Words Words Words!

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Words Words Words!

• Helping ELL Students Develop Vocabulary

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Two important elements of vocabulary learning

• Quality
• How well do students know each word?

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Quality

• Goal
• To improve how much students know about each word

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Quality

• Spoken Form
• What does the word sound like?
• How is it pronounced?

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Quality

• Written Form
• What does the word look like?
• How is it written?

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Quality

• Meaning
• What meaning does this form of the word have?
• For example
• Drink (noun) vs. drink (verb)

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Quality

• Concepts
• What things can the concept refer to?
• For Example
• Drinking fountain

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Quality

• Associations
• What other words does this word make you think
  of?
• For example
• drink - water - thirsty

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Quality

• Grammatical Patterns
• In what patterns does the word occur?
• transitive vs. intransitive verbs
• Two-word verbs talk about
• Prepositions drink of N

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Quality

• Collocations
• What words or type of words occur with this word?
• Example
• Get a drink
• Have a drink
• Take a drink

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Quality

• Restrictions on Use (Register differences)
• Where, when, and how often would you expect to
  meet this word?
• Is the word
• Informal (casual)
• Formal

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Quantity

• Goal
• To increase the number of words
• that students know

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Quantity

• Educated adult native speakers of English know
  approximately 20,000 word families

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Quantity

• High School graduate ELL students know
  approximately 2,000 - 3,000 word families

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Quantity

• If students know the most frequent 1,000
  words of English, they should be able to
  understand 72 of the words on the page of a
  book, newspaper, or magazine

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Quantity

• If students know the most frequent 2,000
  words of English, they should be able to
  understand 80 of the words on the page of a
  book, newspaper, or magazine

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Quantity

• If students know the most frequent 3,000
  words of English, they should be able to
  understand 84 of the words on the page of a
  book, newspaper, or magazine

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Quantity

• If students know the most frequent 4,000
  words of English, they should be able to
  understand 86 of the words on the page of a
  book, newspaper, or magazine

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Quantity

• In order to understand 95 of the words on a
  page of a book, newspaper, or magazine, students
  need to know approximately 12,500 words

• In order to understand 99 of the words on a
  page of a book, newspaper, or magazine, students
  need to know approximately 44,000 words

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Academic Vocabulary
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Academic Vocabulary

• If the goal is to read academic writing
  (textbooks, etc) and write academic papers
  (essays, etc), students can save time and effort
  by focusing on academic vocabulary

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What is Academic Vocabulary?

• Academic Vocabulary is a specialized vocabulary
  of 570 word families that commonly appear in all
  academic textbooks, regardless of content area

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Academic Vocabulary Learning

• In general vocabulary learning, to go from
  80 understanding to 86 understanding would
  require students to learn 2,000 more word
  families

• In academic vocabulary learning, to go from
  80 understanding to 86 understanding would
  require students to learn 570 more word families

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Do you think studying academic vocabulary will be
helpful for ELL students?
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Keeping 4 principles in mind will help students
develop their vocabulary as much as possible.
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Principle 1

• Help students be active in developing
  understanding of words and ways to learn them

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Active Learning Strategy 1

• Semantic Mapping
• Making a graphic representation of the
  relationship between words

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Active Learning Strategy 2

• Definition Mapping
• Working with grammar, meaning,
• and sample sentences

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Active Learning Strategy 3

• Grouping
• Recognizing the relatedness of a word
• to other words

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Grouping
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Principle 2

• Help students personalize their
• word learning

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Personalized Learning Strategy 1

• Choosing words
• Identify key concepts and the words required to
  understand these concepts

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Personalized Learning Strategy 2

• Choosing words
• Identify important terms students
• need to learn

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Personalized Learning Strategy 3

• Choosing words
• Identify meaningful similarities and differences
  among the concepts / words being studied

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Personalizing Words (Summary)

• Students identify key concepts or important terms
  they need to learn within a text.
• Students construct a semantic network around each
  of the selected key concepts.
• Students think of examples or potential
  applications of the key concepts and record these
  examples on the definition worksheet.
• Students identify meaningful similarities and
  differences among the different concepts being
  studied.

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Principle 3

• Students should be immersed in words

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Immersion in Words

• Opportunity 1
• Put students in a word-
• and language-rich environment

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Immersion in Words

• Opportunity 2
• Help students become aware of words and how they
  are used in the input they receive

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Immersion in Words

• Opportunity 3
• Help students try to use new / interesting words
  in their speaking and writing

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Principle 4

• Students should get multiple sources of
  information to learn words through repeated
  exposures

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Repeated Exposure

• Opportunity 1
• Watch videos or TV programs that are related to
  the content

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Repeated Exposure

• Opportunity 2
• Read books, stories, and other material
• related to the content

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Repeated Exposure

• Opportunity 3
• Discuss content ideas with friends, family, and
  classmates

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Summary4 Principles of Vocabulary Learning

• Students should be active in developing their
  understanding of words and ways to learn them
• Students should personalize their word learning
• Students should be immersed in words
• Students should use multiple sources of
  information to learn words through repeated
  exposures

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Keeping these 4 principles in mind will help
students develop their vocabulary as much as
possible.
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