WEBVTT 00:00:05.006 --> 00:00:06.416 My name is Mary Beth Curtis. 00:00:06.536 --> 00:00:09.566 I'm a Professor of Education here at Lesley University 00:00:09.636 --> 00:00:12.136 where I also direct the Center for Special Education. 00:00:12.476 --> 00:00:15.176 Explicit vocabulary instruction is so important. 00:00:15.536 --> 00:00:18.596 We need to make sure that we explain to students what it is 00:00:18.596 --> 00:00:20.696 about the vocabulary that they need to know. 00:00:21.406 --> 00:00:25.186 We need to make sure that we give them guided practice in applying that knowledge, 00:00:25.186 --> 00:00:29.006 and we need to make sure that we give them independent opportunities then to apply that. 00:00:29.416 --> 00:00:33.826 Very often what happens when we do vocabulary instruction is that we might introduce the words 00:00:33.826 --> 00:00:37.826 at the beginning of the week, might tell the students to look them up in the glossary, 00:00:37.826 --> 00:00:39.756 and at the end of the week we test them. 00:00:39.976 --> 00:00:43.886 Or we might introduce a skill and say, "This might be useful to you," 00:00:43.886 --> 00:00:46.826 and then not refer to it again for quite a long time. 00:00:47.096 --> 00:00:50.256 And when students don't have these multiple opportunities to learn, 00:00:50.506 --> 00:00:52.186 things just don't stick for them. 00:00:52.366 --> 00:00:55.766 So, we want to make sure that they have a number of times 00:00:55.766 --> 00:00:59.226 in which they are encountering the new word meanings or the vocabulary skills. 00:00:59.616 --> 00:01:04.995 And the research tells us that we may need as many as 15 to 20 different encounters in order 00:01:04.995 --> 00:01:09.436 for students to remember what it is that they're learning. 00:01:09.846 --> 00:01:13.846 When we think about vocabulary might look like in a classroom lesson, 00:01:14.356 --> 00:01:19.376 I think it helps sometimes to start with what a typical vocabulary lesson might look like 00:01:19.376 --> 00:01:22.366 and then move on from there to see how maybe we could improve it. 00:01:23.006 --> 00:01:26.486 Very often, I walk into a classroom and the teacher will be teaching a word, 00:01:26.486 --> 00:01:31.026 let's say the word is "persist," and the teacher will write persist up on blackboard 00:01:31.026 --> 00:01:34.576 and then ask, "Does anybody in the class know what persist means?" 00:01:35.126 --> 00:01:38.576 And students will raise their hand and the teacher will call on one student, 00:01:38.576 --> 00:01:40.646 and the student will say, "Persist. 00:01:40.866 --> 00:01:44.036 Persist. That's when you try to get people to do what you want. 00:01:44.036 --> 00:01:45.946 You persist on them doing something." 00:01:46.336 --> 00:01:49.826 And the teacher will pause and say, "No, I think you mean insist. 00:01:50.336 --> 00:01:51.596 This is persist. 00:01:51.856 --> 00:01:54.486 Anybody else, what do you think persist means?" 00:01:54.786 --> 00:01:58.366 And the student might say, "Gee, does it have something to do with the weather?" 00:01:58.906 --> 00:02:04.596 And the teacher will stop and say, "Well, you probably have heard 'cold persisting for a while, 00:02:04.596 --> 00:02:07.006 or 'the rain's going to persist for the rest of the week.' 00:02:07.076 --> 00:02:10.455 But no, no it doesn't have, that's not what it means. 00:02:10.455 --> 00:02:11.676 Maybe if I give you an example. 00:02:11.746 --> 00:02:14.006 Let me put it in context to see whether you know: 00:02:14.326 --> 00:02:17.316 When I couldn't get it done right away, I needed to persist. 00:02:17.316 --> 00:02:18.226 I persisted. 00:02:18.296 --> 00:02:19.076 Does that help? 00:02:19.076 --> 00:02:19.996 What do you think it means?" 00:02:19.996 --> 00:02:22.056 Another student will raise their hand and say, 00:02:22.506 --> 00:02:24.416 "When you couldn't get it done right away, you quit." 00:02:25.096 --> 00:02:27.266 And another student will say, "Maybe it means cry." 00:02:27.896 --> 00:02:30.096 And the student, who says it means getting people 00:02:30.096 --> 00:02:32.936 to do it your way says, "That's what I said it meant." 