Vocabulary Learning Strategy Research Analysis

The students need further intervention in vocabulary development in the technology education content area. There are many strategies for teaching academic vocabulary each of which can provide students with opportunities to build word knowledge. After some investigation of the strategies, this researcher determined that Marzano’s Six-Step Process for Building Academic Vocabulary best suits the sixth-grade technology class. Marzano’s Six-Step Process for Building Academic Vocabulary will be used as the basis for vocabulary development intervention. Marzano's Six-Step Process promotes the use of both technology and games to increase vocabulary development.

How does an English Language Learner learn and what are some ways that we, as teachers, can better help them with their learning? Prior studies into literacy skills of ELL students have identified the different ways ELL students learn compared to students that are only monolingual. Both monolingual English speakers and English Language Learners are more likely to be at equal levels when it comes to decoding and spelling words (August, Shanahan, & Escamilla, 2009). Reading, comprehension, and writing skills of bilingual speakers rarely reach equal levels to those that are monolingual speakers.

The research on language strategies has reached its blooom in the last forty years. So far, various aspects of the field have been examined in more detail, with vocabulary strategies being one of the important components. For instance, according to the research in vocabulary strategies (Nation 1990), words which have a high frequency are important in vocabulary learning and teaching. So far, many studies in linguistics have focused on positive strategies and “good learner” strategies (Nation 1990, Oxford 1990, Gu and Johnson 1996, Thornbury 2002).

In Learning the Second Language, motivation is an essential perspective. Many researchers have assumed that learners who are more motivated are more likely to progress in learning the language. Whether the motivation is internal or external, it plays a major factor in language acquisition.

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.

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”.

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).

Vocabulary instruction plays an important role in developing language with ELL students. After conducting the research project on the importance of vocabulary instruction and reading comprehension, I expect to continue supporting my students with necessary vocabulary instruction in order to grow their knowledge of language. I will continue to collaborate with our ELD teacher when selecting vocabulary as well. My future project will be focused on the best scientifically-based practices to deliver vocabulary instruction to ELL

It is important to note that children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have higher vocabulary words. I also enjoyed the different methodologies used to decreasing the gap. In the article, Words Wizards for All, I really appreciated the word wizard approach. I liked how the words are constantly available for the students to use and that the words are also explicitly taught in an accessible manner. In the article Rationale for Vocabulary Instruction, I appreciated the approaches to make words come to life. This includes but not limited to exposure through context and explicitly teaching words. Including in this is an informal assessment process in which uses the level of knowledge in which the student knows individual words. I think this is important for vocabulary acquisition to see how well students are grasping and comprehending the

(2001) Intentional and incidental second language vocabulary learning: a reappraisal of elaboration, rehearsal and automaticity. In Cognition and Second Language Instruction (ed. P. Robinson), pp. 258–286. Cam-bridge University Press, Cambridge,

Many popular theories of second language acquisition have been analyzed throughout history. The socialization of L2 learners, their present emotional state that is present at the time of acquisition, as well as the comprehensible input and output with the use of scaffolding play a major role in second language acquisition. Kirsten Hummel states, “The one most effective way to increase L2 competence was by exposure to ‘comprehensible input’.” (Hummel, 2014, p. 73) Let us also not forget the importance of written expression as well as reading comprehension with these L2 learners. Each plays a role in language development. However, I believe that to acquire language one must use a variety of techniques that work together to create a balance within the learning environment. Furthermore, all L2 learners acquire language differently and so using a variety of resources that are based on the ability of each student is neccesary. There are many theories that have been developed by highly qualified experts in the field of linguistics. However, I will address those areas that I agree with as I present my personal theories on second language acquisition.

Teaching vocabulary to students is extremely important because it supports them in learning to read and comprehend text. Research shows that students need to have multiple exposures to a word before they understand and use the word correctly. A majority of schools require teachers to teach vocabulary with weekly lists provided to each grade level. This may seem like an acceptable method, but in reality students are only learning the vocabulary long enough to take the test on Friday’s. Instead of teachers trying to have their students memorize the vocabulary they need to focus on strategies to help them retain the words for future usage. Some of the strategies teachers can utilize are focusing on multiple exposures, tier two words, playing

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?)