Reinforcing the Academic Vocabulary and Concepts of the Unit During EAL Class

During the first unit of the year I thought it was important for my students to begin developing a critical approach to learning, including strategies for dealing with unfamiliar texts and language.

Vygotsky (1978) states that for young learners in the early stages of development there is a close bond between what they see and meaning. Considering this, we showed our students colorful images of vocabulary during the beginning of the lesson.

Miss SunKim (my EAL TA) and I took time during the lesson to check that students had understood the meaning of key words or concepts. This strategy may have enabled students to connect new vocabulary with words that they already knew in their first language (Brewster, Ellis and Girard 2004). 

We often used questions to check that students had understood the meaning of key words or concepts, providing examples of words, their meanings and demonstrating how they might be used. The targeted language was modeled for the students.

Modeling targeted language, discussing the meaning with my students

Keeping in mind that "the acquisition of the word meanings takes much longer than spoken form of the words, and children use words in their speech long before they have full understanding of them” (Cameron 2001:73), we gave our students enough time to build confidence in using new vocabulary. To implement this task my students were given a chance to participate in meaningful dialogues during the pair share learning engagement.

Monika and Sofia putting down their three arguments after meaningful pair-sharing

After that the Think Aloud strategy was modeled for our students and we discussed with my Grade 2 class why it was good to drink a lot of water, eat healthy food, go to bed early, etc. My Grade 3 students were sharing their thinking about the decision making process and providing three arguments to support their choice.

Jan in sharing his thinking.

In the end of the class my students had a chance to create a mind map with the new vocabulary (Grade 2) and write down their 3 arguments and illustrate their written response (Grade 3).

Our vocabulary work will be continued next week during in-class support.  Following Vygotsky's idea about the powerful connection between image and meaning, next week we will introduce our students to the CSI (Color-Symbol-Image) Thinking Routine. I am sure that this thinking tool will successfully support our EAL students in building their understanding of the unit vocabulary.