How can I improve the way I teach vocabulary : to my 3rd grade students at Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura?

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(1)“How can I improve the way I teach vocabulary to my 3rd grade students at Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura?” Paula Navarro Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Lecturer: Pablo Silva Tutor: Carlos Verdugo Santiago, Chile. November 2016.

(2) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 2. Table of Contents. Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 4 Context ................................................................................................................................... 6 Research Question ................................................................................................................. 8 Rationale ................................................................................................................................ 9 Literature Review ................................................................................................................. 11 Methodology......................................................................................................................... 16 Reflective observation sheets ............................................................................................ 16 Students’ tasks in class ..................................................................................................... 17 Short-Quizzes .................................................................................................................... 18 Action Plan ....................................................................................................................... 19 Change of class focus .............................................................................................. 19 Class routine ............................................................................................................ 19 Vocabulary-related activities ................................................................................... 20 Vocabulary-related assessments .............................................................................. 21 Action Plan Timeline ........................................................................................................ 23 Data Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 24 Participants ....................................................................................................................... 24 Evidence ............................................................................................................................ 24 Short-Quizzes ........................................................................................................ 25 Students’ tasks in class .......................................................................................... 29 Reflection Observation Sheets .............................................................................. 31 Reflection and Analysis of intervention .............................................................................. 33 Conclusions and Implications ............................................................................................. 35 References ............................................................................................................................ 38 Appendix .............................................................................................................................. 40 Appendix A.1: Sample of Reflective observation sheets ................................................... 40 Appendix A.2: Record of students’ tasks .......................................................................... 42 Appendix A.3: Sample of short-quizzes applied during action plan ................................. 45 Appendix A.4: Completed Reflection Observation Sheets ................................................ 49.

(3) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 3. Abstract This Action Research seeks to improve an educational situation in relation to how to teach vocabulary to young learners. The research was developed according the steps proposed by Anne Burns (2010). It was carried out in a 3rd grade of the school San Pedro de Quilicura. The whole process took three months to be completed, approximately. The intervention carried out consisted of changing the focus of the class, in order to focus on the development of listening and speaking skills. Also, different strategies, mostly games, were applied in order to improve students’ vocabulary learning. The results of the research show that the intervention was successful, since all the students were able to demonstrate progress in four lessons. Key Concepts: Young Learners, Vocabulary Teaching, Teaching Strategies. Resumen Esta investigación busca encontrar estrategias que me ayuden a mejorar la forma en que estoy enseñando vocabulario a mis estudiantes de 3ero básico de la San Pedro de Quilicura. La investigación sigue los pasos propuestos por Anne Burns (2010) y duró aproximadamente tres meses. La intervención realizada en clases consistió en primera instancia en cambiar el enfoque de la clase, dando prioridad al desarrollo de habilidades relacionadas con escuchar y hablar. También se implementaron diversas estrategias, en su mayoría juegos, que tenían como fin mejorar la enseñanza de vocabulario. Los resultados de la investigación muestran que esta tuvo éxito ya que en solo cuatro clases, los estudiantes mostraron mejora. Conceptos clave: Enseñanza de niños pequeños, Enseñanza de vocabulario, Estrategias para enseñar..

(4) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 4. Introduction. This paper follows the Action Research structure proposed by Burns (2010). Action Research is a process that enables teachers and people on the education field, to improve an educational situation while reflecting on a specific context. Through this paper, I seek to reflect upon my teaching practice as a teacher of English, specifically focusing on my skills to teach vocabulary to young learners. This research was carried out in the 3rd grade C of a school located in Quilicura, Santiago. I decided to explore this topic since I noticed that the strategies I was using to teach vocabulary were wrong, since at the end of the class my students would still not have learnt many of the words. Furthermore, many times, this problem would cause that my lesson objective would not be achieved. This document is divided into several parts, according to the steps of Action Research. First, you will find the Context, section in which you will learn about the school and the class in which this research was developed. Second, you will find the Research Question. In this section you become informed of the very heart and main focus of the research. The next section is the Rationale in which I share the main reasons I had to undertake this project, and also, the desired outcome of the research. Fourth, the Literature Review; this section provides you with the main theoretical concepts and beliefs in which the research is based upon. In the Methodology section, you will be able to read about the instruments used to collect data in order to validate the research, and also, about the participants and the intervention carried out to improve my vocabulary teaching. The next section you will find is the Data Analysis part. Here, I analyze the evidence provided by.

(5) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 5. the instruments described in the previous section. Next is the Reflection and Analysis of the Intervention. Finally, you will find the Conclusions and Implications section in which I reflect upon the outcomes of the entire process of this Action Research and how this whole process impacts on my professional growth..

(6) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 6. Context. The research was conducted in a school located in Quilicura, Santiago. This is a coeducational, catholic institution. This school’s main objective is to enable students with lifelong tools allowing them to become active, reflective, and positive members of society. There are around 1440 students attending this school, and most of them live in the same district. The school has classes that go from preschool to 12th grade. There are three levels per grade. The number of students per classroom is approximately 40. Students in this school have English classes since preschool, and weekly Englishclass hours change depending on the grade in which students are. Primary students until 4th grade have two pedagogical hours, that is to say, a 90 minute-class a week. This institution’s objective in relation to English is to give the students the necessary language skills for them to be able to communicate at a basic level. In relation to the resources available for teachers to use during classes, there are two LCD televisions, a computer lab with access to internet, and a data show (this one is available because it belongs to the English department). Also, there is an interactive board, but none of the teachers in the school uses it, since they are not instructed in the use of said device. Teachers have to book these resources in advance, and often there are issues among them because of the lack of resources. In addition, there is one classroom designated as “the English classroom”, although it is mainly used only by one of the teachers of English. This classroom does not have any English-specific feature; only that it is called “the English classroom”..

(7) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 7. This research was conducted in the 3rd grade C of the school. There are 34 students in this class. Student’s knowledge of the language is mostly related to vocabulary on the following topics: numbers from 1 to 20, colors, seasons of the year, family members, animals, and shapes. They own the textbook provided by the Ministry of Education but it is not used during class, since the teacher provides the material for the lesson. In general, these students are eager to learn. They seem motivated towards the subject, since they actively participate in class by asking questions, sharing their answers to teachers’ questions, or performing different tasks. However, despite of the students’ good disposition to learn, I have perceived that the way in which I have been teaching vocabulary could be improved. So far, I have used flash-cards, picture books, TPR, point at objects, and drawings, with no more than 10 words at a time, but it seems that there is something I am not doing right, since at the end of the class some students still ask me “what was the meaning of this word?”. This question and similar ones are repetitive, not only in this class, but also throughout the other classes I teach in the school (all of them with young learners). Furthermore, the fact that students ask this type of questions just before ending the class makes me think that my class objectives are not met entirely. Moreover, after my university tutor went to observe one of my lessons, part of the feedback I received included paying more attention to the way I was teaching vocabulary. This situation re-assured my impression towards the fact that I could improve the techniques I am using to teach vocabulary so that the learning of it actually occurs..

