Vocabulary Development for English Language Learners (Cárdenas-Hagan)

Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan is a Bilingual Speech Language Pathologist and a Certified Academic Language Therapist with a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction. She is the Director of Valley Speech Language and Learning Center in Brownsville, Texas and works with the Texas Institute for Measurement Evaluation and Statistics at the University of Houston. Dr. Cárdenas-Hagan is the author of Esperanza (HOPE), a Spanish language program designed to assist students who struggle with learning to read. Her research interests include the development of early reading assessments for Spanish-speaking students in addition to the development of reading interventions for bilingual students. She is the Co-Founder of Brownsville READS!, a nonprofit organization to promote literacy. Elsa currently serves as a board member of the International Dyslexia Association.

Demographics

Did you know that according to the United States Census Bureau (2010) there are over 11 million English as second language students in our schools? This student population represents more than 400 native languages spoken in the home. However, 80% of English language learners report Spanish as their first language. As educators, we must be prepared to meet the challenges of teaching this diverse population of students.

Research

Fortunately, we now have some important research findings regarding effective literacy instruction for English language learners. One major resource is The National Literacy Panel Report on Language Minority Children and Youth (August and Shanahan, 2006). This report was funded by the US Department of Education and provides evidence on teaching reading and writing to language minority students. It also defines the gaps in the available research. This report explains that vocabulary is an area where English language learners lag behind their English-speaking peers. The report also describes the body of evidence for vocabulary knowledge as a predictor of reading comprehension. Therefore it is essential to implement evidence-based strategies for teaching vocabulary to English language learners.

STRATEGIES FOR INSTRUCTION

Word Selection

Vocabulary words must be carefully selected. Beck, MeKeown and Kucan (2002) discuss three tiers of words. Tier 1 words are described as common, basic, every day words. Tier 2 words are academic words used in texts across multiple contexts. Tier 3 words are academic words that are discipline specific and very narrow in their usage. Examples of tiered words may be as follows:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
boy	chatter	photosynthesis
table	marvelous	phoneme
chair	precious	cerebellum

Polysemous Words with Multiple Meanings
Tier 1 words are basic, common words. We might think our students know them, but these words often have multiple meanings. English language learners may need to consider the varied meanings of common words. For example, think of the word run. How many meanings can you generate for this word? Listed below are eight definitions of the word run, used as a verb.

Definition	Example
To go or to move.	I can run an errand.
To take part in a race.	Jim will run in this weekend's marathon.
To be a candidate.	Mario will run for president of the club.
To flow.	The Rio Grande River runs through his property.
To extend or continue.	Run the add through the weekend.
To operate.	Patricia will run the governor's campaign.
To total.	You can run the tab.
To recur persistently.	He runs on end about his new car.

Further examples of basic words with multiple meanings include bat, sport, and light. Instructors can discuss these words with their students. Students might explore the multiple ways these words are used.

Explicit Instruction: Six Steps

We can teach English language learners word learning strategies. These strategies can become routines that not only increase vocabulary knowledge but also help to develop metalinguistic awareness. English language learners benefit from studying academic Tier 2 words, which occur across many contexts. These words must be explicitly taught. Steps for explicit vocabulary instruction as described by August and Shanahan (2006) include the following:

1. Say and write the word.
2. Provide a definition with familiar terms.
3. Discuss what is known about the word.
4. Provide examples and non-examples.
5. Create sentences with the word.
6. Engage in extended discussions with the word. 

With these steps, we can build a routine for our English language learners. Here are  examples that utilize the six steps, for teaching the academic word chatter.

1. Say and write the word:

One new word from our textbook today is the word chatter.
Let me write the word for you: chatter
Say the word after me: chatter.
Remember the word is chatter. It is not the word shatter.
Do you hear and see the differences between these two words?

2. Provide a definition with familiar terms:

One definition of the word chatter is to talk very quickly or rapidly (but usually not with an angry tone).

3. Discuss what is known about the word:

(click to expand, right-click to download)

Have you ever heard someone chatter? Give me an example of this. We know that people can chatter or speak rapidly, but did you know that chatter can also mean to click your teeth repeatedly? Your teeth can chatter. Let’s make our teeth chatter.

4. Provide examples and non-examples:

People can chatter with one another. Our teeth can chatter when we are cold. A glass light bulb cannot chatter, but it can break, or shatter. A table cannot chatter, but people can sit around the table and chatter.  Let’s discuss some pictures of this.

