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[no dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: My name is Jennifer Hixson
and I was listed as being from the IRC, which I wish I were.
Last time when I spoke, I think they contacted the IRC and the
IRC contacted me as they often do to do workshops and stuff
in Central Illinois and Southern Illinois, because they don't
like to go south of I80.
But they are a great group but I am not on the payroll up there,
they just pay me to do things down here.
So I am not really from the IRC, I am actually retired from the
Urbana school district, I was in the English as a second language
teacher for a longtime and after that I was the administrator
for the bilingual ESL programs in Urbana.
And then I have also over the years taught adjunct
for the University of Illinois.
Randy mentioned that the IRC has classes and I did not get--
because I live in Urbana, I mean I got my classes through
the U of I--but where its not convenient the IRC does provide
great classes that are kind of a time wise might
be more convenient for people.
Okay, but I don't know how it would be to travel up there,
I don't know if they do some cohorts like for weekends
and stuff like that.
But the U of I is teaching all the courses.
I haven't seen the linguistics course yet, online.
But I taught my first online --I'm sorry--my first online
class this past summer.
There are like eight weeks, two hours of class where you have
to be two hours a week on the computer and you can see me
and we can do interactive exercises together and then
there's offline, its online but not at the same time.
During the week, you have to do stuff un-model, so there's that
and your regular assignments and those classes can be very nice
but like what I got, I found--it was very interesting,
I thought I'd hate it, I didn't.
But like, in a way it was nice because if somebody sent me
a paper--since it was all done--I mean I had a student in
Turkey and a student in Africa and I had a lot of students.
I had a student in Colorado and a lot up in the Chicago area but
they would send the papers in over Moodle or email and then if
I glanced through it and I thought, "Oh, this isn't going
to get a good grade," I would send it back to them and say,
"if you get this in to me before I'm finished reading the other
ones, so you haven't held me up, I'll not count it as late.
And so there was kinds of things that you could do online
that you couldn't do teaching a face-to-face course, so.
Anyway, that's kind of my background.
I was asked to do something about vocabulary learning with
English language learners and so I also brought some books over
here that I have used a lot when I was teaching.
And, okay--yeah, that's what we want--usually when I taught,
I like to teach from the big ideas and this was something
from Janette Gordon at the IRC and I don't know if you have
dealt with that kind of teaching structure down here but the big
ideas are--you know they're not topics, they're not details,
they're not objectives, they're the big idea that you want to
have people learn.
And then examples fall under that.
So usually when you would teach under the big ideas--I think
they use this with the [unclear dialogue] method.
So these are the big ideas, they usually post them in the rooms,
these are the big ideas I want you to get out of today.
Vocabulary learning is important for all students,
particularly ELL students.
It is multifaceted and complicated and the learning
involves, learning happens through wide reading
and shared conversations.
It also happens through direct instruction.
Different kinds of words are learned in different kinds of
ways and vocabulary development for first and second language
learners is the same in some ways and different
in some ways, okay.
So those are the big ideas and usually with big ideas what you
really want to do is, you're always going to have
in your class, whether you have English Language learners,
you’re always going to have someone with a little bit
more trouble learning than, than his neighbor.
And there are the things that they can hang their hat on,
you know, they can hang their learning on it.
They’re the ones that maybe don't organize as easily
as the other kids.
Also put on the other side prompts of learning logs.
Learning logs as Randy said this morning doing listening,
speaking, reading and writing is always important, so if you have
lessons that are listening, speaking and reading.
If you want a quick writing component,
a learning log is great.
Some kids are really good at learning logs and they can just
write what they want.
Other kids need a prompt and so we generally do some sort of
scaffolding with those kids and so one prompt is just,
what's the most important big idea I've learned
and then they have to give an example.
They write it and give an example, how does this connect
to what I already know, they'd write it and how is
the knowledge useful, how will it be useful to me.
I did have about 30 copies at home and I didn't realize that
it would be quit so many people here.
So if you want just an example of that, you know, its there.
The other thing that I generally do when I am doing a workshop
is use the ideas that I would do with kids with you,
only on an adult level.
So that's kind of what we're going to do today.
Just as background, entering kindergarten,
the average student knows 5000 words.
Entering 5th grader knows 10,000 words.
Obviously these are averages.
There are big differences for difference in socioeconomic
status so there was a study done that said that higher SES kids--
first graders, this was done on first graders--
know twice as many words as lower SES kids.
So some kids are coming into kindergarten with 1500, 2000
words, some kids are coming in with 500 words
and that's how you got your average.
I'm sorry, yeah your average of, no, okay.
So some kids are coming in with like 10,000 words, some kids are
coming in with 2500 words and that's how you got your average
of 5000 words.
So you're going to have a big range of vocabulary knowledge
no matter where you teach.
No matter if you have English language learners
in your classroom or not.
So when we talk about teaching vocabulary what are we really
talking about and why is it so important?
And so this is an activity-- and I've told you to sit so
you'll be in a comfortably of four.
What I want you to do is first one, talk to your neighbors
about what you did last weekend.
Then we're going to do this for a couple of minutes
then we're going to talk to you're neighbors about frogs,
everything you know about frogs.
Then you're going to write a short paper about frogs
and all you know about them.
The only thing is, you can't use any words with
the letter N in it.
So, you have to not just blank those out of your mind,
you're not going to be able to use those at all.
So if you would just turn to make a small group of four,
no more than four.
So, and I kind of ask that you, and then actually if you have to
move to get in a group of four, stay there when we're done,
because we're going to do groups of four every once in a while.
