ELL and Technology

Strategies Used

• Two strategies will be used to support ELLs: close reading and vocabulary role play.

Close Reading

• "Close reading is a strategy recommended to help students uncover the layers of meaning that lead to deep comprehension" (Herrell and Jordan, 2012, p. 77).

Vocabulary Role-Play

• "Vocabulary role-play is a strategy that encourages learners to make connections among their past experiences, the content being studied, and vocabulary that is new or being used in an unfamiliar way" (Herrell and Jordan, 2012, p. 47).

Technology Used

• The website VocabGrabber analyzes any text you're reading, and it generates lists of the most useful vocabulary words and shows you how those words are used in context. You can copy text from a document and paste it into the box, and then click on the Grab Vocabulary! button. VocabGrabber will automatically create a list of vocabulary from your text, which you can sort, filter, and save.

A look at the VocabGrabber website

Social Studies text example

How TO Use Vocabgrabber with ells

• VocabGrabber shows the subjects the words in the passage are related to. The social studies passage that I used had the most words in the Vocabulary category (18 words), and the second greatest amount in the Social Studies and Arts and Literature categories (4 words each).

Science text example

how to use Vocabgrabber with ells

• The vocabulary words can also be sorted by relevance, from A to Z, and by their occurrences in the passage. The most important words in the science passage I used were ecosystem, living and non-living. VocabGrabber also offered examples from the text, and the definitions of the vocabulary words.

Using VOcabgrabber and vocabulary role-play

• A teacher can merge VocabGrabber and vocabulary role-play very easily in the classroom. By pasting the text being read into the Vocabgrabber website the words will be sorted and the key words will be highlighted. This allows the teacher to see which words she needs to focus on during vocabulary role play. This saves the teacher time since he or she does not have to sift through the passage on their own.

Using VOcabgrabber and vocabulary role-play

• A teacher can merge VocabGrabber and vocabulary role-play by using the vocabgrabber website to help student find the key vocabulary terms. The key terms are larger than the regular words. An example of this is shown next.

Untitled Slide

USING VOCABGRABBER AND VOCABULARY ROLE-PLAY

• Indentifying key vocabulary is the first step in conducting vocabulary role play. The VocabGrabber website will allow ELLs to do this with assistance as shown in the images in the previous slides. Vocabgrabber sorts all the words in the passage, and identifies the key vocabulary along with its meaning and gives sentence examples.

Using VOcabgrabber and Close reading

• When students close read they sometimes use complex text, which may be confusing or difficult especially for ELLs to understand. VocabGrabber helps break down the vocabulary in complex text so students can understand and comprehend as they read.

Using vocabgrabber and close reading

• VocabGrabber also allows the teacher to front load vocabulary before beginning close reading. When frontloading vocabulary, the teacher provides students with the vocabulary words and definitions before reading. Students can use VocabGrabber to find the definitions of the vocabulary words before close reading the text.

In conclusion...

• One can see how the website VocabGrabber can break down difficult vocabulary terms, present definitions, sort key vocabulary, and provide examples in order to support ELLs reading comprehension and understanding of complex texts, during close reading and support during activities such as vocabulary role-play.

Reference

• Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012). 50 Strategies for teaching English language learners (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.
• Images courtesy of https://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber/
• Sousa, D. (2011). How the ELL brain learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.