Vocabulary

1. Vocabulary New Lynn School 4 May 2009 Jane van der Zeyden

3. “In order to make progress in both oral and written language, a learner needs to learn new works. Vocabulary needs to be taught explicitly…” English Language Learning Progressions Ministry of Education, 2008

4. Learning Intention We are learning to provide meaningful tasks in our classroom programmes which will help students to build their vocabulary knowledge. Success Criteria • We will be able to identify lexical items which will need to be explicitly taught. • We will be able to effectively use tasks to develop vocabulary. • We will be able to describe different facets to “knowing” a word.

5. What does knowing a word involve? How many aspects can you identify?

6. Teachers and students need to understand that ‘learning” or “knowing” a word involves: • Knowing how the word sounds • Saying the word with correct pronunciation • Spelling it accurately • Recognising it in print • Understanding what it means in context • Knowing its most commonly used meaning • Understanding other meanings in different contexts e.g. bank,

7. Knowing what part of speech it is • Knowing whether the word is technical or general vocabulary • Knowing whether it is being used literally, metaphorically or idiomatically • Understanding whether the word should be used in informal or formal contexts

8. Learners can extend this knowledge through: • Learning how to form other words in the same family • Learning what other words collocate with the word • Learning that some words are “joined” to make a lexical item e.g a bank robbery, a retirement village • Building a bank of words with similar meanings • Learning where a word fits on a cline • Finding out about the origin of the word Reference:English Language Learning Progressions

9. Different types of vocabularies • Expressive vocabulary - the words we use to speak and write • Receptive vocabulary - the words we use to listen and read • Meaning and oral vocabularies - combination of listening and speaking vocabularies • Literate vocabulary - combination of reading and writing vocabularies

10. Very young children have meaning vocabularies that are much larger than literate vocabularies • Adults probably have literate vocabularies larger than meaning vocabularies. • Some researchers e.g Ehri (1994,1998) suggest that high frequency words should be introduced without written context so that students focus on their visual composition

11. Native speakers will add roughly 1000 word families a year to their vocabulary • Some studies suggest that ELL’s vocabulary grows at the same rate as native speakers but the initial gap is not closed. • Significant vocabulary growth can occur if learning is done in the L2 environment (Milton and Meara, 1995)

12. Approximately 100 words make up about 50% of most English texts • First 1000 words make up 72% of texts • First 2000 words make up 79.7% of texts • First 4000 words make up 86.8% of texts • Although there are approx. 54,000 word families in English, 3,000 to 5,000 word families provide a basis for comprehension

13. Processes for remembering words: • Learners need to notice the word or be aware of it • Retrieval - if a word is retrieved either receptively or productively in a familiar task then the memory of that word will be strengthened. • Generation - may be either receptive or productive. Involves using the vocabulary in new contexts

14. Implications for teachers • Identify the key words and phrases. Think about how frequently the words are used, how important they are for concept learning, how important they are for general academic use.

15. Introducing key words • Plan appropriate activities and tasks to teach and test these key words • Simple explanation may be all that is required • Teach other related forms and words e.g. digestion leads to digest, ingest, digestive, food, nutrient • Limit the number of new words • Get students to predict possible meanings • Avoid introducing pairs of words that have similar meanings or are opposite in meaning.

16. In the classroom: • Word maps • Clustering activities • Use visuals where possible • Teach pronunciation • Clines • Cloze activities • Definition-matching activities • Dominoes, crosswords, word- guessing games, word bingo • Vocabulary quizzes

17. Metacognitive strategies for students: • Keeping their own vocabulary lists • Highlighting key words • Drawing word maps or using other visual activities • Bilingual cards or other word cards with meanings on the back • “words of the week” or a “word wall”

19. brainstorms… cat, kitten, tomcat, mice, birds, play, flick, hunt, stalk, catch, whiskers, sensitive, ears, saucers, milk, fur, lick, clean, wash, trees, sleep, curl, tail, flick, anger, seven lives, fall, land, lap, stroke, purr…

20. classifying… LIVE offshore islands sandspits mountains forest grassland beach at sea towns swamps EAT seeds nuts fish berries carrion insects BODIES feathers wings beak legs feet eyes hollow bones down brush-tongue STATUS at risk endangered extinct common PEOPLE ornithologists zoologists naturalists conservationists

21. Looks like.. Feels like… Makes me think of ... Sounds like… sensory webs… stripey short fur on its body tufts of long hair in its ears white, grey and black fluffy tail staring blue eyes soft smooth furry stiff whiskers prickly claws twitchy tail scratchy climbing trees licking milk from a saucer catching birds stalking and hunting sleeping, curled up in my lap miaowing crying scratching talking yowling

22. classifying… behaviour.. play flick hunt stalk catch lick wash sleep curl fall land kinds of.. cat kitten tomcat tabby food/play.. mice birds saucers milk meat chew lick swallow bat pounce bodies.. whiskers ears fur pads claws eyes nose breeds… Persian Siamese

23. Opposites / difference / similarities semantic web… Parts of the whole e.g. claws, whiskers, tail, fur, teeth, pads, raspy tongue… e.g. similar to a tiger because … different to a dog because … Name of object e.g. cat Associations Category e.g. mouse, cat food, milk, comfort, fleas, nine lives … e.g. animals / mammals Environment Composition e.g. house, garden, native forest (feral) … e.g. living things – bones, blood, fur … Appearance / qualities Use e.g. small, furry, one-coloured or many-coloured, camouflaged for hunting, large eyes, good night-sight … e.g. pet, friend, catches mice …

24. sayings… cat, cats, cat-like, tomcat, catfish cat-o’-nine tails, to play cat and mouse, raining cats and dogs, no room to swing a cat, something the cat brought in, big cat, domestic cat, cat on hot bricks, fight like Kilkenny cats, let the cat out of the bag, fight like cat and dog, set the cat among the pigeons…

25. Developing vocabulary 4: Effective Literacy Strategies, MoE, 2004 explore words, e.g. ‘line’ • wire/pipe -telegraph line, oil, sewage.. • connection - phone line, hotline.. • row of text - insert a line .. • queue - line up here … • a mark - rule a line .. • note - drop someone a line .. • cord - fishing line, throw a line … • division - cross the line, colourline .. • alignment - in/out of line … • boundary - tree line, snowline …

26. Developing vocabulary 5: Effective Literacy Strategies, MoE, 2004 develop vocab piles with students Words to use instead of ‘SAID’ roared said screamed screeched shouted sighed snarled thought whispered yelled asked barked bawled cried enquired hollered murmured queried questioned ranted

28. Last, but by no means least!! • Much vocabulary acquisition occurs during the experience of listening to stories read aloud to the class. Teacher explanations add substantially to the level of acquisition. Lower ability children learn as many words (or more) than the bright and learning is long term. (Elley, 1987)