A few Words about Academic Vocabulary development

Mary Lou McCloskey TESOL 2012 www.mlmcc.com Philadelphia PA

1

Academic Language is needed to prepare learners for careers and higher education.

• Social/interpersonal language can be acquired.• Academic language must be learned especially for ELLS• English isn’t spoken in the home• Often poverty influences opportunities• Parents may not have formal education• Learners may have interrupted education

2

Developing Academic Language Outline:

A Teacher knowledge about vocabulary:• What is vocabulary? • What does it mean to know a word?• What words should we learn?

B. Elements of a successful academic vocabulary programC. Effective vocabulary teaching practices and strategies

3

A. Knowledge about vocabulary:What is vocabulary?

4

Words (General Service List)1 69975 the2 39175 be3 36432 of4 28872 and5 26800 a6 26190 to7 21338 in8 20033 he9 12458 have10 11247 it

11 10790 that12 9495 for13 8555 they14 8516 I15 7289 with16 7254 as17 6976 not18 6742 on19 6164 she20 5377 at 5

Word families

BLACK •blacker •blackest •blackly •blacken •blackness •blacks •blackish

HOPE •hoped •hopeful •hopeless •hopelessness •hopes •hoping

6

Idioms

back seat driver

back to basicsback to square 1 baker's dozenbad hair dayball and chain

big apple

blind leading the blind blue moonblue sky break a leg brownie points

http://www.idiomsite.com/ 7

Phrasal verbs

call offcall oncalm downcatch oncatch up (with)check in (to)check offcheck out (of)check out

cheer upchew outchicken outchip inclam upcome acrosscome down withcome to

8

http://www.eslcafe.com/pv/pv-list.html

What does it mean to learn a word?

• Multiple meanings

mixing bowl, go bowling, bowled over, superbowl• Multiple forms

cut, cuts, cutting, undercut, haircut, shortcut• Collocations

(give/make) a suggestion (take/make) a telephone call (do/make) an attempt (win/beat) a match

• Grammatical patterns an apple, some flour• Constraints on use (register)

9

Multiple meanings. Multiple forms, and Collocations of Run

I hate it when my nose runs, because I always run out of cold medicine and I have to run out for more. Plus I run the risk of catching pneumonia and I feel too run-down to go for my daily run. One time I ran to the pharmacy in my hybrid (you know it runs on both gasoline and electricity -- and it really runs like a charm!). I also needed to run by the office to run off some copies. Anyway, it was raining so hard the rain was running off the roof so my jacket got all wet in the rain and the colors ran.

10

Multiple meanings. Multiple forms, and Collocations of Run

Then I tripped on the wet sidewalk (I really think clumsiness runs in my family) and got a run in my stocking and had to change it so I was running late and then I discovered I’d run low on gas. I was so nervous I ran a red light and ran right into a Lincoln Navigator. The guy I ran into was that baseball player who scored a winning home run for the Braves last Saturday. When I told my kids, they were so impressed that I was running around with a celebrity -- even if what I really did was run across – or was it run into him. But I do run on…

11

What words need to be learned?

• Frequent wordswhere much shouldwell people down ownjust because

• Academic words (Coxhead, 2002)

analyze context define economy formula require similar source

• Essential words for topic/content biosphere photosynthesis decomposer nitrogen fixation transpiration food web

12

How many words do our students need to learn?

13

Estimates about the number of words a learner needs to know

•Webster’s 3rd has about 54,000 word families (250.000 words!).• A native speaker knows about 4000-5000

word families at the start of school at age 5• Native speakers add about 1200 word

families a year. • A high school graduate knows about 11,000

word families; university graduate knows at least 20,000 word families.• Can we possibly teach all these words?

14

NO! We must:

•Choose important words to teach directly and thoroughly.•Help learners to develop their skills in

solving words on their own. •Make sure students are widely and

richly exposed to words through • instructional conversations, • read aloud, and • free choice reading.

15

Knowing High-frequency words can get learners a long way

16

Words Text coverage

1000 72.0%

2000 79.7%3000 84%4000 86.8%5000 88.7%6000 89.9%15,851

97.8%

Selecting Vocabulary: Places to start

• First 100, 500, 1000 words•Words, phrases and patterns for

instructions and management•Words for age-level content•Words to teach reading patterns•Academic words•Words learners want/need to know 17

B. Elements of a successful vocabulary program? We must:1. Expand exposure through speaking,

listening, writing and choice reading2. Develop word awareness3. Teach important words directly4. Analyze and explore words5. Build learner control6. Practice and apply new words 18

Element 3: Teach important words directly

19

Teaching Vocabulary Directly:

“Rich” Vocabulary Instruction (Beck 2003)

• contextualizing each target word• providing student friendly

explanations • giving many examples • asking learners to provide

their own examples• posting & using the target

words20

Teaching Important Content Words Directly: Meter

• Here is a meter stick. How long is a meter? What else might be a meter long?•What can you measure with meters?

Distances? Size of a building? Your height? A paper clip? A grain of salt? An atom?•What is not a meter? Is a yardstick a

meter? Is a ruler a meter? Is a tape measure a meter?

21

Sentence Frames• When we ask a question, we should be sure

we’ve provided ELLs the language needed to answer it. Sentence frames serve this purpose.

Process for using sentence frames: • Explanation• Listen to & repeat example.• Create& share oral sentence using frame.• Write sentence using frame.• Read and recite sentence.

22

Sentence Frames

•What is something that is about 1 meter long?• A three year old is about 1 meter high.• The distance from my nose to the end of

my finger is about one meter. • ______________ is about 1 meter high.• The distance from _______to

______________is about one meter. 23

Vocabulary Development Practices and Activities

• Teaching Vocabulary Directly•Build Word

Awareness•Vocabulary Journals• Semantic Mapping

•Word Wall•Word Squares• Sentence Machine•Word Sort•Conga Line• I have, who has?

24

Paper

First

Materials

Why Important Uses

Who

Ts’aiLun from China

writing

To communicate

RecordIdeas

clay bark Semantic Mapping

drawing

wrappingthings

25

Word Square

26

Word Sort

27

for the

people

by the peopleof the peoplein vain

score

endure

perishhallow consecrate

engaged

conceived

proposition

nobly

add

detractdevotion

dedicate

We must bring academic words to life to prepare ELLs for college and careers

28

A word is deadWhen it is said,Some say.

I say it justBegins to liveThat day.

Emily Dickenson

29

Online Handout,

Resources & Links:

www.mlmcc.com

Thank you!

30