00:02:33.746 --> 00:02:36.416 So, let's stop and see what's happened in this scenario. 00:02:36.416 --> 00:02:39.336 I mean, what's good about it is that the teacher has shown the word. 00:02:39.336 --> 00:02:40.646 The students have seen it. 00:02:41.296 --> 00:02:45.406 The teacher has tried to get students to think about what they already know about the word. 00:02:45.786 --> 00:02:49.776 What doesn't work in it is that the students didn't really know anything about the word, 00:02:49.776 --> 00:02:52.366 and so now we've spent quite a bit of instructional time, 00:02:52.596 --> 00:02:55.116 and we still haven't gotten the correct meaning of the word out, 00:02:55.116 --> 00:02:58.436 and the students have heard a lot of incorrect information. 00:02:59.516 --> 00:03:01.726 So, let's think about how the teacher could have done it differently. 00:03:02.376 --> 00:03:07.046 Again, the teacher comes in, writes "persist" up on the board, and says to the students, 00:03:07.116 --> 00:03:09.086 "Persist means to keep on trying. 00:03:09.516 --> 00:03:11.226 It means to refuse to give up. 00:03:11.756 --> 00:03:14.106 This morning my internet service went out, 00:03:14.106 --> 00:03:17.106 and I really had to persist to get the internet service back. 00:03:17.106 --> 00:03:19.236 I had to call up on the telephone. 00:03:19.236 --> 00:03:20.426 I got a busy signal. 00:03:20.426 --> 00:03:21.456 I had to try again. 00:03:21.506 --> 00:03:22.876 I had to be persistent. 00:03:23.136 --> 00:03:25.086 Once I got through, I got put on hold. 00:03:25.086 --> 00:03:28.956 I had to keep trying and trying for them to connect me. 00:03:29.276 --> 00:03:31.416 And finally, because I persisted, 00:03:31.416 --> 00:03:35.686 I was able to get my internet service back because I refused to give up. 00:03:36.496 --> 00:03:39.406 We think about athletes sometimes having to persist. 00:03:39.406 --> 00:03:42.436 They really refuse to give up in order to be successful. 00:03:42.876 --> 00:03:46.886 Who can think of an athlete that might have had to be persistent in their career?" 00:03:47.766 --> 00:03:51.616 And then the students would answer, and you have a discussion about that. 00:03:51.666 --> 00:03:56.536 The teacher might say, "To be successful in school, some of you have had to persist. 00:03:56.536 --> 00:03:57.966 You have had to refuse to give up. 00:03:58.246 --> 00:04:00.786 Who can think of a time when they had to persist in school? 00:04:00.856 --> 00:04:03.136 When they refused to give up, they kept on trying?" 00:04:03.506 --> 00:04:05.596 So, that might be the first day of instruction. 00:04:05.596 --> 00:04:09.366 The next day or the next time we talk about this particular vocabulary word, 00:04:09.666 --> 00:04:13.346 the teacher might say to the students, "We've been talking about persistence. 00:04:13.346 --> 00:04:15.206 We have been talking about persist, remember? 00:04:15.206 --> 00:04:17.886 That means to keep on trying, to refuse to give up. 00:04:18.286 --> 00:04:23.466 What I'd like you to do now in small groups is talk about when persist is a good thing 00:04:24.016 --> 00:04:25.496 and when it might be a bad thing. 00:04:25.576 --> 00:04:30.096 So, I want each group to come up with an example of when it's good and when it might not be 00:04:30.406 --> 00:04:32.806 to your benefit to persist, to keep on trying. 00:04:33.846 --> 00:04:35.756 Another day, the teacher might come in and say, 00:04:35.756 --> 00:04:40.716 "You've all had a chance to think about this word persist, 00:04:40.716 --> 00:04:43.126 which means keep on trying, refusing to give up. 00:04:43.126 --> 00:04:48.466 What I would like you to do now is each write a little story about when you've had to persist, 00:04:48.466 --> 00:04:51.116 a situation that you've had to persist in." 00:04:51.706 --> 00:04:57.836 So, those are all ways in which the teacher can repeat the number of occurrences with persist, 00:04:58.856 --> 00:05:01.806 in multiple contexts, in varied contexts. 00:05:01.936 --> 00:05:05.616 They're active and generative tasks, and the teacher started out with direct 00:05:05.616 --> 00:05:08.906 and explicit instruction in order to help them with the meaning.