Vocabulary Development Ell
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Vocabulary development is essential for children to become independent readers and to develop the background knowledge needed to understand both stories and academic texts. Often times English Language Learners and English as a Second Language Learners experience slow vocabulary development because they are less capable to comprehend the text at the given grade level than that of their English-only peers. Oral and written Language is extremely important to any human being. Language is how one communicates, and understands what is going on around them. Otto states that “If children are going to learn and communicate in society their development of a wide range of language competencies are essential to guarantee their success in a mixture of settings in their everyday routines. (Otto, 2010, p.3)
Vocabulary is the most important part of acquisition of any language. While teaching English as second language sometimes the students may not find themselves comfortable with the vocabulary lessons. However, the teachers can make the learning more interactive by introducing a variety vocabulary exercises. The teachers can make this effective by learning the patterns of difficulty of teaching vocabulary to students from different orientations. The teacher should create a wide range of activities and tasks geared towards helping their students to develop strategies that can help them learn words on their own. These activities should help the students to explore, keep and utilize items of vocabulary.
Gersten and Geva (2003) spent two years observing 34 first grade classrooms in which at least three fourths of the students were English learners. Their goal was to link specific instructional strategies to reading growth among English language learners. The researchers identified six facts of instruction that predicted student growth in reading: explicit teaching; English learning; phonemic awareness and decoding; vocabulary development; interactive teaching; and instruction geared toward low performers. The effective teachers in this study systematically taught phonological awareness skills and decoding and then reinforced these skills through reading and writing. Given the interconnectedness of language development and cognitive development, research in the area of ESL education suggests that for ESL students, just as for native English speaking students, English-language learning should take place in conjunction with the learning of academic content (Donato, 1994)
Given what we know about literacy development, the development of English-language proficiency, and the social, academic, and emotional challenges of entering a new culture, several instructional practices are recommended for multilingual classrooms.
Oral language must come first for ELL students. Once they have developed oral language skills in English, they can begin to learn about writing and reading in English. It is important