This document describes an activity to teach 11-12 year olds vocabulary about food words. Students are given images from a food pyramid and must match the images to words. They then group the words into categories based on color-coded food groups. Students work in groups to write as many words as they can remember in 5 minutes. For homework, students draw food words they like and write sentences classifying the foods as healthy or unhealthy. The goal is to help students better remember vocabulary by grouping and classifying related words.

1. Teaching
strategies
ACTIVITY:
GROUPING FOOD
WORDS

2. Activity : Grouping food words
 Main strategy: Memory strategy of grouping/ classifying
 Assisting strategies: associating/ using imagery / semantic
mapping/ practicing naturalistically (cognitive), cooperating with
peers (social), using resources for receiving and sending
messages (cognitive)
Language level : A2
Age :11-12 years old
Skills practiced : Vocabulary and writing
Time of activity : 18 minutes

3. Description of the activity
Learners are handed out a photocopy – extract taken from an Irish website
http://www.healthyireland.ie/
Learners are handed out a photocopy – extract taken from an Irish website displaying the Food
Pyramid and a short accompanying text. The first version of the pyramid introduces them to the
coloured categories and the food. The second version is a copy of the first but with no word
equivalents for the images and no names for the categories but only colours. The learners should be
able to match the food images with the corresponding words. When they do not know a word they
can use a dictionary. Then they have to classify them in the coloured categories list called Food
Groups Selection. Each category of this list is associated with a different colour; grains – orange colour
, vegetables – green , fats and oils – yellow , milk – blue and meat and beans – purple. Students in 3
groups cooperate so as to write down as many food words in Food Groups Selection as they can
remember in 5 minutes. The winning group helps the other groups to fill in with the rest of the food
words. For homework they are assigned to draw and write 6 food words they like into the correct
side- category of the plate and write sentences about their eating habits with these words.

4. Authentic
material
Food pyramid image taken from an
Irish website
http://www.healthyireland.ie/

5. Nutrition and
Food Pyramid
Learners are asked to draw
arrows and write the word
equivalent. This time the
categories are classified in
colours *. They can use a
dictionary to look up the
words they do not know.
* The next slide shows the
colours and the equivalent
categories
e.g.
croissant

6. Colours and
categories

7. Food categories
- grains
- vegetables
- fruits
- milk
- meat and beans
- oils
Learners are asked to fill in
the blanks with as many food
words as possible.

8. Preparation
Explain that ‘grouping and classifying’ is a
useful learning strategy, in particular, when
learners have to master new vocabulary. It is
undoubtedly easier to remember and learn
the information when it is organized in a
logical way, instead of learning disconnected
lists of words. Groups can be based on type of
word, similarity, linguistic function . In our case
grouping is based on topic and the power of
this strategy is enhanced by using colours to
represent different groups. Using imagery is
also another assisting strategy employed in
the initial stage of the activity so as to
associate words with pictures.

9. Modelling
As soon as the students have drawn lines
between the images and the food words they
proceed with grouping them /classifying them
according to colour and category ; grains –
orange colour , vegetables – green , fats and
oils – yellow , milk – blue and meat and beans
– purple. Give them a clear example by using
the category oils. Start writing down on the
board under the category the words butter,
olive oil etc. Explain that by creating mental
linkages between words and images , by
visualising and then grouping those words ,
you can remember them more easily.
1
2

10. Practice – Scaffolding
The teacher sets the time limit and asks
learners to cooperate and write down as many
words as they can remember from the website
and fill in the categories of the Food Groups
Selection. When the time is over the teacher
asks the groups to count the words they have
written. The group that managed to write
down the most correct words is the winner.
Then the students of the winning group have
to help the others fill in the rest of the words.
As soon as they finish ask the students to think
of any possible categories that these types of
food might fall in. For example another
category such as heathy or unhealthy could be
used by the students. Write down a semantic
map of healthy and unhealthy food.
Unhealthy
food
Healthy
food
butter
apple

11. Evaluation
During this phase the teacher has to remind the learners of the significance of grouping
vocabulary so as to help them recall related words whenever they have to remember a set of
words that are in a way related or categorized into logical groups. He also needs to ask them
whether they found this type of classification useful and whether they would ever use it again in
the future. He can also ask them about their preferred way of classifying words.

12. Expansion/transfer
Every time the learners are asked to learn new vocabulary, remind them that they can use this
type of memory strategy( grouping/ classifying) to help them memorize words. Ask them to do
the following exercise at home. They first have to classify and draw the food they eat on the
correct side of the dish and then write sentences where they also classify it as healthy or
unhealthy. Also, another classification that could be made, would be a grammatical one
between countable and uncountable words. Finally, consider asking them to always bring with
them an FL vocabulary notebook and classify the words they meet according to topic or part of
speech.

13. Homework
Writing exercise
My eating habits.
Healthy or
unhealthy?
Write down the food words
that you eat . Place the food
word of your choice into the
correct side of the dish and
then write sentences.
e.g The fruits I like eating
are apples, bananas ,
oranges. They are healthy.

14. Teaching objective
Retaining the new words is a difficult task for every second language learner . Helping learners to
memorize better by creating mental associations through grouping and classifying or through
visual imagery is an effective way of overcoming this problem. Another way to achieve this goal is
to show them how to create visual semantic maps. Therefore, teaching memory strategies in a
second language learning environment is of vital importance.