Implicit versus Explicit Vocabulary Teaching Practices
Sarah Sherman
Bridgewater State University
Abstract
This study examines the teaching methods of individuals who provide English instruction to speakers of other languages. Two classrooms of similar makeup will be studied in order to determine whether implicit or explicit vocabulary instruction most benefits English Language Learners. These two classrooms will participate in pretests and posttests to determine the growth of their vocabulary knowledge involving a series of lexical items over the course of the teaching experiment. This research will be compared to the research of other individuals who examined the differences between implicit and explicit vocabulary learning and the implications of these teaching practices.
Methods for Teaching English Vocabulary to Speakers of Other Languages
Teachers utilize their own teaching styles to provide students with the best possible learning experiences. However, vocabulary teaching varies greatly depending on the instructor and his or her teaching style preferences. Vocabulary instruction can usually be taught in two basic forms. It may be taught implicitly, meaning that it is imbedded into the curriculum and not taught in a separate manner. It may also be taught explicitly, meaning that each important vocabulary word is taught in isolation, prior to providing students with the general curriculum information. This research examines common
Teacher leads discussion and Introduces new vocabulary terms by giving a description, explanation, and examples of the term. The students will draw pictures, symbols or use graphic organizers to represent new terms. Students will discuss terms in small groups.
All students need direct instruction of vocabulary, but it is especially imperative for ELLs. They need much more exposure to new vocabulary than their native-English-speaking classmates. ELLs need to learn cognates, prefixes, suffixes, and root words to enhance their ability to make sense of new lexicon. Beginning ELLs and more advanced ELL students should actively engage in holistic activities to practice new vocabulary because learning words out of context is difficult for these students. If they memorize the meanings of the words on a list, they will not be able to use the words in their own writing or verbal production until they really understand the meanings. When vocabulary instruction includes explicit, implicit, and strategy instruction, students are repeatedly exposed to the target vocabulary in a variety of contexts which increases their individual vocabulary development and the other resources that help in doing so is the Semantic Mapping primary focus on visual relationships, which is helpful to students from all backgrounds.
I gathered student written inventories and held personal interviews and conversations with students and their families in order to help my students grow and mature in their vocabulary usage. This information told me they value who they are and what motivates them so I could design innovative practices and utilize proven methods of vocabulary instruction that promote learning for all my students.
Some specific things that she has them do are using the spelling words to find the definition in a dictionary, using their spelling words to create a story, giving each other spelling tests and using spelling words that they learn in science or when they are going over the news. The strategy that my host teacher finds most successful with developing vocabulary of English language learners is "providing visuals, a lot of things are labeled many of the materials that week use are labeled and I use a lot of anchor charts so that they can look at what I'm
This paper takes a close look at various instructional strategies for teaching English Language Learners (ELL). It explores many methods and techniques utilized by ELL teachers; specific strategies include sheltered instruction, scaffolding, and the transfer of cognate knowledge. It is imperative in the ELL classroom that comprehensible input be disseminated to the students on an age-appropriate basis; therefore, it will be detailed in this paper. Various methods of feedback
their meaning. The students will repeat the vocabulary words every time the teacher says the
Building vocabulary is an important task in the early grades. There has long been debate on how one should go about teaching vocabulary such as, it is better to teach a limited number of words fully and more intense or expose children to many words to enhance “incidental learning”. Research has proven that incorporating both into instruction is most effective. Read-aloud and teachers increase use of vocabulary have also been proven to help vocabulary and word knowledge. There are three tiers of words that children are presented in their life. Tier one words are those that they are most familiar with such as park, tier 2 are the increasingly hard words such as fortunate and finally the tier 3 words are words that students have rarely been exposed
In addition to the vocabulary in their readings, students have been expected to learn twenty-five new vocabulary words per week. The focus is not on rote memorization of definitions; students must know synonyms, antonyms, and especially how to use vocabulary words in the context of the entire sentence. They study how to choose the right word for their purpose (diction) and analyze the subtleties of language.
In short, the video titled, “Extending Lesson Understanding: Vocabulary Development,” explored the practice of covering vocabulary at the end of the unit rather than the beginning. While this is a rather uncommon practice, the video captured 7th grade English teacher Katie Langlois’ attempt to do so. Langlois utilized the “Jigsaw” strategy and divided her students into heterogeneous groups of four to determine vocabulary words from clues. All of the vocabulary words related to Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” which the class previously covered. Each student possessed a clue—the first letter, number of syllables, last letter, and definition—that would help reveal what the vocabulary word in question was. Students had to work together
Lets say that 2 words were similar but had different meanings. The student then writes one vocabulary word but the definition for the other word. This allows for the teacher to know that they need to do better at differentiating those words.
Students can learn vocabulary words indirectly when they hear and see words through conversations with other people, listening to advanced readers read aloud, and through reading extensively on their own. Teachers can promote students’ indirect learning of vocabulary by teaching them to be “word detectives” who recognize knew words and try to find their meaning. Teachers should also use complex
Students will use math vocabulary with intentionality while incorporating a comprehensive vocabulary program that will be updated and utilized throughout the year as a main component of my instruction. Throughout the ELL certification program, vocabulary has been consistently emphasized as an invaluable strategy for the teaching and learning of ELL students. Although this has been stressed, it has not become a focus in my instruction; my plan is to develop a structure that will ensure that vocabulary becomes a part of my weekly lesson plan. Robert Marzano has written much regarding vocabulary instruction. Additionally, he provides research to support just how important it is not only to EL students, but also to all students throughout their learning. Marzano states, “direct vocabulary instruction has an impressive track record of improving students background knowledge and the comprehension of academic content. Direct instruction on words that are critical to new content produces the most powerful learning.” Marzano is asserting that vocabulary is fundamental to learning.
Although vocabulary is the sub-skill of a language, it plays a very important role in language learning and teaching. In fact, vocabulary is central to language and is of paramount importance to language learners. On the other hand, words are the building blocks of a language that are used to label objects, actions, and ideas. In other words, people cannot convey the intended meaning without knowing vocabulary. It is widely accepted that vocabulary is a very important part in English language learning because no one can communicate in any meaningful way without vocabulary. As McCarthy (1990) stated, the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. Nation (1990) also affirms that vocabulary can be considered as the most important element in language learning because Learners think that many of their
Vocabulary plays a significant role in English as second language learning process. For the majority of English as Second Language(ESL) learners, the ultimate goal of learning the language is to understand (read and listen) and communicate (write and speak) with little difficulty and the lack of sufficient vocabulary may be the constraint of such goal (Folse, 2004). As the bedrock of English and as well as language, vocabulary also facilitates the development of other language skills: lexical richness leads to the progress in the use of language, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing skills (Nation, 1994). Reversely, The improvement in such skills may enhance learners vocabulary size as the exposure to more learning materials improves the capacity to acquire new vocabulary. (The importance of learning vocabulary/ why vocabulary?)
There are two ways of learning: incidental learning and intentional learning. Incidental learning is when the learner is not focused on intentionally learning vocabulary, the process of incidental learning is more of a natural process and it occurs when the learner is watching a movie or doing any other activity that is not directly focused on learning vocabulary. The intentional learning is when the learner is focused on learning from a book for instance and reading it with the purpose of memorizing and learning vocabulary. The purpose of this essay is to help promote incidental language learning for all future learners both outside and inside a classroom. We will look further into these two ways of learning and issues in this essay.