5. Create a sentence with the word chatter (or a form of the word):

• The girls were chattering, so the teacher asked them to please quiet down.
• My teeth were chattering when we were standing outside in the cold weather.

6. Engage in extended discussions with the word:

• Can a dog chatter? Why or why not?
• Can a teenager chatter? Why or why not?
• Can a table chatter? Why or why not?

Bilingual Glossaries

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The use of bilingual glossaries can help English language learners reinforce their word learning. One example adapted from August and Carlo (2005) is below. Students complete the glossary with the teacher's help, and refer to it when speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Morphological Awareness

Another word learning strategy for English language learners includes introducing the similarities among native language and English word parts. Students will not only build thousands of new English words, they can also make the connections for meaning across languages. Examples are listed below.

Spanish	Meaning	English	Meaning
Prefixes pre-	antes	pre-	before, in front of
re-	otra vez	re-	back, backward, again
in-	no	in-	not (also means 'in')
Roots
gram	peso	gram	to write or draw; a unit of weight
vis	ver	vis	to see
kilo	milo	kilo	thousand
Suffixes
-osis	enfermedad	-osis	disease, condition
-itis	inflamación	-itis	inflammation
-or	alguien que	-or	one who

Lastly, the use of cognates can be helpful for English language learners to expand their vocabulary knowledge. However, instructors must be aware that many false cognates exist. That is, some words are spelled and written in the same manner but have different meanings across languages. Some examples are listed below.

True Cognates Spanish	English
taxi	taxi
hospital	hospital
profesor	professor
inteligente	intelligent
explorar	explore
False Cognates (meaning)
pie (foot)	pie (a dessert)
largo (long)	large (big)
arena (sand)	arena (stadium)
carpeta (folder)	carpet (floor covering)
idioma (language)	idiom (figurative expression)

Colorín Colorado (www.colorincolorado.org) provides a list of Spanish and English cognates which can be helpful for instructors of English language learners.

In summary, English language learners benefit from explicit vocabulary instruction. It is necessary to provide them with multiple opportunities to use their recently acquired English vocabulary words. The use of word learning strategies which develop into routines can help English language learners to develop metalinguistic awareness for building word knowledge.

References:

Engaging Vocabulary Activities (Mohler)

Many thanks to Dr. Geri Marshall Mohler for sharing her engaging word-learning resources with us. Geri currently serves as an education consultant for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, working with accreditation and on standards development for reading and library specialists. Previous to her work at CTC, she worked for two years at the California Department of Education in the Reading/Language Arts unit and for five years as a professor of reading/literacy at California State University, Bakersfield. Before coming to California in 2002, she taught English and reading in Nebraska middle and high schools for 18 years. Her major area of research is preschool literacy (see www.csub.edu/plpbakersfield).

In this post, I offer cognitively engaging activities for promoting word knowledge in the classroom. Prior Vocabulogic posts have made a strong case for the value of teaching vocabulary and morphology. Some of the best thinkers of our time speak to this, as illustrated in the collection of research-based quotes posted by Susan Ebbers. With such research in mind, I use this post to introduce "hands-on" activities for teaching dictionary skills, vocabulary and morphology. These activities are described in my Hands-On Vocabulary Activities packet, provided in pdf format and in Word format. These activities can be used in any content area and adapted to most learning levels (3rd to adult). Feel free to download the packet, adapt it for your own use and share it with others, freely, with my permission. A more extensive article, which contains short explanations of each of the activities, was published in 7-8-9, Poetry, Song and Rhyme (Mohler, 2009).

Vocabulary development is a reading component that is ongoing throughout life. Other components, such as phonemic awareness and phonics, have received much emphasis in English/language arts standards and curricula, but each of these, once learned, rarely needs to be re-visited. Academic language is a literacy area currently getting a lot of press. Academic language is more than vocabulary; however, it includes facility with intricate terms, complex sentence structure and syntax, text organization, and the function of transitions. Extensive and efficient vocabulary acquisition is a good place to begin developing academic language because direct instruction in vocabulary develops comprehension of academic language more than any other factor (Bromley, 2007).

To increase vocabulary, morphological awareness is essential (see many previous posts). It allows for independent access to the definitions of many words, without a dictionary, and provides a means to better understand definitions found in a dictionary and to make connections with similar words. In fact, by sixth grade, the meanings of about 60% of the morphologically complex words in school texts can be inferred by analyzing word parts in context (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). These “translations” may only imply meanings, but they can often result in a comprehensible definition. Either way, it is important that students develop the skills and knowledge to independently decipher the meanings of words using knowledge of morphology.

