a word and then what connotation the word might have, right? So ⁓ if I say scrawny, am I weak or strong? Right? Not just the definition of the word. I’m not scrawny.
Brent Warner (06:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
you
Right, right. But
also the nuance of them, right? Like because sometimes, so many times like students just, you know, they pick the first dictionary definition of a word and then that’s what they go with it. It’s like, well, hold on a second. One, there’s many different definitions to this word, right? But two, ⁓ are you understanding that the nuance is not just, you can’t just throw any thesaurus word in there and…
Ixchell Reyes (07:02)
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Brent Warner (07:23)
swap it right like sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t sometimes this meaning comes through sometimes we just don’t use that like in a collocation form right things like that and so ⁓ so those are just more things to pay attention to ⁓ and really useful for students because they don’t know what they don’t know right and so part of our work is to help clarify that for
Ixchell Reyes (07:25)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Right. And then again, to reiterate that the goal is not the perfect vocabulary. In other words, don’t know every single word in the English language, but usable vocabulary because if they find a word that is in their dictionary or two or three of their dictionaries, it doesn’t mean that we use it anymore.
Brent Warner (07:53)
I’m
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And so, and we’ll get it actually.
maybe I’ll jump into this just a little bit. We’ll jump out of order slightly here, Michelle, but in terms of choosing words, Because I think many of us kind of, if we’re given a textbook, we just use the words that are in the textbook, right? ⁓ Or maybe we have some sort of collection for ourselves is what we’re doing. But also just to remember and reminder, there are lots of word lists out there based on, ⁓ you know,
Ixchell Reyes (08:10)
Mm-hmm, go for it. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (08:34)
different ⁓ resources, whatever else it is, but there’s like the Oxford 3000 and the Oxford 5000, which are like the most common. ⁓
vocabulary words for everyday conversation. We’ll have links to these in the show notes. We’ve talked before about the academic word list, right? The most common words that come out of a corpus and in an academic setting for all of those things. So those could be some ways if you’re saying, well, which words should I be focusing on, right? Focus on the words that they’re going to be using the most commonly. So start with that 3,000 and then build up towards that 5,000, right? Not to say I’m telling you to teach 5,000 words in a semester or anything, but
Ixchell Reyes (08:43)
The high frequency.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (09:12)
⁓ you know, use that as a source. And then you can also, one other way to play with this for like, for word choices is student-built lists, right? So you can also have your students go out there and spend time, you know, they’re collecting words that they’re seeing or they’re not understanding and like have them put those words together on a list. And you can also use those and integrate them into your teaching as you go along as well.
Ixchell Reyes (09:15)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So that just ties us back to the, you know, form, meaning and use. Do the students understand which version to use in the appropriate context? And so the when, the where, the how, right? You’re going to agree, you’re going to use a different word if you’re speaking to someone of authority than if you’re speaking or writing to a friend. so, register.
Brent Warner (09:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, Yishel, you found a pretty cool ⁓ video series on ⁓ this stuff. I don’t know if you want to share about that.
Ixchell Reyes (10:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
so this is the, hang on, let me pop it here on this screen. So this is the Teacher Trainer React series. And it is, ⁓ so it’s on YouTube. I’ll have a link. But the Teacher Trainer React series has obviously teacher trainers reacting to a lesson demonstration by an instructor. And so they have all the different core.
Brent Warner (10:28)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (10:35)
subjects and they go through different strategies, but they do have a really good one on teaching vocabulary. And so ⁓ you’ll have the teacher demonstrating a technique and then the trainer reacting to it. And so it’s actually a really good refresher. mean, me as a teacher, I wish I had had this when I was doing my teacher training program, but with my pre-service teachers, I always go back to these and have them. ⁓ It’s sort of like they’re, they’re, they’re seeing someone else. ⁓
critique and that just ⁓ goes back to what I’ve taught them in the classroom. But it’s a very good refresher for all of the skills, but one for vocabulary and one, I think it’s in a 30 minute lesson, ⁓ they will show like four five different strategies. And I think that’s a really good resource. So that’s the Teacher Trainer React series on YouTube.
Brent Warner (11:30)
That’s great. And I think those teachers are like, CELTA and Delta certified teachers. so for anyone who’s not familiar with those programs, like those are hardcore, like they demand a lot of real deep pedagogical knowledge on these things and like to be able to pull it up really quickly. so they’re really talking from a great area of expertise inside of there. Really definitely worth working out. ⁓ And then, ⁓ shall I also had, ⁓ you know, another there was another video out there about pollination, you know,
Ixchell Reyes (11:34)
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (12:00)
He’s like, you know this expert on vocabulary and all these different things and
Ixchell Reyes (12:02)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (12:04)
so Not a huge deal, but I just kind of want to add it in there I thought one of the interesting things he said inside of there which I’m totally guilty of it’s like I’m just like let’s move forward like you got it you can figure out the rest of the time on your own right go do it that’s like for sure a bad teaching point that I need to work on and he
Ixchell Reyes (12:18)
We all
do that.
Brent Warner (12:20)
Yeah, and
he makes the argument that ⁓ a third of a lesson, a third of any lesson should be dedicated to reviewing material and it shouldn’t be about moving forward. And he says even it should either be the exact same way that you taught it the last time as a full on start over refresher or, you know, presenting the same information in new ways. But ⁓ being willing to say, like, hold on a second, the learning happens in the repetition, the learning happens in the exposure and the building of these things. Right.
and saying, therefore, a third of your class time actually is an appropriate amount of time to use these things, right? You might feel like you’re losing time, but actually, you’re gaining learning, or your students are gaining learning through all of that. And so just a point to be careful of and a point to be aware of. ⁓ If you’re anything like me and you’re like, let’s move forward. We got to do the next thing, right? And feeling like you have to catch up with everything, and especially vocabulary words, it’s like, no.
Ixchell Reyes (13:12)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (13:17)
let’s keep on coming back to this, right? How are you recycling ideas and bringing them back in and interleaving them into your lessons?
Ixchell Reyes (13:22)
Right.
Right. And then I wanted to offer two more resources for instructors looking to either kind of get new ideas or refresh their ideas. One ⁓ was from the teachingenglish.org website, which is our British Council website. And they do have a really good article on presenting vocabulary. A lot of it is what we’re talking about on the show, but it’s a kind of like a quick and dirty
Brent Warner (13:44)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (13:55)
list of ⁓ maybe I would print it out and have it right in front of me. And also because students need to see that. Like, ⁓ how do you use a word? What are the collocations? What affixes are related? Word families. And then ⁓ a reminder that there are many, there are multiple ways to describe a word to someone when you can’t say the meaning, you might have to mime it to the person you’re talking to. And yeah, we do that in class, but in the real world, sometimes the students blank out when they’re trying to discuss with someone.
Brent Warner (14:05)
Mmm.
Ixchell Reyes (14:24)
and they might have to find another way to explain the word, which is in itself a strategy for them to communicate. the other resource is from the TESOL.org blog. ⁓ And that’s another, again, it’s another article, but ⁓ I thought one thing that, ⁓ one point that it made is that we still do need to teach dictionary skills. I know that we’re not.
Brent Warner (14:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (14:51)
perhaps always using paper dictionaries anymore. But with so many different versions of online dictionaries, you don’t really know. I mean, of course, we hope that you offer ⁓ reliable resources to your students online. But sometimes students have already found one that they stick to and they swear by it and they’re sort of resistant to switching. So offering different options and also showing them, look, this is
Brent Warner (15:14)
Mmm.
Ixchell Reyes (15:17)
look at the differences in the entries, right? Because they’re going to follow a typical template for entries. And then knowing when something’s legit and something’s ⁓ like a slang dictionary, for example. We don’t want them to be using… What is that dictionary? my gosh, I can’t think of it right now. But I’ve had urban dictionary because some of my students will just stick to that one because it’s the first search when they search. Yeah.
Brent Warner (15:23)
Right.
you’re thinking about like urban dictionary or something like that.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Ixchell Reyes (15:45)
And of course, now you’re also using AI to define words, understanding that perhaps they can prompt their AI to give them a dictionary entry so that they are used to looking at that format. So those are resources. They’ll be in the show notes.
Brent Warner (16:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So check out all those things. Think carefully. I agree with that too, the dictionary, teaching them right. Like I often teach my students about the worst acronym to remember it, but the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, is L-D-O-C-E online or whatever. No, no, no, no, the actual, yeah, it’s like, okay, how do you get it?
