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“Five Strategies For ELL Vocabulary Instruction”I’ve written quite a few posts for the British Council over the years. Unfortunately, most of them are no longer on their website. So, I’ll be republishing the ones here that I think still could be helpful to teachers. This one was published in 2014.  viarami / Pixabay
Reading, writing, listening and speaking in a new language demands a number of prerequisites — a desire to do so; a certain level of self-confidence; a supportive atmosphere and, of course, knowing the meaning of words in the new language. In other words, vocabulary. Here are five of the many instructional strategies I and, I’m sure, many other teachers use when teaching vocabulary to English Language Learners. Most, if not all, incorporate the widely proven research that finds that physical movement and/or images strengthen second-language learning: Personal Dictionaries: Each week students complete at least one of these “Four Word Sheets” where they identify…four new English words they have learned during the week from another class, our class, television — from anywhere. It’s composed of four of these sections which, as you can see in the image below, have spaces for the word and various representations/definitions of it.
Students divide into small groups and teach and learn these words to each other, using the process as an opportunity to practice academic vocabulary: John (holding up his sheet): Can you identify a word you like to learn? Sue (pointing): Yes, can you define ___________(whatever word she chooses that is on John’s sheet)? Picture Word Inductive Model: I’ve previously written an extensive post about the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM), which is just about my favorite teaching strategy with Beginning English Language Learners. Pre-Teaching: Perhaps the most widely-used method, and a particularly effective one, is identify key words in an upcoming text that are probably new to students and then define those terms prior to reading the text. This strategy is also effective for teaching terms that, while they might not be found in an upcoming text, are important for learning upcoming concepts. For example, here’s a pre-teaching sheet I use prior to beginning a unit on writing a problem/solution essay. I use this strategy by first placing the sheet on the overhead, pointing to each word, say it, and then ask students to repeat in unison. Afterwards, since our students often know more than we think, I give students a minute or two to review the list and see if they know what any of the words already mean. Then, after providing students time to share what they know with the class, we relatively quickly review the words and their meanings. “Relatively quickly” is an important idea to remember — there are few activities as deadly to a class environment then spending an hour on a list of words. I once saw a teacher spend a half-hour on the definition of “expedition”! I fell asleep, not to mention the students! After students read the text, I’ll often ask them to go back and highlight the words we pre-taught. It’s a way to reinforce their meaning and an excuse to revisit the text again with a new task. Reinforcing Vocabulary Instruction Online: There are countless free online sites specifically for learning vocabulary in English, and most are organized thematically and provide audio and visual support for text. There are also similar sites specifically geared towards teaching academic language. And, for some great fun as well as learning, it’s hard to beat online hidden object games. Creating Vocabulary Videos: Having students use either the Twitter app Vine or Instragram video to create very short creative definitions of words is a fun and reinforcing learning activity. Students can create simple storyboards, video using the Stop Action feature on both of the apps, and then post their finished creations on YouTube. You can see many examples my students have created here, and I’ve embedded a sample below related to our problem/solution essay unit: 
What are your favorite vocabulary instruction strategies?      Wow, The Quality Of Presentations That AI Can Create Has Improved Considerably
Since ChatGPT came online, I periodically try out different AI-powered presentation-creation tools – you know, where you just give it a topic and it creates a slideshow. They’ve generally been pretty bad, but I have to say I tried-out Page On today and was pretty impressed. As a test, I always ask them to create one on teaching English Language Learners. As you can see, it’s pretty good. It has a final slide of references, but does not specifically label its charts with sources, so that’s a problem. Still, not bad. I’m assuming other text-to-presentation tools will be reaching this level of sophistication, if they haven’t already. I still wouldn’t use them, but have to say though my non-AI generated content would be better, the AI-generated design might very well be better than mine. Page One lets you create one presentation for free, and then it’s a little less than $200 annually, or you can pay monthly.  Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week
Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You can also see all my “Best” lists on instructional strategies here. Here are this week’s picks: I’m adding this graphic to Does Anyone Use “Interleaving” When Teaching ELLs? If So, I’d Love To Hear What You Do:
The Six Biggest Mistakes I Made with Genius Hour (and How I Fixed Them) is by John Spencer. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Applying “Fed Ex Days” (Also Known As “Genius Hours”) To Schools.