Okay, so.
[chatting].
[unclear dialogue].
Okay, because we have a short amount of time here I'm going to
cut you short on the telling about your weekend.
And what I want you to do now is to talk about frogs.
You're in school and your teacher has been teaching you
about frogs and you want to--this is in preparation
for writing a paper, a short paper about frogs.
And you want to put everything that you know about frogs
on this paper.
So what I want you to do is to first talk about it,
because as Randy said, the oral part of it, the talking is
really important, the speaking is important to get everyone
on the same page.
And then I want you to actually have somebody be a recorder
and write your report about frogs.
So if you could start that now.
[chatter].
[unclear dialogue].
Okay I really want all of you to try not to use N words, okay so.
Even when you're just talking.
No N words.
[chatter].
[unclear dialogue].
Okay, okay I think we're going together back together.
Face me but sort of stay in your group of four and so that you'll
be able to do this again.
I guess I would like to talk a little bit about
this experience.
What, how did it feel?
>> female student: It was hard and frustrating.
>> Jennifer Hixson. It was hard, why was it hard?
>> female student: We kept saying words with N.
>> Jennifer Hixson: You kept saying words with N.
Think of N words as you're first language so I know I would have
first graders and kindergarten kids who came in and kept
talking to me and their first language for the first couple
of months of school and I'd say, huh?
I mean because I didn't understand it.
But think of those as your first language, those N words.
How did it feel not to be able to use them?
>> female speaker: Frustrating.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Frustrating, and how did it feel
to know a lot more than you can say.
A lot more, so English language learners often have a lot of
background knowledge, not always but they often have a lot of
background knowledge but they can't express it.
So when you're looking at your English language learners and
thinking about vocabulary that's an important factor, okay.
So and that was just a--I wanted you to kind of get in the mood
and I was so glad to hear you talking.
In Urbana we--which is where I taught--we don't often get
Eastern student teachers but when we do we're always
really happy.
I mean we find Eastern Illinois teachers
to be very well prepared.
So I was glad to see you really, really talking here and I wanted
to do something that was kind of interactive--you know,
after lunch everybody's a little bit tired.
So what do you know when you know a word?
First of all we have receptive oral vocabulary, okay.
So do we know, everybody knows what
receptive oral vocabulary is.
Yup, okay.
Productive oral vocabulary, anybody want to tell me,
receptive oral vocabulary is what you--think I'll just go to
the next one--is what you recognize and understand
when you hear it, okay.
Productive oral vocabulary is you can use it
when you're speaking.
Sometimes you can understand a word when you hear it
but particularly in a second language or sometimes when
you're over 65, you just can't think of it.
You kind of know it, it's just not in your
productive vocabulary.
Then there's receptive written vocabulary, obviously you can
recognize it and understand it when you see it while reading.
Do you think receptive oral vocabulary and receptive written
vocabulary are necessarily the same things?
Are they the same set of words?
Nope, she's saying no.
And you're right, sometimes they aren't.
Productive written vocabulary, you can use it when you write.
I got a question for you, which was easier, writing the paper
or speaking about frogs?
Writing about frogs or speaking about frogs?
>> audience: Writing.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Writing, why?
>> male speaker: You can see the letters
in the words.
>> Jennifer Hixson: You can see the letters
in the words, okay.
That's a good one because were not trying to not use N's,
so that's true.
But what do you have in writing--especially if you're
doing it on your own--what do you have in writing that you
don't have when you're speaking to somebody.
You have the luxury of...time.
You have the luxury of time and not on the spot.
So it's important to remember that there are some ways that
for an ELL student, productive written vocabulary,
because you're not on the spot, you can sometimes come up
with more words than when you're on the spot.
But what would be more difficult about the written vocabulary
than the receptive vocabulary, especially in English
rather than Spanish or a very regular language?
>> female student: There are many different
meanings to one word and there's many words
that sound the same but they [unclear dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: That's true, that's very true.
And it's also just knowing how to spell it.
You're right you can--I mean there's the word cell, C-E-L-L
and the word sell, S-E-L-L or there, their, and they're.
We have a lot of words like that.
So there are difficulties with all of these areas.
So again, what does it mean to know a word?
First, we have to know what does it sound like,
how is it pronounced, okay.
What does it look like, how is it spelled, okay.
What word parts are there to help you recognize
or convey meaning.
And then where does the word begin and end?
This is particularly in receptive vocabulary,
receptive oral vocabulary.
I once had a student ask me, Mrs. Hixson,
what does "intha" mean?
I said, "intha", what do you mean "intha"?
She said, yeah, you always say put "intha" cubby,
put it "intha" box.
What does "intha" mean?
I said, oh, that's two words, in and the.
So where we have over years, because we have heard the words
of so many different combinations and everything,
over the years we have figured out that you would have
a five-year-old English speaker ask that question.
They would know that "in" and "the" were two different words.
Okay, also--and this speaks to your point about multiple
meanings--we learn our multiple meanings through context.
We understand them through grammatical functions and we
understand them through other words in the sentence
so if we said, let's play catch.
Okay, that's here.
This is a noun, that fellow's a great catch.
It's still a noun but totally different meaning.
Alexander didn't catch a single fish today, it's a verb.
I don't want you to catch a cold, both verbs
but different meanings.
So when you look at the word--okay, I'll go back,
different forms of the word.
Present, past, future, gerands used in phrases for example,
if I said to you, "I don't know, I didn't really prepare
for this dinner, it's just sort of catch-as-catch-can.
