Using Crossword to Teach Vocabulary

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.

If time, ask students to come up with their own sentences using some of these vocabulary words.

There are many tips and tricks that have an “expiration date”(Bush and Dougherty, 2014), or are unable to be utilized by the students in more than one situation. One of the tricks that does not carry through to every situation is having students use keywords to solve word problems. Now, while finding key words in a word problem can make it easier to identify what the problem is asking in some instances, they can also mislead the student. The keywords that students are taught to look for can be misleading because in different circumstances, these words can be used to mean different things. If a student is only able to associate one word with one meaning, they could be missing the overall conflict of the world problem and complete the wrong operation in order to solve it. The trouble with teaching students to only identify key words in the problem without regarding the other terms comes when there are multistep word problems. While there may be a familiar key word in there, the student may be missing another step that is needed to reach the answer that is not given away by a keyword, or the student may not fully read the problem in order to

English learners (ELs) struggle with content literacy task because the “academic language of texts is not the language of conversational speech” Vacca et al. (2014, P.77). Every content area has a specific language. ELs find it difficult because they are not familiar with the academic language in that content area. For example, an English learner in first grade might have difficulties understanding his peers in a reading group excises because of the content language but, when they go outside to play, they communicate fluently because this English learner has mastered the playground language. Teachers can make content more accessible to students by using a variety of instructional strategies or aids to assist students with English language problems in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Interactive, cooperative activities, pictures, relevant media etc. are some of the shelter instructional strategies which teachers can use to make content accessible to students (p.82).

In conclusion, instruction lesson takes time and planning to meet the needs of English language learners. The effectiveness of the strategies used in the classroom can make a difference in meeting the challenge of teaching the ELLs.

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 the book Why Tesol?, it states that the major tenets of Cummins’ model of second language acquisition is the framework that focuses on the “distinction between social language and academic language.”Cummins suggests that academic language takes longer to acquire and social language is easier because it is in the “here and now”. Cummins’ Quadrant Model consists of 4 quadrants: Quadrant 1 - Social language; Quadrant 2 - Target language; Quadrant 3 - Target language; Quadrant 4 - Academic language. (p. 152). Although, there are many models of second language acquisition, I felt that Cummin’s model was a great representative of where Carlos’ second language acquisition has fallen behind. When beginning remediation with Carlos’ my first priority is to provide him with a solid foundation of academic vocabulary that will assist him throughout his learning experience. This process is beneficial when teaching content area. In order for Carlos to succeed in the classroom he will need to become familiar and be able to comprehend the content area. Before beginning each lesson I would have Carlos share his knowledge of the vocabulary words and academic language that is beneficial to the lesson. This will provide insight to see which areas I need to review and which areas he has a strong foundation in. Next, I would provide Carlos with various opportunities to obtain the vocabulary needed in each content area. To develop his vocabulary I would provide him with a guide prior to

Rationale: Having a conversation about the vocabulary word while verbally pairing that word with pictures will help create a concrete definition, which will promote vocabulary learning.

As a teacher’s assistant for an afterschool program called Good Grades Academy, I decided to the vocabulary as an extension of the classroom teacher’s comprehension unit. My vocabulary game was based on a lesson involving literary elements for fifth grade students. I worked with a fifth grade student named Bartek who is eleven years old. His strengths lie in his ability to figure out challenging math problems, but he struggles in the areas of reading and comprehension. Bartek decoding skills are on par with his grade level, but his comprehension skills are representative of a third or fourth grade level. He cannot recall important information in the text and his writing responses are unrelated to the text. In addition, Bartek often lacks motivation and has difficulty completing his work. He cannot sit still and disturbs the other students working in the classroom. When asked to complete work related tasks he states that it is too difficult and is inattentive when receiving instruction. I decided to play the vocabulary game with him because it would be a fun and interactive way to help him learn words.

“Effective vocabulary instruction is multidimensional and intentional” (Sweeny & Mason, 2011). It is important for teachers to find helpful strategies when teaching new science vocabulary to their students. Technology today has opened a whole new world of strategies for teaching science vocabulary such as, word games, scavenger hunts, graphic organizers, etc. instead of the old way of just having students write the words in a notebook and find the definitions in a dictionary or glossary. In order to keep students engaged in learning teachers need to make sure that their instruction is interactive and fun. To help with learning academic vocabulary teachers need to incorporate the following; helpful strategies and activities, provide students with instruction and development, and ways to differentiate in order to meet the needs of ELLs and students with learning disabilities.

The technique I would implement content to support the language objectives is the activities are based on the common core standards. For this reason” language objectives are lesson objectives that specifically outline the type of language that students will need to learn and use in order to accomplish the goals of the lesson. Quality language objectives complement the content knowledge and skills identified in content area standards and address the aspects of academic language that will be developed or reinforced during the teaching of grade-level content concepts (Echevarria & Short, 2010).

Grace moved to Boise, ID, from Korea, less than a year ago. While I have seen her grow over the past couple of months in her reading and spelling, I feel Grace would benefit from increasing her academic vocabulary knowledge. An example of this is when I read a book about raking leaves and did not realize that this was not basic vocabulary knowledge for her. She struggled with reading the story and with comprehension, simply because of her lack of vocabulary understanding. While I realize I need to teach Grace vocabulary, I have struggled with figuring out the best way to do this. I want to teach vocabulary in a way that will be relevant and engaging for Grace. I decided to do some research on the topic of teaching vocabulary to students.

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

Subsequently, this method helps students to get newest information.For example like the teacher give an article for students to read, unwittingly by read it, students can increase their knowledge to analyze the textbecause in this method, the teachers more focus on using a text as a tool or media in the classroom. Besides that, when the students learnt to recognize and know the vocabulary for unfamiliar words itself, the students be able to choose or use the proper words in proper place. For example, in using the transition words.Which is, they should be able to inflict these words and have to know how appropriate it in the sentence of the text. As a result, the keyword method can be a tool to interest or support the students to increase students’ English words in quick time when learn English language. Especially, in vocabulary learning due to as we know that, without the vocabulary, we cannot communicate well by use English language with other people. According to (http://www.yourdictionary.com/vocabulary), “Vocabulary is the all the language and words either used or understood by a person or group of people”. It means that, the vocabulary is the important thing that all of the people have to