The most common way of rehearsing words in the Swedish schools is to use a bilingual word list and ask the students to give the English “translation” of the Swedish word. This method is risky in at least four ways:
1) Students learn to believe that all words are directly translatable
2) Students believe that the given answer is the only possible one
3) Students keep thinking in their mother tongue when trying to speak English
4) Students with a mother tongue other than Swedish are given a disadvantage in learning
Research says that new vocabulary is best learned in context, but there are also simple ways to keep the word lists and just eliminate the need of the translations. WebEnglish.se has compiled a list of vocabulary activities to help teachers leave the bilingual lists behind. Link: Rehearsing Vocabulary
For English (ELL) Teachers
