>> Jennifer Hixson: My name is Jennifer Hixson

and I was listed as being from the IRC, which I wish I were.

Last time when I spoke, I think they contacted the IRC and the

IRC contacted me as they often do to do workshops and stuff

in Central Illinois and Southern Illinois, because they don't

like to go south of I80.

But they are a great group but I am not on the payroll up there,

they just pay me to do things down here.

So I am not really from the IRC, I am actually retired from the

Urbana school district, I was in the English as a second language

teacher for a longtime and after that I was the administrator

for the bilingual ESL programs in Urbana.

And then I have also over the years taught adjunct

for the University of Illinois.

Randy mentioned that the IRC has classes and I did not get--

because I live in Urbana, I mean I got my classes through

the U of I--but where its not convenient the IRC does provide

great classes that are kind of a time wise might

be more convenient for people.

Okay, but I don't know how it would be to travel up there,

I don't know if they do some cohorts like for weekends

and stuff like that.

But the U of I is teaching all the courses.

I haven't seen the linguistics course yet, online.

But I taught my first online --I'm sorry--my first online

class this past summer.

There are like eight weeks, two hours of class where you have

to be two hours a week on the computer and you can see me

and we can do interactive exercises together and then

there's offline, its online but not at the same time.

During the week, you have to do stuff un-model, so there's that

and your regular assignments and those classes can be very nice

but like what I got, I found--it was very interesting,

I thought I'd hate it, I didn't.

But like, in a way it was nice because if somebody sent me

a paper--since it was all done--I mean I had a student in

Turkey and a student in Africa and I had a lot of students.

I had a student in Colorado and a lot up in the Chicago area but

they would send the papers in over Moodle or email and then if

I glanced through it and I thought, "Oh, this isn't going

to get a good grade," I would send it back to them and say,

"if you get this in to me before I'm finished reading the other

ones, so you haven't held me up, I'll not count it as late.

And so there was kinds of things that you could do online

that you couldn't do teaching a face-to-face course, so.

Anyway, that's kind of my background.

I was asked to do something about vocabulary learning with

English language learners and so I also brought some books over

here that I have used a lot when I was teaching.

And, okay--yeah, that's what we want--usually when I taught,

I like to teach from the big ideas and this was something

from Janette Gordon at the IRC and I don't know if you have

dealt with that kind of teaching structure down here but the big

ideas are--you know they're not topics, they're not details,

they're not objectives, they're the big idea that you want to

have people learn.

And then examples fall under that.

So usually when you would teach under the big ideas--I think

they use this with the [unclear dialogue] method.

So these are the big ideas, they usually post them in the rooms,

these are the big ideas I want you to get out of today.

Vocabulary learning is important for all students,

particularly ELL students.

It is multifaceted and complicated and the learning

involves, learning happens through wide reading

and shared conversations.

It also happens through direct instruction.

Different kinds of words are learned in different kinds of

ways and vocabulary development for first and second language

learners is the same in some ways and different

in some ways, okay.

So those are the big ideas and usually with big ideas what you

really want to do is, you're always going to have

in your class, whether you have English Language learners,

you’re always going to have someone with a little bit

more trouble learning than, than his neighbor.

And there are the things that they can hang their hat on,

you know, they can hang their learning on it.

They’re the ones that maybe don't organize as easily

as the other kids.

Also put on the other side prompts of learning logs.

Learning logs as Randy said this morning doing listening,

speaking, reading and writing is always important, so if you have

lessons that are listening, speaking and reading.

If you want a quick writing component,

a learning log is great.

Some kids are really good at learning logs and they can just

write what they want.

Other kids need a prompt and so we generally do some sort of

scaffolding with those kids and so one prompt is just,

what's the most important big idea I've learned

and then they have to give an example.

They write it and give an example, how does this connect

to what I already know, they'd write it and how is

the knowledge useful, how will it be useful to me.

I did have about 30 copies at home and I didn't realize that

it would be quit so many people here.

So if you want just an example of that, you know, its there.

The other thing that I generally do when I am doing a workshop

is use the ideas that I would do with kids with you,

only on an adult level.

So that's kind of what we're going to do today.

Just as background, entering kindergarten,

the average student knows 5000 words.

Entering 5th grader knows 10,000 words.

Obviously these are averages.

There are big differences for difference in socioeconomic

status so there was a study done that said that higher SES kids--

first graders, this was done on first graders--

know twice as many words as lower SES kids.

