How to learn First Certificate vocabulary using manipulatives.

  • Dos de las alumnas de 1º ESO realizando los juegos de vocabulario con el dado.

It is believed by many that the use of manipulatives should be restricted to infants or to the early stages of primary education. Howard Gardner and his theory of Multiple Intelligences show that we have to teach our students to learn in many ways no matter their age. Encouraging students to be body smart is possibly one of the most neglected abilities in our educational system. In our school, we encourage our students not only in primary but also in secondary education, to use manipulatives and bodily kinesthetic activities to reinforce the content or procedure learnt in a lesson or project. Kagan magic cubes are a perfect tool to teach First Certificate level vocabulary with cooperative structures and stretching their bodily kinesthetic intelligence. The cubes used as dices offer different questions to be answered by the students about the words they are working on. They are fun especially when we pick them from the floor!