Language Workshop: The Design

By Author: Adela
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Following the examination of these three areas of the literature—academic English, evidence-based vocabulary instruction, and adolescent engagement—the context of a voluntary after-school program was there considered. As recommended by Noam, Biancarosa and Dechausay (2003), after-school programs should include fun, mentoring, enrichment, and support o academic learning. Thus, the Language Workshop sessions were designed with collaborative, fast-paced and highly interactive activities combined with elements of direct instruction and text-based discussion: of the target words.

In designing Language Workshop, we absolutely had to respond to needs for engagement and fun; voluntary after-school program on academic vocabulary words without these components would not have yielded much student attendance. Each session involved direct instruction of words and discussions Chanel Replica Jewelry around words as they appeared in short pieces of informational text that were accompanied with many diagrams and pictures. The texts used were from a discovery series of books; ...
... they were titled Stars and Planets (Levy, 2003) and Great Inventions (Wood, 1995), and they allowed for authentic academic exposures to many of the target words in expository writing. Following these introductory activities, at least half of each session was oriented around fast-paced games that allowed for active practice and personalization of word meanings. Our efforts to maintain attendance appeared to be successful: most of the students who signed up attended Language Workshop at least 15 out of the 20 sessions.

Each of the activities described below incorporated instructional strategies that have research support, and this support is identified in the descriptions. Additionally, the design of the 20 sessions was crafted with consideration of the research showing that students build word knowledge incrementally (Stahl & Nagy, 2006). Thus, one exposure, even a meaningful one, would not be sufficient to help students build enduring knowledge of the target words. Games, then, allowed for regular practice with many target words every day. Finally, games enabled an essential component of engaging adolescent literacy programs: collaboration with peers.

Because academic vocabulary words are so abstract, it is difficult to match pictures with the actual definitions of the words, and this is what makes picture puzzlers puzzling. We chose pictures with contexts that suited the target words for each day and then used those pictures to prompt small-group and whole-class discussion. For example, according to the Longman Dictionary of American English (Murphy, 2004) the definition of function is "(n.) The job or purpose that something has; (v.) work the correct way." Such definitions impossible to illustrate with a picture, but a picture of a computer working correctly (or incorrectly) provides an opportunity to discuss what it means when something is functioning. A picture of a household item such as a kitchen sponge or a screwdriver allows for a discussion of the functions of these items. Picture puzzlers are a great hook for a class; students can discuss them in small groups or write about them, and the graphics can all be linked to one content area, even the topic of the day, since academic vocabulary words can be used in so many contexts. Picture puzzlers are linked to the research in that they allow for exposures to words in multiple contexts, opportunities to process and personalize word meanings, and visual support.

With all of our activities, we repeatedly saw that students do indeed learn words incrementally. An engaging discussion around a picture puzzler does not mean that a word has been learned. For example, in Language Workshop we discussed the word benefit in relation to pictures showing a team, and students brainstormed the benefits of being part of a team, such as being able to accomplish more than you could on your own and having the chance to be with friends. Later in that session, we asked students what benefit meant, and several students Chanel Jewelry Wholesale raised their hands right away. Their responses were all something to the effect of "it means when you're part of a team." These responses demonstrated that students had started the process of fast-mapping (Carey & Bartlett, 1978), which involves creating initial associations with words and the contexts in which they are used. The students had connected, or mapped, the word benefit to a familiar context, but they would need to explore the word in other contexts before they could understand it in isolation. Because the Language Workshop sessions were designed to give students multiple exposures to the words in multiple contexts, we saw these responses as a good first step and we continued to build on them.