Power Up Your Vocabulary Teaching

Kristi Reyes

San Diego Regional CATESOL Conference

March 7, 2015

Handout, PowerPoint slides, Resources

•mccesltech.wikispaces.com/CATESOL+2015

1. What does it mean to “know” a word?

• Receptive knowledge – word understood when heard/read

• Productive knowledge – ability to use word in speaking/writing

Productive Knowledge =form, meaning, use

• Pronunciation

• Spelling

• Word parts (prefixes, suffixes) and forms (singular, plural, inflections) and family

• Associations and synonyms

• Denotative v. connotative (polysemy – different meanings in different contexts)

• Grammatical function / part of speech

• Collocations

• Register

• Frequency

Source: Nation, I.S.P. (2014). Learning vocabulary in another language (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

2. What percentage of words in a text do readers need to know in order to read a text with

support?

In general – for extensive reading

• 95% with support

• 98% without support

• Slightly lower (90-95%) for intensive reading

• Less than 90% - text is too difficult for student at his/her current ability level

3. How many exposures to a word are necessary for a language learner to acquire and retain it?

• One exposure = typical student’s retention rate 5 – 14%

• 5 – 20 or more exposures / repetitions (depending on several factors, including age of student)

• Repeated exposures – greater chances for word to move from receptive to productive knowledge

4. Word to Teach Explicitly

•High-frequency words based on corpora

• Lower levels:

• Basic themes (housing, clothing, transportation, food, etc.)

• New General Service List

•Higher levels:

• Oxford English Corpus

• Academic Word List

5. Words to leave to “incidental” learning or gloss

•Leave to incidental learning: lower frequency words

•How likely is the student to encounter this word again?

•Gloss: at higher levels, words that can be defined with an image or quick/short definition or explanation

Lesson Planning

•Goal: strike a balance to promote receptive and productive knowledge

•Meaning-focused input: reading/listening

• Language-focused learning: pronunciation/spelling/word parts/word forms/part of speech

•Meaning-focused output: speaking/writing

• Fluency building

Nation, I.S.P., & Tamamoto, A. (2012). Applying the four strands. International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching and Research, 1(2).

Teaching and Learning the Words

• Lower levels: visuals, TRP, realia, choral repetition, manipulatives, personalized picture dictionaries, labeling, word/sentence writing, manipulatives, categorizing, personalized picture dictionaries/flashcards

• Higher levels: vocabulary notebooks or index cards (word, part of speech, derivatives and inflections, dictionary entry, a sample sentence, synonym(s) and antonym, and an original sentence) sentence writing

• All: matching, flashcards, games, categorizing, word web/concept map, diagrams/chart, dialogs, vocabulary self-rating

Teaching and Learning Examples: Vocabulary Preview/Self-Rating

See also “Vocabulary Self-Rating Chart” at http://www.secondstorywindow.net/home/2014/01/vocabulary-tools.html

Teaching and Learning Examples: Vocabulary Notebook or Index Cards

Image mnemonics

Teaching and Learning: Flashcards

• Print Flashcards: Beginning Level Flashcards or make or have students make their own on Word or PPT

• Digital Flashcards: Quizlet (Kitchen, Academic Word List Sublist 1), Memrise (Academic English course, English Visual Dictionary course)

Teaching and Learning:Word Clouds• Tagxedo, Word it Out, Wordle,

Wordsalad app, ImageChef app)

• “Personality Characteristics” (any word association or word lists) on Tagxedo

• “Guess the Vocabulary Word” on Word it Out

• Other words for “good” Wordle

Teaching and Learning: Interactive Visuals

• Interactive Concept Map Sites (Instragrok, Snappy Words, The Visual Dictionary)

• Interactive Images: Thinglink (vegetables, house)

• Vocabulary / Word Wall –Padlet (see YouTube video), Lino (example), others

Source: http://bcudl.pbworks.com/f/WordWallNedralFlickrCC.jpg

Teaching and Learning Examples: Graphic Organizers, Webs, Mind Maps

Source: http://www.secondstorywindow.net/home/2014/02/knowing-a-word-assessing-vocabulary.html

• SmartArt graphic organizers in Microsoft Office products (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel 2010), Education Place’s Graphic Organizers, Education Oasis, Text2Mindmap, Bubbl.us with app, Mindmeister, Popplet app

Teaching and Learning:Cloze Exercises

•Cloze Test Generator Cloze Test Creator, Learnclick Cloze Quiz Creator – with app)

Cloze on PDF with Learnclick free account

Teaching and Learning: Games

• Jeopardy (Basic Vocab Jeopardy Game – ESOL Help -also on ESL Games Plus, Food Partitives and other beginning vocabulary games on ESL Games Plus)

• Flyswatter game (Beg)

• Password (word association game)

Teaching and Learning: Dictations

• Running Dictation – Groups – Sentences or paragraphs, based on students’ level

• Split Dictation – Text divided A /B

•Dictogloss / Dictocomp – Listen, remember, write

Some key points from research

• Help students develop strategic communicative competence

• paraphrasing & expressions such as What is the word for…?

