Knowing Words v. Owning Words

Knowing a Word v. Owning a Word: Best Practices for Deeper Vocabulary Learning

Kristi Reyes

READ San Diego Tutor Conference

June 13, 2015

Handout, PowerPoint slides, Resources

•Online at http://goo.gl/Di4jFV

Warm-up Questions:Answer these by writing short answers to each question on your handout (best guesses OK!).

1.What does it mean to “know” a word?

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

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

Small Groups

Steps:

• Introduce yourself: Name, what, where, who you tutor or teach.

•Compare your answers to questions 1 – 3.

3 minutes – if you finish early, look ahead to questions 4 – 6.

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 (example: make v. do)

• Register (formal v. informal)

• 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

“Five Finger Rule”= %5

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

Groups Again: 3 minutes!

4.How do you decide which words to explicitly teach?

5.Which words do you leave to “incidental” learning or simply gloss?

6.What is your one best / most effective technique or activity to (discuss one or all) • to teach / tutor learners new vocabulary?

• to have learners study vocabulary?

• to get learners to use / practice target vocabulary?

• to assess learning of vocabulary?

• to promote learners’ vocabulary learning and practice beyond the tutoring session / class?

Which words to teach

•Learners who know the most frequent 2000 words in English should be able to understand 80% of the words in an average text

•Most frequently-used 5000 words -> 88.7%

4. Word to Teach Explicitly

•High-frequency words based on corpora (Tier 1 and 2)

• Lower levels:

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

• New General Service List

•Higher levels:

• New Academic Word List

Three Tiers of Vocabulary

• Tier 1: Common, Known Words (Everyday Vocabulary)

Examples: big, small, house, table, family

• Tier 2: High-Frequency Words (General Academic - Cross-context, cross-curricular)

Examples: justify, explain, expand, predict, summarize, maintain

• Tier 3: Low-Frequency, Domain-Specific words

Examples: isotope, tectonic plates, carcinogens, mitosis, lithosphere3Tiers - Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown ; Source for image http://www.learningunlimitedllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tiered-3.png

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 (Tier 3 words)

Lesson / Activity 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

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

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 recall and produce the target words in meaningful, personalized ways

• Learners need to see, say, write newly-acquired words many times before they can be said to have learned them: 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

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

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

Mini LessonConversation:

•Do you like chocolate?

•What are some benefits of chocolate?

•Do you worry about getting older?

•What are some bad points about getting old?

Let’s read an article about chocolate.

Word Cloud: Prediction

Word Clouds: Other Uses

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

• “Guess the Vocabulary Word” on Word it Out

•Other words for “good” Wordle

• Tagxedo, Word it Out, Wordle,WordSift, Wordsalad app, ImageChef app)

Graphic Organizers: Mind Maps / Webs

chocolate

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

Interactive Concept Map Sites

• (Instragrok, Snappy Words, The Visual Dictionary)

Interactive Images

• Thinglink (vegetables, house)

Vocabulary Preview/Self-Rating

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

Vocabulary Notebook or Index Cards

Image mnemonics

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), Bitsboard app

Word Walls

• Padlet (see YouTube video), Lino (example), others

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)

Dictations

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

• Split Dictation – Text divided A /B

•Dictogloss / Dictocomp – Listen, remember, write

Dialogs

•Comic strips (Bit Strips, ComicLife, MakeBeliefsComix, Toondoo, StoryboardThat)• Sample VESL Business Idioms Project

•Digital movies (Dvolver, GoAnimate!, Zimmer Twins)• Sample Student Idiom Project

• Learner-produced video

Business & Work Idioms

Victoria MendozaEdith Floyd

VESL@MiraCostaCollageSpring 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.

Online discussion board:Listening, writing, speaking

VoiceThread• Basic Vocabulary Example

• Assessment

Writing• 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)

Conversation / Writing prompts & 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 testsSource:

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 Levels

Objective: Test memory of definition or require critical thinking/creative application?

•Possibilities:1.Cloze tests – sentence or paragraph

level

Assessment:Cloze Exercises / Tests•Cloze Test Generator

Cloze Test Creator, Learnclick Cloze Quiz Creator – with app) Cloze on PDF with Learnclick free

account

Assessment: Intermediate/Advanced Levels2.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.

Assessment: Intermediate/Advanced Levels3.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).

Other Ways to Promote Vocabulary Study Beyond Class

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

• Apps (Illustrate, VocabAhead - 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)

Handout, PowerPoint slides, Resources

•Online at http://goo.gl/Di4jFV

What is something new or different you are going to try in

your vocabulary lessons?Questions? Comments?

•Thanks for attending!

•Happy Vocabulary Tutoring!