Ixchell Reyes (16:07)
Mm-hmm.
The coca. No, that’s no, no, I’m thinking. Yeah, that’s the concordance. Yeah.
Brent Warner (16:27)
It’s you just have to bookmark it and save it, but it is contemporary English. So it’s not going to be a bunch of like old fashioned words. And then also trying to transition them out of, you know, their L1 to L2 dictionary usage and into, you know, just an English to English dictionary. So trying to help them figure out ways to do that. lots and lots of things to explore and to play with ⁓ for in terms of resources out there for making sure that you’re just kind of brushed up on your. ⁓
you know, your basic presentation of vocabulary words.
Ixchell Reyes (17:01)
Alright, so we want to say a big thank you to all of our viewers on YouTube. Now that we’re on video, we can see that you’re sharing the show and promoting it to others and that really helps us to grow and it helps other teachers find us. So thank you so much. Make sure you comment, like and subscribe. Did I do that right? ⁓
Brent Warner (17:20)
Yes. Wow. OK. Got to all
those things. Yes. I guess we should have been saying that stuff all along, right, regardless. So yeah. Awesome.
Ixchell Reyes (17:31)
All right, so what are some strategies that we can use, some tools that we can use to support vocabulary growth? So we’ve talked about this in the episode on icebreakers. I believe it was icebreakers, but this is ⁓ what I call, I just made this up, totally made this up. I call it alphabet soup.
Brent Warner (17:45)
Mm.
You
Ixchell Reyes (17:53)
And it’s basically a little warm up activity or review activity where I have the students stand in a circle. We talk about the alphabet, ⁓ which in itself they have to recognize the letters and the sounds and they have to be able to produce them, of course, but it’s kind of a low stakes activity. Then we go through a round of nouns and they have to review what a noun is, ⁓ what a proper noun is. And they have to
The goal is to reach the letter Z. So we go in order. A student will start with the letter A, give a noun with the letter A, the next student a noun with the letter B, and so on. But if they make a mistake and they give me a verb or a different word form or a word that does not exist, then we have to start from A again. And then we are not allowed to use any word that anyone else has already mentioned.
Brent Warner (18:43)
Mmm.
Ixchell Reyes (18:49)
So it does several things. They have to be listening, they have to be paying attention, and they have to be remembering. So usually what happens is they do make a mistake, but then I make it into a collaborative game and they’re allowed to whisper each other the words if the person blanks out, which makes it great because now they’re hearing it multiple times. And then the next time they actually have increased their vocabulary. So of course you can do all sorts of twists on this game. You can do…
categories depending on what you’re learning, if it’s content based, if you’re reviewing a topic, you are, know, word association, maybe word forms with a particular letter, et cetera. So actually my students love this. I’ve played this with multiple, ⁓ just in multiple countries and with different age groups. And then just a note on, ⁓ there are students who are going to want to show off their vocabulary, a great way to…
to allow them to feel pride and for others to also gain off of that pride is write down the new words. Keep a list. Keep a list. All right. That’s alphabet soup.
Brent Warner (19:53)
Yeah, nice. Yeah. Yeah, very cool. Very cool.
Awesome. I’m going to go back to a super old school technique that you could use for your classes. ⁓ And there’s very simple technology, ⁓ way back to Google Sheets if you’re interested. And ⁓ Jake Miller, and I haven’t actually kept up with Jake since, yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (20:04)
Mm-hmm.
Google Sheets is old technology.
Brent Warner (20:19)
is old technology, right? Well, now with all the AI stuff, there’s a lot. But Google Sheets lets you translate directly inside of the Google Sheets. And Jake Miller, who I used to follow a lot on Twitter, he had some good ideas. I haven’t seen him as much since Twitter died, and so I don’t know if he’s on LinkedIn or not. But anyways, this is quite old. So this is like, I think from 2008, where he had shared this, like, how to do these translations inside of Google directly. So you can make a list of the vocabularies
Ixchell Reyes (20:24)
Yeah.
Brent Warner (20:49)
vocabulary
words that you’re using in your class regardless of what it is and then you can just have it simply ⁓ each vocabulary word is in column a for example, then maybe you have a Spanish a Chinese column and a Arabic column and all you have to do is just go ahead and drag that column down and so every time you add a new vocabulary word in English all your students from all the different languages can quickly have just the super simple translation, right? Just that so again, it’s
Ixchell Reyes (20:59)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (21:19)
It’s just a vocabulary word translation one at a time. And obviously it’s missing a lot of contextualization and all those things, but quick access to the words that you’re all using in class and they can just get a quick swap of it. It’s a really simple thing to do. And then it’s customized for your class as you’re going through all the time. So you can just make a quick, simple Google doc. I’ve got the link to it again in the show notes. If you want to learn how to do it, ⁓ walk through, you can still use it. You don’t need to use AI for it.
Ixchell Reyes (21:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (21:49)
of it you can just use the basic ⁓ platform that’s already in there. So that can be one quick way to share more words with your students.
Ixchell Reyes (21:49)
Mm-hmm.
Very cool and very useful, because I do that all the time for my students who need extra support. All right, so the next tool I have is kind of a gamified, I don’t know if it’s more gamified than Quizlet, because it only has a few options. anyway, an alternative to Quizlet is called Knoword K-N-O-W-O-R-D, Knoword.com. it’s got different play packs.
Brent Warner (22:03)
Yeah.
you
Nice.
Ixchell Reyes (22:27)
⁓ of words and you can just simply play randomly. essentially, let’s say I want my students to study phrasal verbs and I’m going to now go there and search for phrasal verbs. And what it will do is if you have emerging students, can select
a level with pictures. So it’ll actually just give them the word and then you select the pictures. I don’t think I can do that on this screen right now with phrasal verbs, but with basic vocabulary, they can match. Then you can go to another level where it’s a multiple choice and the definition. And then you can even go to another kind of a brain teaser level where they give you the definition and you have to
you now have to guess the word based on the first initial of the word, the first letter of the word. And you’re seeing it in Spanish right now, but because it’s anything, you can look up any language. So that is no word. Yeah, I talked about it before once on, think it was like maybe the 26 tools for 2026. I don’t remember, but.
Brent Warner (23:28)
Nice. I haven’t, I’ve never heard of- Have you talked about this before? I don’t even know if I know about this.
Okay, I probably meant to look
into it but didn’t get to it.
Ixchell Reyes (23:42)
Yeah, or,
but it, it’s a really cool tool. My student, one of my pre-service teachers just did a lesson on teaching. ⁓ I believe it was, what was it teaching? Weather words. And so there were weather adjectives. Students were learning to talk about the weather. And so he found a pack. He didn’t have to create it. It was already like ⁓ adjectives for, for, for weather related to weather. And so students could match and it also gave them a lot.
fewer choices than Quizlet, so it’s less overwhelming for the student. And there’s a timer, so there’s a game component to it, and so on.
Brent Warner (24:13)
Mm.
Nice, very cool. ⁓ Well, I figure this might be a good opportunity to also share ⁓ an activity out of my book. so here, ⁓ the EdTech for multilingual learners, available at fine bookstores everywhere. ⁓ So if you go into the vocabulary section, this is the first activity inside of vocabulary. It’s called Synonym Searcher. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (24:28)
What book is that?
No, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no,
Brent Warner (24:46)
and
then if you can get the word out. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (24:49)
Hahaha.
Brent Warner (24:50)
And I’ll just give a brief overview of it here. Basically, the idea is that, you know, students go in and they look for synonyms. We talked about that before, right? Like they’re like, I’m just going to use this different form of the word and see if it works. But those words don’t always overlap with one each other with one another perfectly. And so the ⁓ the activity is that students can go in and ⁓ find a the first word that they want to use. And that’s going to be inside of their topic sentence. And then their job is to find multiple
synonyms and write a story where the other versions of the words come in. So if you’re doing like a writing class, this could be a really light one where you could say, hey, your job is to find four or five synonyms or four or five versions, or you could do word forms. You could do different things if you want, but like, hey, what are the different words? And then how do I weave a story together that uses all of these appropriately in different forms without being, you know, kind of overly repetitive? And so, so then it’s like you also have to challenge them.
Ixchell Reyes (25:43)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (25:50)
to say like you can’t just have five words and five sentences because it’ll just sound really static you know if you want to really
Ixchell Reyes (25:55)
Yeah.
