Reading and listening are good passive activities. They help give you exposure to English and, by listening and reading, you'll become more comfortable understanding written and spoken English.
But they are still passive activities. You may find that many of the hardest words are in your passive vocabulary (meaning, you know the definition if you see the word, but you don't use it yourself). But are they in your active vocabulary? Are you comfortable using those words?
To help you build your active vocabulary, we've made an activity with the hardest words from each story.
How it works
In the Vocabulary exercise, we choose one paragraph from the main story and we've removed the hardest vocabulary words. We've placed those words on the right-hand side of the paragraph. Your job is to drag each word into the correct spot in the paragraph.
This video shows how it works:
Where to find it
Find the Vocabulary exercise next to any Story. (Click here to select a Story from the Stories Library.)
Click on the tab called "Activities." Then click on the line called "Vocabulary":
What to do
First, read the words on the right-hand side of the exercise. How many do you know for sure? How many do you think you know? And how many are a mystery?
Next, read the paragraph from start to finish with the blanks.
Then, find the words you are most confident about. Drag them into the correct spot in the paragraph.
Finally, make your best guess about the words you are least familiar with. The activity looks like this:
And after you have dragged all the words, click "Check" to confirm your answers:
