Hi there. Well I'm still a student, and I'm a few years older than yours, but I can tell you what I like in my lessons, that you could also use with your children. For practicing and improving vocabulary my teacher uses 'games'. I don't only think of Scrabble. Sometimes there is some leftover on the blackboard and she choses a long word from there and writes it up vertically, once up to down and revers: C … E
O … T
N … U
T … B
R … I
I … R
B … T
U … N
T … O
E … C And children have to fill out each gaps. That who has finished, tells it, and then end of the game, he tells you his solutions, and if someone had something different, he may tell you, too. These words are something I remember betterso that next time I may be the first :) You can control how much letters they are allowed to use. Or she choses a longish word, and you have to create new words from using its letters. And children can exchange their knowledge, which feels not so official and mandatory. And there's a third game we use. But that's something I can't explain here well enough, but let's try. There's a game (don't know what it's called) which is generally played in 3×3 checked areas. You writethe first letter of recently learned words in each gaps. You split the class. The goal of the game is to have three X's or 0's in a row. So one team choses a letter, you give the definition of that word, and the team who finds it out can have their an X or a 0. And so on. But this might be only for older, because of the definition. After having tested these games you can ask them which one they prefer to play. Or today we played 'say an animal' next one 'say what it eats', 'say another animal that eats that', 'say another thing it eats'. Who is the last, or best in any games, can get a 'plus' or a good note (we have little fives something like little A's would be in GB /No idea what you have in Turkey :$/. So five little fives makes a big, which is an entire good note).
And don't know how it is in your country, but here American English is absolutely not acceptable, and if you happen to know an American word you may use it unwillingly, and some teachers don't accept them in tests. That can disappoint one very much. But it's not only up to the teacher, I know. I can tell you about other games, too, if you're interested. Just write me a mail here or by email. They are right, it is hard, but even other subjects are hard. Make them talk about their interests, whatever they want (of course, just normal things), and correct them only after having finished. Hope, I could help you, Feri
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