Many English words contain cognates—a word in a language that has the same origin, or root, as a word in a different language. Spanish-speaking English learners, in particular, need to know about cognates. Many common words in Spanish, for instance, are sophisticated words in English. The English word farming is cultivo or agricultura in Spanish. Cultivate and agriculture are English words related to farming that are derived from Latin roots, like the Spanish cognates are. Spanish-speaking students need to be recognized for their inherent understanding of words that may be unfamiliar to English-only students. (Read more about Spanish-English cognates).

Using the “Hands-On” Vocabulary Activities Packet 

(click images to enlarge and download)

The intent of the activities in Hands-On Vocabulary is to provide students with a fun way to learn about words, so they will be successful in figuring out the meaning of new or unknown words and feel comfortable using sophisticated words in speech and writing. Activities include:

• Activities 1-6: Dictionary use 
• Activities 7-10: Spelling practice
• Activities 11-24: Morphological analysis

The packet of activities includes mnemonics to help students memorize the meanings of many common prefixes and 10 root words. There are lists of affixes and root words alphabetized by word part and by meaning. Students learn how to use these resources to complete the activities. Examples of favorite activities are the “Affix/Root Word Scramble” (#18), “Sophisticated Sentences” (#21), and “Word Blocks” (#23). Each of these can be adapted for specific content area words and grow with the students’ increased knowledge of morphology.

I credit others (Ganske, 2000; Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2008) for the activities that are similar to word sorts, which are a great way to practice making sense of pronunciations and spelling, and to help students see connections in words. To save the time and paper required to make the cards for sorting, many activities in the packet are designed so they can be printed and placed in page protectors or laminated. For example, the prefix activity shown here is easily used with a page protector. Students use whiteboard markers to mark and write answers.

Students who have experienced the variety of ways that words can be dissected, manipulated, and discovered will become confident, competent and curious word sleuths. I have used most of these exercises with a variety of student levels and abilities, including teacher candidates and graduate students to prepare them to teach morphology and to improve their own command of English. The activities are predominantly at the word level—sound, spelling and meaning. Sentence level and contextual activities can be incorporated through additional, integrated oral and written assignments throughout the day and year. It is also important that you model the use of morphology skills and encourage students to apply them when confronted with unknown words. Overall, it is your enthusiasm and spontaneity about words and their foibles that will create students who are interested in and knowledgeable about words.

Try these activities and see how well you do!
Questions? Send me an email (gerimohler@gmail.com) or post a comment. 

Works Cited

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., Johnston, F. (2008). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Bromley, K. (2007). Nine things every teacher should know about words and vocabulary instruction. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 50(7), pp. 528-537.

Ganske, K. (2000). Word journeys: Assessment guided phonics, spelling and vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford.

Mohler, G. M. (2009). Hands-on vocabulary: Activities to develop word knowledge. In S. Neufeld & J. Sawkey (Eds.), 7-8-9, Poetry, song and rhyme (pp. 36-46). Costa Mesa, CA: California Reading Association.

Nagy, W., & Anderson, R. C. (1984). How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304-330.

Video: Word Formation Processes

We freely create new words without thinking too much about HOW it's done; we come by it naturally and take a curious delight in it. LOL, we get a fabjammin' kick out of it, all right, and the one with the greatest inpreciation of vocabulogic has the most fun!

This Sunday, I am pleased to publish a brief video discovered on YouTube. The author (PlatanoAmarillo03) is unknown to me, but she may be a linguistics student, a budding morphology expert. She synthesizes information with some humor and panache through the clever use of pictures and moving font types. Fair warning--the pace is quite fast and the voice is not loud, so turn up your speakers and prepare to focus.

PS. The video describes compound words composed of two words. True enough, but compounds can contain more than two words, as in ruby-throated hummingbird and son-in-law. Read more about compounds.

Enjoy!

A Morphological Approach for English Language Learners (Eddy)

In this entry, Carolyn Eddy offers suggestions for teaching Spanish-speaking students to more quickly grasp English by exploiting cognates and by teaching high frequency academic words that do not share the same root. She draws from research and from her own secondary and post-secondary experiences as a language learner. Carolyn recently completed her undergraduate work in Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in only three years, including a semester of study in Seville, Spain.

The rapid influx of immigrants into the United States has created a need for more English Language classes, as well as more effective methods of teaching the English language. English proficiency has been shown to be the strongest predictor of academic achievement among immigrant students (Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008). In order to master new content across the disciplines, students need to become competent users of the language with minimal delay. How can we expedite the learning process?

When I was beginning to learn Spanish, many of my classmates quickly became frustrated with exhaustive vocabulary lists and memorizing conjugation tables. Some soon gave up on learning another language altogether. It was years before we could correctly form complex sentences in Spanish. Given the necessity for expedience in learning English in this country, the traditional methods for teaching foreign language are largely insufficient for ELL programs.

One possible way to facilitate more rapid vocabulary development is by utilizing a morphological approach. Many words can be learned together by teaching words that contain a common morpheme. Since each word contains a common element, students learn the meaning of each morpheme separately. As more and more morphemes are added to students’ repertoire, a student is better able to hypothesize possible words for an unknown idea they want to express. I used some of these tools when I studied abroad in Spain, though in reverse. Even if I did not guess the word exactly, I could usually make myself understood. Here are a few possible vocabulary pairs that illustrate my point; some are cognates that share a Latin root and some are high frequency words that do not share a root: 

Adverbs (The suffix -mente =  -ly)

Recientemente Recently

Naturalmente Naturally

Abiertamente Openly

Inmediatamente Immediately

The Gerund (The suffix -ando/-iendo = -ing)

Practicando Practicing

Moviendo Moving

Viviendo Living

Diciendo Saying

Nouns (The suffix -dad = -ity)

Actividad Activity

Responsabilidad Responsibility

Autoridad Authority

Individualidad Individuality

Nouns (The suffix -ación = -ation)

Vacación Vacation

Conversación Conversation

Educación Education

Población Population

Notice that these word pairs contain English words that are similar to and also different from their Spanish counterparts. The use of cognates allows students to more easily isolate the equivalent morphemes, such as the use of –ing for the English gerund; they can see where the words differ. Using a certain amount of cognates also cuts down on feelings of frustration that many students experience. It underlines the fact that, while English and Spanish are different in many ways, there are also many similarities. On the other hand, the most-common words in Spanish and English are typically very different from one another, so I added those to the lists of word pairs. 

View book at Amazon

One thing that troubled me when I was learning Spanish was all of the themed vocabulary lists--as if the first thing one needs to know in a foreign language is the word for every single animal or kitchen appliance. Studies have shown that this strategy of teaching vocabulary through direct memorization is inefficient and ineffectual (Carlo et al., 2004). Furthermore, because Spanish-speakers need to know as much relevant English as possible in very little time, opting to teach high-frequency words first, and then advancing to more and more esoteric vocabulary, just makes more sense. These same studies also underscore the utility of cognate use as well as teaching morphological relationships to expand vocabulary. It is important to note, however, that, like all linguistic “rules,” these morpheme pairs are not all-inclusive. Exceptions do exist.

For the many Spanish-speaking students striving to learn English in America, it is essential to keep the most immediate needs in mind. We must exploit common features across the two languages--the shared Latin roots and affixes. Taking a morphological approach to teaching English not only allows for more generative and more rapid vocabulary growth, but it also allows students to extrapolate meaning from words they have not seen before. 


References

Carlo, M.S., August, D., McLaughlin, B., Snow, C.E., Dressler, C., Lippman, D.N., Lively, T.J., & White, C.E (2004). Closing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of English-language learners in bilingual and mainstream classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 39, 2, pp. 188-215. 

Suárez-Orozco, C., Suárez-Orozco, M.M., & Todorova, I. (2008). Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Academic Families of Words

If we want to promote comprehension we must strive to convey academic vocabulary in every subject area throughout the day, and at every grade level. The specific term academic word does not refer to domain-specific vocabulary like photosynthesis or decimal. An academic word is often the scholarly counterpart to a high-frequency common word. For example, the verb show is a common word but demonstrate is academic. Academic words are often abstract and slippery, not concrete. We encounter academic words less frequently but they are certainly not rare, and furthermore, they appear across subject areas, especially after third grade. Another example is shown in the picture to the left. The word find is academic as used here; students may know that find has the primary meaning of 'locate' but to carry out this task they must also understand its academic denotation. 

In daily conversation, educators can easily insert an academic word for a common word to help students become familiar with it. Slightly and gradually segue to an academic register when speaking and listening. This vocabulary transition might begin in kindergarten:

• You may get obtain a pencil
• It was a bad severe storm
• Let's meet gather, assemble, convene or congregate in the library

Academic words abound in cross-curricular texts and assessments. If unknown, they present a tremendous obstacle to comprehension (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002). Even if students understand the subject matter they can be confounded by scholarly language, as humorously depicted above. Academic words often create a lexical bar, separating the word-savvy from the word-weary and disenfranchised (Corson, 1984). Teachers can help at-risk learners surmount the bar if they persevere together. It's a worthy goal but not quickly met. 

Academic Word List. Research in Applied Linguistics by Averil Coxhead led to the AWL (Academic Word List) of 570 words. These are the most frequently encountered academic words found in texts across disciplines of study in secondary and tertiary school. Each word represents a morphological family of words, so analysis includes analytical, analyze and analyst, for example. Conveying words in families clustered around the same root should promote morphological awareness as well as vocabulary. The AWL has ten sublists ordered by frequency; sublist 1 contains the academic words most frequently encountered. Word families from sublists 1- 5 should apply fairly well to grades 6-8 and sublists 6-10 should apply to high school and beyond. See the good doctor's tips for using the AWL. The AWL may be especially helpful for learning English as a second language because many of these words can be recognized as a Spanish-English cognate (sample cognates). Explore the Spanish Cognates Dictionary from Latin America Links or translate with the the multilingual Woxicon. 

More AWL resources: Visit the University of Nottingham for Sandra Haywood's useful AWL resources, including the AWL Gapmaker, the AWL Highlighter, and the Concordance. These three tools have potential utility for developing and assessing academic vocabulary. From Harvard University, explore Catherine Snow's Word Generation resources for developing academic language. Finally, explore Gerry Luton's AWL exercises and assessments through the the University of Victoria. All of these resources can potentially be used to good effect in a learning atmosphere that includes vocabulary-pertinent peer discussions as well as practice in correctly articulating longer words as modeled by the teacher.

Again, wait not for high waters. Use academic words in primary grade conversations and instructions. Prepare the soil, so to speak. If the children can understand the concept behind the word, they can understand the word. If they can understand make they can understand generate, produce, and create. By all means, speak UP.

Finally, April Fool's Day is just around the corner, but don't let anyone capitalize on your credulity. Don't credit everything you hear! See derivations constructed with the Latin root cred meaning 'to trust, to believe' (more derivations here, see all four pages). I promise, this is no fool's errand; the root cred is worth teaching because most of its derivations are, in fact, (you guessed it) academic words! In fact, Butler et al. (2004) determined that many of the academic words in fifth-grade content-domain texts are derivations, especially with respect to science.  

Click image 2x to enlarge.

PS. I have inserted page 59 from NTC's Dictionary of Latin and Greek Origins (1997, pp. 59-60).  NTC gives cred as the 'common root' of credere and spells it cred. At the bottom of the image I list additional sources naming cred as the root. Many sources, like NTC, include credo, creed, and credenza in the family of words denoting 'believe, trust.' However, perhaps the spelling should be crede (see comments).

References:

• Butler, F. A., Bailey, A. L., Stevens, R., Huang, B., & Lord, C. (2004). Academic English in fifth-grade mathematics, science, and social studies textbooks. CSE report 642. Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE)/National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Retrieved 7-2-09 from www.csa.com.
• Corson, D.J. (1984) The lexical bar: Lexical change from 12 to 15 years measured by social class, region and ethnicity. British Educational Research Journal 10(2), 115-133. 
• RAND Reading Study Group. (2002). Reading for understanding: Towards an R & D program in reading comprehension. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

Mindful Zen of Morphology

Years ago, as a particularly bitter winter retreated from Wisconsin, my mother pointed to a tree near the window. “See the buds on the branch, Susie.” I searched, the two of us peering together through the glass, until finally I saw something that resembled unpopped popcorn. Small, knobby, not much of a muchness. Mom then explained that the tree had been sleeping all winter and now it was awake, putting out buds, making new leaves. I knew she was pleased at these small signs of spring so I decided to be pleased too, even though I was distracted by the notion of a sleeping tree. Years later, in grade school, we learned the scientific term that describes trees at rest, dormant. It was easy to grasp the new term because I already understood the concept.

I am learning to look as closely at words as I once did at that branch. When I peer into the word dormant I think to myself, “Look more closely. Make a connection.” Eureka! Awareness makes all the difference. Immediately dormitory springs to mind. I slept in a dorm room and dormant means 'sleeping, inactive.' Then I think of those charming little dormer windows often found in a sleeping loft. Suddenly the French nursery song Frère Jacques plays through my memory. Dormez-vouz? (Are you sleeping, Brother John?) Dormez-vouz!! It’s a discovery! And a discovery is always interesting. Awaken young minds to the delight of discovering word relationships. All teachers can prompt the mindful Zen of morphology. No need to be a linguist. Just be curious.

Awaken older minds, too. Somehow I became fairly comfortable with French in high school yet never made the connection between dormez-vous, dormant, and dormitory until years later when I began to actively seek associations in English and beyond. Then, voila! Like blossoms in springtime, they’re everywhere.

Robertson's compendium provides many more derivatives of the root dorm. By checking Woxicon I learn that the words for 'sleep' in French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese contain the root dorm. This fact makes cross-linguistic transfer possible (see list of websites for teaching ELL, in the page footer).

Bring out the books! Help students become mindful of morphology when they read. Teach them to apply morphemic analysis in context. Consider this excerpt from Chapter 7, Alice in Wonderland, a book rich with word play (full text here). Prompt awareness with a question like this, "Why do you think the rodent is called a dormouse?"

`They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy....The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on...." (Lewis Carroll, 1865).

A dormouse hibernates. This may be a blended compound word. OED Online suggests dormouse flows from French dormir, 'to sleep'  and the Middle English word for 'mouse' but the origins are obscure (see comments). Children are unlikely to readily assume that dormouse contains dorm, because it looks like dor + mouse and sounds like door + mouse.  But most students have more knowledge than they realize. The teacher's job is to draw such knowledge to the surface, from dormancy into metacognition. 

And we can always count on Rowling for wordplay with Greek and Latin. I especially liked the Hogwarts coat of arms (Wikipedia/Creative Commons/Jakovche). The school motto states Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus: Never tickle a sleeping dragon. A joyous discovery!

PS. The Vernal Equinox is Saturday, March 20, heralding the first day of spring. During an equinox the night is nearly as long as the day, almost 12 hours each. The meaning is in the morphemes. The Latin root equi refers to 'same or equal' as in equality, equity, equate, equator, etc. The root nox means 'night.'

To study words like equinox we need context but context comes in many forms. Pictures provide a platform for discussion and are especially helpful for English Language Learners. I saw a creative portrayal of an equinox in student-created calendar art, published by Buffalo Public Schools. How would you depict the concept?

That's all, folks. My thanks to Jessica Fresco for capturing her spring blooms on film and sharing them with us.

Cross-Linguistic Transfer (poll)

In his post two weeks ago, P. David Pearson spoke of working actively with words in multiple contexts, with the habitat slide from Seeds and Roots.  David suggested adding a morphological setting. A morphological connection to habitat would include inhabit and inhabitants, the Spanish word hábitat, and perhaps habitual and habit. This relates to my earlier blog on making connections within and across words.

   (click image to enlarge)
We can also make connections across languages, using pantry as an example. The votes are in and most people (64%) selected bread as the original core meaning, not cooking pans. Yes, true, but a pan-try could contain a cooking pan, so that's also a cool way to remember it. This thought process is much like the mnemonic keyword method for learning new words (Pressley, Levin, & Delaney, 1982). Note, a pantry is not typically found in small homes, so familiarity may be somewhat dependent on SES.

Let's look across languages. About 60% of English is based in Latin, even though English is a Germanic language. The word bread is Germanic in origin, spelled brot in Germany today. Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian are Romance languages, based in Latin, the lingo used by the Romans (hence Romance). It's a small world, rich with word relationships. In Spanish, pan means 'bread'. French is pain. Likewise, the Italian word is pane and a sandwich is a panini. You won't be surprised to learn that pantry flows from Latin panis, meaning 'bread.' Check it out for yourself at Etymonline, given in the useful links for morphology and etymology, in the page footer. The Sp. word for bread box is panera, but the Sp. word for pantry is quite different---despensa. That opens the door to a discussion of the academic word dispense, yes?

When words share a common root, having a similar meaning and spelling across languages, they are called cognates. When we infer word meaning by thinking of a similar word we know in a different language, cross-linguistic transfer is at work. Cognates and near-cognates must be made explicit until students adopt this type of thinking. These lookalikes are easier to see in print than to hear in passing speech. 

Resources on this topic are available at the Center for Applied Linguistics. Additional applicable hyperlinks are listed at the bottom of this website.