siop – background buildingfive... · when reading independently. ... but not the label in...

SIOP – Background Building

Academic Vocabulary ED: 4565 – Summer 2011

Two Things to Remember!

•  Teachers still have the biggest impact!

•  SIOP = A framework for organizing best practices that are essential for language learners!

What is it about vocabulary?

•  If your students miss just 5% of the words in a text makes it nearly incomprehensible!

•  At some point, students must move from merely learning words to learning about their own learning of words.

•  Teachers should model their own thinking as they encounter words in text that might be confusing and show students how they figure out those terms.

•  Students need to learn strategies for helping themselves when reading independently.

•  Academic vocabulary development is as much about problem solving as it is about “acquisition.”

What is it about vocabulary?

•  Canadian students will come in contact with 88,500 word families by the time they complete high school.

•  88,500 word families = about 500,000 individual words.

•  Half of the word families are so rare that students will likely encounter them only once in a lifetime.

•  If a student needs to know 250,000 words and has 180 days (195 in NB) of school a year for thirteen years, that student will have to learn 107 words per day and never be absent!

Don’t Panic! •  Students learn a lot of these words while

reading, interacting with peers- not only by direct instruction, thankfully.

•  Other words must be explicitly, systematically, and intentionally taught (Academic vocabulary – their 3rd language).

•  The key to improving student achievement is knowing the difference between words students will learn automatically and which need to be taught.

•  We’re here to help you do just that!

How about those objectives, eh!

•  Decide what key vocabulary, concept words, adn other academic words students will need to know in order to talk, read, and write about the topice of the lesson.

•  Think about the language skills necessary for students to accomplish the lesson’s activities. Will students be reading a textbook passage? Are they able to read a text passage to find specific information? Will they be reporting what they observe or find? The skills needed to carry out these tasks might be the focus of a language objective!


•  Identify grammar or language structures common to the content area. For example, many science textbooks use the passive voice to describe processes. Do they need to use comparative language to analyze two related concepts? These could be your language objectives!


•  Consider the tasks that the students will complete and the language that will be embedded in those assignments. Will they need to explain a certain procedure or series of events?


•  Sample language and content objectives from a middle school science lesson on cell theory:

•  Language Objective: Students will be able to orally describe three types of cells to a partner.

•  Content Objective: Students will be able to produce a visual representation of each of the three types of cells.

•  Make the objectives mesurable!

Some points to remember! •  A consistent finding in reading research

is the positive correlation between a learner’s vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension ability.

•  Students must be able to understand 90% of the words in a passage to comprehend the passage independently, or know how to derive meaning.

•  How many words per lesson is too much?? Some say 5 per lesson, some say more.

Five Essential Steps to Teaching Academic Vocabulary – Making it Intentional!

•  Tier 1, or General, Words: •  Tier 1 words are words that ELLs typically know the concept of

in their primary language, but not the label in English. For example, a Tier 1 word might be butterfly. This is a word that English language learners may not know, but it can be easily taught by pointing to a picture of a butterfly during text discussion.

•  Another Tier 1 word might be march (move like a soldier). A word like march can be easily instructed during text discussion by marching in place. But because this word has multiple meanings, it also merits further instruction. This can be accomplished through oral language activities that follow the text discussion.

Teaching Tier 1 Words

•  We take it for granted that native English-speakers know most Tier 1 words, but this is not the case for ELLs. Many Tier 1 words may be unknown to ELLs and key to the comprehension of a passage. Different types of Tier 1 words require different teaching strategies:

•  Some Tier 1 words cannot be demonstrated and do not have multiple meanings, but students will need to know them. An example of this is the word uncle. A simple explanation of the word's meaning during the story reading will suffice. Or, if the teacher and students are bilingual, a quick translation is sufficient (not your situation).


•  Idioms and everyday expressions (like "make up your mind," "let's hit the books," and "once upon a time") are also in the Tier 1 category. Teachers will need to explain the meanings of these phrases to students.

•  Some Tier 1 words are simple cognates (like family/familia or preparation/preparación).

•  It is also important to point out false cognates and give the correct translation. Examples of false cognates are: rope/ropa (clothing) and embarrassed/embarasada (pregnant). I don’t think this will be an issue in your teaching context!

Tier 2 Words

•  Tier 2 words are more complex than Tier 1 words. They may also be more abstract. These include:

•  Words that are important and useful to understanding the text, such as: character, setting, plot, even numbers, and country.

•  Words that have connections to other words and concepts, such as: between, among, by, combine, and estimate.

•  Words for which students understand the general concept, but need greater precision and specificity in describing a concept or a person, such as: sets, tables (for math or science, or for a table of contents), shy, ashamed, and stubborn.


•  Tier 2 words appear in grade-level texts. They can be worked with in a variety of ways so that ELLs build rich representations of them and connect them to other words and concepts. Different types of Tier 2 words require different teaching strategies:

•  Some Tier 2 words will not require elaborate discussion, because they can be demonstrated. These include words with multiple meanings, such as trunk, which can be taught by using gestures to show that it is part of an elephant, part of a tree, part of our body, and the back of a car.


•  The Tier 2 words that should be targeted for pre-teaching include words that cannot be demonstrated and are not cognates.