Supercharge Your Quizizz Use is from Edutopia. I’m adding Zero-Sum Bias: Lesson Plan and Zero-Sum Bias Lesson Plan and Video to The Dangers Of “Zero Sum Thinking” In The World, Including In Schools.  Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL
Eight years ago I began this regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention. You might also be interested in THE BEST RESOURCES, ARTICLES & BLOG POSTS FOR TEACHERS OF ELLS IN 2021. Also, check out A Collection Of My Best Resources On Teaching English Language Learners. In addition, look for our book on teaching ELLs, which was published in the Spring of 2018 and learn about our new book. Here are this week’s choices: Here’s a free AI-powered IELTS prep site. WordLink is good online word game. Unfortunately, it’s only on Reddit, which is blocked by most schools. However, the its basic idea is a good one for any ELL classroom – you share the name of a category (let’s say food). The player then has to give a word related to the category (let’s say carrot). Then, you give the name of another category (let’s say furniture), and the word given related to it has to start with the last letter of the previous word (let’s say table) and so on. I think it could work well in class, and I’m adding it to The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom. Music brings harmony to language lessons for multilingual learners is from Education Dive. I’m adding it to The Best Music Websites For Learning English. Show this video to ELLs and then have them write/talk about what they saw:
Here’s another one:  And here’s yet another video to show to ELLs:  I’m adding this tweet to Best Posts On “Motivating” Students:
The Barefoot TEFL Teacher has compiled a great list of resources. I’m adding this tweet to Best Posts On Metacognition:
Teachers Need EL Training, but Federal Grant Funding Is at Risk is from Ed Week.  “Four Strategies For Grammar Instruction”I’ve written quite a few posts for the British Council over the years. Unfortunately, most of them are no longer on their website. So, I’ll be republishing the ones here that I think still could be helpful to teachers. This one was published in 2014.
 PDPics / Pixabay
Grammar is not always the favorite part of language that educators want to teach or students want to learn. Let’s take a quick look at some philosophies behind different instructional strategies, and then some practical perspectives on what it all might mean in the classroom. Acquisition vs. Learning Most researchers acknowledge a distinction between language acquisition and language learning. A simple, rudimentary explanation of the difference is that acquisition involves being able to easily use the language to communicate, while language learning might place more emphasis on filling out grammar worksheets correctly. This does not mean, however, that the two are mutually exclusive. This distinction has led to much debate over the place of explicit grammar study in language development. Some linguists have argued a more communicative approach, where the focus is on the message versus the form, fosters language acquisition, while others believe students need direct instruction in grammatical forms of the target language. Recent research has proposed a more balanced approach—that second language instruction can provide a combination of both explicit teaching focused on features of the second language such as grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation and implicit learning stemming from meaningful communication in the second language. I believe that the best language instruction uses meaningful input and contexts to help students develop their English skills, but also feel that teaching language features, in context, is necessary for students to develop proficiency. In The Classroom Dialogue Journals have often been used in ESL classes and substantial research supports their use. Typically, students write a journal entry and then a teacher writes a response — not pointing out errors in grammar or spelling but, instead, correctly reflecting back what the student wrote. For example, the student might write “I go to the piknik yesterday and have fun” and the teacher might respond, “That’s great that you went to the picnic yesterday and had fun.” ESL teachers can choose let their students know in advance about these “recasts” or leave it to them to figure it out on their own. Realistically, however, it may not very practical for teachers to write these responses — there is just not enough time in the day for teachers with multiple classes to take on this responsibility. However, it can still be done — and I believe it can be done more effectively — by developing a sister class relationship with proficient speakers either in the same school or another school. Students generally will feel more engaged with their peers than with their teacher, and other English teachers may welcome the opportunity to have their students become grammar and spelling tutors. Of course, such a relationship does not have to be limited to a journal — I have had sister classes come in and teach lessons in small groups to our English Language Learners (and our ELL’s have taught a lesson about their culture to them), as well as having joint celebrations. This kind of “social engagement” has been found to be critical to language learning Concept Attainment is a concept I’ve discussed in detail at a previous post. In the context of grammar instruction, the teacher would identify examples (and create ones) — both correct and incorrect — from student writing that appear to focus on a common problem. For example, a sheet like this one might be placed on the overhead with everything covered up except for the first two lines in the “Yes” and “No” columns:
The teacher then asks students to think for a minute about why one is a Yes and the other is a No and ask if anyone knows why. Ideally, everyone in the class has a small whiteboard and students can be directed to write their answer on the board and show it to the teacher. Typically, it takes showing a few examples for students to figure it out, and then they are asked to make the “No” examples correct and share with a partner. Numerous studies have shown that concept attainment has a positive effect on student achievement, including with second language learners (Shamnad, 2005, Section 3.2). Jazz Chants are another popular way to reinforce vocabulary and grammar lessons in a fun way. I discuss it in detail at an upcoming post in my monthly New York Times column on teaching English Language Learners. In the meantime, you can learn more about them at The Best Sites (& Videos) For Learning About Jazz Chants. Interactive exercises on the Web are another popular way students actually seem to enjoy learning grammar. I’ve compiled a collection of what I think are the best free ones at The Best Sites For Grammar Practice (along with links to other useful articles about teaching grammar to English Language Learners). There are, however, three sites in particular that I would like to highlight. These three let teachers create virtual classrooms for free so that the work students do on the sites can be tracked. They are No Red Ink, Quill (my favorite), and Virtual Grammar Lab.
What are your favorite strategies for teaching grammar?  More Recent Articles |