So some kids are coming into kindergarten with 1500, 2000

words, some kids are coming in with 500 words

and that's how you got your average.

I'm sorry, yeah your average of, no, okay.

So some kids are coming in with like 10,000 words, some kids are

coming in with 2500 words and that's how you got your average

of 5000 words.

So you're going to have a big range of vocabulary knowledge

no matter where you teach.

No matter if you have English language learners

in your classroom or not.

So when we talk about teaching vocabulary what are we really

talking about and why is it so important?

And so this is an activity-- and I've told you to sit so

you'll be in a comfortably of four.

What I want you to do is first one, talk to your neighbors

about what you did last weekend.

Then we're going to do this for a couple of minutes

then we're going to talk to you're neighbors about frogs,

everything you know about frogs.

Then you're going to write a short paper about frogs

and all you know about them.

The only thing is, you can't use any words with

the letter N in it.

So, you have to not just blank those out of your mind,

you're not going to be able to use those at all.

So if you would just turn to make a small group of four,

no more than four.

So, and I kind of ask that you, and then actually if you have to

move to get in a group of four, stay there when we're done,

because we're going to do groups of four every once in a while.

Okay, so.

[chatting].

[unclear dialogue].

Okay, because we have a short amount of time here I'm going to

cut you short on the telling about your weekend.

And what I want you to do now is to talk about frogs.

You're in school and your teacher has been teaching you

about frogs and you want to--this is in preparation

for writing a paper, a short paper about frogs.

And you want to put everything that you know about frogs

on this paper.

So what I want you to do is to first talk about it,

because as Randy said, the oral part of it, the talking is

really important, the speaking is important to get everyone

on the same page.

And then I want you to actually have somebody be a recorder

and write your report about frogs.

So if you could start that now.

[chatter].

[unclear dialogue].

Okay I really want all of you to try not to use N words, okay so.

Even when you're just talking.

No N words.

[chatter].

[unclear dialogue].

Okay, okay I think we're going together back together.

Face me but sort of stay in your group of four and so that you'll

be able to do this again.

I guess I would like to talk a little bit about

this experience.

What, how did it feel?

>> female student: It was hard and frustrating.

>> Jennifer Hixson. It was hard, why was it hard?

>> female student: We kept saying words with N.

>> Jennifer Hixson: You kept saying words with N.

Think of N words as you're first language so I know I would have

first graders and kindergarten kids who came in and kept

talking to me and their first language for the first couple

of months of school and I'd say, huh?

I mean because I didn't understand it.

But think of those as your first language, those N words.

How did it feel not to be able to use them?

>> female speaker: Frustrating.

>> Jennifer Hixson: Frustrating, and how did it feel

to know a lot more than you can say.

A lot more, so English language learners often have a lot of

background knowledge, not always but they often have a lot of

background knowledge but they can't express it.

So when you're looking at your English language learners and

thinking about vocabulary that's an important factor, okay.

So and that was just a--I wanted you to kind of get in the mood

and I was so glad to hear you talking.

In Urbana we--which is where I taught--we don't often get

Eastern student teachers but when we do we're always

really happy.

I mean we find Eastern Illinois teachers

to be very well prepared.

So I was glad to see you really, really talking here and I wanted

to do something that was kind of interactive--you know,

after lunch everybody's a little bit tired.

So what do you know when you know a word?

First of all we have receptive oral vocabulary, okay.

So do we know, everybody knows what

receptive oral vocabulary is.

Yup, okay.

Productive oral vocabulary, anybody want to tell me,

receptive oral vocabulary is what you--think I'll just go to

the next one--is what you recognize and understand

when you hear it, okay.

Productive oral vocabulary is you can use it

when you're speaking.

Sometimes you can understand a word when you hear it

but particularly in a second language or sometimes when

you're over 65, you just can't think of it.

You kind of know it, it's just not in your

productive vocabulary.

Then there's receptive written vocabulary, obviously you can

recognize it and understand it when you see it while reading.

Do you think receptive oral vocabulary and receptive written

vocabulary are necessarily the same things?

Are they the same set of words?

Nope, she's saying no.

And you're right, sometimes they aren't.

Productive written vocabulary, you can use it when you write.

I got a question for you, which was easier, writing the paper

or speaking about frogs?

Writing about frogs or speaking about frogs?

>> audience: Writing.