Brent Warner (25:57)
You know what mean? And so they’re like, OK,
hold on. Like I have to actually expand my writing a little bit in order to make this sound more natural. So it would have to be maybe a little bit more advanced students, again, depending on what kind of writing you’re trying to get them to do. You could start with very simple levels. And so, again, the flexibility of your choice inside of here is going to be really useful. anyways, so Synonym Searcher could be a way to find an opportunity for your students to play a little bit more with
Ixchell Reyes (26:05)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (26:27)
with this one word with many different ideas around it and then they can kind of build a better understanding of the nuance of those choices.
Ixchell Reyes (26:34)
Mm hmm.
That is cool. So if you don’t have the copy, a copy of the book, get it. Keep the show running. Okay, so. So our next.
Brent Warner (26:41)
Yes, of course. Sales! Money! Making big money! Technically that is part of the money that I’m using to pay for running the channel, I guess.
Ixchell Reyes (26:59)
⁓ tool is we have spoken about this in diesel episode 132 and it was using notebook LM as a self-study, a self-study notebook, a self-study strategy ⁓ and I think we talked about ⁓ some of the, what is it called, the option that they have, the wizard or something like that, forgot, studio, studio and yeah with studio you can create mind maps and flashcards and I know that you’ve
Brent Warner (27:12)
Hmm.
Yeah, the… studio,
Ixchell Reyes (27:29)
played around with it a little bit more than I have for mind maps.
Brent Warner (27:31)
Yeah,
yeah, so I think so it really does depend on what you upload into it, right? So like what I really wish that you could do, I haven’t found a way to do it is like to better control. So some of the elements inside of the studio lets you kind of dictate how it works. ⁓ Mindmap doesn’t have that little edit option for fine tuning. I wish it did because then you could you could really just upload a list of
Ixchell Reyes (27:36)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
you
Brent Warner (27:55)
vocabulary words and say make a mind map and when you click on it it just it just spreads out to different forms right yeah like I mean and that seems
Ixchell Reyes (27:59)
Hmm.
Word forms, families, sentences.
Brent Warner (28:05)
And it would be so cool because then if you clicked on it, then it would open up like a quick definition of it, right? It would be very visual. ⁓ It could still do that, but you would have to upload like a really straightforward list of the words, I think. And then hopefully it would figure out that that’s what you’re trying to do. But there’s also options inside of there for things like flashcards, ⁓ you know, and and more. And so we can kind of and I think they’re all building and getting better. We talked about it just a few episodes ago. So if you’re interested more in notebook
Ixchell Reyes (28:28)
Go.
Brent Warner (28:36)
notebook LM you can go look at diesel 132 Yeah
Ixchell Reyes (28:39)
Yeah, maybe next year they’ll have that option. You never know.
Okay, so our last strategy, our last strategy is really cool. I just recently found out about it and that is taking a Google slide deck and turning it into a video. This is a new feature in slides and I think Brent, you’ve got it on your end, right? So you select the slides you want and you click under file. There will be a little button that says ⁓ video.
Brent Warner (28:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Convert to video, yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (29:08)
or convert to video
and you give it a few minutes and it does an amazing job. Actually, I was floored by it because it was better than it. It was way better than I expected.
Brent Warner (29:18)
It’s really impressive.
Yeah, so what it does is it pulls out like all of your slides and then it turns it into a video but like
Ixchell Reyes (29:30)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (29:31)
Back
when we first started talking about this, even with Notebook LM, it’s just a flat video that you can’t really do anything with. This one you can turn on like, hey, we want the AI voiceover. By the way, I noticed on my institutional account, I couldn’t get it to work with the AI voiceover, but with my private account, I could. Sometimes that happens because of privacy needs and all those things of the institution. But anyways, you kind of click through it and then what it does is it’s almost like a video editor, right? Like it’s got each slide.
Ixchell Reyes (29:34)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (30:01)
It’s got the text or the language. It’s got some stuff going on inside of there. So I’ll play a little section of this and just so you can hear. Yeah, we can delete the music. I didn’t do it quite yet, but here we go. Let’s see what it sounds like.
Ixchell Reyes (30:08)
It adds music, so you can delete the music.
I don’t hear anything on my end, hopefully, no, so hopefully, yeah.
Brent Warner (30:22)
you don’t? OK, let me try again. Hold on. on.
No, that’s that’s that I didn’t click the share button, so we’ll have to start over.
audio, sorry.
We’ll start over.
Okay, so here’s what it might sound like.
Ixchell Reyes (30:43)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (31:01)
Okay, so we asked it to do these kind of like, you know, language form things, ⁓ understanding terminology in our field. So, Ixchell, when you first uploaded this, like, it’s it when it said TESOL, it originally said T-E-S-O-L, right? And then, yeah, it read it as the acronym out loud.
Ixchell Reyes (31:14)
I read it as initials, acronym.
Brent Warner (31:20)
And so then what we did was we found that you can go and click on voiceover and you could go put in a, ⁓ you know, a phonetic speaking of the word. So TESOL we said T E E dash S O L right. Or TEFL we said T E H dash F U L right. And so and then it did a really good job of like updating it and changing it and matching those words and even in the other ones in the sentences. So you’re not even stuck with the language that it creates. You can still go in and
Ixchell Reyes (31:29)
The phonetic.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Brent Warner (31:50)
fully edit all of the slides. I think you can go in and record your own voice if you prefer yourself over the AI voice acting. So lots of cool stuff. And Michelle, you just showed this to me this morning. And so it’s really a lot to explore inside of here as well.
Ixchell Reyes (31:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that is pretty cool
because now, yeah, you can now front load vocabulary. You can have the video as a review. You can. It’s yet another format that ⁓ students might actually ⁓ might be appealing to a student because you’ve got audio and then you’ve got the slides for different learners and they’re fully editable. So that’s kind of right now my brain is exploding on what I want. I mean, I don’t want to turn everything into a video, but for some of my students.
that’s actually a resource that they would want to have. And they’ve asked before, don’t you have videos? Like, yeah, you know how long it takes to make them. Not so long anymore. And maybe you don’t have to listen to my voice anymore. Yeah.
Brent Warner (32:38)
Not so long anymore, so yeah.
Yeah, well, ⁓
but let’s not discount your voice though. I mean, you individually, but also like all teachers. Well, yeah, but the thing is, remember, like the AI voices are fine, but like you’re making connections to your students when you’re using your own voice, right? And that is another thing to be considered of. ⁓ And we’ve even seen recent reports that like,
Ixchell Reyes (32:51)
My cheerful voice. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (33:06)
when people watch videos, they like them, but
Ixchell Reyes (33:06)
That’s what we’ve been talking about.
Brent Warner (33:08)
then once they find out their AI, they stop watching them, right? And so that’s an interesting, anyways, phenomenon we’re going through right now, but there’s a lot of potential inside of here, because if you already have slide decks for your vocabulary words, you could just turn them into a quick video, overview videos that your students could watch whenever they want. ⁓ And like you said, scaffolding the language, helping them preview it, reviewing it after the fact, all those things.
Ixchell Reyes (33:11)
It’s, Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And now if you are one of those people who thought, man, I really wish I could have sound files of me ⁓ pronouncing the words for them to study, but that just takes so long. Now with the slide deck that’s automatically there, now it actually seems like a cool investment, right? Like now I feel like, yeah, if it’s going to give me the script, I would be so happy to read it because now I could add my personality into it. So check it out. Make some cool things.
Brent Warner (33:57)
Yeah, Cool
Well, that’s kind of our overview for now, things that you can do with vocabulary teaching. Hopefully you can get a few ideas from there. Leave us some comments. If you’re in the YouTube video, let us know what you’re thinking, right? ⁓ What other ways could you do this? And the other thing we always want to encourage, our ideas are just our ideas and we hope that they’re more launching pad ideas rather than like, I must do it exactly the way that they said to do it, right? How do you figure out how to customize it to your needs?
Ixchell Reyes (34:04)
Mm.
Yeah, let us know.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Yeah, try it.
You have the rule book. You make the rules for that activity. Right? You’re the boss.
Brent Warner (34:34)
You’re the boss.
