Jessica Watson, Scotland
Hi Elena,
You could try plenty of vocabulary tests - with prizes/incentives!
I've found students love testing each other: they choose 10 'difficult' words and ask their classmates 'What does X mean?' and 'How do you spell X?'. For each correct answer, students get a point. Again, introduce prizes/incentives!
Good luck!

Ajit Singh Nagpal, Singapore
Firstly, I think we should not teach vocabulary by memory. Vocabulary is best taught in context then it will be remembered based on the usage. When a similar situation arises the student will remember the context which should trigger the right word for application.
Secondly, words have more meanings than what a dictionary can provide. Words when used by a speaker bring to the conversation not only the literal meaning of the word but also his personal experience. That is why I always say that meanings are in people and not in words. So learn to use words in context and the meanings will come out from the people who use them.

James, Malaysia
Try this! Set a competition - with a reward or a punishment. Use antonyms as a starter. They will also learn what I call Double Vocab. Put their names on the board and give scores. Nobody wants to lose. You should see results and enthusiasm within 3 lessons. Good luck and remember to sing praises to the winner and encourage the lazy/weaker students with "Let's beat this genius next week." Based on the situation, a clue on what will be asked next, may help.

Alice, Italy
Dear Elena
You don't say what level your students are, but with elementary/pre-inetrmediate students I often use this procedure.
Lesson 1
1. I ask students to look at pictures I have collected of a vocabulary set I want them to learn e.g. things in the home, parts of the body, phrasal verbs and verbs for travel (get on/off a bus, drive a car) and ask them in pairs to pick out the mones they know.
2. I then have a class plenary and elicit or give the students all the vocabulary, making sure they write down every word in their note books.
3. I then ask them to pile up the pictures face down, and in pairs turn them over one by one and see if they can remember - they can look at their list to help them at this stage.
4. For homework, I ask them to write the translation of the vocabulary next to the English word, and to learn the vocabulary.

Lesson 2
I use various techniques here. You can repeat step 1 above - to see how many words they have learnt. You can have a race 'In pairs, how many furniture words from the last lesson can you remember? You have two minutes'. You can play a game (Games for Vocabulary Practice, published by Cambridge, is a good resource here). You can also ask them to use the vocabulary in a logical setting, e.g. recalling furniture vocab when describing their homes, recalling phrasal verbs and verbs for travel when describing their own journery to school, or their parent's journey to work. This could also be done as written work.

I usually find that after the above steps most students can recall a vocbaulary set of say 25 items, whereas at the beginning they knew on five or six. I think they keys to teaching vocabulary are

1. Teach in related 'sets' i.e. word connected by a topic or theme
2. Use different activities which use the vocabulary in different ways
3. Allow the students to use the vocab. in 'realistic' ways.
4. Re-visiting the vocabulary at future points in the course. Experts have suggested that a student needs to revise a vocabulary item at least seven times, at ever-lengthening intervals e.g. 1 hour later, 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month etc before it is truly memorised.

I hope this helps!

John Goodhew, UK
I get my students to keep vocabulary note books with new words in alphabetical order. Inside the note book I use columns: word, defintion, part of speech, example sentence, transaltion. This seems to work well, as thet have an active record of new words to refer to.

Barbara Race, France
I use games for reinforcing vocabulary. Nouns tend not to present a problem, but some of my more elderly learners have real problems with memory. Because they are very keen to learn Pelmanism works well. This is the game where matching pairs of words or pictures are shuffled and placed face down on a table. The players take turns to look at two cards and then replace them in the same position. When they find a pair they keep it. For pictures, they must be prepared to speak i.e. say what is in the picture. I have successfully used this with numbers too. I used translation to help learn possessive pronouns and personal pronouns, though this may be frowned on by some. One card has the English and the other their language (only possible with monolingual classes). It would probably only be feasible with small numbers as photocopies show through. Handwritten pencil does not. I used dominoes for prepositions of time with matching dominoes. e.g. in the morning, at night, on holiday.
I use a lot of lotto games with my learners. You could note the words they find difficulty in remembering and make a lotto game. As you play you would need some way of checking they have remembered or are reminded of the meaning. I used this for pronunciation practice for words they found difficult to pronounce.
A test often motivates learners to commit vocabulary to memory. That worked very well when I was that age. Vocabulary homework was set weekly and always tested, at least orally.

