This method implies that the more senses are engaged when you train vocabulary items, the better. These senses are: visual, audial, kinesthetic, smell, taste and tactile. The author of the idea is Herbert Puchta, but I extended and altered it a bit to suit my classroom situation.

When vocabulary items are introduced, it’s better to engage more channels of perception to provide more connections in the brain. What I do when I introduce new words to young learners:

1)                          I use a set of picture cards for the vocabulary that is going to be introduced, and put them on the blackboard;

2)                          I name the words one after the other and add movement and sound that can be helpful in remembering it (for example, if you introduce the word rabbit, you can show long ears, or when it is train, make ‘chu-chu’ sound and move the hands as if they were wheels);

3)                          when I come to every third word, I revise the items from the beginning (e.g. rabbit-fox-wolf- rabbit-fox-wolf-duck-bear-squirrel- rabbit-fox-wolf-duck-bear-squirrel);

4)                          then I ask 3 or 4 of my pupils come to the board and point to the pictures I name;

5)                          then I say the word, and the kids mime it or make the appropriate sound;

6)                          after that I introduce the word card for every picture: I name them (at this stage the students help me in chorus) and the students tell me which picture each card goes to;

7)                          then 3 or 4 of my students match the word cards to pictures on the board (with my help at this stage).

In my next post I am going to describe the activities that can be used for multi-sensory to activate the vocabulary in the multi-sensory way.