Ixchell Reyes (34:42)
Alright, it is time for our fun finds! And I think people on YouTube are liking our fun finds a lot. So I am a runner, as many of you might know. And I find that ⁓ sometimes after a long run, my feet just take a longer time to recover. My muscles just take a long time to recover. So I decided to give the Hoka Ora slides or recovery slides a chance. They’re pricey.
Brent Warner (34:46)
Yay. Ooh, all right.
Recovery slides.
Ixchell Reyes (35:10)
They are pricey, they are quite pricey. So I had been thinking about them for a year. Yup, don’t like, they look like another ver- They’re like another version of what I think are ugly, which is crocs. Crocs are like the ugliest shooter.
Brent Warner (35:13)
What are these things?
⁓ slides. ⁓ they’re Chanclas
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Sorry, sorry, everybody out there who wears
Crocs. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (35:38)
But I do have
crocs and I do appreciate that they’re very light and you know, if you’re walking outside in the grass, you could just slip them on, throw them on. But ⁓ my brother-in-law got these recovery slides and he sourced by them. So I thought about it for about a year and I finally purchased the black. And I have to say they feel very comfy. ⁓ I had a…
Brent Warner (35:57)
You
Ixchell Reyes (36:04)
five mile run last Friday where I increased my speed and my legs did not recover well so it was harder to use shoes during the week because I could feel like the pavement and it’s important to take care of no no no at home no holy moly
Brent Warner (36:16)
Wait, you these things to work? ⁓
They’re not the most stylish thing, but I’m sure they’re good for recovery.
Ixchell Reyes (36:27)
No. You know,
around the house I have flip-flops. Flip-flops, not good enough. Doing chores, not good enough. But these are pretty good. So ⁓ if you have extra cash in this economy or you want to use your extra pennies on something for your feet, these are pretty good.
Brent Warner (36:31)
Okay.
Mm.
So slides means slippers now, I guess. got you. All right. I’ll work. Yes, I’ll get me some all orange out there.
Ixchell Reyes (36:49)
slippers or flip-flops. And you see you can get orange ones to go with the backpack that Brent purchased recently.
Brent Warner (37:03)
Alright, sounds good. I am going to share a movie that I watched recently. Actually, I watched it last night. And so the movie is Deathstalker. Now I’m just playing the audio. should not be coming across, but anyways, this is a…
Ixchell Reyes (37:13)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (37:27)
fairly ridiculous movie. ⁓ If you remember the old movies like Conan the Barbarian or the original Deathstalker or Red Sonja, basically these swords and sorcerer movies, it was very silly. ⁓ It was not a good movie, but it was a great movie ⁓ because it’s like not CGI. It’s all practical effects. It’s all wearing rubber suits and these cheap monsters.
Ixchell Reyes (37:43)
hahahahah
Brent Warner (37:57)
come out all the time. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. it’s like, you know, it’s these things you worry about, you’re like, these movies are going to disappear, people are only going to be doing AI movies in the future. And, I actually think that part of this is a resistance to that whole thing. And it’s just like, no, let’s just make it all by hand. ⁓ And so fun, silly, totally 80s style. ⁓ Last year, it came out in 2025.
Ixchell Reyes (38:20)
What year is this movie? ⁓
Brent Warner (38:27)
So as you’re seeing this screen, you’re like, this is super old, right? And I was like, no, it was brand new.
Ixchell Reyes (38:27)
No, I thought another slice of culture that I missed while I was growing up, but turns out it’s last year.
Brent Warner (38:40)
Oh yeah, no, this is this is well there was an 80s movie called Deathstalker. So this is a remake of it or a different version of it. But so it does come. there was a huge movement in the 80s around these sword and sandals or, you know, you know, these, you know, barbarians and wizards, all these things going in. So a lot of fun. It’s out there if you’re interested. Deathstalker 2025 is the silly, silly movie.
Ixchell Reyes (38:46)
⁓ okay.
Brent Warner (39:10)
a little bit grotesque in some scenes so it’s got to be for the right crowd but if you’re into it you’ll know what’s up.
Ixchell Reyes (39:19)
Alright, this video episode is now up on YouTube. You can find us on Instagram or on Facebook at @DIESOLpod, the show notes and more available at DIESOL.org/136. And you can find us on the socials still.
Brent Warner (39:33)
Yeah, so I’m at @BrentGWarner.
Ixchell Reyes (39:40)
And I’m at @Ixy_Pixy_ that’s two underscores I X Y underscore P I X Y underscore. Thank you. Yeah. DIESOLpod. DIESOLpod. Yeah. DIESOLpod. So for again, for the show notes head to our YouTube and our website. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching and see you on the next episode.
Brent Warner (39:48)
Yeah, and the show’s at DIESOLpod though, right? We should also say, like, at DIESOLpod.
Yay!
All right, bye everybody.
Your students want to improve their vocabulary, but your class isn’t focused on vocab acquisition. How do you help them? We’re discussing options on this episode of the DIESOL Podcast.
Brent Warner (00:27)
Welcome to the DIESOL podcast where we focus on developing innovation in English as a second or other language. I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL and I’m here with the cheerful Ixchell Reyes. How are you Ixchell? This is what happens when I start reading the script and you’re like, I’m just going to pretend like I’m voice mouthing your thing. All right, so we’re going to get to it.
Ixchell Reyes (00:43)
Always. Cheerful!
Hahaha
Brent Warner (00:56)
So ⁓ Ixchell we, so last time we did an episode dedicated to vocabulary was episode two. It’s a long while. That’s a real, ⁓ it’s more than five years ago. I think we started in six or seven. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, so it’s been a while. ⁓ We should probably should keep track of that. How long we’ve been doing this. But anyways. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (01:03)
It’s been a while. Episode 2! Episode 2! That’s like 5 years ago. Yeah, that’s like 6- yeah, we started in 2019.
Brent Warner (01:24)
Yeah, so vocabulary, we’re back on it. ⁓ It’s fun for us to sometimes just do these like kind of bread and butter conversations, right? Like the nuts and bolts of English language teaching. so, yeah, so we kind of just said, hey, let’s take a little bit of a look at vocabulary. I think we’ve talked about this before a little bit, but one thing that really happens with vocabulary teach or with regular.
Ixchell Reyes (01:29)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (01:50)
English language teaching classes as we get into our other content. whether it be grammar, writing, y’know, speaking things. then it’s like vocabulary feels like it takes up a lot of time, right? It’s like, OK, I’m going to spend all this time explaining one word. But at the same time, students really need that, right? Like they need they need the time to build their vocabulary. They need the exposure to the words, all of these things. And so I think that maybe teachers kind of.
Ixchell Reyes (02:09)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (02:18)
just kind of let it float and they say well let the students discover their own vocabulary words and then when I have it built into my lesson it’s fine but otherwise it’s kind of on them or you know there might just be different things going on with like adding one more thing to the lesson right
Ixchell Reyes (02:35)
Yeah, or on the other hand, you might be teaching vocabulary all the time that you forget. You get stuck in your ways that seem to work or seem more efficient for you. So I think it’s worth looking at other ways to support vocabulary. Thus, thus today’s episode. we know Brent. Is that re-diving right in?
Brent Warner (02:49)
Yeah, for sure, Thus.
Yeah,
we’re diving in. You can dive in first.
Ixchell Reyes (02:59)
We’re diving in! I am diving in! So
we know that students have to internalize their vocabulary in order for a word to become theirs. And I don’t know what the current research says about how many times the students have to experience a word, but I’m gonna guess it’s somewhere between 7 and 12? Something like that.
Brent Warner (03:18)
Mmm.
7 million and 12 million is what you’re saying. That’s how many times they have to hear it.
Ixchell Reyes (03:22)
I mean, I mean,
I mean, in order for them to become you is old.
Brent Warner (03:28)
For my brain these days, that’s what it takes, right? Yeah. Yeah, so real exposure,
seeing it, right? It kind of ties into that advertising mantra, like, they have to see the billboard. They have to see that the hamburger is up there a bunch of times before they’re tempted to go to it. Yeah, so same kind of concept here.
Ixchell Reyes (03:43)
Right.
Right. they also have to produce it, right? The more times that they’re producing it, ⁓ more likely it’s going to become a part of their lexicon. And we know that the goal is not necessarily perfect vocabulary, but usable vocabulary. So let’s talk a little bit about some basics. ⁓ Of course, we all know form, meaning, and use.
