Awakening to explicit vocabulary instruction in P.3 English language curriculum

Vocabulary plays an important role in learning to read and is also the bedrock supporting language proficiency. However, some of our P.3 students are having difficulties to read and comprehend English. Their difficulties in learning English are complicated for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Cantonese is the mother tongue of our students. It is a challenging task for teachers to motivate them to use English at school or at home. Secondly, students are attracted by other external stimuli. For example, students like watching Cantonese TV programmes or reading Chinese comics than English ones. They are not very willing to read English on their own. Without sufficient exposure to a variety of text types, students have rather limited vocabulary except the input from textbooks. The inadequate vocabulary growth affects them to read and write fluently and accurately. For instance, they may have problems inferring meanings of new words from contexts, or using right vocabulary to express themselves in speaking and writing. Thus, the level of motivation diminishes due to boredom or frustration.

In order to raise our students’ language competency, in particular reading and writing skills, we reviewed their work performance before designing our teaching plan. We discovered that most students did not pay much attention to what and how vocabulary can be acquired. They have limited phonics and phonological skills to decode and articulate new vocabulary items accurately. All these hindering factors attributed to their hesitation to read aloud unfamiliar texts and the repetitive use of the same vocabulary in their writing.

Therefore, to help students tackle these language problems, we thematically linked related language elements and incorporated relevant texts from outside to widen students’ exposure to different text types. We also designed contextualised writing tasks for students to really apply their learnt knowledge into authentic use. Yet, arousing students’ awareness on vocabulary learning and helping them internalize vocabulary building skills were our top concerns.

We tried out a number of initiatives in vocabulary learning alongside process writing with our P.3 students for the past year. Though we started on a small scale, these initiatives did help our students map out a larger picture of vocabulary learning from various perspectives. Two vocabulary learning activities were introduced on a regular basis with a view to laying a strong foundation. They were ‘self-evaluation vocabulary checklist’ and ‘syllabification’.

In the unit ‘The Fun Park’ for example, we provided students with a ‘self-evaluation vocabulary checklist’ on target vocabulary such as names of different park facilities. Students had to honestly self-assess whether they knew and were able to use these vocabulary before and after the lessons. At the beginning of its introduction, some students did not treat the reflection seriously. However, with teachers’ demonstration and frequent exposure, it was pleasing to note that more students are able to identify own vocabulary problems and develop an intrinsic drive to perform better. Such awareness is particularly vital to successful vocabulary learning.

Another initiative was the teaching of ‘syllabification’. Due to the fact that many of our students often make pronunciation errors and are not confident enough to articulate new vocabulary items, this strategy helps them break up words into chunks and recognize some common spelling patterns. For instance, we asked students to divide words like ‘playground’ and ‘see-saw’ into syllables when hearing teachers read them aloud. Through chunking words into syllables, students are visually illustrated with how words are formed by smaller units like ‘base words’ or ‘affixes’. An encouraging result was noted since a lot of students are willing to read aloud unfamiliar words using this strategy. Some students even apply this skill to check spelling of their own written work with confidence.

What else can we do to help our students expand their vocabulary or write better? We believe that new vocabulary is acquired through extensive reading. Apart from incorporating other texts into our General English programme, we also made use of readers. In our General English programme, before asking students to self-assess target vocabulary, we first activated students’ prior knowledge by inviting them to share and to predict in groups. ‘To share’ means students talk about their learnt knowledge in terms of vocabulary and ideas. In other words, students have to search for ‘known words’ from their existing vocabulary bank (K-what they have already known). ‘To predict’ refers to the act of establishing reading purposes before actual reading. That means students need to generate questions regarding the possible use of new vocabulary items and the content (W-what they want to know). During the discussion process, vocabulary and ideas generated by students were further explored collaboratively. After the discussion, we helped students organize thoughts and ideas by collating, webbing and displaying them in the classroom using appropriate graphic organizers. After completing the whole unit, students were required to re-assess their own vocabulary learning (L-what they have learnt). All these vocabulary learning activities aim at buttressing students to read and comprehend texts with sufficient vocabulary knowledge.

In fact, most of our students are visual learners. Learning English in an interesting and fun way can enrich their vocabulary quickly. In our Reading Workshops, we chose two attractive readers, ‘Lazy Charlie’ and ‘Midnight snacks’. Besides using pictures and graphics to discuss the storyline, we further introduced other vocabulary building skills. In the reader ‘Lazy Charlie’, we discussed the concept of ‘lexical sets’, ‘verb-noun collocation’ and ‘compounding’. Through brainstorming examples of housework like ‘make the bed’ or ‘take a bath’, students were exposed to the first two types of vocabulary building skills. By playing the matching game, students were able to identify how compound nouns are formed such as ‘bed+room’ or ‘bath+room’. Another example could be illustrated in the second reader ‘Midnight snacks’. We explicitly taught the concept of ‘antonyms’ and ‘derivation’. Students were then required to design a poster to sell their favourite kind of fruit using the above adjectives. With reference to their work performance, most of the students were able to make use of their learnt vocabulary knowledge to complete the post-reading tasks.

We notice that students show more interest in learning English after a year. Their English pronunciation has improved a lot. Their vocabulary is consistently growing. They are more willing to take time to reflect on their own learning, and some of them can write more creatively with fewer errors in their writing. A sense of achievement makes our students unafraid of writing. Some of them can even communicate in English with each other more clearly and effectively! All these successful learning experiences originated from awakening explicit vocabulary instruction in both General English programme and Reading Workshops. We, as their teachers, get a great deal of satisfaction from teaching this year too! We are grateful to have the officer’s support throughout the year.