• Present vocabulary in context

• Practice activities: controlled practice (listen and repeat, matching, cloze) to activities that allow students to use the target words in meaningful, personalized ways

• Make time for review in a systematic way with repetition (remember 5 – 20 or more exposures) and recycling

• Forgetting occurs soon after learning – review soon after teaching

• Competitive fun review (games) – motivational, forces faster retrieval

• Writing vocabulary in own sentences strengthens memory of target vocabulary through generative processing

Using the Words

• Lower levels: dictations, running dictation, simple sentence or story writing (from pictures)

•Higher levels: paragraphs, conversation/discussion, summary or story writing , structured retell, oral presentations, student-created cloze exercises

•All: interviews, surveys/questionnaires, info gaps, writing/performing dialogs

Using the Words: Dialogs

• Comic strips (Bit Strips, ComicLife, MakeBeliefsComix,Toondoo, StoryboardThat)

• Sample VESL Business Idioms Project

•Digital movies (Dvolver, GoAnimate!, Zimmer Twins)

• Sample Student Idiom Project

• Student-produced video

Idiom DictionaryVESL @ MiraCosta College

Spring 2014

Business & Work IdiomsVictoria Mendoza

Edith Floyd

VESL@MiraCostaCollage

Spring 2014

• Lemon: A defective product or anything that doesn’t work.

• Think outside the box: to think in different ways.

• The big wig: An important, powerful or famous person.

Using the Words:VoiceThread

• Listening, writing, speaking

• Basic Vocabulary Example

• Assessment

Using the Words:Writing Using Vocabulary Lists

• Structured Retell (like dictocomp - paraphrase / write a story they listen to, using provided list of words)

• Individual / pair / small group summary and story writing from a provided list of words

• Writing sites and discussion boards (PicLits, Padlet or Lino, Storybird, Storymash, an individual or class blog, a class wiki)

Using the Words:Conversation / Writing prompts

and Productive Vocabulary Party

• Teacher or student-composed questions using target vocabulary words

• Students must reply to questions using full sentences and target vocab

1. What is a good method for losing weight?

2. What is your preferred method for studying vocabulary?

3. What is the best method for learning another language?

4. What is your method for staying so young looking?

Assessment: Beginning Level

• Possibilities:

1. Matching

2. Labeling

3. Writing from picture prompts (Action, English, Pictures! , Sequences: Picture Stories for ESL, Picture Stories: Language and Literacy Activities for Beginners)

4. Simple sentence cloze tests

Source: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/language/english/label/family/

Source: http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Matching.htm

Source: http://web.whittiercity.k12.ca.us/~eld/ELD/Resource_Page_files/fbp1895451612.pdf

Assessment: Intermediate/Advanced LevelsObjective: Test memory of definition or require critical thinking/creative application?

• Possibilities:

1. Cloze tests – sentence or paragraph level

2. Contextualized sentence containing vocabulary word; students write the next sentence

• The research on the effects of the antioxidants in chocolate on returning skin to its youthful state has been conducted for more than a decade.

3. Sentence containing vocabulary word used correctly or incorrectly; students explain if the use is correct or incorrect

• A combination of good sleep will help the body and mind restore itself and make you feel refreshed.

Promote Vocabulary Study Beyond ClassGood language learners = study target vocabulary; take

initiative to learn, practice, and use new words

• Word-of-the-Day (or week) presentations (PowerPoint, Prezi, Animoto, Powtoon, poster, other visual aide)

Source: New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary, 2014 edition, TESOL Press, pp. 5 – 9 (with rubric).

Promote Vocabulary Study Beyond Class

• Word-of-the-Day Web sites (Learners Dictionary)

• Apps (Illustrate – vocabulary learning through animated videos, others – see Web site)

• Email Subscriptions (A.Word.A.Day at WordSmith.org, Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, Word Central Daily Buzzword, L10)

• Provide list of Web sites/apps for supplementary vocabulary practice (Learning Chocolate, General Academic Vocabulary, and Vocabulary Exercises for the Academic Word List)

What is something new or different you are going to try in your vocabulary lessons?

Handout, PowerPoint slides, and many resources online at mccesltech.wikispaces.com/CATESOL+2015

•Happy Vocabulary Teaching!