Or, that's such a catch phrase, nobody uses that anymore.
Catch has seven different meanings as a verb,
five different meanings as a noun, 16 different derivative
words, phrases and idiomatic expressions.
And I just looked it up--you don't have to read this--I just
looked this up on the dictionary that was on the computer
and this is what I got for the word, catch, okay.
So when you look at multiple meanings, you also have multiple
meanings used in different contexts in different
subject matters.
So if you were to look at the word table--a piece of
furniture--how might you use this word in the context
in the English language arts.
Somebody?
A table.
Yeah?
>> female speaker: Silent E are you talking about?
>> Jennifer Hixson: No, how might you use the word
table in English language arts?
How would you use it, a different meaning
of the word table?
What would you...
>> male speaker: Like a graph.
>> Jennifer Hixson: A graph, a table, okay,
you can do that.
Or the table of contents.
Okay, how would you use it in mathematics?
>> female speaker: Times tables
>> Jennifer Hixson: Times tables, times tables.
How about in science?
>> female student: Periodic table.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Periodic tables, water table
all of that is...
Okay, social studies.
Again, a table or a graph that would be the same thing, okay.
Okay, how about the word 'cell.' How would you use this word
in mathematics.
>> female speaker: When you're making graphs.
>> Jennifer Hixson: When you're making graphs, okay.
How about in science?
>> students: Cells.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Cell and a zygote and all that.
Okay, and social studies?
>> female student: Jail, jail cell.
Prison.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Prison cell, okay.
Anything else?
We often talk about terrorist cells, you know,
cells as a community group.
So all of this makes vocabulary learning difficult, okay.
So knowledge of words if learned through lots of exposure
to the word in different contexts.
Both through conversation and reading.
It is acquired incrementally over time.
But we also need to actively teach vocabulary as part of
daily instruction, why, why do you think so?
Why do you think?
It used to be, [unclear dialogue] used to say,
the most important part of vocabulary learning was
[unclear dialogue] particularly for ELL kids because that was
the best way to learn language, it was to learn it naturally
and he did a whole bunch of studies.
A lot of them with Korean women about how they just read
a specific group of novels and the novels got harder
and that their vocabulary increased greatly, okay.
And we still believe that that’s true,
we still think that's true.
But now we know we need to actively teach vocabulary.
So why do you think that is true?
Got any ideas?
No, yeah?
>> female speaker: Because they need to learn
how to generalize it beyond reading,
so they might be reading the words but not understanding
what they mean and that's the whole aspect of it.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Okay, okay you want
to generalize it beyond the reading, okay.
And you're right, sometimes we do just skip over a word
we don't know and we can pronounce it.
ELLs are great at this, they can pronounce everything,
they can decode but they don't know what they're reading, okay.
Let's go on to the next slide, so the vocabulary instruction
debate is, why reading is very important
for vocabulary development.
Extremely important, no one is saying it isn't.
But the number of words in printed school English from
first grade through twelfth grade is about 85,000 words
and we can't teach that many words directly.
We don't have that kind of time so kids have to learn some words
just through reading, through listening to television,
through conversations.
So direct vocabulary instruction must supplement it because they
say that you need six exposures to words to adequately learn it.
I remember when I was back in grad school they kept using the
word--maybe I was just stupid, I don't know--but they kept using
the word hegemony and hegamonic and I swear it was more than
six times that I had to look that up in the dictionary,
because I wasn't getting it through context.
But it was a number of times that I had to see it, okay.
But many words occur infrequently.
More than 90% occur less than once in a million words.
So about half our words occur less than once in a billion
words, so how often are we going to come across these words
in just general reading.
So we have to do some direct instruction.
So what words do students need to know?
Okay, you've got high frequency words.
The first--and I'm sure you know about the high frequency word
lists like the adults lists and all that--the first thousand
words on high-frequency word lists equal 84% of our words
used in conversation.
So those are really important words to know, okay.
Add the next thousand words and that's 95% of words
in conversations.
So the fist 2000 are 95% of our just everyday casual
conversational words, but only 78% of words in academic texts.
So what does that tell you?
The professor this morning talked about BICS and CALP,
so what does that tell you?
If its 95% of the words in conversation but only 78% of
the words in our academic texts, what do you have to be careful
of when you're student seems to be pretty fluent in English?
Anybody?
If you think about the BICS and CALP we talked
about this morning.
Do you guys remember what BICS and CALP are?
BICS is basic
[laughter].
Huh?
>> female speaker: Interpersonal.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Interpersonal, I couldn't think
of the word.
Basic interpersonal--I told you it’s a thing over 65--
basic interpersonal conversation skills.
And the other is cognitive academic language proficiency.
So in one of the questions that the professor asked this
morning, she asked, if a person is speaking English,
if your student is speaking English, does that mean they
no longer need special help.
And the answer was no, because they don't have their cognitive
academic language proficiency.
So, but we think of high-frequency words and the
one's that use all the time, the one's we use in conversation.
I took this quote from a teacher, it says:
"High-frequency words are hard for my students..."
Even though we use them all the time.
"...because they tend to be abstract."
"They can't use a picture clue to figure out the word with."
"And phonics clues don't work either."
And I think here she wasn't really talking about phonics,
but she was talking about morphemes.
Can't really figure out, there no morpheme here except with,
I mean that's all morpheme.
So and you know morpheme is the smallest part of the word
that has meaning.
There's no smaller part of with that has meaning.
So, what does this tell you about--can you think.
So far we've done vocabulary learning is important for all
students, its multifaceted and complicated, it has to be done
through reading and shared conversations, and it has to be
done through direct instruction.
So anybody have any comments, questions, anything?
Okay, we're going to try another little activity and what I want
you to do is take out a piece of paper and I'm going to read.
You can use this activity with students particular in
like social studies classes, science classes
to review knowledge, okay.
So this is what I want you to do.
First, I just want you to listen to the passage then I'm going to
read it again and you are going to, you are going to write
the most important words that you hear, okay.
You're going to jot down the key words and phrases.
Then you're going to work in pair and write as much
of the text as possible between the two of you.
Between all of your words and phrases and then we're going to
have two pairs and you're going to write a paragraph, okay.
So first you just listen.
And again I'm using the content of what we are talking about.
"As the work of Allan Paivio suggests, one of the best ways
to elaborate on a newly learned vocabulary term is to generate
imagery representations of its meaning.
The research on the impact generating images to learn
and remember new words is quite strong.
And analysis of 11 controlled studies, Glen Powell found that
instructional techniques using imagery produced achievement
gains and word knowledge that were 34 percentile points higher
than techniques that did not."
A distinct difference exists between effects of instruction
and words from generalized vocabulary lists and words
specific, specific to a topic.
Many vocabulary development programs use vocabulary list of
high-frequency words, words that commonly appear
in the written language.
These high frequency lists typically do not focus
on the vocabulary from academic subject areas, yet these
are the words that should be the focus of instruction in
a vocabulary development program designed to enhance
academic achievement.
In a Meta analysis Stall and Fairbanks found that instruction
in general words like those found in high frequency word
lists, enhance student ability to understand new content
by 12 percentage points.
However, when the words are selected because they are
critical to academic content, the effect is a 33% gain.
The dramatic difference indicated that direct
instruction in word specific to academic content can have
a profound effect on students abilities to learn that content.
Okay, so I'm going to read it again and I want you to jot down
the important works and phrases, okay.
So you've got an idea of what its about.
"As the work of Allan Paivio suggests, one of the best ways
to elaborate on a newly learned vocabulary word is to generate
imagery representations of its meaning.
The research on the impact of generating images to learn
and remember new words is quite strong.
In analysis of 11 controlled studies, Glen Powell found that
instructional techniques using imagery produced achievement
gains and word knowledge that were 34 percentile points higher
than techniques that did not.
A distinct difference exists between the effects of
instruction and words from generalized vocabulary lists
and words specific to a given topic.
Many vocabulary development programs use vocabulary lists of
high-frequency words, words that commonly appear
in the written language.
These high frequency lists typically do not focus
on the vocabulary from academic subject areas.
Yet these are the words that should be the focus of
instruction in a vocabulary development program designed
to enhance academic achievement.
In a Meta analysis Stall and Fairbanks found that instruction
in general words that are found in high frequency word lists,
enhance student ability to understand new content
by 12 percentage points.
However when the words are selected because they are
critical to academic content, the effect is
a 33-percentage point gain.
The dramatic difference indicates that direct
instruction in words specific to academic content can have
a profound effect on students abilities to learn that content.
Okay, I'm going to skip the second reading and I want you
to get with a partner and try to write, kind of re-create
the paragraphs and then when I tell you too,
you'll get together with four.
So right now just two and then two, okay.
[chatter].
[unclear dialogue].
Okay, now get together with the four people and let four people
work on it together.
Usually, in a classroom you would give a lot, you would
never in a classroom you would never skip the second reading
and you would give more time.
But we have a short amount of time and I wanted to give you
a flavor of some activities that will help students
with vocabulary and reading.
[chatter].
[unclear dialogue].
Okay, I know this wasn't nearly enough time to finish but
I'd like to get back together again and ask you a couple
of questions.
Number one the vocabulary that you thought was important
did your neighbors think was important, did you zero in
on the same vocabulary?
Okay, how many times--let's just say, I mean obviously you guys
are all good students and you all speak English, so we can't
recreate something exactly.
But, how many times did the targeted vocabulary,
the vocabulary that you thought was important, how many times
did it get said in your talk, in your talking?
Once, a lot, a lot.
So let's say you had either an ELL student who didn't know
the language as well or just a student who was LD or had some
other kinds of problems, who, you know was a slow learner.
How many times would they have heard that vocabulary,
scuffled it in a way they could catch some of the vocabulary
that was going on so it's not like they were unable
to participate in this group.
On the other hand you as the better student are probably able
to help that student without actually having the student
realizing so much that he or she is being helped.
And you'd be surprised that sometimes the student who needs
a little bit more help has caught on to a certain part of
the language that you didn't catch on to
because they're listening in a different way.
So everybody can contribute to an activity like this, and it
really does emphasize that vocabulary to a great extent
because you had to key in on the vocabulary.
Some of the other reasons that this is good--and this doesn't
really have anything to do with vocabulary--but it does give
students the chance to explore literary and academic language
in depth.
You're recreating a text that is written above the level usually
that students would be speaking and writing.
It's an academic text or novel or whatever.
It exposes students to spoken and written language at a level
above everyday English.
We don't write a text--we can all open one of these textbooks
and read it, but we don't talk like that, let's face it.
We talk in a much more casual manner, so this really gets
students to do that and it gives students important practice
in listening to and writing more formal English.
This is particularly important for students who come from
societies or cultures where there's not that much reading
done in the home, okay.
Or where there is a very, that they use a less formal
standard English.
So if you look a Native American communities--and I don't know if
any of you will be teaching in a Native American community--but
often, I lived in an Alaskan Indian village for the first
two years I was married and they spoke
a very, very different English.
I don't know if anybody has read, Other People's Children,
by Lisa Delpit--the person she's talked to and worked with in
Alaska was somebody I knew up there and they talked about
less formal, that the student she was a less formal English.
And they had to teach them to use a more formal English to do
well in school once they got out of the village school into one
of the general high schools that were, you know, somewhere else.
And where they might be interacting with students,
my family my children who use a more formal English.
Or teachers who are not accustomed to using,
to have students using the less formal English.
So this is useful in lots of ways and I just wanted to show
you this and I gave you an example of it because
in the paragraph that you just read or were writing,
they talk about the fact that it is so important to use imagery.
This is one way of doing that, so when you're teaching about
vocabulary or when children use their own personal dictionaries
you can use something like this that says the word,
use it imagery, what's the meaning and draw a symbol.
Draw something meaningful and that could be a difficult thing
if you're talking about abstract words.
But it's very important that some students--for some students
to use that image.
Or if you don't want to use a paper like this, you can always
just suggest if they have a personal dictionary to put
a little picture in there next to the word and the meaning.
But that's important and then, we talked about there are
different kinds of words and they need to be learned
in different kinds of ways.
And I want to talk about cohesion links, cohesion links
in English and often we can use a closed paragraph, okay.
Do you know what cohesion links are, anybody?
What would be a cohesion link in English?
What brings, you know, what holds the writing together?
So with cohesion, they are connecting,
it connects the writing.
So all the writing is connected so if you had been talking about
something and you wanted to do a closed paragraph with students,
for your English speakers. your English only kids,
which I guess that's not a good thing to say either
but, for the kids who speak fluent English,
you can just give them a closed paragraph like this.
Or for your ELL kids or kids that have a little bit extra
difficulty you might give them the words for
the closed paragraph.
And then give them the closed paragraph so it helps them
to fill in the words, okay.
Or you could write the first letters of the word and here
particularly for English language learners, just putting
a W there would not work because they would, everybody would be
looking for a Ww sound.
So, let's see, we're going to do this because it’s easier, okay.
Cohesion links are the important parts of...
>> students: Written.
>> Jennifer Hixson: ...and spoken paragraphs that...
>> student: [unclear dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: Okay, connect sentences so that
they form a...cohesive whole.
These links...
>> students: Often.
>> Jennifer Hixson: ...appear in form of a pronouns
that prefer back to a...
>> students: [unclear dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: ...person, place or thing.
To a person, place, or thing in a...
>> students: Previous.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Previous sentence or references
that require the reader to.
>> student: [unclear dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: Remember a previously stated
fact or condition.
Cohesion links that are frequently used
and spoken and...
>> students: Written.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Written English are often.
What do you think they would be to English language learners?
>> students: Confusing.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Confusing.
You can use anything: difficult, you know, but confusing
to English language learners.
This is because of the...
>> students: [unclear dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: Pronouns, okay,
or the use of ellipsis, where words are understood
but not spoken or written are not always easy
to connect to words used in previous sentences.
[laughter].
Cohesion links lessons make those lessons more visible
and understandable to English language learners and are...
> students: Vital.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Vital in supporting their
understanding of both spoken and written material.
Now these the words that I chose to put in here but you can
say--a student without any, you know, without the V there are
important in supporting their understanding.
So I'm going to show you some examples of cohesion links that
are very difficult for English language learners.
Not all languages use pronouns, so, you know,
you have to deal with it.
So here we have two kinds of cohesion links.
Reference: A tall figure was standing outside the door.
The figure turned quickly toward her as Sally stepped
onto the porch.
As she regained her composure, she watched as he turned
without a word and walked away toward the...whoop.
Bus, bus stop in the rain.
So what's important?
How would this be confusing?
Actually, this is a very confusing one because the her
actually comes, it's referring to Sally and Sally
is coming afterwards.
But this doesn't usually happen in easier literature.
But that is one kind of cohesion link that is difficult, so when
you are looking at English language learners and wondering,
gee, why didn't they understand--
that could be one reason.
Because English speakers don't usually have trouble with this.
Okay, here's another one--conjunctions.
He worked all day although he was tired.
Finally he laid down his hammer, he wasn't finished but his work
was getting sloppy so he was afraid of ruining his work
unless he got some rest.
So, you can understand how that would be difficult because
not everything is and.
Children learn and really quickly but think how
the meaning of the paragraph is different if you just put
and in there.
He worked all day and his was tired and he laid down
his hammer.
He wasn't finished and his work was getting sloppy.
See all of these little words have little different,
they're all connecting the words together, the phrases together
but they all have slightly different meanings and put
a whole different slant on the meaning of the paragraph.
Now how would you tell somebody, what's the meaning of although.
That would be a hard word to actually define I think, for me.
But it's something that we come across all the time and it's
something that we just know, so these are the kinds of things,
the kinds of vocabulary that you have to pay attention to
with English language learners.
Here's another one: he was given a new pair of shoes
for Christmas, his old ones were too small.
Okay, what's ones mean there?
>> students: Shoes.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Shoes, but again that's
something you'd have to know.
That's how we use it in English.
An ellipsis: he sat down, stood up and then sat down again.
He said, "Some people like to dance and others don't."
So what was left out here?
He, he, what was left out here?
Some people like to dance and others don't.
>> female student: Like to dance.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Like to dance, okay so that
can be difficult for students, they don't understand that we
sometimes just leave out words, okay.
Lexical Cohesion-- The giant was now in the land
with tall trees and flowing rivers,
he was still running hard and although he was slowing down
considerably he went galloping over an enormous forest
and on into a huge range of mountains.
And here you have to understand that the underlined words
go together and the utilized words go together.
They are the ones telling, what is he doing.
One is telling about where he is.
So they have to be able to see those connections in order
to understand so the vocabulary is really important but the
deeper meanings and how the vocabulary is connected within
a particular context is also very important.
So it they know the word galloping in connection with
a horse, they might think this has to be about a horse.
Okay so that's just another way to think about vocabulary
and English language learners.
Okay, whoops, why is this?
It's like it skipped one, but I don't know why.
Well, anyway, okay.
So I'm going to show you a unit that I did with first graders.
When I did it, it was with all English language learners.
Many of them were just beginning to speak English.
I was introducing vocabulary sentence structure
and primary cohesion links.
And I'm just going to go through it really quickly.
We were talking about the five senses so we did I see colors
and I gave them each a sheet like this.
And I got this idea from a book called "The Semantic Organizer
Approach to Reading and Writing" and it was from a researcher up
in Canada and I really liked it, it really had good ideas.
But they were also given this, and because these were all
English language learners and many, many, many beginning
students, they could color the pictures any color they wanted.
Then they made their own paragraph,
they put the pictures in here.
Oh, no this is the next one.
Anyway they, I didn't, then they would put them in here and they
would write a paragraph.
And when they wrote their paragraph, I would say, okay,
you've got to indent and they would say, I see.
And if they said pink flowers, I see red apples,
I see black cats, I see brown nuts.
And they would write sentence and all of the words are
right there for them so it's a completely scaffold activity.
Okay, but every single persons paragraph was different because
it depended on the pictures that they chose and the colors
that they chose, okay.
So then we wanted to talk about more vocabulary words
and we took some pictures and I just chose these.
Cute, beautiful, ugly, funny and interesting and actually I had
chosen: beautiful, ugly and funny and I think some
of the kids added cute and interesting.
And I just ripped apart a whole bunch of Ranger Rick magazines,
gave every table a whole bunch of pictures and said choose a
picture and you put it under either beautiful, ugly or funny
or interesting or cute.
And because--I think the kids added interesting because
none of them fit these so they just said,
let's just say that's interesting.
So after they did that then they could draw their own animals
or I gave them some animals for the newer kids and then they
had to draw or do sentences again.
I see animals, I see cute lions, or I see beautiful lions.
I see cute bears, I see interesting snakes,
whatever and they got used to writing a paragraph.
Okay, so then we did I can hear and this time,
I can hear roosters say cocka-doodle-doo or whatever.
I can hear dogs say arf, arf, arf.
Actually in this one--kind of what you said, I think you
talked about the fact that you can, or no maybe it was my group
over here--said you can write anything you can say.
So I would ask them what does a dog sound like
and they can say arf, arf, arf, arf!
And I would say well how do we write that and so if they said
A-R-F, I said fine.
If they said R-F-F-F-F, fine it doesn't make any difference
if that's how you think it sounds.
And I hear ducks say quack and they can do that but
these are vegetables.
I cannot hear vegetables growing so then they had to write
something that said I can hear turkey's say gobble,
I can hear dogs say arf, arf!
And I can hear ducks say quack,
but I cannot hear vegetables growing, so we added a different
connecting word, not and, but.
But, I cannot hear vegetables growing.
And then we did tasting and we tasted these things and these
were, you know.
But then I added sometimes, meats taste good,
apples taste good, pretzels taste good.
Chocolate sometimes taste good because we have bitter chocolate
and sweet chocolate.
But lemons don't taste good so we added sometimes
and we still had the but.
So you got to look for ways to--and you can see how some
of the kids did it--sometimes, sometimes and then they would
write pickles taste good, apples taste good,
jellybeans taste good, potato chips taste good.
I don't know if he wrote that twice.
Lemons sometimes taste but chocolates don't taste good,
orange peels don't taste good.
So these are just some ways that you've got to think about
the little words that kids need to know.
And, but and sometimes, and although and maybe.
Those are all words that kids need to know and those are the
words--its not so much that you've got to figure out a way
to teach them--which you do--but you've got to realize
why they didn't understand you in the first place.
It wasn't that they weren't listening, he just didn't
understand, okay.
So what I want you to do is put the following words into groups
and then label the groups and just take a little bit of time.
So with a partner, put these words into say three groups,
I don't care.
And we're just going to do this for like two minutes.
[chatter].
[unclear dialogue].
Okay, after you've done that for a little bit there's a piece of
paper in your packet that has a very short article in it.
It looks like this, it looks like this so get that out.
And I just want you to read it, okay.
And then see if you would change your groups
but just read this for right now it will take you a while.
We're going have to just speed through.
[no dialogue].
Okay, even though we may not be finished.
Again, if you are putting the words in groups, you know,
labeling them deciding which one go in which groups and you are
working in a group of students that are students that have
varying ability levels or varying lanquage proficiencies.
You can see why that would help everyone in the group because
they have a chance to hear the words multiple times
and because it's almost second nature when if
we're all sitting, particularly not here
because we're all at a different desk but
if the kids are at a table or if their desk are put together
its almost second nature to point to the word
while you're saying it.
Well, I think content area should be here of I think
function should be here.
That's almost second nature so every time we say a word,
we practically always pointing at it.
So the kid who has trouble reading it is getting help,
he's getting help the whole time.
