Teaching Abstract Concepts and Terms

The following two video links discuss an approach to teaching vocabulary dealing with abstract terms. The teaching technique used in these videos, created by Lesley University’s Mary Beth Curtis (2007), are called Adult Fluency and Vocabulary (AFV). The teacher, Wendy Quinones, also refers to the Adult Reading Components Study (ARCS).

The students in these videos are advanced ESL students, but the words provide challenges for native speakers as well.

What is your opinion of the effectiveness in the technique? Would you change anything in the approach? What other ideas do you have for covering difficult vocabulary among adult learners headed for the workplace or college? Leecy

Leecy Wise
Moderator, Diversity and Literacy Community

Comments

Leecy and others,

For clarity, although the approach was based on techniques developed by Mary Beth Curtis, she was not involved in making the videos. They were made by my colleague, Owen Hartford, and me as part of our work with the Media Library of Teaching Skills, http://mlots.org to provide adult educators with "video windows on other adult education teachers' classrooms." Thanks for calling attention to the videos here. I would be very interested in knowing what participants here think of the videos as a tool for their own or others' professional development, as well as the vocabulary teaching strategies presented. 

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

I've used these videos in an online course for teachers and have received lots of positive feedback from the teachers who like the technique and plan on using it with their students. Unfortunately I haven't gotten any feedback on how the students liked the technique. But I always like to assume the best.

The videos are part of the reading/writing portion of PA's online Adult Education Overview. The AE Overview is for teachers new to PA and has sections for ESOL, assessment, and several other topics. Teachers can complete it at their own pace within a certain amount of time. Each section requires teachers to do some "homework" and respond in the discussion forum. Teachers choose one topic and complete a culminating assignment by doing an activity with their students.

One of the COP members from PA will probably have more to add to my description.

Hello, Di -- this professional development model looks great. I think teachers would really benefit from being able to try out a technique and then talk about about it in an online discussion forum. I'm teaching an online course right now on adult literacy and developmental education and although there is no practical component, I am very impressed by the thoughtfulness of posts on our discussion forum. Dare I say that there's better engagement and interaction than in a traditional face-to-face lecture format? Thanks for sharing your model, in any case.

Wendy Quinones here.  David alerted me to this discussion, and I'd like to make a couple of comments. 

First, the students in the videos were mid-level ABE students, roughly GLE 4-6, although most were immigrants which is why it seemed like an advanced ESOL group.

Second, I used this vocabulary technique with students all the way up to the GED level, and most loved it. They are well aware that their vocabularies are lacking, and appreicate systematic efforts to improve them.

I supplemented this technique with other assignments and activities -- my favorite was having students use their phones to take pictures that exemplified the vocabulary words. I'd make little business-card-sized copies that they could paste into their vocabulary notebooks.  Of course, this all takes a lot of time, but considering research showing that it takes 12 exposures to learn a word, it seems well worth it.  

Wendy, thanks so much for joining us here with more information on the videos. It's always wonderful to come across strategies that actually work at so many different levels.

I really love the idea of having students take pictures with their phones to illustrate vocabulary words. I don't know of many successful approaches that don't take time. It's just part of our game, it seems, but the rewards, in this case, appear to make it well worth the effort.

I advocate the use of https://quizlet.com/ a whole lot. I'm now wondering about having students take pictures on their phones, downloading them to computers, and the uploading them into quizlet.

I know that others in this group have tried out successful strategies. How about sharing them with us? Leecy

Leecy Wise
Moderator, Diversity and Literacy and
Reading and Writing Communities