New Adult on the Block?

I facilitate online graduate courses for K-12 teachers who are usually seeking recertification. One of the areas on my list of choices includes Reading/Writing/Literacy/ELL instruction. The course I'm currently facilitating is "Teaching Vocabulary: Word Meaning and Word Knowledge (PreK-2!)." This week's topic focuses on Anchored Word Learning, intended for teachers to use during read alouds as an additional way to introduce words. 
 
We don't often discuss reading aloud to our beginning adult readers, except through the very effective practices of duet reading or applying the neurological impress method. Love those and have used them very successfully among adult learners!
 
Do you read aloud to or with your beginning adult readers? How might the "Anchored Word Learning" approach work? What materials might you use to anchor terms? How about driver licenses manuals? Work application letters? Interviews? Employment instructions? Short stories? Comic books? Student writing? I could just keep going. What are your ideas? Could illustrating be included in the process? Hmmmm... Leecy

Comments

Hi Leecy, I had not heard the term "anchored word learning" before, but this method for teaching vocabulary recommended by Isabel Beck and her colleagues is one I have been familiar with for some time, and I support wholeheartedly. I'm curious if others have found that learners often understand vocabulary, but they don't know how to use the words they know.

Teachers can help learners with this by providing support in the form of scaffolds as well as by engaging students in a variety of reading and speaking tasks that are personally meaningful. I've developed a number of what I call "Vocabulary Workouts" that strive to do just that.

Here's an example for the Tier 2 academic word retrieve:

1. Choose a word from a text (or video or audio file) you are working with in class

  • retrieve (verb)

2. Give an explanation of the word using student-friendly language:

  • to find something and bring it back;
  • to recover something;
  • to get something from a person or place
  • the act of finding something and bringing it back

3. Offer easy to understand examples

  • When someone throws a ball, a dog will usually run after the ball and retrieve it.
  • When people drop something or lose something, they usually hope to retrieve it quickly.
  • When a computer crashes, we sometimes need an expert to retrieve our lost files.

4. Create a conversation practice activity with sentence starters:

Q:  What is something you lost and were able to retrieve later? Tell the story.

A: Something I lost and was able to ___________________________ later was _________________________________________ (noun).

5. Create a writing prompt with a sentence starter.

  • The police ____________________________ the _________________________________ from the bottom of the river.

6. Recycle the language by creating additional prompts that can be used for conversation, writing or quizzes in subsequent classes,

  • Have you ever lost and then retrieved files from a computer? Explain what happened.
  • Do you know anyone who had to retrieve a cell phone from the toilet?
  • Have you ever had to return to the airport to retrieve a lost bag?
  • Do cats ever retrieve things the way dogs do?
  • Why can retrieving files on a computer be difficult sometimes?

I'd love some feedback from members on this approach. I've used these Vocabulary Workouts with both English learners and adult basic ed students.

I've created Vocabulary Workouts like this for all of sublist 1 (60 words) of the Academic Word List. If anyone would like a copy, I am happy to share. Just email me at susanfinn_miller@iu13.org.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition and Teaching & Learning CoPs

 

Susan, I applaud you for sharing the Vocabulary Workouts" with us here! The steps progressively develop knowledge of the term in very familiar contexts. They also follow the very similar sequence recommended in what some call "anchored vocabulary instruction."

I appreciate that the culmination of the activity involves writing that provides choices within different common contexts! 

I hope that you had many requests to the 60 Workouts that you have created from the helpful Academic Word List (AWL) that you mentioned!

What similar direct vocabulary instruction have others here used with good results? Please share examples with the rest of us! Thanks! Leecy

Hi Susan,

I especially like how #4, 5 and 6 would actually be fun for students to work with and see how others would respond. 

In general, my students tend to read examples pretty mindlessly unless I have them interact with them in some way.  I wonder how this would work with your students for #3.

3.  Offer easy to understand examples

Directions: Put a check mark next to the 3 sentences that are good examples of “retrieve.”

  1. When someone throws a ball, a dog will usually run after the ball and retrieve it.
  2. The first thing I do every morning is retrieve my bed.
  3. I retrieved my name from my grandfather.
  4. When people drop something or lose something, they usually hope to retrieve it quickly.
  5. When a computer crashes, we sometimes need an expert to retrieve our lost files.
  6. If your pizza gets cold, you can retrieve it in a microwave..

David Kehe
CommonSense-ESL.com

 

 

 

Hello David and all, I love these additional examples and the task of choosing which examples use the word retrieve appropriately. I think adding an activity such as this would help to deepen students' understanding of the nuances of the term. The purpose of #3, "Offer easy to understand examples" is to give students examples of how the word is typically used. I think there is value in this teacher-centered component, but even greater value in then offering additional examples for students to puzzle over. I think one of the best ways to learn words is for learners to examine both good examples and examples that are not in line with how the word is used.

I have also taken the Vocabulary Workouts to another level. With high intermediate and advanced students, I have learners choose words they want to learn and then create their own vocabulary workouts.They sometimes do this in pairs. They then teach their vocabulary word to the class.

There is a lot more to this, so if anyone would like more info on how I structured the student-led vocabulary teaching activity, please let me know.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition