words, word games and linking vocab to reading 2015

Professor Stephen J Hall

Centre for English Language Studies

https://www.facebook.com/cels.sunwayu

Learning to Learn:

Retain new concepts and

words while stimulating

thinking.

Centre for English

Language Studies

Outline

• Choosing which words, phrases and sentences to learn

• Matching purposes and word learning

• Building definition skills

• Producing English

• Interactive tasks


I hope you were listening to all that!


Write a question you have about learning

new words in another language.

We will come back to this later


As a teacher

• Text driven vs Learning driven

• Lesson plan vs Seizing learning opportunities

• Telling vs Modelling

• One way vs Interactive facilitator

• Systemic vs Adaptive

• We will return to these while modelling Approach and Methods through Procedures

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English for

• Academic Purposes

• Business 1, 2,

• Business Communication

• Communication

• Design

• Information and Computer Technology

• Law

• Nursing

• Psychology

• Tourism Service Industry

Centre for English

Language Studies

Raise awareness

• Choose the right words

• Learn what it means to know a word

• Experience using a word

• Link the word to forms

• Use the word with fluency


What vocab to learn?

• High frequency words (2000 word families)

• Short words

• Content words are the building blocks

• See 1000 General Service List

• Task 1 : Word of the day presentation


http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation

How we choose to learn

• Absorbing /Interacting

• Looking

• Listening

• Moving

• Reading

• Speaking

• Writing


Reading

Language focus

• 25% should be on form (Nation, Coxhead)

• Both the written form and spoken form are important

• Word stress impacts on understanding

• Task two

• Learning / word Stress/ along with new vocabulary Murphy, J. New Ways of teaching vocabulary. Coxhead, A (Ed.) TESOL Association. P21-24


Centre for English

Language Studies

Four Strands of Learning a new Language

1

Learning from meaning-focused input (listening

and reading)

2

Learning from meaning-focused output (speaking

and writing)

3

Language-focused learning (studying

pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar etc)

4

Fluency development (getting good at using what

you already know).

All four strands are important and they need roughly

equal amounts of time. (Paul Nation)

Content Words

• Start simple and concrete

• Use the 2000 word list

• Set an obtainable target – 7 words a day?

• An interactive task

• Task 3 – use visuals to stimulate structured responses


Centre for English

Language Studies

Centre for English

Language Studies

DefiningFeature

Drum 1 Javanese

Drum 2Latin -bongos

It has

It is made of

It

We would hear this

High frequency words

• They happen often as they do a lot

• Occur in different contexts

• Useful for understanding and use


An example of creating the big

“UUHH” :Antediluvian• Form challenges

• Word part challenges

• No context

• No visuals

• No word chunking or collocation

• No register clues- where do we hear or read this

• Low frequency


Task 4 Rating and raising word knowledge

• Group work• Organise around a topic

• Foster English for classroom interaction

• Wolfersberger,M. In Coxshead, A. (2014) New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary.TESOL Press. Pp.61-63.


Principles from research

• Repeating in spaced significant ways

• Seeing and hearing aids memory

• Deciding if it is learning for receptive or productive use

• Knowing the where, when and how of usage

• Using pictures can help memory


Understand learning for knowing or

using target words• We always know more than we can produce in a

new language

• Find our own strategies- write and cover, use in a sentence, mapping

• Productive use needs 7 exposures before the word is inside

• Defining helps and to a task

•


Building definition skills

• Use simple language

• Use different ways- defining, examples, pictures

• Use translation if it helps

• Task 5 Listening -Word detectives Nation,I.SP.2008. Teaching Vocabulary Strategies and Techniques


Word detectives

• Find a useful word to report to the class

• Give its core meaning

• Say and spell it

• Use it in two sentences

• Any prefixes or suffixes

• What other words does it go with ? (collocates)


14 Students learning from each other

• Seeing the words helps (Elley, 1989)

• Talking with other students helps

• Pushing focused fun fluency works


Play with language

• Listen to music

• Read below your level for fun as you can learn much

• Set a small workable target

• Use aps and web sites

• Enjoy as words are power


Being a reflective teacher learner

• Choose one

• Today I learnt…

• Today I felt…

• After today I will…

• The question I had answered was…


Thanks to inspring vocabulary teachers extraordinarie

• Paul Nation

• Averil Coxshead

• And colleagues at CELS Sunway University


Centre for English

Language Studies

A question you have about learning new

words in another language.

Later is now no longer later


Thank you for listening

Professor Stephen J Hall


https://www.facebook.com/cels.sunwayu

Centre for English

Language Studies

words, word games and linking vocab to reading 2015

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