Brent Warner (03:56)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (04:11)
Students can memorize words, but do they actually know how to use it? you know, we usually we expect that teachers are going to model the form so that students recognize the word, know the word form. Is it a verb? Is it a noun? Is it an adjective? And ⁓ how it’s pronounced, where the intonation falls, what happens if the intonation changes? ⁓ Also, meaning, right?
Brent Warner (04:36)
Right, right.
Well, let’s hold on on that forum for a second because, I think this conversation too is like just one of the things. And again, this is, you know, kind of fundamental level conversation, but it is worth recognizing that like when we’re dealing with adults, we really do need to say, hey, this is an adverb. This is an adjective, right? We need to understand the structure of them for kids. They can, you know, they can absorb it. They can figure it out without understanding the structure. But we do want to always.
Ixchell Reyes (04:39)
Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Right, they’re acquiring.
Brent Warner (05:06)
Right. But as adults and part of the actual andragogy of the conversation, you need to be able to say, hey, this is actually what’s happening. This is the puzzle that you’re building. And then once you kind of recognize how this fits in, this puzzle fits in with other pieces, then you can plug it in across all the different puzzles of every sentence you build in the future. So clarifying that language does actually make a big difference to students so they can kind of determine, OK, hold on a second. Let’s figure out where that what type of word this is.
Ixchell Reyes (05:10)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (05:36)
then a lot of words to then make it easy to kind of go, okay, well, I guess if I understand that that’s the adverb, then this is probably the noun form or this is probably the other form, right? And so ⁓ building that understanding in, I know it’s fundamentals, I know for many people listening, they’re like, yeah, of course, right? ⁓ But just to kind of reinforce how important that is, ⁓ it is worth keeping in mind because sometimes I think, at least for me, I might get like, yeah, don’t worry, it’s fine, you’ll just get it. And it’s like, no, no, no, let’s be proactive about making
Ixchell Reyes (05:45)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (06:06)
making
sure that it is going to be very clear to the students.
Ixchell Reyes (06:11)
Right, and then you, this, if the student is not ⁓ comfortable with forms of the word, then they’re gonna trip up later because they’re just gonna try to plug things in and then they’re gonna get confused and frustrated because they don’t know. They just feel like the word should go there, but they don’t know why. So that’s actually very important. ⁓ Then of course we have meaning and this is where we normally ask comprehension questions, right?
Brent Warner (06:22)
That’s right.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (06:40)
⁓ to see whether the student understands the various meanings of a word and then what connotation the word might have, right? So ⁓ if I say scrawny, am I weak or strong? Right? Not just the definition of the word. I’m not scrawny.
Brent Warner (06:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
you
Right, right. But
also the nuance of them, right? Like because sometimes, so many times like students just, you know, they pick the first dictionary definition of a word and then that’s what they go with it. It’s like, well, hold on a second. One, there’s many different definitions to this word, right? But two, ⁓ are you understanding that the nuance is not just, you can’t just throw any thesaurus word in there and…
Ixchell Reyes (07:02)
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Brent Warner (07:23)
swap it right like sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t sometimes this meaning comes through sometimes we just don’t use that like in a collocation form right things like that and so ⁓ so those are just more things to pay attention to ⁓ and really useful for students because they don’t know what they don’t know right and so part of our work is to help clarify that for
Ixchell Reyes (07:25)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Right. And then again, to reiterate that the goal is not the perfect vocabulary. In other words, don’t know every single word in the English language, but usable vocabulary because if they find a word that is in their dictionary or two or three of their dictionaries, it doesn’t mean that we use it anymore.
Brent Warner (07:53)
I’m
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And so, and we’ll get it actually.
maybe I’ll jump into this just a little bit. We’ll jump out of order slightly here, Michelle, but in terms of choosing words, Because I think many of us kind of, if we’re given a textbook, we just use the words that are in the textbook, right? ⁓ Or maybe we have some sort of collection for ourselves is what we’re doing. But also just to remember and reminder, there are lots of word lists out there based on, ⁓ you know,
Ixchell Reyes (08:10)
Mm-hmm, go for it. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (08:34)
different ⁓ resources, whatever else it is, but there’s like the Oxford 3000 and the Oxford 5000, which are like the most common. ⁓
vocabulary words for everyday conversation. We’ll have links to these in the show notes. We’ve talked before about the academic word list, right? The most common words that come out of a corpus and in an academic setting for all of those things. So those could be some ways if you’re saying, well, which words should I be focusing on, right? Focus on the words that they’re going to be using the most commonly. So start with that 3,000 and then build up towards that 5,000, right? Not to say I’m telling you to teach 5,000 words in a semester or anything, but
Ixchell Reyes (08:43)
The high frequency.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (09:12)
⁓ you know, use that as a source. And then you can also, one other way to play with this for like, for word choices is student-built lists, right? So you can also have your students go out there and spend time, you know, they’re collecting words that they’re seeing or they’re not understanding and like have them put those words together on a list. And you can also use those and integrate them into your teaching as you go along as well.
Ixchell Reyes (09:15)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So that just ties us back to the, you know, form, meaning and use. Do the students understand which version to use in the appropriate context? And so the when, the where, the how, right? You’re going to agree, you’re going to use a different word if you’re speaking to someone of authority than if you’re speaking or writing to a friend. so, register.
Brent Warner (09:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, Yishel, you found a pretty cool ⁓ video series on ⁓ this stuff. I don’t know if you want to share about that.
Ixchell Reyes (10:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
so this is the, hang on, let me pop it here on this screen. So this is the Teacher Trainer React series. And it is, ⁓ so it’s on YouTube. I’ll have a link. But the Teacher Trainer React series has obviously teacher trainers reacting to a lesson demonstration by an instructor. And so they have all the different core.
Brent Warner (10:28)
Mm-hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (10:35)
subjects and they go through different strategies, but they do have a really good one on teaching vocabulary. And so ⁓ you’ll have the teacher demonstrating a technique and then the trainer reacting to it. And so it’s actually a really good refresher. mean, me as a teacher, I wish I had had this when I was doing my teacher training program, but with my pre-service teachers, I always go back to these and have them. ⁓ It’s sort of like they’re, they’re, they’re seeing someone else. ⁓
critique and that just ⁓ goes back to what I’ve taught them in the classroom. But it’s a very good refresher for all of the skills, but one for vocabulary and one, I think it’s in a 30 minute lesson, ⁓ they will show like four five different strategies. And I think that’s a really good resource. So that’s the Teacher Trainer React series on YouTube.
Brent Warner (11:30)
That’s great. And I think those teachers are like, CELTA and Delta certified teachers. so for anyone who’s not familiar with those programs, like those are hardcore, like they demand a lot of real deep pedagogical knowledge on these things and like to be able to pull it up really quickly. so they’re really talking from a great area of expertise inside of there. Really definitely worth working out. ⁓ And then, ⁓ shall I also had, ⁓ you know, another there was another video out there about pollination, you know,
Ixchell Reyes (11:34)
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (12:00)
He’s like, you know this expert on vocabulary and all these different things and
Ixchell Reyes (12:02)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (12:04)
so Not a huge deal, but I just kind of want to add it in there I thought one of the interesting things he said inside of there which I’m totally guilty of it’s like I’m just like let’s move forward like you got it you can figure out the rest of the time on your own right go do it that’s like for sure a bad teaching point that I need to work on and he
Ixchell Reyes (12:18)
We all
do that.
Brent Warner (12:20)
Yeah, and
he makes the argument that ⁓ a third of a lesson, a third of any lesson should be dedicated to reviewing material and it shouldn’t be about moving forward. And he says even it should either be the exact same way that you taught it the last time as a full on start over refresher or, you know, presenting the same information in new ways. But ⁓ being willing to say, like, hold on a second, the learning happens in the repetition, the learning happens in the exposure and the building of these things. Right.
and saying, therefore, a third of your class time actually is an appropriate amount of time to use these things, right? You might feel like you’re losing time, but actually, you’re gaining learning, or your students are gaining learning through all of that. And so just a point to be careful of and a point to be aware of. ⁓ If you’re anything like me and you’re like, let’s move forward. We got to do the next thing, right? And feeling like you have to catch up with everything, and especially vocabulary words, it’s like, no.
Ixchell Reyes (13:12)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (13:17)
let’s keep on coming back to this, right? How are you recycling ideas and bringing them back in and interleaving them into your lessons?
Ixchell Reyes (13:22)
Right.
