TESL 0130 - Reading and Vocab - Unit 3 Reflection

Unit 3: Which comes first: Reading or Vocabulary? 

I'm going to put it out there that I think vocabulary comes first. 

The reader needs vocabulary for comprehension and if the reader isn't comprehending what they're reading then... what's the point? Written language is a code to be deciphered, a code that communicates meaning. Knowledge and integration of vocabulary into the reader's schema is critical for successful reading. I would argue that reading has been a successful endeavor if the reader has found the text meaningful and comprehends the message that the text was created to communicate. Without a diverse vocabulary that reading goal becomes increasingly more lofty.

This week's final assignment was to create a vocabulary activity for the lesson plan that we created in our groups. I choose to make an activity for the task-based lesson plan on healthy eating and reading nutrition labels. Please see my activity below.  

Making Healthy Choices:

Learning to read food labels

Vocabulary activity developed for

TESL 0130 - Reading and Vocabulary - Unit 3.

Created by Julie Dueck.

Designed to be integrated into the lesson plan that the Task-based group developed using the resource provided by our instructor. Developed for CLB 4.

Part 1: Direct teaching of new vocabulary

Have the students write the new vocabulary into their personal vocabulary journal and paste a picture that they cut out of a grocery store flyer (provide a selection of flyers). Clarify any pronunciation questions.

Note: Bring in an example of a nutrition label on a cereal box along with a sample of different foods to add a visual component to the direct teaching of the vocabulary. The foods can be plastic models.

Vocabulary List:

Nutrition	The process of eating the right kind of food so you can grow properly and be healthy
Nutrients	A substance that plants, animals, and people need to live and grow. Eg: Fats, Carbohydrates, Protein
Nutrition Facts Label	The label on food packages that tells you the amount of the different nutrients in the food
Serving	An amount of food or drink that is enough for one person
% Daily Value	This shows you if the serving size has a little or a lot of a nutrient. Bigger percentage equals more of the nutrient. Smaller percentage equals a smaller amount of the nutrient.
Calories	A unit of heat used to indicate the amount of energy that foods will produce in the human body
Fats	An oily solid or liquid substance in food Food example: butter, oil, deep fried foods
Cholesterol	A fatty substance that is found in the bodies of people and animals Food example: sausage, bacon, eggs
Sodium	A soft silver-white element that is found in salt, baking soda, and other compounds Food example: chips, pizza, ham
Carbohydrates	Any one of various substances found in certain foods (such as bread, rice, and potatoes) that provide your body with heat and energy Food example: bread, pasta, desserts, candy
Fibre	Plant material that cannot be digested and helps your food to move smoothly through your digestive system Food example: whole wheat bread, oatmeal, fruit
Sugars	A sweet substance usually in the form of white or brown crystals or white powder that comes from plants and is used to make foods sweeter Food example: candy, pop drinks, slurpies
Protein	A substance found in food that helps you build muscle and gives you lasting energy. Food example: meat, eggs, beans
Vitamins	A natural substance that is found in food that helps you fight off sickness and keeps your body healthy. Food example: oranges are high is vitamin C, carrots are high in vitamin  A
Minerals	A chemical substance (such as iron or calcium) found in food that your body needs to stay healthy and helps you with things like having strong bones. Food example: beef is high in iron, milk is high in calcium

Part 2: Indirect teaching of vocabulary

Play an interactive game with the students called “Mystery Word”.

Classroom games are a fun way to interact with the new words, commit them to memory, repeat them over and over and add an element of competition. 

The game works like this:

Draw a circle on the board with a question mark in the middle. Draw 4 lines coming off the circle. Write 4 words or phrases associated with the vocab word at the end of those lines. The diagram should like kind of like a bug with 4 legs. For instance: for "Sugars" write, 1. makes things sweet, 2. found in candy, 3. an unhealthy choice if you eat too much, 4. made from plants.

Separate the class into 2 teams. Have the first team send a representative up to the front. Write the clues on the diagram and have the guesser stand back up against the board.  Have their team call out the clues to the guesser. The team with the most correct guesses wins. For an added competitive element, have a timer running on the guesser, if they don’t get it before the timer ends then the other team get their point.

Another form of the game is having a representative from each team come up to the board with their back against the board. On the count of 3 get them to turn around and whoever guesses the clue first gets the point.

Conclusion

Playing vocab games is a fun way to learn vocabulary and make the words more memorable. The more the student hears the new word and interacts with it, the more likely they are to remember it. The competitive element will motive them to pay attention and study the words. Another added benefit is that it will enrich your classroom community and foster positive relationships!

Resources:

Mystery Word ESL Vocabulary game. (2016, January 21). ESL Expat. Retrieved from: http://eslexpat.com/esl-vocabulary-games/mystery-word/?utm_content=buffer0f9af&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

www.learnersdictionary.com

TESL 0130 - Reading & Vocab - Unit 2 Relection

Unit 2: How do I use/adapt materials for 
teaching reading and vocabulary? 

