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Helping students to notice vocabulary and grammatical features

If their teacher uses techniques to help them notice and become aware of specific items, students can learn more new language from what they listen to and read.

Teachers can highlight or draw attention to specific items in various ways.

Students can use classroom routines of regularly checking for themselves whether language items and forms are familiar to them or need clarification.

Crucially, students need a great deal of exposure to language input.

What students need to learn language successfully

Second-language research tells us that a number of critical conditions must exist for students to learn language effectively. Crucially, students need a great deal of exposure to language input.

You may have had the experience of learning a language in a formal setting, such as a classroom, and then travelling to the country where the language is spoken.

The difference between these two situations often seems immense.

Many people say that when they are in a situation in which they hear and see the language all around them, they feel that they learn much more. 

The benefits of input

Classrooms where there are learners of English should give those students plenty of exposure to English – that is, a lot of input (understanding what we hear and read).

For best results, spoken or written input should be at the right level: neither too hard nor too easy. Teachers’ ability to pitch their language at an appropriate level usually develops over time.

How to help students notice language items and language patterns

To make language learning both more successful and more efficient, help students to notice language items and language patterns in the language they hear and read. This is best done in a way that does not interrupt the students’ attention to meaning.

Ways to help students notice

Here are four examples of ways to help student notice language items and language patterns.

Seamless reading, choosing, and writing down words for attention

One simple way to help students notice vocabulary follows.

  • While reading a story aloud (without interrupting the flow of the story), a teacher, selects words for attention and writes them on the whiteboard. (Most junior class teachers do this regularly.)

Making questioning-time part of classroom routines

Another way is to set up classroom routines so that at the end of a section of a text, or at other specific times, students have opportunities to ask about words or phrases they are unfamiliar with or are unsure of.

The practice may be for students to answer each other instead of the teacher. For example, using reciprocal teaching of reading procedures.

The students could also discuss the strategies they used, or could have used, to independently identify the unfamiliar language items.

Students highlight text features

A third way is for students or teachers to highlight features in a text. This can happen before, during, or after reading, depending on the reading ability of the students.

Pause and repeat

When teachers are explaining or introducing new content, they can pause and repeat key words or phrases, drawing students’ attention to these items.

Exploring your practice

Helping students to notice vocabulary and grammatical features

Some simple ways to help student notice.

  • Choose a lesson or a unit of work in a curriculum area that you teach.
  • Choose a number of vocabulary items that you will use in the lesson(s).
  • Record the items on a card. To make students more aware of these, write them on the whiteboard as you use them.
  • Before the next lesson or unit, use a simple quiz to check whether the students understand the words you selected for attention.

Using enhanced input

Another way teachers can draw students’ attention to aspects of language is through enhanced input. This is when you take a text students are reading and highlight a particular feature of grammar for attention (focus).

From one hand-out or text that you will give your students, select and highlight a feature that your assessment data shows a particular student (or group of students) needs to learn. Discuss the highlighted features with that student or group and ask them to identify further examples in their reading and to use the feature in their writing. 

Examples of using enhance input

The following examples show how one teacher highlighted particular features their students needed help with:

  • regular verb endings
  • irregular verb endings
  • the use of the definite article "the"
  • different kinds of possessive structures in English.

(Excerpt used in the examples is taken from: Sachar. L, Holes, Chapter 7.)

EXAMPLE 1
"The shovel felt heavy in Stanley’s soft, fleshy hands. He tried to jam it into the earth, but the blade banged against the ground and bounced off without making a dent. The vibrations ran up the shaft of the shovel and into Stanley’s wrists, making his bones rattle."

EXAMPLE 2
"The shovel felt heavy in Stanley’s soft, fleshy hands. He tried to jam it into the earth, but the blade banged against the ground and bounced off without making a dent. The vibrations ran up the shaft of the shovel and into Stanley’s wrists, making his bones rattle."

EXAMPLE 3

"The shovel felt heavy in Stanley’s soft, fleshy hands. He tried to jam it into the earth, but the blade banged against the ground and bounced off without making a dent. The vibrations ran up the shaft of the shovel and into Stanley’s wrists, making his bones rattle."

EXAMPLE 4

"The shovel felt heavy in Stanley’s soft, fleshy hands. He tried to jam it into the earth, but the blade banged against the ground and bounced off without making a dent. The vibrations ran up the shaft of the shovel and into Stanley’s wrists, making his bones rattle."

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