A1 Hi - I”m Karen Nemeth, cohost of #ELLCHAT I’m a author/consultant focusing on supporting ELLs/DLLs in early childhood I’ll be late to the chat tonight due to the school holiday concert!
#ELLCHAT Word walls don't always work for adults, or in a shared classroom where I only teach a few hours a day, but there are many substitutes, including online ones on a class website that all the students can access and update.
A2. Word walls are important because they can be a great reference tool for ELLs especially when they are reading or writing. Should have visuals for each word & be interactive. #ellchat
A2) Develops understanding of connections btwn words, which can also develop curiosity about language. Ss can reference and interact w/the walls every day. #ellchat
A2) Shared classrooms is a problem that can be solves by giving each student a "wall" to keep in their notebook or electronically so they can refer to it. #ELLCHAT
#ELLCHAT Word walls don't always work for adults, or in a shared classroom where I only teach a few hours a day, but there are many substitutes, including online ones on a class website that all the students can access and update.
#ELLCHAT A2 That is a great idea. We are lucky to have a class website through Brightspace, so we can post quite a bit. The added benefit is that it's available at home as well as at school.
A2. Word walls are important because they can be a great reference tool for ELLs especially when they are reading or writing. Should have visuals for each word & be interactive. #ellchat
A2) Word walls provide an interactive reference for students. I like when they're created with students and include visuals and are referenced in following lessons and activities to promote academic vocabulary for reading, writing, and speaking #ELLCHAT
I'm making the writing process visible using this grid strategy. There are better pinteresty samples online, but here's mine:
#ellchat@WIDAConsortium
Oh, pau means finish!
#ELLchat A3 I like collecting themed words: words about writing, or words that have a particular prefix, or words that have a homonym -- anything to create a cohesive collection. It makes them easier to look for and easier to remember.
Q3) I have students match pictures to words, definitions to words, and vice versa. I have had students make their own word wall by choosing a vocabulary word and create a way to teach it to the class. #ELLCHAT
A3) Have you ever seen a word wall using a LiveScribe pen and special paper. The words get placed with a thumb tack & Ss take them off wall to listen to pronunciation and definition. #ELLCHAT
A3) We're working on word patterns: how words can change: invent, inventor, inventive, etc. Ss will add words when they notice them in their free reading books. #ellchat
A3. I like an activity called “Hot Seat”. Class has clear view of word wall. One student comes to sit in a chair in front of whiteboard & a friend picks a word from the wall to write on the board. Class has to guide student in hot seat to guess the word that’s written. #ellchat
A2) Research shows that a student needs about 50 exposures to master a word. On top of all of the great examples everyone else has contributed, word walls easily allow teachers and students to build in exposure and fully master higher level words #ELLchat
A3) Word Wall on the Fly:
Class discussion Pair/Share using L1& L2.
Ss with more English can relay what pairs are discussing. Tchr scribes a "Word Wall" on whiteboard from their input.
Tch adds sentence frames from discussion.
Everyone can do a quick write summary.
#ELLchat
#ellchat A3) I like word walls created by Ss. If I were 2 go back, I would give Ss stars & when they use any word on the wall, they could put a star next to the word. Then we could see which words are being used the most. I'd like to also try a word walk parking lot 4 Qs
A3) I was at at a talk by Margarita Calderone and she said 12 exposures. The audience disagreed with her and said 25-30. Where did you see 50? #ELLCHAT
A2) Research shows that a student needs about 50 exposures to master a word. On top of all of the great examples everyone else has contributed, word walls easily allow teachers and students to build in exposure and fully master higher level words #ELLchat
A3) I update my pocket chart word wall with my students. When we are updating the wall, I call on one of my most distracted or fidgety students to put the words in the correct part of the chart. Also, select three words and write one sentence using all of them. #ELLchat
A3)I change up the word wall to encourage my students to try different ways to learn words. We’ve done a graffiti wall, wordsplash wall, triangle wall, and frayer model wall.#ELLCHAT
A3 What’s more important is how many times a student USES a word - not how often it washes over them passively. Do - question about word walls is - do they actually support active use of the words? #ELLCHAT
A4) I think words need to be organized in groups. For a SS lesson on growth of cities, wall is organized into Transportation, People & Buildings. #ELLCHAT
I've seen this "12 to 20 meaningful exposures to learn a word (McKeown, Beck, Omanson, and Pople, 1985)" but definitely, think the more the better! Also, what does meaningful look and sound like?! #ELLCHAT
A4. Instead of directly presenting the definitions of words, I like students to make a guess first. I present them with the word and a visual representation. They can write anything they think of, no incorrect answers. They turn and talk. Then I share meaning. #ellchat
A4) I use frayer models a lot in my classroom. Also @quizlet is an awesome resource for creating illustrated word banks for literally anything! #ELLCHAT
A4: I generally start by asking ELLs to self-assess how well they know words. Then a quick intro with synonyms before Ss encounter word in context. #ELLChat
A4) think pair share, finding the word in a context and utilizing the word in context, Quizlet, nonlinguistic representation, Margarita Calderon's 7 Step Process #ELLCHAT
A3) As per @Larryferlazzo latest NYT article on teaching ELLs I have used wordsift which shows which words are most used in a text. Ss make predictions, write sentences, define the words #ELLCHAT
