LLED 360

I would be lying if I said that the article by Lehr made complete sense to me.  Although I believe I have a solid grasp of the English language, both orally and in term of vocabulary and grammar, some of the language and sentence structure of this article left me slightly puzzled – I can only imagine how an ELL student feels!  That being said, there were certain concepts addressed by Lehr that stood out to me.  The think the concept of ‘acquiring ownership’ of words is a great way to think about how kids acquire and expand their vocabulary knowledge.  I agree with Lehr that both repetitive exposure as well as exposure in different contexts is extremely beneficial and helpful for developing and fully understanding how to use words.  Since English is my primary language, I rarely think about how difficult it is until someone, for example, one of my Greek co-workers asks me how to use a particular word in a sentence and why he cannot be used in the way they originally said.  I have found myself on many occasions at a loss for words or talking in circles in attempts to explain the grammatical ‘rules’.  Another example is when someone asks you to define a word, and although you know they word and have used it, you are unable to provide a helpful definition.  As Lehr suggests, “knowing a word is a matter of degree rather than an all-or-nothing proposition” – it is a process, a sort of continuum that we as educators need to realize in order to better understand why our students may be struggling with what we feel should be simple vocabulary acquisition.  Simply being able to spell a word, does not necessarily indicate an understanding of that word.

Two other aspects I find very important that Lehr mentions are the importance and balance of both reading and oral opportunities for vocabulary development.  I thoroughly enjoy reading (although I do not currently read for pleasure as I have so many school readings to do) and think that it was extremely helpful in developing my own vocabulary and language skills.  I really liked how Lehr explained that although as educators we need to encourage and guide students toward developmentally appropriate reading material, we also need to keep in mind that reading for pleasure that may not always reflect a student’s reading competency is okay.  Reading needs to continue to be fun in order to promote intrinsic motivation within children instead of them reading only when they are forced to.  I remember in one of my English classes in high school, instead of making everyone read the exact same book for their book report, my teacher gave a selection of 10 books for the students to choose from – some were more advanced and others were at the appropriate level.  It was the first time I had ever had a choice of what I wanted to read and it made me WANT to do the report because I actually found the content interesting.  Lastly, I really connected with the idea surrounding both educators and parents providing their children with opportunities to practice their oral vocabulary.  At dinner, my parents always asked me how my day was and the types of things I did at school or camp.  If I gave them a vague “it was good”, they would probe for a more in depth answer and looking back now, I really appreciate it.  I think as educators we will hopefully automatically do that, but I think it is our job to encourage the parents of our students, especially in the younger grades, to do the same.  Make suggestions and explain how this will benefit their child.  Some questions I did think of is how young is too young to start this process?  Should we really be using ‘baby-talk’ and nicknaming objects when our children are infants?  Just something to think about!

The idea that students can only effectively learn 8 to 10 new words a week seemed like it was a rather low number in comparison to the actual amount of new words that students would be exposed to. This is especially true when you consider that each class, which depending on the school’s term system could be anywhere from 4 to 8 in a week, would have its own new concepts and words for students to learn about. This doesn’t even take into account the number of non-‘vocabulary’ type words, the everyday words students are expected to already know and are not explicitly taught as part of the class.

The emphasis on exposure to new words through reading was also a point that caught my attention, because as a student I was always reading everything I could get my hands on, and it opened me up to a huge array of vocabulary that I did not get exposed to at school, or in everyday interaction. When I was in elementary school I remember being told by my teachers to pick out books for silent reading from the library with two conditions: there could be no more than 5 words on the first page that I did not understand, but there had to be at least 1 or 2 new words that I would need to look up or ask someone the meaning of. I think that this sort of guideline worked really well to make sure that students didn’t get too frustrated by a lack of understanding and no longer enjoy reading. It also acted to ensure that students were still challenging themselves.

In reading the article on vocabulary, one thing that really resonated with me is the strong connection between reading and incidental accumulation of vocabulary. Coming from a family that did not use English as a primary language, my oral language experience in the home environment provided little support in building my English lexicon. However, conversations with my family members are typically highly interactive — detailed accounts of what has been happening at school are encouraged and described regularly at the dinner table. In addition, my parents took me to the library every week and I prowled the shelves in search of my next favourite author or series. Reading to me was an obsession, and I attribute my steady increase in vocabulary to reading on a daily basis.