(8) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 8. Research Question. Taking into consideration that I have not been able to succeed entirely at the teaching of vocabulary with my 3rd grade C, the question that will guide this research is the following: “How can I improve the way I teach vocabulary to my 3rd grade students at Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura?”.

(9) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 9. Rationale. According to several authors (Cameron, Nation, Read, etc.) vocabulary is one of the key elements in learning any language; it is what allows us to communicate. Therefore, being able to properly teach vocabulary is one of the many skills a teacher of English has to have. In this sense, the main reason I am conducting this research is to improve my teaching practice and become a better professional, not only for me, but also for my students, since the fact that I could improve the way I am teaching vocabulary might directly benefit their learning process. I have realized that the fact of not being able to teach vocabulary properly impacts my students’ working pace, since they get lost during the activities or do not remember the vocabulary from previous lessons. At the same time, lessons’ objectives are not always met, due to the same reason. Therefore, I expect that through this research, I find strategies that allow me to teach vocabulary to my young learner students in a way that is meaningful for them. Also, I hope that the advantage of implementing these new strategies in my classroom might be directly reflected in my students’ class performance, for example, meeting the lesson objective without any problem. On a more personal level, I have the conviction that by improving my teaching practice, and as a consequence of the outcomes from the lessons, I might encourage and motivate myself to continue developing as a professional in order to do a good work. In addition, I strongly believe that the findings of this research might be useful for other educators and professionals in the field questioning their abilities of teaching.

(10) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 10. vocabulary to young learners, since this research not only deals with a contextual problem, but also with one of the skills that all teachers should develop in order to teach properly..

(11) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 11. Literature Review. Vocabulary is one of the topics in language learning that has been largely discussed, since it has taken different roles within the different approaches throughout time. According to Read (2000), “words are the basic building blocks of language, the units of meaning from which larger structures such as sentences, paragraphs and whole texts are formed” (p.1). Schmitt (2000) states that vocabulary not only deals with words as single meaning units, but also with multiword units, these are called lexemes or lexical units, “an item that functions as a single meaning unit, regardless of the numbers of words it contains” (p.2), such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and chunks. “Word knowledge” is the term used to describe the aspects taken into account to be able to say that one really knows a lexical item. Knowing a word does not only entail knowing the meaning of it. Several more aspects are considered in word knowledge. As Schmitt (2000) explains, there are eight dimension of knowing a word:        . Meaning(s) of the word. Written form of the word. Spoken form of the word. Grammatical behaviour of the word. Collocations of the word. Register of the word. Associations of the word. Frequency of the word. “Most or all of them are necessary to be able to use a word in the wide. variety of language situations one comes across. The different types of word knowledge are not necessarily learned at the same time, however” (Schmitt, 2000 p.5). Furthermore,.

(12) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 12. Nation (2001) divides types of word knowledge into three categories: Form, meaning and use. Also, different kinds of learning and activities are suggested for each type of word knowledge.. Kinds of word knowledge. Kinds of learning. Form. Implicit learning involving Repeated meetings as in noticing repeated reading. Meaning. Strong explicit learning. Depth of processing through the use of images, elaboration, deliberate inferencing.. Grammar collocation. Implicit learning. repetition. Constraints on use. Explicit learning. Explicit feedback. Use. Activities. guidance. and. Figure 1: Types of knowledge and activities.. Taking into account that this research deals with young learners’ vocabulary learning, it is key to mention that this kind of learners, although eager and motivated to learn, are not able yet of analyzing language. In Cameron (2001) words, “they do not have the same access as older learners to meta-language that teachers can use to explain about grammar or discourse” (p. 1). Young learners between the ages of 7 and 8, in this case 3rd grade students’ participants of this research are, according to Piaget’s (1954a) developmental theory, going through a cognitive stage called “concrete operational stage”. This stage is characterized by the rise of logical mental operations (such as additions) in relation to concrete aspects of reality, and the decentralization of the self, that is to say, they are no longer as egocentric as they used to be in previous stages. According to Cameron (2001), Piaget’s cognitive theory allows us to think about the “child as an active learner and.

(13) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 13. thinker, constructing his or her own knowledge from working with objects or ideas” (p. 5). Taking this into account, it could be said that the English class should be meaningful for students since it allows them to make sense of their world through a different language, “we can think of the classroom and classroom activities as creating and offering opportunities to learners for learning” (Cameron, 2001. p.5). In addition, Vygotsky (1962) states that learning does not occur in isolation. On the contrary, it happens through socialization. Adults, or more capable peers, are crucial in children’s development since they “mediate the world for children and make it accessible to them” (Cameron, 2001. p.6). This relation, of more capable peers giving access to learning, is explained through the term ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD) coined by Vygotsky (1962). This theory enounces that learning occurs through the internalization of symbols and cultural practices; then, the presence of a more capable peer (a teacher for example) is required to help scaffold new meaning to said symbols and cultural practices. Cameron (2001) states that one of the uses of ZPD in teaching English as second/foreign language, can be to determine what the student is ready to learn next. Bearing in mind that young learners of a foreign language are just learning to read and write in their mother tongue, then, listening and speaking is the way in which they should be related to the new language (Cameron, 2001). As Cameron (2001) puts it, “rather than oral skills being simply one aspect of learning language, the spoken form in the younger learner classroom acts as the prime source and site of language learning” (p.18). In this regard, Cameron (2001) suggests that teachers of young learners should pay attention.

