Job Discussion Forums

eihpos · Joined: 14 Dec 2008 Posts: 331

I've been asked to design and deliver a workshop on learning academic vocabulary, including how to organize and record it. I have no idea where to start! Does anyone have any advice, links or resources? I would really appreciate it.
Thanks!

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

For starters, you need to provide more information, such as:

1. Is your workshop to be delivered as a recorded presentation? Or are you expected to be videotaped while giving a presentation to a live audience? Or...?
2. The anticipated length of your workshop?
3. Who's your target audience?
4. What's the purpose or goal of this workshop? What should the participants be able to do by the end of the workshop?
5. Is there an assessment involved? (How will you know the participants' learning was successful?)
6. Do you have any experience teaching academic vocabulary? If not, do you have a colleague who does and who can help you as your subject matter expert? If not, do an Internet search on academic vocabulary syllabus.
7. Also do an Internet search on design professional development workshop if the workshop is for teachers.

mmcmorrow · Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 143 Location: New Zealand

Hi,

You'll find quite a lot of vocabulary related information and resources at Paul Nation's home page and Averil Coxhead's home page both from the University of Victoria, Wellington. Here is a presentation I gave on vocabulary activities (in general, not specifically academic vocabulary) to one of the teachers' associations here in New Zealand and here is a presentation on academic English that I gave to the new students here on campus last month. You might find other useful stuff on the slideshare site too.

cheers,

Martin McMorrow, Massey University, NZ

eihpos · Joined: 14 Dec 2008 Posts: 331

Thanks so much Martin - excellent links.
Sorry for the lack of detail Nomad. It's a hour long workshop for low level Chinese EAP students. The learning outcomes are for them to have several strategies for recording and organizing vocab, because at the moment they are just writing down words in their notebooks randomly - which doesn't help them remember it. It's not going to be observed or assessed, but I will be asking the students to give feedback after the class.

santi84 · Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 1317 Location: under da sea

esl_prof · Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:12 pm Post subject:

I assume that you're familiar with the Academic Word List (AWL).

http://ksngo.org/images/download/LDOCE_AWL.pdf

Here's a website with some helpful practice exercises that I encourage my students to use outside of class:
http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/AWL/

Beyond this (plus the very good resources others have already suggested), you might simply do a Google search for ESL activities for AWL. Alternatively, Princeton Review's GED and TOEFL study guides tend to have helpful exercises for memorizing large quantities of vocabulary. You may be able to find old copies at your university library or, who knows, even pirated copies that have been scanned into pdf files and posted on the net. You will, of course, want to supplement memorization strategies with exercises that will help students practice using the words in context, both receptively and productively.

If you're really ambitious (or just plain bored), you might want to check out any of Eli Hinkel's writings on vocabulary acquisition for academic writing.

Good luck, and please keep us posted on how your workshop goes!