ELL+Comprehension,+Vocabulary+and+Flickr

Ell Comprehension, Vocabulary and Flickr

By Pam Pogson Educators are aware of the need to build vocabulary with English Language Learners (ELL) to move their learning forward. As ELL students’ progress in their reading abilities, lack of language development for the vocabulary starts to interfere with their levels of comprehension in reading. English has a variety of words to represent one item such as couch, sofa, lounger etc. A student may know and understand what a couch is but then in their encounters they run into the word sofa and are not sure of its meaning. This makes identifying the vocabulary needs of ELL students even harder. Fortunately there are Web 2.0 tools available to us as educators to enhance our teaching of vocabulary for these students. As educators prepare units, work with students on stories they are reading or use common school language, then use the tool of Flickr to aid their ELL students in building vocabulary. Educators can also then use a voice over tool in conjunction with Flickr to aid in pronunciation. Educators will preview the upcoming lesson for vocabulary needs of their ELL students. They will then locate pictures of these items, add them to a class based Flickr account and add the synonyms that also go with that word. For example, you could use Kitten, kitty, baby cat. The pictures can be demonstrated whole class, and then ELL students can have access to them throughout the class for additional practice. This would enable all students to benefit with extra practice with voice over for the ELL students. Allowing students’ time to build their vocabulary will not only increase their speaking vocabulary but also aid in their reading comprehension vocabulary. Students can also keep track of their unknown vocabulary and build their own Flickr accounts which will foster a sense of independence.

http://www.learnenglish.de/pictures.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/50934182/TEACHING-VOCABULARY-THROUGH-PICTURES-TO