Ana Maria Mari, Argentina
The Game that has worked fantastically with my teenage students is the SECRET CODE GAME. This is an easy to play game, with little preparation and that can be adapted to any consolidating activity, either to recycle grammar or vocabulary. You can find it on this site, (click here). You could also use hangman game, bingo or naughts and crosses to quickly revise vocabulary, before starting off.

Simon Mumford, Turkey
One method I have tried is to create new words out of the new vocabulary and their synonyms. For example, if you want students to remember 'essential' means 'important', write 'impess', which contains the first syllable from each word, on the board, to help students remember both words in connection with each other.
Maria de los Angeles Alonso, Argentina
Hi Elena! What I almost always do when my students have to memorize new vocabulary is to play "bingo" with the new words. From a certain quantity of words they have to choose some of them and make cards with those words. Then, you take word by word from a bag and they cross out the ones they chose.

S. Rodger, Indonesia
I have a vocab bag/box. Anyone can put words in it and any time we have 5 minutes I pull random words out of the box. I ask for translation or definition or synonym or a sentence using it or collocation, correct pronunciation etc. The students never know which question I (or another student ) will ask. In addition I insist on each student having their own vocab book to record vocab as they wish.

Claudia Mewald, Austria
One of my all time favourites to practise and simultaneously memorise new words is the FLY-SWATTER GAME: Put some pictures/symbols/numbers etc. on the board. Divide the class into two teams and make them queue in front of the board. The first two pupils in the queue get a fly swatter each. The teacher says a word and the pupils hit the picture/symbol/number etc. as quickly as possible. The first one to hit the correct item scores a point for their team. The pupils run to the end of the queue and the game is carried on. The teacher can call out exactly the words on the board, opposites, a definition, the translation in the pupils’ L1, a mathematical operation etc. – the pupils really enjoy hitting the correct word!
Variation and/or follow up: Make the pupils queue up facing the board and the last one in the queue facing the class. The teacher stands at the end of the queue and shows a word, a picture, a symbol etc. The pupils whisper the word to the next pupil in the row until the word reaches the first pupils who either hit the words on the board or write them down.
This activity lends itself for practising verb forms (show the base form and make the pupils write down the past and/or past participle) or in CLIL lessons: show a symbol (e.g. a musical note, a formula) and let the pupils write down/draw the equivalent or show a sight/picture of a place and let the pupils swat its location on a map.

B.Sivakami, India
Teaching vocabulary requires a lot of preparation on the part of the teachers. They have to present contexts for the vocabulary. For each word there should be as many different contexts as possible. This will ensure the easy assimilation of the meanings of those words and remembrance of them later. Inclusion of situations which promote first hand experience certainly produces good results.

Hardeep S Anant, India
Dear Elena,
Our experience seems to suggest that ESL learners benefit from a repeated exposure to a carefully prepared word list consisting of homonyms as well as other words with some similarity in sounds. These words must be explained with the help of anecdotes or jokes which bring out the appropriate usages. While explaining, synonyms and antonyms will automatically be covered but the teacher need not provide an elaborate list; to avoid monotony.
It is important to ensure that the sessions are conducted in a lively manner. Students' participation can be ensured even by simple activities like making them repeat a sentence. They will relish it if the sentences are funny.
Best Wishes,
Anant

George Alex, Bulgaria
Wow, great ideas here! Really impressive.
What I've found useful when teaching vocabulary (the hardest at any level) is a lot of texts where you don't immediately tell the students the meanings but rather make them work in pairs or groups and brainstorm the meanings. Then give them good monolingual dictionaries to look up the words in class (by 'good' I mean suitable for their level). After you have finished discussing the new words, you revise the old (you can use games and competitions as suggested here). You need to get them actively involved in finding the meaning and giving examples (their own). Don't be afraid if they make mistakes with the use of the new words, we learn best from our mistakes, right?
Then if you use IT in class, you can use the wonderful software I have found: Vocatude for Windows and ProVoc for Mac. They are freeware and a great way to test vocabulary. Let them install the piece of software on their comps and practice at home. Incredible results.
Then as a follow-up you can play the Hangman or Scramble letters but most of all use texts that are interesting. In this way you have both the new and the well-forgotten old ones in a new context which helps learn well.
And I would disagree here with Alice that you need to repeat a word at least 7 times. I've heard experts say (and I am convinced it's true) that you need to repeat a word about 14 times (in different context) in order to remember it well and have lasting results. So let them read a lot (graded readers are wonderful) and they will see the words in different context all throughout the book.
I hope it helps.