Right. And then I wanted to offer two more resources for instructors looking to either kind of get new ideas or refresh their ideas. One ⁓ was from the teachingenglish.org website, which is our British Council website. And they do have a really good article on presenting vocabulary. A lot of it is what we’re talking about on the show, but it’s a kind of like a quick and dirty
Brent Warner (13:44)
Hmm.
Ixchell Reyes (13:55)
list of ⁓ maybe I would print it out and have it right in front of me. And also because students need to see that. Like, ⁓ how do you use a word? What are the collocations? What affixes are related? Word families. And then ⁓ a reminder that there are many, there are multiple ways to describe a word to someone when you can’t say the meaning, you might have to mime it to the person you’re talking to. And yeah, we do that in class, but in the real world, sometimes the students blank out when they’re trying to discuss with someone.
Brent Warner (14:05)
Mmm.
Ixchell Reyes (14:24)
and they might have to find another way to explain the word, which is in itself a strategy for them to communicate. the other resource is from the TESOL.org blog. ⁓ And that’s another, again, it’s another article, but ⁓ I thought one thing that, ⁓ one point that it made is that we still do need to teach dictionary skills. I know that we’re not.
Brent Warner (14:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (14:51)
perhaps always using paper dictionaries anymore. But with so many different versions of online dictionaries, you don’t really know. I mean, of course, we hope that you offer ⁓ reliable resources to your students online. But sometimes students have already found one that they stick to and they swear by it and they’re sort of resistant to switching. So offering different options and also showing them, look, this is
Brent Warner (15:14)
Mmm.
Ixchell Reyes (15:17)
look at the differences in the entries, right? Because they’re going to follow a typical template for entries. And then knowing when something’s legit and something’s ⁓ like a slang dictionary, for example. We don’t want them to be using… What is that dictionary? my gosh, I can’t think of it right now. But I’ve had urban dictionary because some of my students will just stick to that one because it’s the first search when they search. Yeah.
Brent Warner (15:23)
Right.
you’re thinking about like urban dictionary or something like that.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Ixchell Reyes (15:45)
And of course, now you’re also using AI to define words, understanding that perhaps they can prompt their AI to give them a dictionary entry so that they are used to looking at that format. So those are resources. They’ll be in the show notes.
Brent Warner (16:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So check out all those things. Think carefully. I agree with that too, the dictionary, teaching them right. Like I often teach my students about the worst acronym to remember it, but the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, is L-D-O-C-E online or whatever. No, no, no, no, the actual, yeah, it’s like, okay, how do you get it?
Ixchell Reyes (16:07)
Mm-hmm.
The coca. No, that’s no, no, I’m thinking. Yeah, that’s the concordance. Yeah.
Brent Warner (16:27)
It’s you just have to bookmark it and save it, but it is contemporary English. So it’s not going to be a bunch of like old fashioned words. And then also trying to transition them out of, you know, their L1 to L2 dictionary usage and into, you know, just an English to English dictionary. So trying to help them figure out ways to do that. lots and lots of things to explore and to play with ⁓ for in terms of resources out there for making sure that you’re just kind of brushed up on your. ⁓
you know, your basic presentation of vocabulary words.
Ixchell Reyes (17:01)
Alright, so we want to say a big thank you to all of our viewers on YouTube. Now that we’re on video, we can see that you’re sharing the show and promoting it to others and that really helps us to grow and it helps other teachers find us. So thank you so much. Make sure you comment, like and subscribe. Did I do that right? ⁓
Brent Warner (17:20)
Yes. Wow. OK. Got to all
those things. Yes. I guess we should have been saying that stuff all along, right, regardless. So yeah. Awesome.
Ixchell Reyes (17:31)
All right, so what are some strategies that we can use, some tools that we can use to support vocabulary growth? So we’ve talked about this in the episode on icebreakers. I believe it was icebreakers, but this is ⁓ what I call, I just made this up, totally made this up. I call it alphabet soup.
Brent Warner (17:45)
Mm.
You
Ixchell Reyes (17:53)
And it’s basically a little warm up activity or review activity where I have the students stand in a circle. We talk about the alphabet, ⁓ which in itself they have to recognize the letters and the sounds and they have to be able to produce them, of course, but it’s kind of a low stakes activity. Then we go through a round of nouns and they have to review what a noun is, ⁓ what a proper noun is. And they have to
The goal is to reach the letter Z. So we go in order. A student will start with the letter A, give a noun with the letter A, the next student a noun with the letter B, and so on. But if they make a mistake and they give me a verb or a different word form or a word that does not exist, then we have to start from A again. And then we are not allowed to use any word that anyone else has already mentioned.
Brent Warner (18:43)
Mmm.
Ixchell Reyes (18:49)
So it does several things. They have to be listening, they have to be paying attention, and they have to be remembering. So usually what happens is they do make a mistake, but then I make it into a collaborative game and they’re allowed to whisper each other the words if the person blanks out, which makes it great because now they’re hearing it multiple times. And then the next time they actually have increased their vocabulary. So of course you can do all sorts of twists on this game. You can do…
categories depending on what you’re learning, if it’s content based, if you’re reviewing a topic, you are, know, word association, maybe word forms with a particular letter, et cetera. So actually my students love this. I’ve played this with multiple, ⁓ just in multiple countries and with different age groups. And then just a note on, ⁓ there are students who are going to want to show off their vocabulary, a great way to…
to allow them to feel pride and for others to also gain off of that pride is write down the new words. Keep a list. Keep a list. All right. That’s alphabet soup.
Brent Warner (19:53)
Yeah, nice. Yeah. Yeah, very cool. Very cool.
Awesome. I’m going to go back to a super old school technique that you could use for your classes. ⁓ And there’s very simple technology, ⁓ way back to Google Sheets if you’re interested. And ⁓ Jake Miller, and I haven’t actually kept up with Jake since, yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (20:04)
Mm-hmm.
Google Sheets is old technology.
Brent Warner (20:19)
is old technology, right? Well, now with all the AI stuff, there’s a lot. But Google Sheets lets you translate directly inside of the Google Sheets. And Jake Miller, who I used to follow a lot on Twitter, he had some good ideas. I haven’t seen him as much since Twitter died, and so I don’t know if he’s on LinkedIn or not. But anyways, this is quite old. So this is like, I think from 2008, where he had shared this, like, how to do these translations inside of Google directly. So you can make a list of the vocabularies
Ixchell Reyes (20:24)
Yeah.
Brent Warner (20:49)
vocabulary
words that you’re using in your class regardless of what it is and then you can just have it simply ⁓ each vocabulary word is in column a for example, then maybe you have a Spanish a Chinese column and a Arabic column and all you have to do is just go ahead and drag that column down and so every time you add a new vocabulary word in English all your students from all the different languages can quickly have just the super simple translation, right? Just that so again, it’s
Ixchell Reyes (20:59)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (21:19)
It’s just a vocabulary word translation one at a time. And obviously it’s missing a lot of contextualization and all those things, but quick access to the words that you’re all using in class and they can just get a quick swap of it. It’s a really simple thing to do. And then it’s customized for your class as you’re going through all the time. So you can just make a quick, simple Google doc. I’ve got the link to it again in the show notes. If you want to learn how to do it, ⁓ walk through, you can still use it. You don’t need to use AI for it.
Ixchell Reyes (21:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (21:49)
of it you can just use the basic ⁓ platform that’s already in there. So that can be one quick way to share more words with your students.
Ixchell Reyes (21:49)
Mm-hmm.
Very cool and very useful, because I do that all the time for my students who need extra support. All right, so the next tool I have is kind of a gamified, I don’t know if it’s more gamified than Quizlet, because it only has a few options. anyway, an alternative to Quizlet is called Knoword K-N-O-W-O-R-D, Knoword.com. it’s got different play packs.
Brent Warner (22:03)
Yeah.
you
Nice.
Ixchell Reyes (22:27)
⁓ of words and you can just simply play randomly. essentially, let’s say I want my students to study phrasal verbs and I’m going to now go there and search for phrasal verbs. And what it will do is if you have emerging students, can select
a level with pictures. So it’ll actually just give them the word and then you select the pictures. I don’t think I can do that on this screen right now with phrasal verbs, but with basic vocabulary, they can match. Then you can go to another level where it’s a multiple choice and the definition. And then you can even go to another kind of a brain teaser level where they give you the definition and you have to
you now have to guess the word based on the first initial of the word, the first letter of the word. And you’re seeing it in Spanish right now, but because it’s anything, you can look up any language. So that is no word. Yeah, I talked about it before once on, think it was like maybe the 26 tools for 2026. I don’t remember, but.