However, many children of non-English speaking families may encounter difficulty in adjusting to language used in school — this relates back to the idea of a teacher’s “invisible criteria” or expectation of a certain level of language proficiency not explicitly taught in the classroom. Some ways to ameliorate the struggles experienced by these students — who may in fact be quite proficient in common oral language (e.g. BICS) — can include the teacher directing students to reading resources that target specific areas of language weakness or giving general guidelines to the types of reading material that best suit the student’s level. In an English classroom, such reading material would typically include the more literary pieces such as prose and poetry.

Lucy Y.

In this week’s article, A Focus on Vocabulary, the statistic that “no more than 8 to 10 words can be taught effectively each week” stood out to me.  When I first read this I thought it seemed unreal, but then I thought about the use of the word effectively in the sentence.  I’m sure that in the classroom, students are introduced to a lot more than 8 to 10 words per week, but this doesn’t mean that they necessarily learn their meanings as a result.  The article went on to discuss incidental learning and the fact that students must learn vocabulary from other sources than the classroom, specifically through “oral language and wide reading.”  It also mentioned that research supports the idea that the amount of time a student spends reading is “one of the best predictors of their vocabulary size.” This led me to think about the importance of reading for children, and reflect on my own experiences.  When I was growing up we had no cable TV, no video games, but we had a mountain of books in our house. My mom started reading to me before I could even talk, and as I got older I spent all my free time at home reading. I would ask my mom what new words meant, or would look them up in the dictionary myself. I excelled at spelling and vocabulary tests at school, and I can honestly say that I have never struggled with reading comprehension.  Given the important link between reading, vocabulary, and comprehension discussed in this article, I think my own experience highlights the importance of encouraging students to pick up a book on their own time.

“Accounting 11 is a prerequisite course to Accounting 12.  This course expands on the accounting concepts learned in Accounting 11 and introduces new accounting concepts like depreciation, payroll, inventory management, and taxation to name a key few.  This course is ideal for students who are planning to pursue a career in accounting, business management, commerce, or an entrepreneurship opportunity.”

I am in Business Education discipline and what you see above is a course description of Accounting 12. I’ve read above description many times, and never gave a second thought to it. To me, the description was simple and clear. However, after reading the article, “A Focus on Vocabulary,” I began to wonder if it was clear for high school students as well. How many of the words above would be unfamiliar to students?

I asked a Gr. 9 student I tutor to underline all the words she wasn’t confident with. Here is the list of words she underlined: prerequisite, concept, depreciation, inventory, pursue, commerce, and entrepreneurship.This particular student wasn’t born in Canada, but speaks perfect oral English. It was surprising to me that she does not know what “prerequisite” and “pursue” mean.

As teachers, we make assumption that the words familiar to us would also be familiar to students. Teachers must realize that students often use  vocabularies orally without full understanding of them; thus, the students aren’t familiar vocabularies when they see them on paper.

I came to realization that vocabulary deficiency not only affects learning English and Literature, but also other subjects. Teachers of all fields should help students build on vocabulary. I believe that the learning begins with the understanding of the course.

Vo-ca-bu-la-ry. Students must continue reading at home as well as in school to improve their vocabulary. Vo-ca-bu-la-ry.

             The reading for this week called “A Focus on Vocabulary” by Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert was an interesting read and will be useful for me as an English Teacher Candidate.  This article was about vocabulary and its correlation with reading comprehension and student success.  Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert note in their article that words come in two forms: oral and print (Lehr, Osbroune & Heibert, p.1).  Oral vocabulary includes words that we “recognize and use in listening and speaking,” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1) while print vocabulary includes words “that we recognize and use in reading and writing” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  I found it particularly interesting to learn that word knowledge comes in two distinct forms: receptive and productive.  Receptive vocabulary includes “words that we recognize when we hear or see them” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  Productive vocabulary includes “words that we use when we speak or write” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  Although these concepts about vocabulary seem to be common knowledge for many of us, it is important to remember that many students may not be familiar with a wide range of vocabulary so it will be important to break these concepts into understandable ideas.  I also think that it’s a good idea to give students multi-modal ways to absorb language.  Perhaps the student will not understand the meaning of the word when it is discussed in class but will understand the word when you have the student write it in a sentence.  Furthermore, the student may not have understood the word when they read it in a book but understand the word when they see it used in the context of a movie.  I think it is really important to use a variety of teaching tools to help students develop a rich vocabulary.

