Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi there,
Our school is planning to conduct "remedial teaching" to students who show weaknesses in English language due to the lack of vocabulary. Would anyone give us some advice on how to design effective vocabulary teaching and how to assess/monitor the progress? Most important of all, how can we evaluate the effectiveness of such remedial teaching? What should we do with Pre-test and post-test?
Oh, forgot to explain the details. We are teaching learners of 12 years old in Hong Kong, they have been learning English for more than 10 years.The number of students in the remedial class will not exceed 20 and the class will be conducted after school for an hour.
I don't mean to sound like doing a research. Hope it's a down to earth practice for our colleagues.
Many thanks.
Alice Lee

Hi Alice,

Yes, lack of vocabulary is a problem, perhaps the biggest problem for learners of any foreign language. Not only do they have to learn a lot of words ... but also how to use them.

questions!

... how do you currently teach vocabulary to your students ?
... are they encouraged to keep notebooks?
.... if so, how are they organised?
.... can the students use any resource to practice their new vocabulary?
... do they just try to remember translations or learn by doing?

two suggestions

1. Look at http://www.wordsurfing.co.uk ....... this is a website specifically aimed at helping students
i) find the best way of learning vocabulary
ii) use new words as soon as possible
iii) gain in confidence by continually highlighting proven improvement
iv) identify words that need further practising until known

anyway, lots more info on the site, hope it helps.

2. There is also an excellent book

Scott Thornbury - "How to Teach Vocabulary"

- it's published by Longmann. Recommended to any teacher.

Finally... your Pre-Test ? Post Test? question.....I think the answer is the same... you just have to motivate your students to want to improve their vocabulary.

So....

a) emphasise it's importance...the more words your students can use... the better! It's obvious, vital ...but often overlooked. Remember too... it's not how many translations that are known that counts....it's how many words can be understood and used.
b) encourage self-study outside the classroom by providing any learning strategy that proves on-going improvement (see wordsurfing)

Best wishes

Will

P.S ... It does sound like you're doing research!!! ....and I hope more teachers follow your lead. Vocabulary acquisition is vital. The teaching community as a whole should, I believe, be placing far more emphasis on this area. ( hence my recent website)...the method described can be adapted for use with all ages.

Yes, wordsurfing is a good place to visit!
Here another consideration:
The students should not concentrate exclusively on WORDS, as is misguided practice in Chinese schools!
They should learn to look at English sentences from a holistic point of view.
Thus I would suggest LESS study of words, and instead focusing on collocations!
And, how NOT to monitor the students; progress: By asking them to TRANSLATE from or into their mother tongue!
Nudge them towards PARAPHRASING sentences!

Hi
This can be a daunting task but I am concerned with your last two questions:

How can I evaluate the effectiveness of instruction and what should I do with pre-post-tests?

To evaluate the effectiveness of instruction, you can give a vocabulary test before the instuction to all learners to assess their current vocabulary knowledge. The same test should be administered after the instruction is complete. An analysis of the mean differences between the pre-test and post-test shows how much the teaching has been effective. To get the degree of mean differences, you should run an analysis of varience.
Hope this was helpful.

hkarami