Review- Primary Vocabulary Box

CUP
Caroline Nixon and Michael Tomlinson

Primary Vocabulary Box is a collection of 72 photocopiable activities to ‘introduce children to English vocabulary’, set out in the traditional format of one photocopiable page with one facing descriptive page. It forms part of the Cambridge Copy Collection range of books and follows the similar Primary Activity Box.

After a 4 page introduction to the book, the activities are divided into three ‘levels’ corresponding to the Cambridge young learner tests, and (broadly) to three age ranges between 6 and 12. There are then 40 pages of Vocabulary checklists, word searches and crosswords.

The activities in the first level deal mainly with word recognition, with simple games such as bingo and pellmanism. There is also quite a lot of colouring involved in most of the activities at this level. More original activities include a ‘Wordwheel’ for colour word recognition (a kind of jigsaw) and a ‘Sky Mobile’. The vocabulary areas covered include body parts, clothes, transport and most of the other things you might expect to cover with kids at this level and age.

The second level continues with single word recognition activities, mainly with activities based on traditional games such as dominoes and picture dictations. This level also introduces a ‘word game’ element, with activities such as ‘Broken Words’, where students must find the common written endings of pairs of words, and ‘All Change’, where students change one letter a time of three letter words (‘rat’ to ‘cat’ to ‘car’ etc). Things practiced include furniture, actions and names of shops.

The third level moves onto whole sentences and paragraphs to read, and activities suitable for older kids such as logic puzzles. The language practiced includes hobbies and school subjects.

The first thing that struck me about the book was looking at some of the activities and thinking ‘hold on, that’s not really a game at all’. After reminding myself that the book is called Vocabulary Box rather than Vocabulary Games, it all started to make much more sense. There is generally a lot more craft involved in the activities than a competitive game element, especially in the first level. Competition is certainly used as an element of the book, however, along with activities that focus on cooperation and social skills. The language school I work for emphasises the fun, game element of its kids classes, so I found the ‘sit down and concentrate’ element of this activities were a nice break. If your class is doing bookwork elsewhere in the class, though, you might want to introduce a running game or a song before or after the activity, things that the book does not provide many suggestions for. This may be a weakness of the format of the book, where all the activities need to be based around photocopies, whereas often the point could be practiced just as well without any pieces of paper involved.

The second thing that struck me about the book was that there was almost nothing outside the first of the three levels (as they stood) that I could use with any of my students. I am teaching in a private language school in Japan, and few of my students under 12 have any contact with English or the Roman alphabet outside their one hour a week with me. Luckily, about 50% of the activities in the first level are useable at any age, and quite a few of the ones in level two are adaptable with a bit of tippex to take out the reading element. All in all, though, the book seems to be designed more with European students in mind and, as the introduction says, the emphasis is definitely on the recognition of the written more than the spoken word (and more on recognition than production).

As the book claims, the activities are designed to reduce the preparation necessary to a minimum. The exception to this is the amount of colouring in of flashcards etc. that is suggested (the whole book is illustrated with simple but fun black and white picture that are very suitable for colouring in). The book does suggest how some of this colouring can be done in class by the students, however.

The instructions are very clear and explain all stages from preparing and pre-teaching to extra activities for fast finishers. An original touch was the symbol illustrating noisier activities, an unmistakable picture of shouting youngsters. As I mentioned above, younger and livelier classes might have difficulty sitting through the presentation stages as presented here and you will need to introduce some variety into how you use the flashcards etc.

The tips at front of book are concise, to the point and well worth stating. I particularly liked the tips on children using L1 in the classroom, how and when to display the children’s work, and the idea of bringing in extra copies in case perfectionist children want to start again.

To summarize, this is definitely, as the title of the first book in the range suggests, a book of sit down activities rather than run around games. As such, you are likely to find that the vocabulary covered is the same as whatever syllabus you are using and that the tasks are manageable for kids with the required reading level. There is a lack of a running around element, and few of the activities were completely new to me, and this book will be somewhere I only go to for the few activities I really liked rather than somewhere I often look on the off chance of finding something to liven up a class (at least in my present teaching situation). If you are working your way through a textbook with a class that are fairly familiar with the Roman alphabet, and need something to add variety or a more fun element, then this could certainly be useful with such a class, especially where class discipline or space and student numbers factors do not allow for more physical games and activities.

Review originally published in Modern English Teacher magazine. Republished with permission.

(C) Alex Case/ Modern English Publishing