This article also discussed that many words in a student’s vocabulary repertoire are learned through incidental learning.  Learning words takes place in every setting that a student is exposed to.  The more words that they see on a daily basis, the better chances that student has for success within the classroom.  Remembering the meaning of a word, however, is not as simple as picking up a dictionary and reading the definition.  During my time as a student, I have come to realize that it is easiest (for me!) to learn the meaning of a word when it is placed in a sentence.  It also helps to use the word in a sentence multiple times in order to assist in my own comprehension of the word.

As a teacher candidate, it will be difficult to use class time to explain every new word that a student encounters.  If I did that, I would probably have no time to teach my lesson!  Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert propose that teachers should look at the importance, usefulness and frequency of word use before teaching it to their students.  Words can be categorized into three tiers which help teachers gain an understanding of which words they should focus on teaching in the classroom.  Tier one consists of words such as clock or baby “whose meanings students are likely to know” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  The second tier consists of words such as fortunate or maintains which are words that are “likely to appear frequently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature language users” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  Finally, the third tier is made up of words such as pallet or retinue that “appear in text rarely” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  By splitting up vocabulary words into three tiers, it makes it easy for me as a teacher candidate to instruct students on tier two vocabulary words that recur frequently.  The students can then gain a strong grasp of these words that are used on a regular basis so that they will be prepared to effectively answer questions in class or during exams.  If the student has difficulty with tier one or tier three questions, they can either look the words up on their own time or come to me after or during class with additional questions.  Using this three tiered approach is effective because it will allow me to address the meaning of important vocabulary words while ensuring that slower or more advanced learners still feel comfortable asking me about the meaning of vocabulary words that are problematic for them.

This reading was very insightful in that it helped to break down the learning process that ELL go through to learn English.  The majority of us aren’t aware of exactly how complex learning any new language is.  It’s fascinating how many words students actually learn each week and throughout their lifetime.  The article stresses the importance of incidental learning.  A lot of this learning happens outside of the classroom so it is important that young children who are learning English receive the right kind of exposure to the language.  When I look back at how I learned English, it is exactly as how the article describes: through oral & print channels.  My parents were very keen on persevering our native tongue, but they were very helpful when I needed assistance with my English vocabulary.  I can attest to the incidental learning that happens in ELLs.  I spoke English a lot at home with my brother against my parent’s wishes and watched English television programs.  I also spent a lot of time listening to English radio stations and memorized the lyrics.  I may not have fully understood all the words I heard initially, but with repeated exposure, I was able to grasp the meaning behind those unfamiliar words.  In addition to this, I really loved to read.  I received a vocabulary book as my first English book from my parents.  The book had pictures and words.  The use of associating specific words and images really aided me in my learning of the language.  I began to frequent the library every week to borrow books for leisure reading, especially in the summer.  I also took the initiative to do my own “research” on certain topics of interest.  When I reached grade 5, my level of English was good enough to be considered “advanced”.  The article mentions the learning of root words and prefixes/suffixes.  My grade 7 teacher spent each week teaching us a root word and its uses.  To this day, I never forgot them and it has really benefited me in vocabulary comprehension.  Not to make this a life story, but I felt that my learning of the English language developed as a result of repeated exposure.  Without the continued repetition of words, I wouldn’t have grasped the language as easily as I did.  I remember watching Much Music when I was younger and I couldn’t make out any of the words.  I thought music in general was all gibberish.  It wasn’t until I got older and learned these songs that I could make sense of them.  In regards to the Tiered level of words, I agree that more focus should be paid to the Tier 2 words.  Far too often teachers want to impress their class by teaching them fancy, novel words that are rarely used.  Teaching Tier 2 words will enable the students to broaden their vocabulary and make the learning of Tier 3 words easier.