I think shooting for 50 helps with that "meaningful" part. Right away I want to say meaningful would be using it in academic conversations and writing, but for newcomers, we have to let them pronounce it, too. All of the domains of language learning are important #ELLchat
A4 … pre-teaching words to young children also requires planning for what words they already know. If children express interest in spiders, you put aside the story you planned and pick up your spider books to take advantage of those “pre-learned” words! #ELLCHAT
A4. Depending on objectives/topic sometimes I allow students to select vocabulary for discussion. We make a chart w/ A-Z. Ss try to come up w/ as many words as they can for each letter that relate to the topic. Great for advanced level ELLs & student led discussion. #ELLCHAT
A4) Wordsift can be used to preteach vocab as Ss can see the visualization of the Vocab and can learn the most frequent words before reading a text #ELLChat
A4) Wordsift can be used to preteach vocab as Ss can see the visualization of the Vocab and can learn the most frequent words before reading a text #ELLChat
that reminds me of a notice and note strategy called possible sentences; students are given words and phrases from a piece of text and have to craft possible sentences that they think the text will be about using those high-frequency words #wdmcsESOL#ELLCHAT
A4 I see a lot of teachers going in a wrong direction with pre-teaching and using props. For example, a book about feelings has an elephant on the cover. Showing elephant puppet won’t help children pre-learn any words for feelings. #ELLCHAT
I have done this with upper grades but the texts are not always in electronic form so this is not possible. The impt thing is to choose words the Ss need to know to understand text. #ELLCHAT
A3) As per @Larryferlazzo latest NYT article on teaching ELLs I have used wordsift which shows which words are most used in a text. Ss make predictions, write sentences, define the words #ELLCHAT
A4) I always teach vocab in a context, so get students talking about the topic first, introducing the new words to help them describe their ideas #ELLChat
#ellchat A4) I like visials. Sometimes I give the visuals and words and let them guess which ones go together. I like think/pair/share. I also like to have Ss justify why they think the visual and word go together
@HSeslteacher Self-assessing which words they know can be a great way for Students to make connections between L1 & L2. It also makes reading less daunting because they'I've had some time process vocabulary they will encounter before they start reading.#ELLChat
A4: I generally start by asking ELLs to self-assess how well they know words. Then a quick intro with synonyms before Ss encounter word in context. #ELLChat
I think shooting for 50 helps with that "meaningful" part. Right away I want to say meaningful would be using it in academic conversations and writing, but for newcomers, we have to let them pronounce it, too. All of the domains of language learning are important #ELLchat
A4) I have my students predict which words might be in a story based on the title. I then share the vocabulary. It’s so fun how excited they are when they predicted a word that is in the story! #ELLCHAT
So how should teachers decide which words to pre-teach? Frequency or utility across different contexts? Based on which words students do or don't already know? #ELLChat
#ELLCHAT A5 I love Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis. It's hard, but it's perfect for adults, because it shows word origins and it describes generative vocabulary building. If we know the root bio, we can make biology, biography, biosphere, etc.. then we expand each one.
I don't think frequency needs to figure into it. If a student has a science chapter to understand and Ss needs to know weather vocab, frequency doesn't matter. #ELLCHAT
So how should teachers decide which words to pre-teach? Frequency or utility across different contexts? Based on which words students do or don't already know? #ELLChat
A5) I have my students create their own story using the vocabulary words correctly. I also have them create pictures that illustrate the vocabulary word or words.#ELLCHAT
A4 You are asking a critical question that gets to the heart of the difference between what PreK and K children need vs. elementary!! For PreK it is ALLLL about meaning - what is meaningful to them - and no one should ask things like frequency or context. #ELLCHAT
So how should teachers decide which words to pre-teach? Frequency or utility across different contexts? Based on which words students do or don't already know? #ELLChat
Content vocab for sure. For fiction stories, though, I don't care if ELLs learn obscure adjectives they're unlikely to encounter again. Tier 2 words that show up in other contexts are more valuable #ELLChat
A5) This overlaps with word walls, but personal word walls (in notebook at desk, w/ categories, add to on their own) are invaluable. I use them for my own Lang learning #ELLChat
A5 For preK and K children, the approach is very individualized - it depends on each child’s interest more than the teacher’s plan. You have to hook each little kiddo in from where she starts #ELLCHAT
I agree. I once asked 6th graders which words in a paragraph did they not understand and one Ss said "although." So you never know what is impt to Ss. #ELLCHAT
Content vocab for sure. For fiction stories, though, I don't care if ELLs learn obscure adjectives they're unlikely to encounter again. Tier 2 words that show up in other contexts are more valuable #ELLChat
A5) I use @JoanneBillings1's @VocabMagic book to really guide and scaffold my vocabulary instruction. For me, this strategy makes sense and the small structures are easy for everyday, easy exposures and to encourage newcomers to speak...and smile 😃#ELLchat
A5) I support vocab dev. through exposure to as many grade level texts as possible, unpacking the text together for comprehensibility. Dev. is limited when students only read at "their level" #ELLCHAT
A5 Also, for little ones - you have to be sure they understand the nouns before they can understand the verbs connected to them. Otherwise, the whole sentence is lost #ELLCHAT
A4: GLAD strategy - tell the story with pics and visuals to highlight content vocab, people and places. Repeat as needed with sticky notes. Use as anchor chart for Ss. #ELLchat
