VOCABULARY: Assignment 1 - Part 4

 

The task was to describe a vocabulary activity that I have tried out in my classroom,

and to explain how I assessed or will assess my pupils’ acquisition of the new words.

Further to suggest at least three effective ways of recycling this vocabulary.

Description

One of my classes was introduced to a new text, an excerpt from a noveI. I picked out ten words from the text that I wanted the students to work with in order to store the words in their long term memories. The words were not picked at random. Not all unfamiliar words in a text are relevant for 8^th graders, so I chose the words that I thought would be the most useful to them.   

This is what we did:

First, the pupils had the text read out to them while they could simultaneously follow the text on paper. Thus they were able to listen to the text and hear what the words sounded like. The words were highlighted.

Then they read the text themselves in order to understand further what the text was about. Reading the text also gave them the opportunity to see the words in a context.

They could find the Norwegian translation of the words beside the text. They were asked to check it if necessary, in order to understand what the text was about.

Then the students engaged in the following activities:

1.      The students read the words out loud. Together we translated the words into Norwegian and different students knew some of the words already. We also specified the word class of each particular word.

2.      The students then got a task of matching each word with explanations of the different words in English.

3.      Finally they got a gap fill task, where each word should be used to complete a sentence.

 

When everybody had finished, we reviewed the tasks together and the students were able to correct any misunderstandings.

 

Assessment

The students were asked to study the previous tasks and remember how the words were used. Afterwards they received a new type of worksheet with different types of tasks.

The first task repeated what they had done before. They were asked to translate five of the words into Norwegian and to explain the five others in English.

The second task was to use each single word in a sentence.

This way I could assess whether they understood the singular meaning of the word, and whether they could use it in their own word production.

Still, it can be said that what was assessed, was their ability to learn words in the short term, even if they were able to make new sentences. I have no proof that they will use these words in everyday speaking and writing.

 

Recycling

Hopefully, recycling can help students make connections between new words and their existing lexicon.

Ways of recycling these words could be:

•  A new gap fill task, with different sentences.
• Multiple choice tasks, e.g. where the words could be grouped with other words and the students would be asked to find the odd one out.
• Games like “the hot seat”, where students are divided into teams, where one member of the team has to guess a particular word, based on their team mates’ clues and explanations.

• The students could be asked to write a story or a different type of text, where they have to use some or all of the words.