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A vocabulary jumble is usually used at the start of a new topic or as a pre-reading activity. It is a great way to get students to focus explicitly on key words and to work at their own level, while also cooperatively working together to find a meaning. Words are considered individually, in the group and then in the whole class, providing many opportunities to hear the words and their meanings and to reuse the vocabulary.
The teacher displays a list of 15 to 20 key words from a text/topic to the class. The students then have one minute to write down as many words as they can. The teacher then covers up the words and gives the students another minute to write the words and spell them, from memory. The students then check their words against the full list and then ask other members of the group for word meanings they don't know. Dictionaries can be used as well at this stage. Lastly, have a whole class discussion of words that were unknown or not fully known.
Watch this video to see vocabulary jumble being used in a year 11 English class
Teaching and learning sequence planning example:
Secondary level:
Walking words is a collaborative group activity similar to the jigsaw activity, which helps students to know the meaning of new content vocabulary. Each group predicts and writes the meanings of two or three new topic-specific words. Half the members of each group then ‘walk the words’ to a new group in order to share their words and meanings. They also listen to the other members of the new group. Two new students from each group then ‘walk the words’ on to the next group… and so on for four or five changes. This strategy helps ELLs to use their prior knowledge and context to predict the meaning of a new word. Students are actively involved and using their metacognitive processes which assists in word retention.
Watch this video to see a year 7–8 science class using the walking words activity
Word clusters/maps (semantic mindmaps) are a form of mind mapping.
Relationships between words can be illustrated through word maps. Create word maps by writing the focus word in a central circle and then asking the students to brainstorm related words. Link these brainstormed words to the focus word as in an elementary mind map. This is best completed in pairs or small groups to increase the students’ use of English. The word maps could be:
Word maps help students to make connections between their prior knowledge and the new words. They show conceptual relationships between words. By showing these relationships students can modify their existing framework of knowledge (schema) and more effectively construct meaning when they meet the words in the text.
Watch these short videos to see word clusters/maps and mind mapping being used in the classroom
Year 9 English
Year 12 English
Teaching and learning sequence planning examples:
Primary level:
Anticipatory reading guides are pre-reading activities which help students to connect their personal knowledge and experience and think about the ideas they will be reading. They also require the students to make predictions about the text.
The teacher prepares the guide by writing about six statements based on the main messages of the text that will be read. The students independently decide if they agree or disagree with each statement and then share their choice with a partner. After reading they revisit the guide and decide whether the text agreed or disagreed with each statement and they write in evidence from the text. Next they discuss their choices as a class/group.
Watch this video to see anticipatory reading guide activities being used in a year 10 science class
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Rationale: students gain access to text through academic, text-based dialogue and collaboration. It helps students to synthesise their understandings in a visual form with close reference to the text.
Students are given time to think individually about how to represent on a collaborative poster the spirit of a text read by the team.
In small groups the students share their ideas and reach a consensus. They are given a time limit (20–30 minutes) to work collaboratively on a poster to represent the big ideas of the text.
They must:
Alternatively students may reach consensus on ONE main idea, and then an image for each significant supporting detail of the text.
Students then share their posters and self-assess them using a rubric.
Watch this video to see students making a collaborative poster in a year 10 social studies class
Co-operative reading is based on Palincsar and Brown's (1986) research into reciprocal teaching. Students work in groups of four. Each student is given a different strategy that they are responsible for leading/answering during the discussion time which follows the reading of the text. These roles are summarising, question generating, clarifying, and predicting.
Reciprocal teaching aids students to construct meaning from text as well as a providing a means of monitoring their reading to ensure that they are, in fact, understanding what they read. It also scaffolds their use of the reading strategies.
Watch this short video to see cooperative reading/reciprocal teaching in a year 12 english classroom
Using differentiated texts is when a teacher uses different texts with different groups of students rather than the same text with the whole class, while still maintaining the same curriculum learning outcomes. The text choice is based upon the student’s level of English or their first language. Effective differentiation is only possible with good assessment knowledge.
Some of the texts used may be bilingual texts in order to support the student’s first language. The use of bilingual texts helps students to make connections to their own prior learning and experience, as well as supporting their first language.
Advice on text selection can be found on Literacy Online and also in The English Language Learning Progressions. Differentiated texts are a form of differentiated instruction.
Watch this video to see an example of differentiated texts being used in a year 5–6 visual arts class
An information transfer activity involves getting students to put spoken or written texts into another form, such as a chart, grid, picture, table or diagram – or vice-versa. Make sure that the students can’t just copy chunks without understanding them by requiring a different organisation to the text. These tasks encourage deep processing of information. The interpretation of text, diagram or tables is a skill that is very useful both in academic and everyday life.
Watch this short video to see a year 11 science class using information transfer
In a traditional cloze passage some words have been deleted from a text and the students are asked to fill in the gaps. In an interactive cloze the specialist word is left in the sentence and, instead, a word that contributes to the meaning is left out. Students work individually to fill in the gaps with a suitable word/s and then compare and discuss their answers with a partner.
Interactive cloze activities teach the skills of: using context clues in working out unknown words; reading for meaning as opposed to word-by-word reading; predicting and understanding language structures; developing awareness of the reading process; using their background knowledge; using clues such as signal words and connectives and noticing and using information presented on a page such as headings, sub-headings and graphics. Discussion following the exercise gives students opportunities to use words orally in context, discuss concepts and actively process information. Interactive cloze activities can provide the teacher with valuable information on individual student's ability to handle language.
Teacher uses the structure of a poem or creative paragraph previously studied and deletes phrases rather than words. Students use their imagination to complete phrases. There are no correct answers. This may be completed co-operatively to increase talk-time and to share ideas and knowledge. Creative cloze allows students to be creative within a known structure and it is a scaffold to unsupported creative writing.
Watch this short video to see creative cloze being used in a year 9 english class
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