When students come across unfamiliar words when reading, it's a good idea for them to look them up so they can work out exactly what they mean in context. But unless they learn them and use them, they're likely to forget them. No one can keep a whole dictionary in their head, and looking up words in a big dictionary repeatedly is unproductive, so it's useful for students to create a personalised vocabulary book to help keep a record of new words learned to increase their command over language both when reading and when writing. 

When learning a new word, it's not enough for students to just learn the word as they've found it, and what part of speech it is, but they also need to learn to include the related word forms and the parts of speech they fall under and their etymology. Synonyms, antonyms, roots, prefixes and suffixes can all be discussed and added, and for younger students, a picture to help visualise the word, and how it sounds in context can be helpful.

Most importantly, when students find words that are new to them, they won't find them in alphabetical order. If they try to index them in a standard way, there's no guarantee that the words will fall neatly in place - in fact the words will most likely come in a random order. But there is a way round this - and, in this class, students will learn an easy way to index and look up words so they can use their vocabulary book as a personalised dictionary and record of their ongoing learning journey in relation to words.
In this one-off class, students will create a personalised vocabulary book, create an index that works, enter at least 2-3 words into the book, and index them appropriately. 

In the process, we'll discuss the history of the English language, synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, word formation (root words, prefixes, suffixes) and the grammatical implications of some of these, and go into the basics of etymology and its importance.

(Photo by Brando Makes Branding on Unsplash)