(14) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 14. to words and interactions, since this is the way in which children “seek out meanings” (p.18). Also, Cameron (2001, p.62) proposes some activities which could be useful when teaching new vocabulary to young learners (in these examples he uses vocabulary related to animals to illustrate the activities, but it can be of use with almost any vocabulary): . Listen and identify: Using images, the teacher says the name of the animal and the student points at it. A more complex activity that requires more language understanding from part of the students could be that the teacher describes the animal and the students have to identify it. Once the students have internalized the game, they can play it between them.. . Bingo: Students choose six animals (I believe this could be played either with images or words if we want to put emphasis on reading vocabulary), and as the teacher says the names or characteristics of the animals, students turn over the cards. The first to turn over all the cards has to say bingo and is the winner.. . Listen and take away: Students start with a full set of pictures/cards and as the teacher says animals’ characteristics, for example “take away all the jungle animals”, this continues until all the students have only one remaining animal. They all should have the same animal. Cameron (2001) explains that this kind of activities allows the teacher to know immediately if students understood the vocabulary or not. These, and many more activities can be found in Cameron’s (2001) book (see References page)..

(15) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 15. Also, Schmitt (2000) states that synonyms and antonyms are often used by teachers to explain new vocabulary; while this may work at some level (with fixed meaning words such as nouns) this ‘technique’ has its limitations since, “ words that represent categories usually require more information to give students an adequate understanding of their meaning” (p.29). Schmitt (2000) suggests that this could be a “perfectly good method for giving the initial impression of a word’s meaning” (p.29) as in the case of young learners who are just beginning to get exposed to the target language. Furthermore, Slattery and Willis (2001) explain that one successful practice when teaching young learners vocabulary is to start with things they already know such as elements in their classroom or daily life activities. This is closely related to Piaget’s idea of students as sense makers. Slattery and Willis (2001) also suggest that TPR (Total Physical Response) can be a good strategy to make children acquainted with new vocabulary. In addition, research suggests that young learner students can be benefited from the use of visual stimuli (whether it is picture of objects or printed words) at the time of learning new vocabulary (Kottsieper, 2014). Moreover, Sakellariou (2014) states that storybook reading can help young students learn new vocabulary. The concepts described above relate to each other, and are relevant to the research, in the sense that it is necessary to take all of them into account to be able to teach vocabulary to young learners..

(16) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 16. Methodology. In this section you will find the instruments, with their respective descriptions, and the procedures used for collecting data throughout this research. It is important to mention that all the instruments to collect data were implemented at the same points in time, that is to say, during each lesson in the action plan stage of the research. Further on this section you will also find the description of the action plan and implementation timeline. Data collection instruments and procedures for collecting data: Reflective observation sheets: Burns (2010) estates that through observation we can become aware of things that happen in our research context that we were not conscious before. Therefore, in order to collect information about how the lessons developed along the action plan stage, this is the first instrument used for data collection in the research. Reflection observation sheets, as proposed by Burns (2010) are a system of note taking in which the teacher-researcher writes comments about specific events during the lesson, which is important, since it permits the teacher-researcher to give his/her point of view about what happens during the lessons. Also, this instrument allows the teacher-researcher to reflect upon the self-practice. The reflective observation sheets (see Appendix A.1) used for this research have categories in order to maintain the focus of the research aligned with the areas of interest, in this case the teaching of vocabulary to young learners. Moreover, there are four questions at the end of each observation sheet to help with the reflective process of each lesson. These questions are the following: . How did I feel during the lesson?.

(17) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 17. . Where the students able to meet the objective of the lesson?. . What worked as expected and what did not?. . What should I improve?. In relation to how this instrument is used throughout the research, it is worth mentioning that they will be completed during and right after each lesson of the intervention. . Students’ tasks in class: Anything produced by the learner can become an instrument for data collection, since it reflects their internal processes of learning. Bearing that in mind, specific tasks produced during the lessons, by the students (such as drawings, short sentences, or exit tickets), are the second instrument used in this research. The tasks produced by the students are evidence of their process of vocabulary learning; there it lays the importance of using tasks as a data collection method. The evidence obtained from this instrument was collected throughout the four lessons that the intervention lasted. In order to keep track of students’ progress in class, a record of their completed tasks was created. The record shows a number assigned to each student (in order to protect them), the date of the task, and the percentage of success of the task (100%= excellent, 50%= needs improvement and, 0%= does not finish the task). It is important to mention that most of the activities carried out during the lessons were focused on the speaking skill; therefore, the percentage on the record also considers the students’ speaking time and participation during the lesson. In the illustration below you can find the.

(18) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 18. tasks considered in the register and an example of how the table was used (To see the entire sample go to Appendix A.2).. Illustration 1: Students’ tasks. . Short-Quizzes: In order to assess students’ vocabulary learning in a way that was not as threatening for them as a test could be, short-quizzes were to be applied at the beginning of each class (see illustration 2 below). This instrument allowed me to collect information related to the vocabulary learning process of the students class by class. Taking into account that I focused mainly on the aspects of vocabulary concerning listening and meaning, these quizzes required the students to draw, select, and number accordingly (See all the samples in Appendix A.3).. Illustration 2: Sample of short-quiz.

(19) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 19. The implementation of the three instruments described above should provide the necessary information in order to know if the strategies applied to improve my teaching of vocabulary were actually useful or not. The evidence collected during this process was triangulated in order to validate the research, and also, to allow me to obtain clear conclusions on the process of improving my practice in the aspect of teaching vocabulary. Action Plan Taking into account that this research has to do with the improvement of vocabulary teaching, the intervention carried out in the 3rd grade C consisted in the application of strategies dealing with the teaching of vocabulary to young learners. These strategies were applied during the four lessons that the intervention lasted. The intervention was carried out throughout the month of October of 2016. All the activities in this intervention deal with the topic ‘Clothes’ since that is the unit students had to review. Change of class focus: The first decision made to implement during the class was to stop focusing on the written forms of the words to start paying more attention to the meaning and pronunciation of words. As mentioned earlier in the literature review section, learners this age and context are still developing their L1. Therefore, paying more attention to meaning and spoken forms of the word would benefit their learning of the L2 more than focusing on writing only. Class routine: Second, a routine before the class was implemented. Before this intervention, students would say hello to the teacher and start the class. During the intervention, the teacher would greet students, and before starting the class, ask them about.

(20) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 20. their weekend, their mood, the date, and the weather. The purpose of this strategy was to change students’ mind set to English and prepare them for the class. Vocabulary-related activities: The activities dealing with vocabulary teaching during the intervention were the following: . Point and say: This activity was used in order to present new vocabulary. As this vocabulary was new to students, a lot of drilling was involved. Students were asked to look at a flashcard or drawing on the board and as they pointed an object they would say the object’s name. First, the teacher modeled the activity and students would repeat. No more than 5 new words were added per class. Once students had repeated the words several times, the teacher would ask, for example: “Where’s the t-shirt?” and students would point at the object and say its name..  Simon- Says: This activity was used also to reinforce the teaching of new vocabulary. After doing the ‘point and say’, students would play ‘Simon says’, game in which a lot of TPR can be done, so it helps students remember vocabulary. In this case, as the unit was about clothes, the sentence we would use was “Simon says put on your + a clothing item”.  Bingo: Students were given a bingo card containing clothing items’ pictures instead of numbers as in a normal bingo game. They were asked to cross out the items they heard and the first student to cross all the items out would win.  Board race: Students were divided into 4 groups. Each group was standing in line facing the board. There was one marker per group. Going to the.

(21) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 21. board one by one, students had to write as many words as they could, related to clothing, in 3 minutes. Words could not be repeated, and the group with more correct words would win. As mentioned before, the lesson’s focus was not put into writing, therefore misspelled words were corrected but counted as good anyway, since it was the meaning of the words that I wanted to find out whether students knew or not.  Video-based activity: Students watched a video in which they had to identify different objects in order to answer questions such as “how many coats does the girl wear? or how many purses does the girl carry?”  Draw and say: In this activity, students were put into different weather situations. They were asked to draw themselves wearing an outfit, for example, in winter. After that, they were asked to show the rest of the class what they draw and describe it to their classmates. The model sentence students used to do this was the following: “It’s winter/summer/spring/fall and I’m wearing…”  Fashion show: To perform this activity, students were assigned a season, and they were asked to bring to class an outfit for the season they were assigned to. The seats were arranged so it would emulate a fashion runway. Students were asked to walk the runway and describe their outfit. Vocabulary-related assessments: Whether it was formative, for example, in form of a question during the lesson, or in a more traditional form of assessing such as a quiz, students were also exposed to assessment..

(22) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 22. . Short-Quiz: As a way to assess students’ progress in relation to their learning of new vocabulary, a set of four short quizzes were implemented at the beginning of each lesson. It is important to mention that as the lessons went by and new vocabulary was presented to the students, the short-quizzes varied in the assessed vocabulary, that is to say, new vocabulary was taken into account when applying the short-quizzes. In the first short-quiz, implemented on October 4th, students were asked to draw the. clothing item they heard. In the second short-quiz, implemented on October 11th, students were given a handout with pictures of clothing items. They were asked to draw a circle of a specific color around a specific item as they hear the teacher mention them. For the third short-quiz, implemented on October 18th, students were given a handout in which they had to draw and classify the clothing items they heard, according to the season. Finally, in the fourth short-quiz, students were given a handout with ten clothing items’ pictures. Students were asked to number the items as they heard them. This shortquiz was implemented on October 25th..

(23) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 23. Action Plan Timeline In figure 2, it is possible to see the stages followed throughout the research. Literature Review. Research Methodology. Action Plan Implementation. Data Collection. Data Analysis. Findings and Conclusion. Sept 5th/Sept 18th Sept 19th/Sept 30th Oct 2nd First draft delivery Oct 3rd/ Oct 23rd Oct 24th/ Nov 3rd Nov 14th Second draft delivery Nov 14th/ Nov 26th Nov 30th Final delivery. Figure 2: Timeline of the research..

(24) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 24. Data Analysis. Participants The data for this research was gathered in the 3rd grade C of the school Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura. In this class there are 34 students registered, but on an average, there were 26 students present each lesson during the time the data was collected. This class has English lessons that last two pedagogical-hours per week, that is to say, 90 minutes. Some of the students are having English lessons for the first time in their life, since they are new in the school, the rest of the class have had English lessons since 1st grade. Their previous knowledge of English is mostly related to vocabulary on the following topics: colors, numbers from 1 to 20, members of the family, the weather, animals, shapes, and the seasons of the year, which was corroborated in different questions asked during the routine part of the lessons. Students in this class participate vigorously during the lessons. However, there are three students that have disrupted the class in several opportunities. Furthermore, these students do not like to do all the activities proposed by the teachers, not only during the English lessons, but during all of their lessons. In order to deal with this situation, I have given them little tasks to perform during class, such as helping me to spread worksheets, or erasing the board, but it did not work as well as I expected, since they started talking with other classmates as they gave out the worksheets. Evidence The evidence collected for this research was gathered during four English lessons. All the instruments used for data collection were applied during and after each lesson from October 4th to October 25th..

(25) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 25. Short-Quizzes The short-quizzes were applied at the beginning of each lesson, after the routine. I strongly believe that the fact that this instrument was applied before the class began, would truly indicate how much vocabulary students remembered from the previous lesson, one week before. The first short-quiz, in which students had to draw the clothing item they heard, was answered by 28 students. From those 28 students, one of them was present for the first time in a month after a medical leave. The clothing items students were asked to draw were: hat, swimsuit, coat, and sneakers. The findings of the implementation of the first short-quiz shows that four out of twenty eight students were able to fully meet the objective of the quiz. Moreover, 42% of the class had three correct answers, that is to say, twelve students out of twenty eight students. Also, as shown in figure 3, three out of twenty eight students, including the student that was absent for a month, had zero correct answers.. Short-Quiz n°1 0 Correct Answers. . 1 2. 3 4. 0. 2. 4. 6. 8. 10. 12. 14. Students. Figure 3: Short-quiz n°1.

(26) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 26. In addition, there is one particular outcome of this quiz that called my attention. Most of the students, even though they were asked only to draw a picture of the word they heard, also tried to write the words. These words students wrote were misspelled, but one was able to recognize that they know the meaning of the words they were trying to write. Regarding the implementation of the second short-quiz one week later, as figure 4 indicates, there are five students who were able to answer the whole quiz correctly. The graph also shows that eight students out of twenty seven had only one wrong answer. Furthermore, there are seven students that did not fail the quiz, but did not fully meet the objective of the quiz either, obtaining between two to three correct answers.. Short-Quiz n°2. Correct Answers. 0 1 2 3 4 0. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Number of Students. Figure 4: Short-quiz n°2 Comparing the results from the two first short-quizzes, it is possible to say that there is a small degree of improvement from the implementation of the first short-quiz to the implementation of the second one. The results of the first short-quiz show that there were.

(27) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 27. three students that did not get any answer right, while after implementing the second shortquiz, all the students present in the class got at least one answer right. Also, it is important to say that the number of students who were able to fully meet the objective of the shortquiz increased in one number from the first implementation to the second. The third short-quiz was answered by twenty six students. This short-quiz took into account four new words added to students’ vocabulary during the previous class. As it is possible to appreciate in figure 5, there were seven students that obtained less than five correct answers in the short-quiz. Comparing these results with the results of the first shortquiz, the number of students able to obtain the maximum score increased in two.. Correct Answers. Short-Quiz n°3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Number of Students. Figure 5: Short-quiz n°3 Also, there is one student that was not able to answer the short-quiz and therefore had zero correct answers, but in comparison with the previous results, and taking into account that this quiz considered new vocabulary, the progress made from the first week to the second one is still valid..

(28) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 28. Finally, the last short-quiz was answered by twenty three students. This short-quiz also included new vocabulary, additional to the vocabulary considered for the previous short-quizzes. In this short-quiz, students were asked to number ten clothing items according to what they heard. As it is possible to observe in figure 6, there were two students that could not answer the quiz. One of those students was retrieved from the classroom shortly after starting the implementation of the quiz (see Appendix A.3 Reflection Observation Sheet October 25th). The rest of the class obtained at least three correct answers, while the greater part of the class (sixteen students) got more than half of the answers right. Five students were able to fully meet the objective of the short-quiz, which was to number all the clothing items accordingly. In comparison to the last short-quiz, the number of students with all the correct answers decreased in one, but, it is important to bear in mind that attendance during the day of the implementation of the short-quiz was the lowest of all weeks.. Short-Quiz n°4 Correct Answers. 0 2 4 6 8 10 0. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Number of Students. Figure 6: Short-quiz n°4.

(29) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 29. Taking into account the results of the short-quizzes throughout the whole process, it is possible to say that in general, there was a gradual and slight increase in the number of students with correct answers. On the contrary, even though at the end of the process there were students that still were not able to obtain correct answers, the number of students in this situation decreased.. . Students’ tasks in class In order to be able to measure students’ learning process within the lessons, the main tasks done by the students during class were taken into account. The tasks students did during the lessons, and their participation in oral activities, were measured in percentages. The main tasks, whether written or oral were assigned different percentages. On one hand, students who would finish their task and participate actively in class obtained 100% on each task. On the other hand, students that did not always finish their tasks or did not participate much obtained 50%, meaning that the student can improve something. Finally, the students that did not participate at all or did not finish his/her task obtained 0%. You can find the chart with the information of each student in Appendix A.2. Throughout the whole process, there were nine tasks registered. In order to analyze the results of the instrument, the first task and the last one were taken into consideration. The first task required the students to watch a video and answer different questions. In order to answer the questions, they had to identify different clothing items that appeared on the video. The last activity was a fashion show in.

(30) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 30. which the students themselves were the models. In this task, the students were asked to describe their outfit and say the season of the year they represented. During the first task, there were 28 students present. As figure 7 shows, only ten students out of twenty eight were able to comply with all the requirements of the task. Fourteen of them had something to improve or did not participate as expected in the activity. Finally, four students did not participate nor answer correctly to any of the questions of the task.. Task 1 0%. 50%. 100% 0. 2. 4. 6. 8. 10. 12. 14. 16. Number of students. Figure 7: Task 1 The day of task nine there were twenty three students present. Figure 8 indicates that there was not a single student incapable of performing at least a part of the task. There were four students that had something to improve in their task. These improvements were mostly pronunciation mistakes, or that they forgot to mention something. The rest of the class, as figure 8 indicates, was able to meet the objective of the lesson without any problem..

(31) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 31. Task 9 0%. 50%. 100% 0. 5. 10. 15. 20. Number of Students. Figure 8: Task 9. Taking into account students’ tasks allowed me not only to appreciate the whole process of learning of my students, but also to identify the activities that had the most impact on them. Also, keeping a record of the students who participated the most is a good system to recognize those students that do not participate as expected.. . Reflection Observation Sheets Considering the objective of this research, that is to say, improving my teaching performance at the moment of teaching vocabulary, the reflection observation sheets (go to Appendix A.4 to see the four complete observation sheets) helped me to analyze what happened during each lesson. It is possible to state that at the end of the first lesson, several students were not able to meet the objectives of the lesson, despite of their active.

(32) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 32. participation during the different activities. Also, students kept on asking for the meaning of the words, even though in previous activities they had identified the words correctly. After analyzing the second reflection observation sheet, one can realize that students still had problems to remember vocabulary, but once they remembered it, they were able to use it. This leads me to think that they know the vocabulary, since they can use it to communicate something. Moreover, almost all the students present during this lesson were able to carry out the last activity, so it could be said that they indeed reached the objective of the lesson. The results obtained from the third observation sheet indicate that the incorporation of new vocabulary through drilling and TPR was a success with almost all the students. Also, it is possible to state that this kind of activities, at the end, encourages students to speak. I am able to say this, since after this kind activity, students volunteered to speak, which was a total surprise. Finally, the last observation sheet portrays that almost all the students were able to identify and use the vocabulary they learnt throughout the four lessons, in which new strategies were applied. In the final activity, some students needed a little push to start speaking, but despite of that, they were totally capable of using the vocabulary. This instrument not only allowed me to reflect upon what happened during the lessons in relation to vocabulary learning, but also made me aware of other aspects of my teaching that could be improved, for example the timing within each activity, and also how I am dealing with disruptive behavior during the lessons..

(33) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 33. Reflection and Analysis of intervention. In this section, I provide a reflection based upon the process of implementing the strategies in order to improve my vocabulary teaching practice, and the results of the data analyzed above. In general, it can be said that the evidence shows a positive tendency in relation to the response of the students to the different strategies used during the time that the intervention lasted. Moreover, this tendency allows me to answer the question guiding this research. Through the analysis of the data, I was able to get an idea of which of the decisions made during the intervention were more effective in order to achieve the goal of the research. To begin, I can say that it was entirely positive to change the class focus from writing to listening and speaking. It does not mean that students did not write at all, but it was intended to put more emphasis on the development of students’ listening and speaking skills. Taking this into account, all the activities proposed to the students were thought to make them recognize vocabulary by listening, identify vocabulary by looking at pictures, drawings, or videos, and finally, to be able to use such vocabulary. In relation to how students reacted to the activities, it is possible to say that they were very participative, and at the end of the process, almost all the students were able to correctly use the vocabulary. Looking at the analysis of the data collected, I was able to realize that some students not only were able to meet the objective of the activities proposed, and use the vocabulary as expected, but also did more than it was asked; for example, when playing “Simon Says” one of the students asked to say the command and.