Brent Warner (23:28)
Nice. I haven’t, I’ve never heard of- Have you talked about this before? I don’t even know if I know about this.
Okay, I probably meant to look
into it but didn’t get to it.
Ixchell Reyes (23:42)
Yeah, or,
but it, it’s a really cool tool. My student, one of my pre-service teachers just did a lesson on teaching. ⁓ I believe it was, what was it teaching? Weather words. And so there were weather adjectives. Students were learning to talk about the weather. And so he found a pack. He didn’t have to create it. It was already like ⁓ adjectives for, for, for weather related to weather. And so students could match and it also gave them a lot.
fewer choices than Quizlet, so it’s less overwhelming for the student. And there’s a timer, so there’s a game component to it, and so on.
Brent Warner (24:13)
Mm.
Nice, very cool. ⁓ Well, I figure this might be a good opportunity to also share ⁓ an activity out of my book. so here, ⁓ the EdTech for multilingual learners, available at fine bookstores everywhere. ⁓ So if you go into the vocabulary section, this is the first activity inside of vocabulary. It’s called Synonym Searcher. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (24:28)
What book is that?
No, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no,
Brent Warner (24:46)
and
then if you can get the word out. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (24:49)
Hahaha.
Brent Warner (24:50)
And I’ll just give a brief overview of it here. Basically, the idea is that, you know, students go in and they look for synonyms. We talked about that before, right? Like they’re like, I’m just going to use this different form of the word and see if it works. But those words don’t always overlap with one each other with one another perfectly. And so the ⁓ the activity is that students can go in and ⁓ find a the first word that they want to use. And that’s going to be inside of their topic sentence. And then their job is to find multiple
synonyms and write a story where the other versions of the words come in. So if you’re doing like a writing class, this could be a really light one where you could say, hey, your job is to find four or five synonyms or four or five versions, or you could do word forms. You could do different things if you want, but like, hey, what are the different words? And then how do I weave a story together that uses all of these appropriately in different forms without being, you know, kind of overly repetitive? And so, so then it’s like you also have to challenge them.
Ixchell Reyes (25:43)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (25:50)
to say like you can’t just have five words and five sentences because it’ll just sound really static you know if you want to really
Ixchell Reyes (25:55)
Yeah.
Brent Warner (25:57)
You know what mean? And so they’re like, OK,
hold on. Like I have to actually expand my writing a little bit in order to make this sound more natural. So it would have to be maybe a little bit more advanced students, again, depending on what kind of writing you’re trying to get them to do. You could start with very simple levels. And so, again, the flexibility of your choice inside of here is going to be really useful. anyways, so Synonym Searcher could be a way to find an opportunity for your students to play a little bit more with
Ixchell Reyes (26:05)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (26:27)
with this one word with many different ideas around it and then they can kind of build a better understanding of the nuance of those choices.
Ixchell Reyes (26:34)
Mm hmm.
That is cool. So if you don’t have the copy, a copy of the book, get it. Keep the show running. Okay, so. So our next.
Brent Warner (26:41)
Yes, of course. Sales! Money! Making big money! Technically that is part of the money that I’m using to pay for running the channel, I guess.
Ixchell Reyes (26:59)
⁓ tool is we have spoken about this in diesel episode 132 and it was using notebook LM as a self-study, a self-study notebook, a self-study strategy ⁓ and I think we talked about ⁓ some of the, what is it called, the option that they have, the wizard or something like that, forgot, studio, studio and yeah with studio you can create mind maps and flashcards and I know that you’ve
Brent Warner (27:12)
Hmm.
Yeah, the… studio,
Ixchell Reyes (27:29)
played around with it a little bit more than I have for mind maps.
Brent Warner (27:31)
Yeah,
yeah, so I think so it really does depend on what you upload into it, right? So like what I really wish that you could do, I haven’t found a way to do it is like to better control. So some of the elements inside of the studio lets you kind of dictate how it works. ⁓ Mindmap doesn’t have that little edit option for fine tuning. I wish it did because then you could you could really just upload a list of
Ixchell Reyes (27:36)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
you
Brent Warner (27:55)
vocabulary words and say make a mind map and when you click on it it just it just spreads out to different forms right yeah like I mean and that seems
Ixchell Reyes (27:59)
Hmm.
Word forms, families, sentences.
Brent Warner (28:05)
And it would be so cool because then if you clicked on it, then it would open up like a quick definition of it, right? It would be very visual. ⁓ It could still do that, but you would have to upload like a really straightforward list of the words, I think. And then hopefully it would figure out that that’s what you’re trying to do. But there’s also options inside of there for things like flashcards, ⁓ you know, and and more. And so we can kind of and I think they’re all building and getting better. We talked about it just a few episodes ago. So if you’re interested more in notebook
Ixchell Reyes (28:28)
Go.
Brent Warner (28:36)
notebook LM you can go look at diesel 132 Yeah
Ixchell Reyes (28:39)
Yeah, maybe next year they’ll have that option. You never know.
Okay, so our last strategy, our last strategy is really cool. I just recently found out about it and that is taking a Google slide deck and turning it into a video. This is a new feature in slides and I think Brent, you’ve got it on your end, right? So you select the slides you want and you click under file. There will be a little button that says ⁓ video.
Brent Warner (28:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Convert to video, yeah.
Ixchell Reyes (29:08)
or convert to video
and you give it a few minutes and it does an amazing job. Actually, I was floored by it because it was better than it. It was way better than I expected.
Brent Warner (29:18)
It’s really impressive.
Yeah, so what it does is it pulls out like all of your slides and then it turns it into a video but like
Ixchell Reyes (29:30)
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (29:31)
Back
when we first started talking about this, even with Notebook LM, it’s just a flat video that you can’t really do anything with. This one you can turn on like, hey, we want the AI voiceover. By the way, I noticed on my institutional account, I couldn’t get it to work with the AI voiceover, but with my private account, I could. Sometimes that happens because of privacy needs and all those things of the institution. But anyways, you kind of click through it and then what it does is it’s almost like a video editor, right? Like it’s got each slide.
Ixchell Reyes (29:34)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (30:01)
It’s got the text or the language. It’s got some stuff going on inside of there. So I’ll play a little section of this and just so you can hear. Yeah, we can delete the music. I didn’t do it quite yet, but here we go. Let’s see what it sounds like.
Ixchell Reyes (30:08)
It adds music, so you can delete the music.
I don’t hear anything on my end, hopefully, no, so hopefully, yeah.
Brent Warner (30:22)
you don’t? OK, let me try again. Hold on. on.
No, that’s that’s that I didn’t click the share button, so we’ll have to start over.
audio, sorry.
We’ll start over.
Okay, so here’s what it might sound like.
Ixchell Reyes (30:43)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (31:01)
Okay, so we asked it to do these kind of like, you know, language form things, ⁓ understanding terminology in our field. So, Ixchell, when you first uploaded this, like, it’s it when it said TESOL, it originally said T-E-S-O-L, right? And then, yeah, it read it as the acronym out loud.
Ixchell Reyes (31:14)
I read it as initials, acronym.
Brent Warner (31:20)
And so then what we did was we found that you can go and click on voiceover and you could go put in a, ⁓ you know, a phonetic speaking of the word. So TESOL we said T E E dash S O L right. Or TEFL we said T E H dash F U L right. And so and then it did a really good job of like updating it and changing it and matching those words and even in the other ones in the sentences. So you’re not even stuck with the language that it creates. You can still go in and
Ixchell Reyes (31:29)
The phonetic.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Brent Warner (31:50)
fully edit all of the slides. I think you can go in and record your own voice if you prefer yourself over the AI voice acting. So lots of cool stuff. And Michelle, you just showed this to me this morning. And so it’s really a lot to explore inside of here as well.
Ixchell Reyes (31:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that is pretty cool
because now, yeah, you can now front load vocabulary. You can have the video as a review. You can. It’s yet another format that ⁓ students might actually ⁓ might be appealing to a student because you’ve got audio and then you’ve got the slides for different learners and they’re fully editable. So that’s kind of right now my brain is exploding on what I want. I mean, I don’t want to turn everything into a video, but for some of my students.
that’s actually a resource that they would want to have. And they’ve asked before, don’t you have videos? Like, yeah, you know how long it takes to make them. Not so long anymore. And maybe you don’t have to listen to my voice anymore. Yeah.
Brent Warner (32:38)
Not so long anymore, so yeah.
Yeah, well, ⁓
but let’s not discount your voice though. I mean, you individually, but also like all teachers. Well, yeah, but the thing is, remember, like the AI voices are fine, but like you’re making connections to your students when you’re using your own voice, right? And that is another thing to be considered of. ⁓ And we’ve even seen recent reports that like,
Ixchell Reyes (32:51)
My cheerful voice. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Brent Warner (33:06)
when people watch videos, they like them, but
Ixchell Reyes (33:06)
That’s what we’ve been talking about.
Brent Warner (33:08)
then once they find out their AI, they stop watching them, right? And so that’s an interesting, anyways, phenomenon we’re going through right now, but there’s a lot of potential inside of here, because if you already have slide decks for your vocabulary words, you could just turn them into a quick video, overview videos that your students could watch whenever they want. ⁓ And like you said, scaffolding the language, helping them preview it, reviewing it after the fact, all those things.
Ixchell Reyes (33:11)
It’s, Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And now if you are one of those people who thought, man, I really wish I could have sound files of me ⁓ pronouncing the words for them to study, but that just takes so long. Now with the slide deck that’s automatically there, now it actually seems like a cool investment, right? Like now I feel like, yeah, if it’s going to give me the script, I would be so happy to read it because now I could add my personality into it. So check it out. Make some cool things.
Brent Warner (33:57)
Yeah, Cool
Well, that’s kind of our overview for now, things that you can do with vocabulary teaching. Hopefully you can get a few ideas from there. Leave us some comments. If you’re in the YouTube video, let us know what you’re thinking, right? ⁓ What other ways could you do this? And the other thing we always want to encourage, our ideas are just our ideas and we hope that they’re more launching pad ideas rather than like, I must do it exactly the way that they said to do it, right? How do you figure out how to customize it to your needs?
Ixchell Reyes (34:04)
Mm.
Yeah, let us know.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Yeah, try it.
You have the rule book. You make the rules for that activity. Right? You’re the boss.
Brent Warner (34:34)
You’re the boss.
Ixchell Reyes (34:42)
Alright, it is time for our fun finds! And I think people on YouTube are liking our fun finds a lot. So I am a runner, as many of you might know. And I find that ⁓ sometimes after a long run, my feet just take a longer time to recover. My muscles just take a long time to recover. So I decided to give the Hoka Ora slides or recovery slides a chance. They’re pricey.
Brent Warner (34:46)
Yay. Ooh, all right.
Recovery slides.
Ixchell Reyes (35:10)
They are pricey, they are quite pricey. So I had been thinking about them for a year. Yup, don’t like, they look like another ver- They’re like another version of what I think are ugly, which is crocs. Crocs are like the ugliest shooter.
Brent Warner (35:13)
What are these things?
⁓ slides. ⁓ they’re Chanclas
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Sorry, sorry, everybody out there who wears
Crocs. ⁓
Ixchell Reyes (35:38)
But I do have
crocs and I do appreciate that they’re very light and you know, if you’re walking outside in the grass, you could just slip them on, throw them on. But ⁓ my brother-in-law got these recovery slides and he sourced by them. So I thought about it for about a year and I finally purchased the black. And I have to say they feel very comfy. ⁓ I had a…
Brent Warner (35:57)
You
Ixchell Reyes (36:04)
five mile run last Friday where I increased my speed and my legs did not recover well so it was harder to use shoes during the week because I could feel like the pavement and it’s important to take care of no no no at home no holy moly
Brent Warner (36:16)
Wait, you these things to work? ⁓
They’re not the most stylish thing, but I’m sure they’re good for recovery.
Ixchell Reyes (36:27)
No. You know,
around the house I have flip-flops. Flip-flops, not good enough. Doing chores, not good enough. But these are pretty good. So ⁓ if you have extra cash in this economy or you want to use your extra pennies on something for your feet, these are pretty good.
Brent Warner (36:31)
Okay.
Mm.
So slides means slippers now, I guess. got you. All right. I’ll work. Yes, I’ll get me some all orange out there.
Ixchell Reyes (36:49)
slippers or flip-flops. And you see you can get orange ones to go with the backpack that Brent purchased recently.
Brent Warner (37:03)
Alright, sounds good. I am going to share a movie that I watched recently. Actually, I watched it last night. And so the movie is Deathstalker. Now I’m just playing the audio. should not be coming across, but anyways, this is a…
Ixchell Reyes (37:13)
Hmm.
Brent Warner (37:27)
fairly ridiculous movie. ⁓ If you remember the old movies like Conan the Barbarian or the original Deathstalker or Red Sonja, basically these swords and sorcerer movies, it was very silly. ⁓ It was not a good movie, but it was a great movie ⁓ because it’s like not CGI. It’s all practical effects. It’s all wearing rubber suits and these cheap monsters.
Ixchell Reyes (37:43)
hahahahah
Brent Warner (37:57)
come out all the time. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. it’s like, you know, it’s these things you worry about, you’re like, these movies are going to disappear, people are only going to be doing AI movies in the future. And, I actually think that part of this is a resistance to that whole thing. And it’s just like, no, let’s just make it all by hand. ⁓ And so fun, silly, totally 80s style. ⁓ Last year, it came out in 2025.
Ixchell Reyes (38:20)
What year is this movie? ⁓
Brent Warner (38:27)
So as you’re seeing this screen, you’re like, this is super old, right? And I was like, no, it was brand new.
Ixchell Reyes (38:27)
No, I thought another slice of culture that I missed while I was growing up, but turns out it’s last year.
Brent Warner (38:40)
Oh yeah, no, this is this is well there was an 80s movie called Deathstalker. So this is a remake of it or a different version of it. But so it does come. there was a huge movement in the 80s around these sword and sandals or, you know, you know, these, you know, barbarians and wizards, all these things going in. So a lot of fun. It’s out there if you’re interested. Deathstalker 2025 is the silly, silly movie.
Ixchell Reyes (38:46)
⁓ okay.
Brent Warner (39:10)
a little bit grotesque in some scenes so it’s got to be for the right crowd but if you’re into it you’ll know what’s up.
Ixchell Reyes (39:19)
Alright, this video episode is now up on YouTube. You can find us on Instagram or on Facebook at @DIESOLpod, the show notes and more available at DIESOL.org/136. And you can find us on the socials still.
Brent Warner (39:33)
Yeah, so I’m at @BrentGWarner.
Ixchell Reyes (39:40)
And I’m at @Ixy_Pixy_ that’s two underscores I X Y underscore P I X Y underscore. Thank you. Yeah. DIESOLpod. DIESOLpod. Yeah. DIESOLpod. So for again, for the show notes head to our YouTube and our website. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching and see you on the next episode.
Brent Warner (39:48)
Yeah, and the show’s at DIESOLpod though, right? We should also say, like, at DIESOLpod.
Yay!
All right, bye everybody.
In today’s episode, we’re tackling a common challenge. Your students want to build their vocabulary, but your class isn’t really focused on vocabulary learning. So what can you do? We’re looking at simple, practical ways to weave vocabulary into any lesson, without needing to redesign your whole curriculum. From choosing the right words to helping students actually use them in real contexts, we’ll share ideas you can start using right away.
Resources
- Teacher Trainer Reacts Series on YouTube
- Choosing Words:
- Oxford 3000 and 5000
- Academic Word List
- Student Built Lists
- Paul Nation: Principles of Vocabulary Learning – Vocab Expert & Professor
- Presenting Vocabulary – British Council
- Scaffolding Vocabulary – TESOL Blog
- CLIL – Content and Language Integrated Learning
Tools / Tips / Strategies
- Word Forms: Alphabet Soup Game / Warmup / Ice-breaker / Review
- Vocabulary for multiple languages in Google Sheets – Jake Miller
- KnoWord
- Writing Class – Synonym Searcher Activity from EdTech for Multilinual Learners
- Self-Study – Notebook LM (DIESOL 132)
- Making a video from Google Slides
Fun Finds
- Ixchell – Hoka Ora Recovery Slides
- Brent – Deathstalker (2025)