Using visual aids in teaching English

A slideshow or power point presentation can create a visual representation for teaching about similarities and differences between adjectives used to describe people. Or showing pictures of characters in a novel will help the students put an image to a written discretion that may not have been able to create with word only. This can also be used for other aspect within a novel like a setting, plot, themes, and symbols to meet the language objectives and the core content objectives.

Another example I would use, would be a picture of 'Peter Rabbit' running, which could be an illustration of the vocabulary words 'wandered' or 'scampered'. During the reading of the story 'Peter Rabbit', I will point to the vocabulary word in the pocket chart and ask my students, 'what is this word'? and we will say it together; example: 'Trembling'. I would then ask the students a comprehension question like; 'What was Peter Rabbit doing'? A students response could be; 'Peter Rabbit was trembling with fright'.

First, vocabulary teaches pronunciation and the definition of words used in a particular language. If you know the meaning of a word, it is easier to use and understand when communicating. I also learned that vocabulary teaches

By providing the visuals around the classroom, students will be able to see and discuss different characters and books as they see them around the room. This will encourage

This gives students the words they need to know in order to communicate in a proper way. The two different types of vocabulary are oral and reading; oral is words that are used while speaking or notice when listening and reading is the words that are noticed in text. This concept is important because when children start to speak, they eventually start to understand and notice words in text. Also, it is important for them to understand the meaning of the words in order to understand the text the are reading. This is why the teacher in my class has the children become familiar with the books and reading them by going over the words and their meanings, so they can understand the story in general and they’d be able to sequence things more

Visual learners need to spot things with there eyes and need a visual representation. In the Edutopia website it says that when you study you want to have a picture next to your notes to help you study and to spot what the words mean in a picture. Also, in the edutopia website it says that you can use an art project to present to the class. Visual learners are very fantastic at art and have an art brain. This would help them because they would have a piece to present to the class. Finally, these are some strategies that are related to a visual learner.

English language learners need direct instruction of new vocabulary (Haynes, 2010.) Educators must provide practice saying new words. ELL’s should have more exposure to new terms, words, idioms, and phrases than their English fluent classmates. Educators must tie new vocabulary to previous knowledge and use pictorials to highlight significance. Content area Educators are encouraged to teach new vocabulary that occurs in text as well as that related the subject materials.

In chapter eight of their book, Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum, Vacca et al. (2014, pp. 238-279) discuss “developing vocabulary and concepts” in the class room. The authors present numerous strategies throughout this chapter and real world examples of them in action in a classroom. This chapter contains a plethora of information that is invaluable to the classroom teacher who is preparing students to understand the challenging vocabulary words they will be reading over or tested on. While reading this chapter, I came across many concepts and terms that were familiar to me and a few that were new or surprising.

Many are aware that language and vocabulary is very important to English Language Learners (ELLs), but something many are unaware of is the importance of vocabulary as an effective method of teaching ELL student’s mathematics. Success in today’s word for ELL students means understanding our society so that they can fit in. It is best said by Roberts (2009), “Mathematics tends to be a gatekeeper and a sieve for sorting students for future success, life experiences, and incorporation into society”.

A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words with Sue Rosenbaum, taught us to be purposeful when we choose picture books for the classroom. Instead of just grabbing a book for a read aloud, we should verify that it relates to the curriculum and that we have a focused goal in mind as we are reading. Picture books are helpful for English language learners because they are so visual. The pictures with in the book, communicate a large amount of information in a short amount of time. In addition, the visuals create instant connections as well as stimulate conversations that can build the prior knowledge of second language

The National Reading Panel of the national Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD, 2000) identified vocabulary instruction as an integral skill that the learners need to improve. In fact, there is strong evidence to support providing vocabulary instruction not only to improve learners reading comprehension and writing quality, but also their listening vocabulary and their speaking vocabulary (Joshi, 2006; Kame’enui & Baumann, 2012). Vocabulary knowledge, including both oral and written vocabulary, is critically important for a child’s success in school (Kamil, 2008).

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

Use of visual materials. The classroom is full of billboards, flash cards, big images, cardboards which from what I observed are suitable to teach vocabulary. They enjoy visual activities such as pointing things in a cardboard, etc.

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?)

But Audio-Lingual/(Visual approach did mark start of the technological age in language teaching and it did introduce important new elements Emphasised need for visual presentation and possibility of eliciting language from visual cues. It placed far more weight on use of foreign language in classroom by both teacher and pupil, and the language used was of far greater practicality.