Linguistic diversity is continually increasing and is affecting many nation schools in the US. English language learners (ELLs) form the major population of these schools, and therefore classroom teachers are compelled to address the demands of ELLs, which include learning English as well as learning to read and comprehend academic content (Wessels, 2011). ELLs in this context, according to the Education Department of US is defined as “national-origin-minority students who are limited-English-proficient (Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera 2006). For ELLs to excel in their academics, vocabulary knowledge is vital, which helps them get the content by understanding the meaning of words in a script (Wessels, 2011). As such, classroom teachers should adopt strategies that encourage vocabulary development to enhance ELLs progress and academic excellence.
Vocabulary Development Strategies for Pre-Production
According to Lundquist and Hill (2009), pre-production is the first stage for ELLs and the students in this stage are characterized with little comprehension, non-verbal communication such as nodding no or yes answers and mostly respond through drawing and pointing. Because students in this stage have limited ability, teacher’s assistance is heavily relied on and therefore, teachers deploy strategies that will enhance their learning through vocabulary development.
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Bloom’s taxonomy, language acquisition, and instruction is one of the strategies used to develop vocabulary in the pre-production stage. It involves asking pre-production students questions of high level that concentrates on building their judging, defending or predicting skills, as opposed to lower level questions that confine them to the lowest level of thinking and learning. For instance, asking preproduction students to answer with no-yes or by painting which goes beyond elicit recall. This is beneficial as it gives ELLs the opportunities think and relate to knowledge at more advanced levels (Lundquist and Hill 2009). The total physical response (TPR) is another strategy used in the pre-production stage. It involves students responding to instructions that require them to move physically, for instance, a teacher calls out alphabet letters and students touch those letters on postures in the classroom (Clarke, 2009). This strategy gives students a feeling of accomplishment and welcomes them to get familiar with learning English.
Under this stage, there is a period when ELLs avoid speaking in English due to many factors such inability to articulate some sounds, the feeling of inadequacy, cultural influences among other factors. This period is referred to as the silent period (Clarke, 2009). This period affects vocabulary development because students are sometimes unwilling to try or fear to make mistakes when speaking, hence hindering the learners’ ability to develop their vocabulary especially when the period is prolonged (Bligh and Drury, 2015). Strategies such as the inclusion of the silent learners in a number of group experience and provision of many interaction activities can help students in the silent period to speak.
Vocabulary Development Strategies for Early Production
This is the second stage after pre-production where students are characterized with a limited comprehension, respond in one or two words and manages to participate with familiar phrases and key words (Lundquist and Hill, 2009). The language ability of the students at this stage has improved and therefore, it is of great importance that strategies developed should be able to feed the growing abilities of students with a lot of languages. One strategy is the use of vocabulary Quilt. It offers early production students with the opportunity stimulate background knowledge and connect it to the targeted vocabulary using their existing knowledge. This will enable rich engagement of students with the vocabulary, thus increasing the possibility that students will embrace learning and use the new vocabularies. In addition, vocabulary Quilt also acts as a strategy that embeds the features of effective vocabulary instruction (Wessels, 2011)
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is evident that the strategies discussed help in the building of vocabulary for ELLs. Therefore, it is important that fellow teachers should adopt and implement these strategies to enhance the learning process as well as vocabulary development for the pre-production and early production stages of ELLs.
References
Bligh, C., & Drury, R. (2015). Perspectives on the “silent period” for emergent bilinguals in England. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 29(2), 259-274.
Clarke, P. M., & OAM, E. C. C. (2009). Supporting children learning English as a second language in the early years (birth to six years). VCAA.
Francis, D. J., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N. K., Kieffer, M. J., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners. In Presentation at LEP Partnership Meeting, Washington, DC. Available for download from http://www. centeroninstruction. org.
Lundquist, A. M., & Hill, J. D. (2009). English language learning and leadership: Putting it all together. Phi Delta Kappan, 91(3), 38-43.
Wessels, S. (2011). Promoting vocabulary learning for English learners. The Reading
Teacher , 65 (1), 46-50.
