Exercise 2. Looking for antonyms

The meaning of the word is explained by giving the word of opposite meaning [5, p.153].

E.g. even – odd, get dense – thin out

Exercise 3. Looking for words that fulfil specific criteria

Such exercises are based on classifying the vocabulary to be learned into association groups [5, p.158]. The criteria could be given by the teacher or determined by the students themselves.

E.g. Find the names for the 4 parts of atmosphere on the vocabulary list.

Exercise 4. Word Trade

This is an enjoyable activity which can be used with any set of words. First, students decide individually which words they find interesting or important and they would like to remember. Then they choose four words from the list and write them down on slips of paper. The words should be written separately, one word on one piece of paper. Students should write the English words on one side and their mother tongue equivalents on the other side. Next, in pairs, Student A reads the words to Student B and checks if he or she remembers them. If the partner does not remember the word, Student A reads it in English and gives the slip to Student B. Then Student B repeats the activity reading the words to Student A. The winner of the game is the one who has fewer slips at the end. This activity can be repeated within groups of four students making the exercise more competitive.

Exercise 5. Venn diagrams

Venn diagrams technique is effective with content-area terms for important concepts that the teacher wants students to master [3, p.44]. The teacher first chooses overlapping concepts, such as Mathematics and Chemistry and then draws empty Venn diagrams (see Fig. 3) on the blackboard asking students to look through the set of words again to find the words that fall into these two categories. At the same time, the students should also decide which of the chosen words could be associated with both concepts. This activity makes students think about the words in a meaningful way.

Fig. 3 Venn diagrams

 

Exercise 6. Writing a story or a dialogue

In order to make this activity stimulating and entertaining students should forget for a moment about the topic of the particular ESP lesson. They should be encouraged to think of something nice, funny, their hobby or holidays. Then students write down a word in English which first comes to their minds. Next in groups of 3 – 4 they write a short story, a fragment of a story or a dialogue incorporating the words and two or three new ESP words from the table above.

Exercise 7. The words I like and the words I dislike

In this exercise students look through the set of words selected by the teacher to be practiced before reading and choose two or three words they like and two or three words they dislike. Then they read the words to students sitting next to them and explain their decisions.

Reading and note-taking

After we have practiced the vocabulary, we can ask students to read the text. In my experience the best way to set about this task is to divide the text, if possible, into meaningful fragments and prepare different exercises for each of them.

 

Exercise 1. Table filling

The first paragraph of “The atmosphere past and present” describes the structure of the atmosphere and provides a lot of factual information in the text and in the diagram to the right of the text, therefore a table filling exercise is a suitable activity here (see Fig. 4). To make the exercise communicative students should work in pairs A and in pairs B. Students A should look for information for the odd numbered lines in the table, Students B should look for information for the even numbered lines. Then after they have filled their lines they should pair off and form pairs A + B. Working with new partners, students should fill in the table with missing information by asking the following questions:

e.g. What is the height of …

What is the temperature of …

What is the pressure of …

	The parts of atmosphere are…	The height of … is from … to …	The temperature of … is …	The pressure of … is …
1A	troposphere
2B	stratosphere
3A	mesosphere
4B	ionosphere