This class observation is from a video of a second grade English class in Atlanta, Georgia. The video is from 2010 and features Ms. Wiggins teaching her students vocabulary words. Ms. Wiggins’s goal was for her students to understand the meaning of the vocabulary words, and to reach that meaning themselves. Rather than giving direct definitions, she guided the class to the correct answers. Although not specified, this video was probably taken during the middle or end of the year. This can be inferred by the automatic responses students had to specific prompts from their teacher, as well as the smooth classroom procedures. The students encountered an obstacle when Ms. Wiggins asked them what “traction” means. Most of the students did not have sufficient background knowledge to answer this question. Previously, Ms. Wiggins had asked the class the meaning of other vocabulary words, like “specially” and “struggle”. For these questions, nearly all of the students raised their hands to give an answer. For this question on “traction”, there was a smaller response from the class. Only two children raised their hands to answer. The video provides sufficient footage to conclude that the students are comfortable answering questions. The smaller response suggests that, as a whole, the class did not have an answer for the meaning of “traction”.
Of the students that did respond, their knowledge was limited. The first child said, “Like when you’re running”. Although traction pertains to
There are words that the entire discourse community knows. For example they all know that recess means go out to play. But as Mrs. H. Walker informed me in teaching the lexis may be similar but it varies from classroom to classroom. For example her class knows that “Station Time ” means they can go to different stations to play but the same concept in another class could be called “Free Play”. I learned that some lexis sticks around forever and never changes like “ Story time”, “Homework”, and “Timeout”. “Language is important is important because it’s how I communicate with my students” says Mrs. H.
I gathered student written inventories and held personal interviews and conversations with students and their families in order to help my students grow and mature in their vocabulary usage. This information told me they value who they are and what motivates them so I could design innovative practices and utilize proven methods of vocabulary instruction that promote learning for all my students.
Another example I would use, would be a picture of 'Peter Rabbit' running, which could be an illustration of the vocabulary words 'wandered' or 'scampered'. During the reading of the story 'Peter Rabbit', I will point to the vocabulary word in the pocket chart and ask my students, 'what is this word'? and we will say it together; example: 'Trembling'. I would then ask the students a comprehension question like; 'What was Peter Rabbit doing'? A students response could be; 'Peter Rabbit was trembling with fright'.
I provided small steps to find the meaning of the unfamiliar words to help the students apply guessing strategies in contexts.
All students need direct instruction of vocabulary, but it is especially imperative for ELLs. They need much more exposure to new vocabulary than their native-English-speaking classmates. ELLs need to learn cognates, prefixes, suffixes, and root words to enhance their ability to make sense of new lexicon. Beginning ELLs and more advanced ELL students should actively engage in holistic activities to practice new vocabulary because learning words out of context is difficult for these students. If they memorize the meanings of the words on a list, they will not be able to use the words in their own writing or verbal production until they really understand the meanings. When vocabulary instruction includes explicit, implicit, and strategy instruction, students are repeatedly exposed to the target vocabulary in a variety of contexts which increases their individual vocabulary development and the other resources that help in doing so is the Semantic Mapping primary focus on visual relationships, which is helpful to students from all backgrounds.
Standard 2 says, “Teachers have a deep knowledge base sufficient to create learning experiences that reflect an understanding of central concepts, vocabulary, structures, and tools of inquiry of the disciplines/ content areas they teach.” This means that teachers have strong comprehension skills in their content area, so they do not have to limit themselves to their content and can make connections elsewhere. In this lesson, students were required to read, write, and use root words to determine the overall meanings of words, which does fall under English class practices. However, students used the materials they created in order to draw connections to past and modern day social issues, as well as in their personal lives. They were not required to keep their connections to the text; they were encouraged to move beyond just what was in front of them and think critically to make the connections to other
Some children may not be able to understand the words being spoken to them and/or the grammatical rules of sentence construction. Therefore, when their teacher tells the class what they need to do, or explains a new idea or concept,9 they may struggle to understand what is being said. Having inappropriate vocabulary is
Before a lesson “teachers should identify and clarify unknown words… They should be pronounced, defined, and made visible so students have the knowledge base to derive meaning from what they are attempting to decode and comprehend” (Fite, 2002). Fite (2002) states the importance for students to define new terms in their own words in connection with examples they thought of which connects the two in order to construct meaning from print.
Only a glimpse into her day but from what I saw, it was all positive. The students are learning how to work well together without adult supervision. They are learning responsibilities and taking care of themselves. They are learning that what they learn in class is important and will be put to use in their own personal life. In having the students participate in the store, it is keeping the students’ interested in learning math daily.
Encourage students to think back to this lesson when they are reading text. “If you come across one of these words or a new word that you do not know, use the sentence or sentences around the word to figure out the meaning.”
Compared to the older generation of media and education to the contemporary modern day uses of media and education, these institutions are much differently based on the time period. My perspective of this issue is going to be much different than someone who is much older than me. The occurrence of dramatic events changes their perspective, this in other words is know as experiences. Our experiences make us who we are. Stereotype is a common term I use to describe a lot of the social issues that I continue to see throughout my lifetime. We all judge a book by it’s cover and the experiment by Jane Elliot called A Class Divided explains how humans in the previous age before the 2000s understand society. This experiment determines that humans don’t
For my ethnographic research I am observing a second grade classroom. I have chosen to observe classroom reading and writing time with the students. In addition I have decided to interview three people (teacher, parent, and student) from the school at which I am completing my observation hours, P.S. 152 Gwendoline N. Alleyne School in Woodside, Queens to have a solid understanding of my research. I will use alternative name for students and teacher. Mrs. S is piloting a writing workshop in her classroom and ELA/ literacy standards will be the primary focus throughout her teaching. My primarily focus will be on the classroom routine.
Professor Jacob Neusner states that there exists a social contract between teacher and student, which is that true learning occurs when teachers teach students to teach themselves. In his article “What Does ‘Vocabulary’ Mean?”, Andrew Heinze asks what should professors at educational institutions do to accommodate the needs of students and address the problem with college students not comprehending basic vocabulary, and the impact this has on their performance in school. In order to address this education gap a few things need to be called to action and or either accomplished: attrition rate of teachers, parents of students need to become more involved in their children’s education, the lack of reading comprehension with students needs to
Although vocabulary is the sub-skill of a language, it plays a very important role in language learning and teaching. In fact, vocabulary is central to language and is of paramount importance to language learners. On the other hand, words are the building blocks of a language that are used to label objects, actions, and ideas. In other words, people cannot convey the intended meaning without knowing vocabulary. It is widely accepted that vocabulary is a very important part in English language learning because no one can communicate in any meaningful way without vocabulary. As McCarthy (1990) stated, the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. Nation (1990) also affirms that vocabulary can be considered as the most important element in language learning because Learners think that many of their
As soon as their teacher, Mrs. Root asked them to settle down, they instantly became silent. This is an example of an unspoken expectation of the teacher and is one of many hidden curriculums that I witnessed in the classroom. Another instance was during instruction; Mrs. Root had asked a question pertaining to shapes and who ever knew the answer, demonstrated this particular hidden curriculum by raising their hand.