Raffaella, Italy
I find that if you use limericks and songs they tend to remember words (vocabulary) as the rhythm helps them memorize. I agree that you should not ask them to learn by rote but using poetry, karaoke (singalong) and matching lyrics and music no doubt helps remembering words. I also ask them to write their own glossary of difficult words at the back of their notebook, but they can't be bothered most of the time. One other thing which usually works is to let them listen to a song and ask them to write down words they recognize from it and then compare what they find with the actual lyrics. Good luck!

Rajan Kumar Chharahang, Nepal
Elena,
Vocabulary is not learnt by hard learning but by its frequent usage. First you should point out the difficult words from the related chapters and you should note down these on the board or any teaching materials so that every students clearly can see. Then you should give examples of using these words from the book for some regular times until that becomes clear to students, and then make your students if possilbe individually write a sentence in their excercise copy and speak to their friends. I apply this method in my students but not to learn by heart.
Elena, it might sound old-fashioned, but what I consider useful is the repetition drill. Firstly teach the meaning of the desired vocabulary item in context and try your best to clarify its usage. Secondly ask students to use the words in sentences of their own. Correct errors if there are any. Lastly encourage student to use these word in their day to day conversation. The fact of the matter is that we remember things that we come across very often.

Marina Petrou, Greece
I know that vocabulary can be a heavy strain on the brain of the students of all ages.What works with me most of the times are various games and quizzes which we do with my students. I tend to have sweets as prizes for young ones and less homework for the older ones- exactly what they need. I challenge them to find the words they want me to create a quiz on especially when it is the first time they face new diificult words. Moreover they are motivated to use them in sentences of their own or write short stories with some of them. Vocabulary takes time and a lot of recycling.

Neli Kukhaleishvili, Georgia
Unfortunately, I come across the same problems even after having practised. Some of these activities might help you.
1. I ask students to "adopt" one word and explain why they adopt this word.
2. I tell my students as soon as I name a word that they have to write as many associated words as possible for half a minute. Then I tell students to read out their list of associated words, choose one out of this list and ask the student to explain the connection between the key word.
3. I write words on slips of paper - one word per slip. I then.tell my students to pretend they are this word and speak. Other students should guess which word it is.
For example, the student gets the word dictionary - "I am heavy, my place is sometimes on the table, sometimes on the shelf..."

Joanne Yatvin
For new words to be remembered, students have to encounter them regularly in reading and listening and use them regularly in their speech and writing. These kinds of encounters will also introduce and solidify the various meanings, pronunciations and spellings of words of words without drilling or copying definitions from a dictionary.
Try introducing words in a context, such as a story, poem, dialogue, etc. Students may listen and/or read the original and discuss it, using some of the vocabulary. They can try writing their own pieces or, even better, create their own short dramatizations and act them out. These can be recorded on video or written down and used later as practice by other students in the class. As students progress, they should be asked about once a week to give a short oral talk (one or two minutes) on a topic recently covered in class; talks should be prepared in advance.

Bahia Aquesbi, Morocco
One of the most motivating ways to get students memorize vocab items is by using frayer cards. Another absolutely marvellously helpful means is graphic organizers for both retention and higher level thinking .Categorizing and sorting vocabulary items may be useful, too. Flash cards can be easy to handle while posters all round the class are fantastic. Clothes lines can be engaging, too. Then there is hangman, card matching... Good luck!

Nora Alicia Anzora de Jerez, El Salvador
I teach English in a public school where most of my students do not have the basic knowledge of the English language needed to understand the class. Therefore, they need to learn by heart the vocabulary presented in each lesson.I have used games in order to motivate them to learn the new vocabulary and I have had excellent results. You can use The memory game, spelling words game, puzzles,etc. I have found that they learn rapidly when they play rather than just repeat the words. Try some games and you will see the results.

Hi, Elena,

You know, the main problem here, as I think isn't the vocabulary, but the age of the students, so  I see two very practical ideas.

First is drama! Let your students make up dialogues, using as many words as possible, and then show  them in front of the classroom, while the class should have their roles of positive/negative critic, an old lady, a gangster ...- and after watching they should give their comments.

Second is interview!  The student to be interviewed takes out a card with one of the active words  - he/she should answer any questions using this word. - Students have a great fun doing it, so they remember everything easily!

Try them, hope they'll help!

hi

the best thing to memorize  the words is to study the word in detail  by the cambridge dictionary   . the student here will understand the word and keep it in mind then its pronunciation exactly  then he will study the studied  examples of the word .

in this way the student will understand  80% of the new words that he finds

thank you