How did thinking about these words first, did it help you
understand the reading more?
Do you see the difference between content words
and content area words?
If you didn't see it from the reading, could you think about
what I read before?
The difference between content words as their being used here
and content area words.
Content words on your adult frequency lists
are you're nouns.
You know they're not your function words,
they're you're nouns.
It could be chair or table, book.
Okay content area words that the other author, that
I read to you was saying are your academic content words.
The words that you need to do for math.
Kids will learn words when they need to learn them, okay.
Lists of words for students to learn that they're not going
to use until next semester, forget it.
They should be introduced to the word when they need it.
So, what percentage of words does a reader need to know
to comprehend a passage.
Let's look at this.
I want you to read the paragraph and tell me if you
understand it.
[no dialogue].
Okay, the bogo also recognizes the need to invest more in cucio
themselves, 40 percent of which now lack basic sunwalz.
Ligachev said cucio for 28 million monos will be frazequack
by the year 2010 and that capital expenditures blocka
will increase drastically.
Okay, I'm going to ask you some questions.
What did the bogo need to invest more in?
>> student: Cucio.
>> Jennifer Hixson: Cucio, uh huh.
And what percent lack basic sumwalz?
>> students: 40%, 40%.
>> Jennifer Hixson: 40%, uh huh.
So now can somebody tell me the main idea of this paragraph
or summarize it for me.
Did you really understand what it said?
Okay, so we had eight unknown words in that paragraph,
so we knew 80% of the words.
So was that enough of the words?
No, it wasn't enough of the words to understand.
But what helped you understand and respond correctly
to my questions?
>> student: The words around it.
>> Jennifer Hixson: The words around it, the syntax.
We're all good English speakers so we understand
how English is used.
We know that this is an article and we know that there's going
to be a noun coming afterward.
We know how the language works so we know how the words go
together so we can figure out.
Okay, so what kind of words did you not know in this paragraph?
Okay, were they function words?
No, were they content words, the high frequency content words?
No, they were the academic content words, the content area
words that we did not know.
How is this the same or different for
English language learners?
Anybody got an idea?
It's the same because they probably wouldn't know
the content area words either.
But what would they also not have the benefit of?
They might not know all the function words.
They would not know the syntax that tells you so much
about the meaning, okay.
Okay so when we look at word comprehension and reading
levels, frustration level, and this is the one I usually use--
I know that other paragraph said something else.
Instruction level, independent level--and this is from
the national reading panel from a few years back.
Semantic cues are critical,
you can't read if you can't understand.
So now we're going to do this one.
Please read the math problem and tell me the answer.
[no dialogue].
Can you see it from there?
[no dialogue].
Okay, anybody?
[reading French].
So does anybody have an idea?
Do we know what it said?
>> students: No.
>> Jennifer Hixson: You know what the question is?
Well, you know which one is the question
but do you know what the question means.
>> students: [unclear dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: Well, you kilometers,
that's right and that says that, uh um.
So you're using cognates to figure it out, okay.
Okay, I'm going to tell you that Jean and Andre are brothers.
Jean is the elder, the two go to school that is at least
five kilometers from their house in Paris.
Even though there is one difference, I'm sorry,
even though there is a difference of three years
between the two brothers-- so one is three years older--
their scholastic levels are separated by only two years.
Jean is in fourth grade, what class is Andre in?
So what were the words you didn't know in this,
did you know the function words, no.
Did you know the contents, the high-frequency content words no.
You were guessing, okay.
We had a student once who could not get this one math question
and she only didn't know one word.
But it was like a chart and it had kids grades on it
and how much, I think how much higher was so-and-so's grade.
But the word grade wasn't on the chart
and she didn't know the word grade.
What did that mean, you know, so its important to know that
what kind of words did you not, what helped you understand
the word problem?
We didn't have, we didn't take a lot of time.
Somebody tried to use cognates but...
So, think about teaching math.
Imagine you are first grader, what are some language patterns
expressed as math sentences that you need to understand in order
to solve this problem?
Teacher may say--well, if there were boxes there--
count the boxes.
I'm going to go through this.
How many altogether, how many in all.
How much is 3 + 2, what is the sum of, what is 2 + 3.
Add the two numbers.
Three squares and two more are...
So how do you deal with this as a teacher?
Maybe its important to make sure that when introducing
new material, you need to make sure to use the same vocabulary
so that you're not always asking a question in a different way.
So things like that are really, really important.
And then when you're talking about content vocabulary--
because that is what we're kind of into now,
content vocabulary-- they say if you can connect things together,
you will remember them more.
You will understand them better, so this is a vocabulary example
that I also like to use, like I put it in here
because I like it.
And if you can't do images, which you can do, but you have
a word and you have two words--like say,
"urban and rural" and then you compare the two words.
And I must say, some people just do this naturally.
My husband would drive you nuts because every time he see's
something new, meet someone new he says,
"Oh, doesn't he or she remind you of."
Or doesn't this remind you of, and it will drive you nuts--
he remembers everything.
So, when teaching the content areas use what you have and what
you have in your classroom, okay, when you're teaching
vocabulary for the content areas you have the charts and graphs
in your text.
You have charts and graphs that students make.
Use your other classmates, use the dictalog.
Oh, and there is another thing that we didn't do-
it's called, "say something," and it's sort of, you can use
partner reading.
Say something is like one-person reads and the other person has
to ask a question about it, has to ask a question.
The partner reads, the students summarize, clarify,
make connections, agree or disagree with the author,
asks questions and so forth.