(34) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 34. after that the rest of the students wanted to do it too. I strongly believe that this situation also speaks of the good learning environment fostered in the classroom, since the students felt confident enough as to offer to speak. Taking into account the instruments used during the intervention to gather information about the process, what impacted me the most was that two of the instruments, not only served me to collect information regarding the teaching and learning of vocabulary during the class, but also to discover other aspects I should pay attention to; for example, through the tasks list, I was able to realize that some student were not participating as much as others, and therefore, it was my duty to make them part of the class. To conclude, I am able to say that the results of the data analysis demonstrate that almost all the students were able to make progress, just in four lessons, which I consider is little time for students this age to learn. Maybe, the fact that they learned mostly by playing different games played an important role in the students’ learning process. Therefore, I can say that the activities that involved playing were the most successful with this class..

(35) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 35. Conclusions and Implications. This Action Research, which followed the steps proposed by Burns (2010), aimed to improve my vocabulary teaching practice to young learners students. In this section I provide a depiction of the final thoughts regarding this research, and also the limitations within the process. The fact that an educational situation can be improved through the process of Action Research is of great importance. In this case, I used Action Research to improve the way in which I was teaching vocabulary to young learners. Before undertaking this process my beliefs towards vocabulary teaching lead me to make several mistakes when teaching my 3rd grade students. Now, after carrying out this research I am able to say that because of the psychological stages in which these type of students are, in order to learn vocabulary, they need a lot of input in terms of listening and speaking. What worked with this group, were all the game-based activities, I strongly believe that by playing, students learned without even noticing. In terms of what this research means to me, and my development as a professional, I can say that not only I now have improved an educational situation within the context of my last practicum, but also this process enables me to attempt to improve any educational education that I might encounter in the future, since now I know how the process works. I strongly believe that his research not only affected me and my 3rd grade students; I hope that by learning through games they became more motivated towards the subject realizing that all of them are able to learn. But also, I want to think that my guide teacher at the school, who accompanied me through this process, and did not know about Action.

(36) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 36. Research might have become aware that through this system we can improve our practice in order to benefit students’ learning process. Moreover, I think it is of great importance to look at this process and think about what could have resulted better or what were the limitations within the process. Even though I feel satisfied with the obtained results, I think that the time framework to develop this Action Research was short. This grade had English lessons only ninety minutes a week. Therefore, I was able to carry out the action plan in only four lessons. I am of the opinion that obtaining positive results within only four lessons is a great achievement, but I wonder what could have been the results if the process would have lasted longer. Furthermore, in relation to the instruments used to collect data, it could have been good for the research to have video-recording to show a more objective point of view, but again, the time framework to analyze that kind of instrument was short. Thinking of future investigation, I believe I would totally use this kind of research to improve different educational situations. In relation to the topic of this research, it would be interesting to find out what other types of games and activities can be useful to improve vocabulary learning in young learners. Furthermore, I would like to research whether this kind of activities help with long-term retention of vocabulary. In addition, and since I noticed that some students were very shy at the beginning of the process, and gradually started to get more involved in the class and participate more, I would be interested in finding out if there is a relation between confidence when speaking and the type of activities used in the lessons..

(37) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 37. To conclude, I am able to say that throughout this process I was able to overcome an educational situation that affected me as a teacher and therefore, also my students. After this process, I feel that I have more skills that will serve me on future situations..

(38) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 38. References. Burns, A. (2010). Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching, a guide for practitioners. New York: ESL & Applied Linguistic Professional Series. Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Language to Young Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kottsieper, L. (2014). “How far can playing games with visual stimuli in the Young Learner classroom aid remembering vocabulary?”, In Taylor, N. (ed.): 2014 International TEYL Research Papers. pp. 14-28. University of York. Nation, I. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piaget, J. (1954a). The construction of reality in the child. (M. Cook, Trans.) New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1937) Read, J. (2000). Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sakellariou, M. (2014). “To what extent different ways of presenting the story of “The very hungry caterpillar” can help 4-year-old Greek learners to acquire new English vocabulary.”, In Taylor, N. (ed.): 2014 International TEYL Research Papers. pp. 45-67. University of York. Schmitt, N. (2000) Vocabulary in Language Teaching. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press..

(39) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 39. Slattery, M & Willis, J (2001). English for Primary Teachers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1962) Thought and Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press..

(40) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 40. Appendix Appendix A.1: Sample of Reflective observation sheets. Date of intervention:__________________ Class objective: MAIN EVENTS DURING THE LESSON 1.- Short-Quiz. Description of event:. Notes:. 2.- Warm-up. Description of event:. Notes:. 3.-Core of lesson. Description of event:. Notes:. 4.- Lesson’s end. Description of event:. Notes:. Class behaviour during class:. Additional comments: 1.- How did I feel during the lesson?.

(41) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 41. 2.- Where the students able to meet the objective of the lesson? 3.- What worked as expected and what did not? 4.-What should I improve?.

(42) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 42. Appendix A.2: Record of students’ tasks Student Task. October 4th. October 11th. October 25th. October 18th. Video Spoken Written Simon Simon Presentation Bingo Word answers sentence sentence Says Says. Fashion show. 1. X. X. 50%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 2. 50%. 0%. X. X. 50%. 50%. 0%. 50%. 100%. 3. 50%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100%. 0%. 100%. 100%. 5. 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. X. X. X. 100%. 100%. 6. 0%. 50%. 50%. 50%. 50%. 100%. 0%. X. X. 7. 50%. 50%. X. X. 100%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 50%. 8. X. X. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100% 100%. 100%. 100%. 9. 50%. 50%. 100%. 50%. X. 50%. 50%. 10. 0%. 50%. 100%. 50%. !00%. 100% 100%. X. X. 11. X. X. 50%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 50%. 13. 100%. 50%. 0%. 50%. X. X. X. 50%. 100%. 14. 50%. 0%. 50%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 4. X. X. 12.

