Academic Vocabulary. Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction

Transcription

1 Academic Vocabulary Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction

2 Languages can be a funny thing!

3 Academic Vocabulary Robert Marzano

4 Building Academic Vocabulary Teachers still have the biggest impact! SIOP = A framework for organizing best practices that are essential for language learners! SIOP = Background Building

5 Building Academic Vocabulary Background knowledge plays a key role in a student s ability to learn new information, and vocabulary is a key component to accessing background knowledge. The words students have to describe their experiences with a concept will give teacher great insight into what students actually know before the lesson starts. Instructional Strategies for ELLS in Mainstream Classrooms, ASCD Express, May 24 th, 2012, Vol. 7, Issue 17

6 Background Building If your students miss just 5% of the words in a text makes it nearly incomprehensible! At some point, students must move from merely learning words to learning about their own learning of words. Teachers should model their own thinking as they encounter words in text that might be confusing and show students how they figure out those terms. Students need to learn strategies for helping themselves when reading independently. Academic vocabulary development is as much about problem solving as it is about acquisition.

7 Background Building Canadian students will come in contact with 88,500 word families by the time they complete high school. 88,500 word families = about 500,000 individual words. Half of the word families are so rare that students will likely encounter them only once in a lifetime. If a student needs to know 250,000 words and has 180 days (195 in NB) of school a year for thirteen years, that student will have to learn 107 words per day and never be absent!

8 Background Building Students learn a lot of these words while reading, interacting with peers- not only by direct instruction, thankfully. Other words must be explicitly, systematically, and intentionally taught (Academic vocabulary their 3 rd language). The key to improving student achievement is knowing the difference between words students will learn automatically and which need to be taught.

9 Context is important too!

10 1. Batta 2. Boru 3. Kochi Background Building 4. Besuboru 5. Besu-ryne 6. Chenji appu 7. De Gemu 8. Era

11 Background Building Take me out to the Boru Game (Japan) 1. Batta = Batter 2. Boru = Ball 3. Kochi = Coach 4. Besuboru = Baseball 5. Besu-ryne = Baseline 6. Chenji appu = Change-up 7. De Gemu = Day game 8. Era = Error

12 Building Background The average between a person s background knowledge of a given topic and the extent to which that person learns new information on that topic is Robert Marzano

13 How not to teach academic vocabulary!

14 Teaching Academic Vocabulary Marzano says confidently: If you examine all the studies conducted on a given instructional strategy, you will find that some studies indicate the strategy improves student achievement whereas other studies indicate it doesn't. Simply using a strategy does not guarantee positive results. Rather, it's how someone uses the strategy that determines whether it produces great results, mediocre results, or no results at all.

15 Teaching Vocabulary in the late 1880 s

16 Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction So what's a teacher, ESL instructor in NB to do? Certainly, the answer is not to ignore the research. In fact, the research is the first place to start. You should scour studies to identify those strategies for which research shows positive effects on student achievement. Next, teachers and schools should conduct their own informal (and formal) studies on how well an instructional strategy works in their particular context (China, YMCA, SJC) with their students, their grade level, or their subject matter. No strategy is foolproof. No strategy is proven. You have to see how it works in your particular setting (China, YMCA, SJC).

17 Let s look at Marzano s six steps to better vocabulary instruction!

18 Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction In their research, classroom teachers have taught us something about how to best use specific instructional strategies. Let's begin with a strategy for teaching vocabulary referred to as the six-step process (Marzano, 2004). It involves the following steps: 1. Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term. 2. Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words. 3. Ask students to construct a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation of the term.

19 Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction 3. Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their vocabulary notebooks. 4. Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another. 5. Involve students periodically in games that enable them to play with terms. 6. Teachers use the first three steps when introducing a term to students. For example, assume a teacher is introducing the term mutualism. Instead of offering a textbook definition, the teacher describes the term or tells an anecdote that illustrates its meaning (Step 1).

20 Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction (Step 1). The teacher might explain that the crocodile and a bird called the Egyptian plover have a relationship that exemplifies mutualism. The crocodile opens its mouth and invites the plover to stand inside. The plover picks things out of the crocodile's teeth. Both parties benefit: The plover gets fed; the croc gets its teeth cleaned. While explaining this relationship, the teacher might show students images found on the Internet.

21 Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction In Steps 2 and 3, students try their hand at explaining the meaning of mutualism. They devise an explanation or an example from their own lives (Step 2). Next, they draw an image depicting what they think mutualism means (Step 3). A few days later, the teacher reviews the new term using Steps 4, 5, and 6, which needn't be executed in sequence. The teacher might have students compare the meaning of mutualism with another previously studied term, such as symbiosis (Step 4). Students might pair up and compare their entries on the term in their vocabulary notebooks (Step 5), or the teacher might craft a game that students play using these terms (Step 6).

22 What Teacher Research Found Over the last five years, Marzano have been involved in more than 50 studies that involve this strategy. In all these studies, teachers used the strategy with one class but did not use it with another. Then they compared the results. These studies have taught us several things about this six-step strategy. First, the strategy works at every grade level, from kindergarten to high school. Second, it works better if you use all the steps without leaving any out. In one middle school study, teachers found that the whole process enhanced students' achievement much more than the parts of the process in isolation did. Third, although the majority of studies indicate that the process enhances student achievement, some studies indicate that it doesn't.

23 What Teacher Research Found Happily, the research is also beginning to tell us what does or doesn't make the strategy work. Here's what we've learned so far: When students copy the teacher's explanation or description of a term instead of generating their own explanation, the results are not as strong. Ideally, student explanations should come from their own lives. The third step in the process is crucial having students represent their understanding of a new term by drawing a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation. When students do this step well, achievement soars.

24 What Teacher Research Found Games seem to engage students at a high level and have a powerful effect on students' recall of the terms. Games not only add a bit of fun to the teaching and learning process, but also provide an opportunity to review the terms in a nonthreatening way. After the class has played a vocabulary game, the teacher should invite students to identify difficult terms and go over the crucial aspects of those terms in a whole-class discussion. Of course, we still have more to learn about this strategy. But for now, it's safe to conclude that it can be a powerful tool that teachers can use in classrooms at any grade level and in any subject area. Other vocabulary programs point to these essential steps!

25 Taboo! Vocabulary learning need not be a drudgery for students. Rather, activities should be designed to create an awareness and appreciation of words and to stimulate word fluency through experiences that are meaningful and enjoyable. Robert Marzano

26 Taboo! This favourite game is a great tool for students to practice vocabulary and summarize. The object is to get someone to say the word using clues that don t use the taboo words.

27 President (Sample) Obama White House Democrat Washington Lincoln

28 Watch Look Time Wrist Clock Wears

29 Out In Doors Exit Leave Go

30 Kangaroo Pouch Hop Animal Australia Captain

31 Sometime Once Former Old Onetime Past

32 Tinsel Christmas Red Gold Decorations Tree

33 Hotdog Food Yummy Hamburger BBQ Grill

34 It s about using strategies!!

35 It s about using strategies that work!

36 A new approach to vocabulary instruction!

37 A parting video clip!

38 Good Luck! Taken from and adapted: Educational Leadership, September 2009 Volume 67 Number 1 Teaching for the 21st Century, Pages 83-84, Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instructio, Robert J. Marzano