Okay, you have to keep in mind what children are learning when
you are teaching them.
English speakers are developing their language skills
and learning content, and learning content.
But they are not really having to learn a language while they
are learning content, okay.
They are still developing their language skills though,
but ELL students are learning both language and content
all the time.
But sometimes more one than the other, so if you look at this,
if you're teaching in the second language,
so if you're teaching English and the kids speak Spanish,
and they don't know the concept, its a brand new concept to that
kid--they are learning both language and content.
Very difficult-give them some time, give them some repetition.
Okay, and I don't mean repitition just saying it over
and over again, its got to be used in many different ways.
Okay, if you're teaching in the first language,
you're teaching an unknown concept to an English speaker,
its concept development.
They're just learning about the water cycle okay.
If you're teaching in the second language and the concept is
already known, this is heaven for an English language learner,
because then it's only language development.
They already know the water cycle.
So they already know evaporation, and condensation,
and all that and you're just helping them re-label it.
So that's great, okay.
And if you're teaching in the first language, you're teaching
an English speaker, the concept is known, they're doing concept
and language mastery, which is okay too, you know.
But remember that--we're almost done--you don't have a space for
L1 and a space for L2 up here in your brain, you just have
one space for a common underlying language proficiency.
So that what you know in one language is transferred
to the other language so you really want to make use of that.
Many of our students are English language learners are coming
from villages much like this, at least in Urbana; we have
a lot of kids from rural Mexico and Rural Guatemala.
And so...
I want you to look at this.
If you were to give them--this school that you just saw there--
some sort of a sheet that said put the implements that we
used yesterday or in the past here,
And the implements that, the tools that we use today over
on this side, what are you teaching them?
So here you've got a broom, here you got a vacuum cleaner,
where would...
\\| Student: [unclear dialogue].
>> Jennifer Hixson: Hmm?
The vacuum would be today,
but are you teaching something that's true?
No, because everybody--so it would be very confusing to them,
because they are coming from a culture that for whom this would
not be true, okay.
And you're even teaching them false knowledge, because lots
of people still use that today.
Also, one other thing when you're teaching vocabulary,
particularly to students who are from rural villages, and you
will have some--at least in Urbana like I said.
We have Guatemalans, Congolese, Mexicans who are coming from
very rural areas.
That house looks a lot like the house that the children in those
other pictures lived in.
They did not call their house a hut,
they called it a house, casa.
Maybe casita, my little house.
But they called it a house, so it's very important what kind of
language we use and are teaching students and I think it's very
important that we don't have English speakers learning that
the house that that other person lived in, that's just a hut.
I mean we really don't want to be teaching them that either.
But there are different ways to teach vocabulary or like this is
what are things that are necessary and not necessary
to have in a house?
What rooms are necessary?
So here you've got a kitchen, a bedroom, a library, a bathroom,
a dining room, and a playroom.
Well, the little girl in this picture, she had one room.
So I guess I would want everybody to not even think
about this, you would put an X on everything.
You don't need a room for all of that, but you do need places
in your house for functions.
You need a place to cook, you need a place to eat, you need
a place to sleep.
So we've got to think about what we are teaching students when we
are teaching them vocabulary.
Okay, I'm going to go on.
Ok, assessment, journals and creative language use.
I always use the journals to see were they are getting their
grammar, okay, observation no correct use
of technical vocabulary.
Engage students, comparison of words.
Okay, if you're testing for comprehension, you can start
with a W-H question.
Who, whom, what, and if they can't do that,
go to an "either-or" question.
And if they can't do that, go to a "yes-no" question.
And if they can't do that, go to a directive question.
Because if you go, if I said to you, you know, what prize do you
think the winner will win and you didn't understand me,
how would it make you feel if I just said,
"oh well, what do you think?"
But if I can make that question one that would be more easily
answerable by someone who couldn't get that productive
oral vocabulary engaged up here, then you know, you're giving
that kid a better chance to answer your question.
And this is just one more thing: A high school kid--and this
I did get from the IRC, there's only two more slides after this.
This is what--given a picture of a beach--a high school
male student wrote: "The beach is big
and beautiful, has much sand.
The water is big and cold, moves very much.
The sun makes warm the sand, are many birds.
The girls walk in the beach are very beautiful.
Have fun with friends.
Boys play baseball and see the girls beautiful.
Likes to see them, everybody have good day in the beach."
So what do you think of that student?
\\| Student: He likes the beach.
>> Jennifer Hixson: He likes the beach,
he likes looking at the girls.
Kind of you know, okay.
This is what he wrote in Spanish and when you translate,
this is what he wrote.
"On this island, there are many beautiful things.
This island reminds me of that of New York's.
It is beautiful because of its beaches and palm trees that can
be found along the shore.
I would love to spend my life on an island like this one
with much silence, without automobiles,
without the zooming of cars, only to observe the silence.
And in the mornings, watch the sun as it rises at dawn,
observe it tenderly and smoothly as it illuminates the water
and feel the mist from the grass and leaves on the trees and
observe from a far the sparkle of the buildings and the
water beyond the city.
What a beautiful time to live without problems on
the edge of silence."
Same student, so I guess what I want to say to you
is never assume.
Okay, you really have to give students a chance
and vocabulary, why did he write the other paragraph?
\\| Female speaker: Because those were
the words he knew.
Because those were the words he knew, those were
the words he knew.
So, keep that in mind when you're working with ELLs.
That's it, sorry I kept you longer.
[audience applause].
[No dialogue].