(43) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 43. 15. 100%. 50%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 50%. X. X. 16. X. X. X. X. X. X. X. X. X. 17. 0%. 50%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 50%. 18. 50%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100%. 100% 100%. X. X. 19. 100%. 50%. X. X. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100%. 20. X. X. 0%. 50%. 50%. 100% 100%. 100%. 100%. 21. 50%. 0%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100% 100%. X. X. 22. 50%. 50%. 50%. 100%. X. X. X. 100%. 100%. 23. 50%. 50%. X. X. 100%. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 25. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100%. 50%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 26. 50%. 50%. 100%. 50%. X. X. X. 50%. 100%. 27. 100%. 50%. X. X. 100%. 100% 100%. 100%. 100%. 28. 50%. 50%. 0%. 50%. 50%. 100% 100%. 100%. 100%. 29. 50%. 0%. 0%. 50%. 50%. 100% 100%. X. X. 30. 100%. 50%. 100%. 100%. X. 100%. 100%. 24. X. X.

(44) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 44. 31. 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. 100% 100%. X. X. 32. X. X. 50%. 50%. 0%. 100% 100%. 50%. 100%. 33. 100%. 50%. 50%. 100%. 100%. 100% 100%. X. X. 34. 50%. 50%. 50%. 100%. X. 100%. 100%. 35. 100%. 50%. 50%. 50%. 50%. 100% 100%. 100%. 100%. 36. 0%. 0%. 0%. 50%. 50%. 50%. 50%. X. X. 38. 50%. 0%. X. X. 50%. 100%. 50%. X. X. X. X. 37.

(45) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 45. Appendix A.3: Sample of short-quizzes applied during action plan. Short-Quiz N°1 Name: Date: October 4th Instruction: Make a drawing of the clothing items you hear..

(46) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 46. Short-Quiz N°2 Name: Date: October 11th Instruction: Circle the clothing items you hear..

(47) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 47. Short-Quiz N°3 Name: Date: October 18th Instruction: Draw the clothing items you hear in the corresponding season of the year..

(48) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 48. Short-Quiz N°4 Name: Date: October 25th Instructions: Number the clothing items as you hear them..

(49) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 49. Appendix A.4: Completed Reflection Observation Sheets Date of intervention: October 4th, 2016 Class objective: Students will be able to describe someone’s clothing. Number of students present: 28 MAIN EVENTS DURING THE LESSON 1.- Short-Quiz. Description of event: First, students are given a blank piece of paper. Then, they are instructed to write their names and date on it. Students are told to make a drawing of the clothing items they hear. For example, if the teacher says “T-shirt” the expected outcome would be a drawing of a T-shirt and so on. Instructions were given twice, checked with comprehension questions (CCQs) such as: -Are you going to write or draw?. Notes: There were 28 students present in class. Most of the students completed the activity as expected, that is to say, maintaining the order, and paying attention to what they were doing. There were two students that did not want to do the activity saying that they did not remember anything, they gave their piece of paper back with their names only. A third student, also gave the piece of paper back only with his name since he was not present during the previous classes because of a medical problem.. 2.- Warm-up: Board Race. Description of event: To do this activity, students were asked to get into 3 groups distributed as evenly as possible (one group of ten students and two groups of nine). Then they were told the rules of the game: -Each group had to write as many words related to clothing as they could remember. This, by going to the board one by one. -The words should not be repeated. (Originally, one of the game’s rules is that the words have to be legible and spelled correctly, but since they are young learners I decided I would not focus on the spelling of the words, but in the revision of the game I would ask them “what’s this word? What does it mean?” then they would say “sandals”, for example and I would know that they know the spoken form of the word and also the meaning of it.). Notes: Before doing this activity I had the feeling that it would be a noisy one. For starts, I gave the chance to the students of getting organized into the groups themselves, but when I realized it was taking too long, I decided to intervene and finish organizing the groups myself. Once they were in their groups I told them the name and rules of the game, immediately they started saying “we have to win!” (Even though there was no price to win). They had 4 minutes to write the words on the board. I could notice that they were very engaged in the game, cheering their classmates up. In one of the groups, I could see that one students was looking up words in a notebook, so I had to tell the group that it was not allowed to do that or there would be consequences..

(50) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 50. After passed the four minutes, students still were very excited and it took me a while to calm them down to start the revision. Once they were all sitting in their chairs I started the revision. The first group was able to write ten words without repeating any of them, out of those ten words, six were spelled correctly, the other four had one or two mistakes, but I was still able to understand what they meant. The second group was able to write eight words. Five out of the eight words were spelled correctly. From the three remaining words, there was one that was impossible to understand, in fact I ask the students what it meant but not even they could tell. The other two words had mistakes, but I was able to understand. Furthermore, I asked the students and they told me without problem “jacket” and “swimsuit”. The third group wrote nine words. There was only one misspelled. When asked, the students were able to say what that word meant. I believe this activity worked in the sense that I could tell what words I should reinforce. The most common mistakes were with the following words: swimsuit, jacket, sneakers, and.

(51) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 51. 3.-Core of lesson: Watch and say. Description of event: In order to do this activity, students were asked to watch a video clip from the movie “The devil wears Prada”. The video shows a girl wearing different outfits and has no dialogue whatsoever. Students’ first task was to watch the video and identify as many clothing items as they could. This activity was reviewed as a whole class. The second task for the students was to identify the following items in the video: How many different coats does the girl wear? What are the colors the coats? How many hats appear on the video? Does she wear pants? How many purses does the girl have? Does she wear boots or heels? The objective of this activity was for the students to identify the items by themselves, also to be able to count and say the colors of the items. This activity was also done as a whole class.. 4.- Lesson’s end: Describe in one sentence. Description of event: In order to do this activity first, students were asked to select one of the outfits worn by the girl in the video. Then they had to complete the following sentence: “She is wearing...” and enumerate the clothing items the girl from the video was wearing. This activity was done orally.. Notes: During this activity students behave properly, and participated a lot, maybe it was the fact of working with the TV. In order to do this activity, first, I had to explain the expression “how many”, and the words “heels” and “purse”, since they were new to the students. I used mimic, drawings and students’ guesses to be able to explain them. In the first part of the activity, the students identified successfully the following items: coat, hat, dress, pants (meaning leggings, but they did not know that word), boots and purse. For the second activity, students had to focus in one “aspect” of the video at once, so I had to put the video again for each question. For the first question, for example, as it played, students counted the coats as they appeared, once the video finished, I asked them again and they answered correctly. This was repeated with all the questions. In relation to the questions students made regarding the new vocabulary, since I made drawings to explain the words in first place, each time one student asked I would point at the drawing on the board and they would say “aaah ahora me acuerdo”. Notes: Taking into account that students had watched the video several times, it was not necessary to put it again. I elicited the first part of the sentence to complete from the students, since we had seen this in previous classes. So I started asking, what’s the word we use to talk about a girl? And they would answer “she”... and so on until I had the first part of the sentence..

