Teacher Talk: Improving Vocabulary - Practical Strategies

Welcome to our educational blog. Here we explore all things pertinent to education, discuss current topics and provide tips, from research and educational experts, to aid practice. 

This is our second edition covering the vital topic of Vocabulary by Charmain Hull - NPQLL, SLE English.

Introduction

Why is vocabulary important? An essential question that, at some point in an educators career, they have either asked themselves or have been asked. And while there are many accurate responses, perhaps the most salient answer was put forward by Alex Quigley: “Our wealth of words can determine our status in life”. Similarly, The Education Endownment Fund in their guidance ‘Improving Secondary Literacy’, made it clear that “nurturing the development of the academic language of secondary school is crucial” for students' development not only in their studies but also for their world. Therefore, the harsh reality is that if we, as educators, are not helping to close the vocabulary gap, then we are contributing to the limitation of our students’ world.

In my previous article, Vocabulary: The gap and knowledge  I discussed what the vocabulary gap was and what constituted vocabulary knowledge. In this article, it is my goal to provide more practical strategies for helping to support and improve students' vocabulary. While there are many useful ways to support vocabulary, the main areas this article will hone in on our: reading, direct vocabulary instruction and oracy. 

Our wealth of words can determine our status in life.         A.Quigley (2018) 

The Research

It is essential that any educator who wishes to place a piece of reading material before their students must first ensure the quality and richness of that text. A text should have the ability to not only illustrate to students their pre-exisiting vocabulary knowledge (tier 2 and 3 words) but also expose them to the new and unfamiliar words too, thus proving to be a learning opportunity for extending their vocabulary.

One method that I like to use when it comes to teaching vocabulary during any reading is the SEEC model. The SEEC model is a relatively simple but effective technique when encountering or teaching new vocabulary through reading.

1. Select - preview any reading material before your lesson, topic of scheme of learning. Consider the following things:

• Is the reading material difficult to understand?
• What are the most important words?
• What words might my students already know?
• What words are key in this text?
• Which words can be linked to other contexts (prior learning, subjects etc.)
• Which words am I going to directly teach?

2.Explain - once you have selected your words, you then will explain the word successfully using this process:

• Say the word 'careful'
• Write the word

1. Provide a student friendly definition 
2. Provide students’ with a meaningful example 
3. Ask students for their own examples and work through clarifying multiple meanings or misconceptions.

The Frayer Model (1969) of graphic organisation, might prove a good writing based activity for this stage, or even an oracy task (sourced from IRIS: 2024)

3. Explore - exploring a word further isn’t always essential, it may not even be practical at times. However, it is something that should be considered for important words that prove to be integral for a students’ understanding. You could explore further by exploring:

1. Etymology
2. Root words or word families, synonyms, antonyms
3. Discussion of the word, think, pair, share
4. Questions prompted by the word
5. Images or ideas that are evoked by the word
6. How the word might be used in different contexts or for different subjects

• Consolidate - now that students deeply understand the word they need to be repeatedly exposed to that word. Some strategies to consolidate word knowledge over time are:

• Test and learn - revisit the vocabulary after time has passed. Cumulative quizzing or short-answer questions are common methods that allow for students to be reopeated exposed to words. 

• Using the word in the world - ensure that you are exposing students to the repeated use of the taught word in different contexts in your classroom. This could be through your teacher talk, worksheets, in another piece fo reading etc. Ensure that students have th aopportunties to also use these words often. 

• Research and  record - set tasks that require students research vocabulary and extend their knowledge of words. Ensure that targetted research tasks are given. Finally, provide space for students to record their vocabulary development, whether that be specific vocabulary books or even at the back of their exercise books.

For more detailed information on the SEEC model and some the strategies discussed above you can read Alex Quigley’s book, Closing the Vocabulary Gap and Beck, McKeown and Kucan’s book, Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction.

Direct Vocabulary Instruction

There are two main tenets when it comes to direct vocabulary instruction and they are: frequency and robustness. In order for a word to enter into a student’s workable vocabulary, they must encounter that word in many different contexts and do so frequently. It is also essential that educators provide follow-up activities for words taught as this will prove vital for ensuring that they remain in the students’ vocabulary repertoire. Furthermore, it is important that any vocabulary work we give to our students’ is robust, meaning that we go beyond definitional information and having students actively engage with, think about meanings and create associations among words.

Beck, McKewoan and Kucan (2013) put forward a vocabulary instructional sequence that could be easily adapted for most, if not all subjects:

• Day 1: Introduce words to students with student-friendly explanations and context
• Days 2-4: Follow-up activities
• Identify examples/non-examples; form word associations with new contexts, additional writing exercises (The Writing Revolution makes for a great supplement here).
• Day 5: Assessment                                                        (Day 1-5 Sourced from pages 88-93)

What about Strategies for Vocabulary Instruction?

Below are some strategies that can be used when carrying vocabulary instruction, available in detail at: Children's Literacy Initiative (2016) 

• Word association - Present students with a series of words, then a series of questions that will guide them to associate their new words with familiar ones. For example:

     Words learnt: accomplice, philanthropist and novice

     Questions: 

    Which word goes with ‘crook’?

    Which word goes with “gift to build a new hospital!?

    Which word goes with “nursery age”?  

• This activity helps students to associate new learned words with contexts and activities from their own experiences.

      For example: Describe a time when you might urge someone, commend someone        or banter with someone.

• Frayer model of graphic organisation (1969) 

Oracy

In classrooms filled with talk, students have many opportunities to hear new words in context allowing educators to provide an input for new language to enter into students’ knowledge. However, students need multiple instances of input in order to understand and embed the meaning of a new word. This input of new vocabulary can come from different sources: the teacher, teaching assistants, multimedia, peers etc. What is key is that oracy or encountering good oracy is the shared medium in which to do so. 

Voice 21 in their 2023 report, Voicing Vocabulary  found that schools needed to “contextualise new vocabulary through talk” (pg.13). A framework that they advocateis the input and output phases. The input phase is where students are introduced to new vocabulary (direct instruction) and are given multiple opportunities to hear and begin experimenting with that new language learned. This will then lead to the output phase where students begin to sue those words indpedently, through encouragement, until finally they build “towards word ownership”. 

 How can I effectively embed Oracy?

Some strategies that you can use to build up vocabulary through oracy are:

1. Modelling - model to students how to use words correctly and model the continued use. Pitch up your vocabulary, by this we mean, remove the scaffolds for the vobcabulary term once it has been taught. For example in English, once students understand the word antithesis, stop using the word opposite to describe character relationships or characterisation. 

2. Bullseye - “Participants used tiered vocabulary to create a bullseye of target language. In one lesson, students were asked to explain what happened during the Great Depression using vocabulary they had been taught recently. They were awarded more points for using complex vocabulary correctly.” 

3. Word line - Present students with a word, perhaps a keyword. Students must use their knowledge of similar words with similar meanings as a frame of reference for developing their understanding of keyword. They are going to organise the words according to intensity so they are encouraged to engage with the nuances of each word in order to decide where to place them. 

4. Odd one out - Provide students with images that are related to your topic being studied, also provide them with keywords.  Ask them to discuss and decide the odd word out and why. You can also do this with just a list of words.

Conclusion 

One key takeaway that all educators should come away with is this... we must ensure that we are building a word rich classroom for all students’ to ensure that they become individuals with a broad and expansive vocabulary.