Language proficiency levels directly impact how instruction should be delivered to English Language Learners (ELLs). Effective vocabulary instruction for ELL students is a lot like teaching for students of all levels and needs to be explicit, intentional, and systematic (Northrop, et al., 2019). Beginning and pre-emergent ELL students may require more real-world examples, visual aids, and repetition, to successfully gain an understanding of concepts. This can be enhanced by focusing on high-frequency words (also known as "sight words") as well as general academic words. Intermediate learners might benefit from academic content-area words, where vocabulary is related to specific subjects, allowing for connections to be made. Advanced ELLs can maneuver more difficult vocabulary and expressions; therefore, instruction can shift toward more developed academic vocabulary.
An English Language Learner's primary language should influence the direction and focus of vocabulary instruction. It helps to bridge the gap for ELL students, when learning new concepts. Understanding the primary language can also help us to predict where students may struggle with language acquisition and understanding (Anonymous, 2007). One way to help facilitate this type of learning is to incorporate bilingual resources which gives ELL students the opportunity to make connections or tap into prior knowledge.
Idioms, or figures of speech, can pose a difficult challenge for ELL students because they do not typically translate in a way that is easily understood. For example, the term, "all ears", this type of figurative language can often cause confusion when ELL students try to apply it to an understanding of the context (Limited, 2017). To avoid confusion for ELL students, the use of figurative language should be avoided when possible. If it is not avoidable, the information and context will need to be front loaded to students, to ensure that there is a full understanding for all students in the classroom.
There are many strategies for integrating vocabulary instruction in the four language domains (speaking, reading, and writing) for ELL students:
- Speaking: One strategy for integrating vocabulary into speaking instruction is to use the "think aloud" strategy. This involves brainstorming as a whole group or in a small group setting this will help to introduce new vocabulary for ELL students.
- Listening: A listening strategy is to implement is word connections. In this strategy, students will listen to the word and the meaning, to gain a better understanding and then connect the words to other vocabulary words.
- Reading: Front loading vocabulary is a strategy that is crucial for ELL students to understand the context of words within a writing. This strategy will help students to have a better understanding of what they are reading and why they are reading this information.
- Writing: One strategy for incorporating new vocabulary into writing instruction would be to introduce new vocabulary to writing short pieces, such as poems. By giving students prompts in their writing, their vocabulary will grow, and their writing will become more colorful and descriptive.
Collaboration between educators is so important because there is a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field of education. When we collaborate with others, we gain a new, diverse perspective and understanding of challenges that may be present. Often times, these new perspectives give us a new way of avoiding potential barriers to learning for our students. This experience also offers us opportunity for new strategies, resources, and allows for more unified cross-curricular instruction.
Professional development opportunities are one of the best ways to bolster instructional practices and best support ELL students. Conferences like the GLAD conference give professionals the opportunity to learn new strategies and share their own successes with other educators. These strategies can be shared during our instructional planning times, when we collaborate with our team. This website can also be a source of resources and strategy for educators. Utilizing educator blogs to access and share information is an important way of growing as an educator.
There are many types of assessments for measuring a student's vocabulary progress. The importance of these assessment is for us to have a better understanding of where each individual ELL student is in their progress toward mastery of language comprehension. Formative assessments such as Kahoot are a great (fun) interactive way of assessing mastery for ELL students. This game allows educators to have a better picture of where each ELL student is in their progress. Language proficiency assessments will help to officially assess and monitor the progress of each ELL student. From the beginning, this type of assessment allows for proper placement and grouping for the ELL student.
I hope that this gives you a better picture to the importance of collaboration in instruction and how this helps the development of our ELL students. Please feel free to leave a comment with resources, personal experiences, or questions below.
References:
Anonymous. (2007, December 12). Best Practice for ELLs: Vocabulary Instruction. Colorín Colorado; Colorín Colorado. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/best-practice-ells-vocabulary-instruction
Limited, P. E. (2017). Reading, writing and learning in esl: A resource book for teaching k-12 english learners (7th ed.). Pearson Education Limited.
Northrop, L., & Andrei, E. (2019). More Than Just Word of the Day: Vocabulary Apps for English Learners. Reading Teacher, 72(5), 623–630. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/trtr.1773
Add comment
Comments