(52) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 52. Then, I explained them that they had to think of one of the outfits of the girl (giving an example) and complete the sentence saying what she is wearing. Class behaviour during class: Although there were two students that at the beginning of the class did not want to participate and disrupted the class a little, I would say that this class was loud, but students stayed silent when I needed them to listen to me or to one of their classmates. So I would say that they behave correctly according to the moments of the class. Furthermore, I would say that this is the class in which they have participated the most. Additional comments: 1.- How did I feel during the lesson? I feel good; since I was able to do all the activities I had planned for this class. Also, I think that the strategies used in this class worked as expected 2.- Where the students able to meet the objective of the lesson? I don’t think that all the students were able to meet the objective of the lesson, since not all of them were able to complete the last activity that would tell me if they met the objective or not. However, there were students that did not complete this activity, but during the others activities participated actively and I could tell that they are able to describe people’s clothing. 3.- What did not work as expected? It was unexpected the fact that during the race board, each group was able to remember almost all the vocabulary, and even though a lot of words were misspelled, students, when asked, could identify the meaning of each word. 4.-What should I improve? Taking into account the time I had left for the last activity, I believe I should work on my timing for each activity, since for the last activity, in which I am supposed to check if the objective is being met or not, there was too little time..

(53) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 53. Date of intervention: October 11th, 2016 Class objective: Students will be able to use the unit vocabulary to describe someone’s clothing. Number of students present: 27 MAIN EVENTS DURING THE LESSON 1.- Short-Quiz. Description of event: First, students are given a piece of paper with pictures of clothing items. Then, they are instructed to listen carefully to the clothing item they will hear and circle it with the colour said by the teacher. The teacher gave an example “T-shirt blue”. Student’s comprehension of the instructions was checked through the following questions: - Are you going to circle any item, or the one you hear? - Are you going to circle the item with any colour you want or the one you hear? The answer key for this activity is the following: Glasses – Blue Skirt – Red Coat – Yellow Sneakers – Black Swimsuit – Green. Notes: This activity was developed very quickly. The students did not show sings of problems to understand the instructions, which was corroborated though CCQs. They understood that this was an individual and silent activity in which they had to hear in order to know what to do. All the students participated in the activity.. 2.- Warm-up: Questions Description of event: Students were asked to remember how we describe what someone is wearing. The teacher wrote students answers on the board. Then the teacher asked with specific clothing items. For example, “if I want to say that a girl is wearing a ‘dress’, how do I say that?” (The teacher used drawings instead of saying the word, since the objective was for the students to associate it with the drawing). Then students would say “She is wearing a dress” and so on.. Notes: At the beginning of the activity, the students had trouble to remember the structure “she/he is wearing...”. Instead, they started shouting isolated words, such as ‘Tshirt’, ‘dress’, etc. Then I helped them a little, by writing and saying three words on the board: He/She and wearing. Then, one student shouted “She is wearing a dress” and after that most of the students remembered the structure and were able to answer..

(54) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 54. 3.-Core of lesson: Group work. Description of event: Students were asked to get into groups of four and decide who in the group was going to work with each season. Student 1 spring, student 2 summer and so on. After having decided that, the students were asked to draw an outfit of a person (he or she) wearing clothes according the season they had. Once the drawing was ready, they had to name each item on the drawing, they were asked to write the words using the vocabulary on their notebook to not make mistakes. Finally, when they had named the items, they were asked to write one sentence describing what their “character” was wearing. They followed a sentence written on the board as a model to be able to do this activity. This activity was checked with the following CCQs: - Are you going to draw whatever you want or a person? - Are you going to draw that person wearing something from the season you have? - Are you going to write anything or a sentence as the one written on the board? 4.- Lesson’s end: Students’ presentation. Description of event: Students were asked to present their work in front of the class. First, the teacher asked if there was any volunteer group, in that case, that group would go in front first.. Notes: At the moment the students heard they were going to work in groups they got very excited and there was a lot of noise in the classroom. It lasted until they were in their groups with the tables and chairs facing each other. Even though they were noisy, it did not take too long to get organized. The instructions were given once the students were seating in their groups. It surprised me that the questions I got were only to reinforce/check that they were doing a good job or to ask “miss, this (then they would point at something in their drawing) was boots?” In general the students worked at a good pace. There was only one student that, even though was told several times, did not work. This kid is one of the two students that did not want to do the short-quiz last class. Also, the idea of the students working together was that they would help each other, which happened in some groups and in others did not.. Notes: There were 4 groups that volunteered to go first, so as I gave numbers to each group (1,2,3 etc..) I asked group number 5 to go first, then group 3, group 2, and finally group 1. Then, I asked the other three remaining groups as I noticed that they were more or less prepared. In general the presentations were good, since almost all the students knew what they had to say. Students’ pronunciation allowed them to communicate the idea of the sentences although it was no that clear. Furthermore, as they are not used to present in front of the class and got a bit nervous standing there, I had to ask.

(55) TEACHING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING OF VOCABULARY IN YOUNG LEARNERS 55. them several times to speak louder. I believe that they were more confident saying the part of their sentence in which they had to enumerate the clothing items, since that is what they have practiced the most. Students were able to successfully relate clothing items to different seasons as asked. Class behaviour during class: In general the class behave according the activities, although I expected much more noise during the group work activity, it surprised me the fact that they were able to speak keeping the volume at a normal level. Also, during the presentations, almost all the students were respectful of the classmates presenting, except for the one student that did not want to work, whom I had to seat next to me to keep it from disrupting the class. Additional comments: It surprised me that some students asked for new words (for example “gloves”), and were able to fully use them in their sentence. This is why I decided to include those new words for the following class. 1.- How did I feel during the lesson? At first I was afraid that the group activity would not work, students from this class are not used to that kind of activities, and indeed, some of them talked about anything but the lesson while they were sitting in groups, but in other groups students helped each other to finish the task. 2.- Where the students able to meet the objective of the lesson? Definitely yes, all the student presented at the end of the class and met the objective of the lesson. 3.- What did not work as expected? I did not expected that there were a couple of students that were really shy when speaking. 4.-What should I improve? I believed that I need to improve the fact that the group work was more of a “sit together and work individually” rather than really working together as a group..