I really liked how this article provided many examples of teaching strategies that can be used when learning new words. My own experience of learning vocabulary that I remember were either finding definitions for words that my teacher or myself had picked out from a novel we were studying. It was quite a challenge especially when faced with a word with multiple meanings and not knowing which one to choose. I would often just choose the first definition provided in the dictionary and write in the “correct” definition if my choice happened to be incorrect when the terms were reviewed the next morning in class. Lehr et al. mention that it is important for teachers to focus on “tier two” (11) vocabulary with multiple meanings rather than “tier three” (11) vocabulary that are very rarely used or “tier one” (11) vocabulary that are very common that most students will already be familiar with. Thinking back, I wish my teachers reviewed some of the other common uses of a word we were studying instead of only focusing on the particular definition they were looking for. Going over the relationship between context and how meanings of the word changes accordingly may have been helpful. While the dictionary is a helpful source when it comes to learning new words, other learning strategies should be used as well (Lehr et al.). I remember having to look up many words while learning English, but hardly understanding any of the words even after having written down definitions.

Another part of this article that I found to be really interesting was the discussion of how beneficial a teacher reading aloud can be for the development of students’ vocabularies (Lehr et al.). I wonder how this compares to silent reading when it comes to the development of vocabulary. I know I have found myself unknowingly skipping words that I did not know while reading silently and then being very surprised the next day when there was a pop quiz on definitions of words that were in the assigned chapter that I had skipped while reading. Would a student be more likely to notice a new word when listening to a story that was being read aloud word for word rather than silent reading where many words can be read at the same time? Another benefit of listening to a story being read aloud may also be learning how words are pronounced. Perhaps a student’s reading ability is important too when looking into how much a student will benefit from various types of reading. Lehr et al. reported that when students can read by themselves, the amount of time they spend reading will predict the number of words they know.

In “A Focus on Vocabulary,” Lehr, Osborn, and Hiebert examine the dangers of deficient vocabulary and the processes by which new vocabulary is acquired. They are limiting their discussion of vocabulary to more advanced words that learners may be exposed to at higher levels and not the fundamental vocabulary that is used in basic, day-to-day communication.

Some words may be understood enough to be received but not comfortable enough to be used. A given passage or statement may contain a word that is entirely new to us, but a general definition can often be inferred based on its context (A Focus on Vocabulary, p. 4). From there, our working definition or schema of these words is gradually expanded upon as we learn more about it through further exposure in different contexts. Eventually, we may be comfortable enough to begin experimenting with these words and may begin applying them in novel ways.

There is a great range of vocabulary knowledge across all grade levels. Throughout all assessed age groups, the range varies by a factor of ten within each peer group, respectively (A Focus on Vocabulary, p. 2). The current approach to these differences in the Canadian school system is streaming. However, it is known that learning opportunities become polarized over time; increased exposure leads to an improved vocabulary, where reduced expose leads to fewer opportunities for improvement. This calls the efficacy of streaming into question. Educators want to reduce, not simply accommodate, these differences in vocabulary.

Studies have shown that educators simply cannot explicitly teach all necessary vocabulary within schools (A Focus on Vocabulary, p. 3). Other opportunities to build schema beyond the walls of the classroom need to be identified and embraced. Lehr, Osborn, and Hiebert highlight an array of methods by which learners might expand their vocabulary (A Focus on Vocabulary, p. 4-18).

Multimedia is tremendously useful in engaging learners and building schema, but its temporal nature reduces the ability to individually adjust pace in order to process appropriately. Teachers, family, and peers may gradually increase daily opportunities for exposure to new vocabulary by introducing them in a comfortable context (A Focus on Vocabulary, p. 7), but this can be an incredibly slow-going process and opportunities may be few and far between.

I believe that reading is the most sustainable and effective form of vocabulary study. There are many reasons for why this may be the case: materials that are readily available, less mentally taxing than active discourse, or how the flow of narrative engages learners. Additionally, with the advent of computer-based technologies, there have been a plethora of new opportunities to keep learners engaged with the material and continually developing new and existing schema (A Focus on Vocabulary, p. 16-17). Reading may be the dominant means of building schema, but it is clear that a synthesis of diverse means are required to equip learners with the necessary vocabulary they need to thrive.