A giraffe's neck, a hummingbird's beak, a hare's white winter coat -  what do all these have 
in common? All these creatures are beautifully adapted to thrive in their environments. A 
giraffe is able to gracefully graze the high up leaves of the Acacia trees, the iridescent 
hummingbird is able to reach the sweet nectar inside a trumpet flower with its long beak and 
the hardy hare is able to stay camouflaged through the long snowy winter. The specializations 
these animals possess allow them to survive, thrive and reproduce.  We live in a awe-inspiring
world!

Like these animals, the texts we use in the classroom need to be adapted for the use of our
students. If the text has any hope of being useful to the student it must be adapted to their 
appropriate level. As teachers, we want the texts we use in class to survive in the minds of 
our students long after class has ended. If a text has be inappropriately selected/adapted 
and the student is frustrated and discouraged it's unlikely it will shape their mind and future
learning.

Text selection and adaptation should be done in the light of suitability of content, exploitability 
and readability (Brown and Lee, pp. 411). Suitability means that the material supports your 
learning goals for the class and is something your students can fully engage in. Exploitability
means that the text has lots of fodder for a teacher to use in creating content that is specific 
to the desired teaching outcomes. Readability means that the text is readable from a 
mechanical stance and not overwhelming for the students.

We are to reflect on this resource: https://universityofmanitoba.desire2learn.com/content
/enforced3/309456-17787.201890/Content/Readings/Reading%20Skills%20Practice%20
Foreign%20Exchange%20Emails.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=Uus3ntVlKq78ZjehSJZiCClL5&ou
=309456

This activity includes an email exchange between two friends, Simon and Fran. 
Fran is a foreign exchange student studying English in Edinburgh.

Thinking of your own context, how might you adapt this text or springboard from 
this exercise, in order to use it in your classrooms? I currently work in a high school EAL
classroom. I really like the activity linked above because I think it would be fun format for my 
students. It's a casual text and is very relatable in their situation. They commonly stay with host 
families and communicate frequently with friends back in their home country. The text is long 
enough and contains enough interesting details that I could pull out many areas for study. The
language used is fairly common and casual. I would maybe adapt this text for my context by 
changing the places and events to suit a local situation. Maybe a Korean student is writing 
home to share about his time attending the Canada Day celebrations at the Forks for instance.
Using this activity as a spring board, I would get my students to write correspondence letters 
of their own.

How might you adapt this text for a LINC level 4 class with mature students? 
I would edit the correspondence to be more relatable to adults.  I would rewrite it as two 
sisters updating each other on the happenings on their children and new life in Canada. I 
would use short simple sentences and bolded key words.

What edits would you make to accommodate a group of international students in an
EAP setting? In this context I would rewrite the emails to be formal letters that use formal
academic language. The emails could be between a student and a professor. I would increase
the text complexity to provide them with a challenge.

If you are teaching at a school that uses a Learning Management System (LMS), how 
would you share this reading with students? (Do you know what copyright laws say 
about sharing texts in an educational setting and how to provide appropriate references?)

Our school uses Google classroom for everything, I would upload this activity to the Google 
classroom so that everyone could easily access it.

According to the Copyright Act I would be able to share short excerpts of copyrighted material 
in the classroom setting provided that the use is considered “fair” and that I reference the source.
If I wanted to use the full copyrighted material then I would have to pay for the material or
received permission to share the document from the company or person who owned the
copyright. I am not allowed to copy or reproduce worksheets or materials that are considered 
“one-time use”.

“Teachers, instructors, professors, and staff members in non-profit educational institutions may 
communicate and reproduce, in paper or electronic form, short excerpts from a 
copyright-protected work for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review, news
reporting, education, satire, and parody. Copying or communicating short excerpts from a
copyright-protected work under these Fair Dealing Guidelines for the purpose of news 
reporting, criticism, or review should mention the source and, if given in the source, the name 
of the author or creator of the work.” (Noel and Snel, 2016)

I can freely share material that has been posted to the internet as long as it has been 
referenced properly.

“Educational institutions, teachers, and students may save, download, and share publicly
 available Internet materials, as well as use that material in the classroom and communicate
 it to students or others within their education circle.” (Noel and Snel, 2016) “To encourage 
copyright awareness and respect in all circumstances, students and educators are required 
to cite the source of the Internet materials they use.” (Noel and Snel, 2016)

Teachers can't abuse copyrighted materials in the classroom for the simple reason that it is
the against law.

There are many details to copyright law for educations in Canada. For more information
please see: http://cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/291/Copyright_Matters.pdf

Or watch this short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljNS5p3cqls

Is this text too difficult for your group of learners? What would you do if your curriculum
includes this as a mandatory reading? This text would be at level for the high school students
I work with. If it wasn't a good fit for my classroom and I had to use it, I would adapt it by 
reducing the complexity of the sentences, choosing simpler words, adding pictures (eg. of a
street festival)  and headers. I would also explain the cultural reference of the movie "Frozen" 
with a short YouTube video.