•  ELLs should be expected to master Tier 2 words in order to do well on comprehension and on tests.

Tier 3 Words

•  These are low-frequency words that are found mostly in content books (Academic Word List) in the upper grades. Examples include witticism, isotope, procrastinate, amoeba, or words that are not demonstrable or cognates (or are very difficult to demonstrate). These words are rarely encountered in the early grades, but become essential in the upper grades such as the Concord Colleges and International Schools where we are teaching the English language and content!!

What Words do we Choose?

•  See handout page 4. •  Representation: Is the word representative of

a family of words that students should know? Is the concept represented by the word critical to understand the text? Is the word a label for an idea that students need to know? Does the word represent an idea that is essential for understanding another concept?


•  Repeatability: Is the word used again in this text? If so, does the word occur often enough to be redundant? Will the word be used again during the school year?

•  Transportability: Will the word be used in group discussions? Will the word be used in writing tasks? Will the word be used in other content or subject areas?

• 


•  Contextual Analysis: Can students use context clues to determine the correct or intended meaning of the word without instruction?

•  Structural Analysis: Can students use structural analysis to determine the correct or intended meaning of the word without instruction?

•  Cognitive Load: Have I identified too many words for students to successfully integrate?

• 

Ogden’s Basic English word List

•  Handout, page 5 •  World Academic Word List •  Twenty most frequent affixes in

printed school English, p. 7

2. Make it Transparent!

•  Five ways in which authors provide context clues helps students develop their skill in using context to discover words and their meanings.

•  1. Definition or Explanation clues: the most obvious clue occurs when the author explains the word immediately after its use. For example: “Access to clean water would ameliorate, and improve upon, living conditions within the village.”


•  2. Restatement or Synonym Clues: sometimes authors provide a restatement or synonym of a challenging word. For example: “Access to clean water would ameliorate living condition within the village such that life would be tolerable for the people who live there.”


•  3. Contrast or Antonym Clues: Some clues provide a contrast for the target word such that a reader can infer the word’s meaning while reading. For example: “Access to clean water would ameliorate living conditions within the village, whereas continued reliance on a polluted river would exacerbate a bad situation.”


•  4. Inference or General Context Clues: Sometimes a word or phrase is not immediately clarified within the sentence. Relationships that are not directly apparent are inferred or implied. The reader must look for clues before or after the sentence in which the word is used. For example: “Access to clean water would ameliorate living conditions within the village. Clean water would make life tolerable because residents could focus on other pressing needs such as finding food and shelter.”


•  5. Punctuation Clues: Readers can also use punctuation and font style to infer word meanings. Quotation marks (showing the word has a special meaning), dashes, parentheses or brackets (enclosing a definition), and italics (showing the word will be defined) all helps readers determine what the word means in the given context. For example: “Access to clean water would ameliorate – make tolerable – living conditions within the village.”

Morphology and Word Parts

•  Handout, page 9.

3. Make it Useable: Building Academic Vocabulary Through Peer Talk!

•  SIOP Model – Step 5 – Interaction •  Conversation Roundtable,

Handout, page 10. •  Semantic feature analysis for cell

parts!, Handout, page 11. •  http://edhelper.com/ •  Collaborative Poster for “The

Outsiders.” Handout, page 12.


•  Wordo! Handout, page 13. •  Students must have many

opportunities to use the language in authentic situations.

•  Teachers need to build activities into the lesson that require students to talk with their peers about the key concepts by using vocabulary terms.


•  Crossword Puzzle Maker: •  http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/ •  Free powerpoints to create games: •  http://www.jc-schools.net/tutorials/vocab/ppt-

vocab.html

4. Make it Personal!

•  Vocabulary Self-Awareness Chart, handout, page 14.

•  A-Z Chart (Alphabet Boxes), handout, page 15.

•  Vocabulary Journal!, handout, page 16. •  Vocabulary Card Based on Frayer Model,

handout, page 17. •  Vocabulary Cartoons: •  http://www.vocabularycartoons.com/

4. Make it Personal!

•  Mnemonics – Memory Builders (might not be needed for your students here in China). Handout, page 17 – 18.

5. Make it a Priority!

•  Creating a School Wide Focus on Learning Words!

•  Example: Words of the Week (The WOW initiative)

•  Five words each week = Collusion, cohere, collaborate, cooperate, and colleague can be selected to explore the Latin group of prefixes meaning closely or together.

5. Make it a Priority!

•  Try to work these words in conversations throughout the day and in the many classes students attend. Have fun with it, the students will!

•  Efforts like words of the week and wide reading where students read books of their choice, extends student thinking, vocabulary and background knowledge.

•  Words of the week can have a common prefix, suffix, root, or base. Evidence points to benefits when focusing on affixes and bases!

What’s next?

•  At the conclusion of a SIOP lesson, the teacher reviews the new vocabulary introduced and practiced in the lesson with the students and revisits the content and language objectives stated at the beginning.

•  « Let’s see if we met our content and language objectives for today. »

Sites to help you review •  EFL Classroom 2.0

•  http://eflclassroom.com/clouds/tagcloudwebsites/imagecloud.swf

siop – background buildingfive... · when reading independently. ... but not the label in...

Documents