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Semantics: Teaching Activities
Something that is important to remember when teaching ELLs is that you might want to begin a unit with the most hands-on activity. Rather than saving the field trip, the movie, the role play/simulation game, the experiment for the end of the unit (i.e., the culminating activity), BEGIN with one of these activities. Direct, concrete experiences give ELLs something to "hang their hat on" semantically.
Other activities that help an ELL understand semantics are maps and brainstorms / clusters. Let's say you know that your student is going to encounter the word segregation in a reading, you should relate that term to a number of other words - racism, prejudice, stereotyping, Jim Crow laws, etc. Instead of acquiring one term, the student learns multiple words.
In my experience working with older ELLS, I have heard many of them say, "I want to know more words." Help them! If you come across the word "snicker" in a text, assist the students in generating synonyms . . . giggle, twitter, chuckle, chortle, laugh, guffaw, etc. Distribute the words and line up the students and their words in front of the room. Ask them, "Which is the loudest laugh of all?" (guffaw), and then move guffaw to the front of the line, etc. Talk about when you might use the word guffaw as opposed to giggle. Plug all the words into your line (make it a "chorus line" as well as a semantics line by having the students say the words aloud . . . a good way for everyone to work on pronunciation), and then figure out where snicker fits in to the continuum.
Again - learning that is active rather than passive is so much more effective.
Something that is important to remember when teaching ELLs is that you might want to begin a unit with the most hands-on activity. Rather than saving the field trip, the movie, the role play/simulation game, the experiment for the end of the unit (i.e., the culminating activity), BEGIN with one of these activities. Direct, concrete experiences give ELLs something to "hang their hat on" semantically.
Other activities that help an ELL understand semantics are maps and brainstorms / clusters. Let's say you know that your student is going to encounter the word segregation in a reading, you should relate that term to a number of other words - racism, prejudice, stereotyping, Jim Crow laws, etc. Instead of acquiring one term, the student learns multiple words.
In my experience working with older ELLS, I have heard many of them say, "I want to know more words." Help them! If you come across the word "snicker" in a text, assist the students in generating synonyms . . . giggle, twitter, chuckle, chortle, laugh, guffaw, etc. Distribute the words and line up the students and their words in front of the room. Ask them, "Which is the loudest laugh of all?" (guffaw), and then move guffaw to the front of the line, etc. Talk about when you might use the word guffaw as opposed to giggle. Plug all the words into your line (make it a "chorus line" as well as a semantics line by having the students say the words aloud . . . a good way for everyone to work on pronunciation), and then figure out where snicker fits in to the continuum.
Again - learning that is active rather than passive is so much more effective.