Where can you springboard from here? Like I mentioned before, my first idea is to have
the class write their own "snail mail" letters. I might even pair them off and have them write
back and forth a few times with each other. I would get the students to edit each others work. 
I might even include a lesson on the Canadian mail system. Have they ever sent a letter or 
parcel? Do they know how to address a letter and where to put the stamp? Where is the closest
post office? I would even get them to actually mail the letters to each other. Everyone loves getting 
a personal letter in the mail! I might also include a lesson on different letter styles, personal and 
business. I would have students write letters of both kinds. They would be able to choose the 
recipient of the letter so that they have some autonomy and choice which increases motivation 
and engagement.

References

Brown, D. & Lee, H. (2015) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language 
Pedagogy. Upper Saddle River: Pearson

Noel, W., Snel, J. (2016) Copyright Matters! Retrieved from: http://cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/291/Copyright_Matters.pdf

TESL 0130 - Reading & Vocab - Unit 1 Reflection

 
Reading is when processing of the written text intermingles with personal background knowledge to create meaning for the reader. Reading is when the words come alive!


Unit 1 - Contextualizing Content - What does reading involve?

I have taken my own reading abilities for granted and I'll tell you why.

My brain has been working very hard to decipher the written messages all around me everyday, all day. 
My reading process is so automatic that I’ve never stopped to appreciate the complexity that goes into this task. It’s
actually amazing that I’ve been able to learn to understand and read language! My language skills are not static but
ever developing. I am deciphering and implying meaning to new texts and foreign vocab words every time I read
something new. It’s a beautiful thing to have the abilities to confidently interact and receive the world around me
in this way. I have a new found appreciation for the skill of reading.

The three concepts that captured my attention this unit were schema theory/background knowledge, direct vs.
indirect approaches to teaching and teaching vocabulary in context.

Schema Theory and Background Knowledge

Schema Theory and Background Knowledge: 
This was something I had never really thought about before and I found it very engaging. Reading is more than just 
the mechanics of reading, the background knowledge of the reader plays an active role in allotting meaning. 
Comprehension is more than just understanding the grammar, spelling and vocabulary but knowing the cultural 
and experiential knowledge that make the writing meaningful. “The reader brings information, knowledge, emotion, 
experience and culture - that is schemata - to the printed word” (Brown and Lee, pp 391). Understanding the role 
that schema and background knowledge play in reading is crucial for teachers in the classroom. You may think you 
have chosen the perfect text to teach them new vocab however the deeper meaning can be totally lost on a student 
who has grown up in a completely different cultural framework. Empathy for our students is key, we must know our 
students and their history if we are to serve them in helpful ways.

Direct vs. Indirect approaches to teaching

Direct vs. Indirect approaches to teaching - Teaching strategic reading 
The question is will ELLs “learn to read better is a laissez-faire atmosphere of enriched surroundings 
(indirect teaching) then in a instructed sequence of direct attention to the strategies of efficient reading 
(direct teaching). ” (Brown and Lee, pp 392-393). According to our textbook, experts agree that direct teaching 
is the most effective way to teach reading but that it’s optimal to use a mix of both methods in the classroom. This 
was surprising to me actually. I had the idea that given enough exposure to written language that a ELL would 
“just pick it up” to a certain extent. Of course I knew that the basic mechanics would need to be taught directly 
but I thought that indirect teaching would have been more powerful.

This has an interest for me in my current job as a high school EAL EA. Our students are in the normal academic 
stream and attend regular classes most of the time. They are often thrown into the proverbial deep end of reading 
and vocabulary. Of course we try to support and adapt the best we can but there often isn’t time for long detailed 
lessons of direct teaching since the students are busy trying to keep afloat in their classes. From what I’ve learnt 
about direct learning in this unit, it would great to try some more direct teaching on reading skills in our classroom.

Teaching vocabulary in context

Teaching vocabulary in context: 
Teaching vocabulary in context helps the ELL remember the new vocabulary far better then if they were to just
memorize a long list of definitions. Teaching vocabulary in context means that you present the ELL with vocab 
words in a passage or format that supplements the learning of the word’s meaning and use. A long list of vocab 
words can be overwhelming for students and they spend very little time interacting with each new word in this
approach. It’s unlikely that words will sink into their long term memory with this method. In context, new vocabulary 
is repeated often which is helpful for memorization. The new vocabulary is paired with content that helps the reader 
understand the meaning on a more practical level. Teaching vocabulary in context is easy and fun! Pull out different
genres of writing, read stories together or find a funny text for them to interact with. Teachers are able to get 
creative when they decide to teach vocabulary in context and students will have more fun too. Getting a student 
to have fun while learning in the best way for that information to sink in!

References

Brown, D. & Lee, H. (2015) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Upper 
Saddle River: Pearson