Use magic to teach and learn academic language in my new NY Times post that includes a student interactive and teaching ideas.
This is latest in my “The Best….” series of lists. Like the resources on most of the others, the sites on this list can be helpful to both English Language Learners and native-English speakers alike. Certainly, all my mainstream students need assistance in developing a mastery of academic English.
One way this list is different from the others is that I don’t rank them in terms of which ones I like the best. They’re all pretty good, and I’ll leave it for you to decide which one works better in your situation. Most of the online activities are accessible to either high-intermediate or advanced English Language Learners, though teachers can use the information on the sites to develop their own classroom activities accessible to students with a lower English proficiency.
You might also be interested in The Best Sites Where ELL’s Can Learn Vocabulary.
Here are, in my opinion, The Best Websites For Developing Academic English Skills & Vocabulary:
Academic Vocabulary Games has lists of academic vocabulary words for each content area from K-10. These lists were developed by the state of Tennessee working with Dr. Robert Marzano. You can print them out as cards to be used in games, and resources are also provided to develop your own online versions. More information can be found here.
An Academic Writing Module: Paragraphs is designed for student self-access, and has many interactive exercises.
Using English For Academic Purposes has a lot of good online activities. I found it a little confusing to navigate, though. This page has a lot of direct links to exercises. Also, you’ll find a more accessible index for this site on another entirely different site called Free Online Academic Reading and Writing Exercises. You’ll also see a number of other links to other resources there.
One of Sacramento’s own, Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, also has developed a nice interactive tutorial with a long name: Constructing The Paragraph: A Tutorial and Self-Testing Program For American English In Academic Settings.
Carolyn Zierenberg, a talented teacher at our school, put together a simple multilingual (English/Spanish/Hmong) glossary of academic vocabulary. She’s given me permission to share it on this blog and website.
This Glossary Of Commonly Used English Academic Vocabulary — English/Spanish/Hmong. took an incredible amount of work to complete.
Of course, a list like this is only effective as a supplement and follow-up to multiple classroom activities where these words are used in a meaningful way in context.
This collection of academic word list exercises includes crosswords, matching, clozes, and more.
An article in Education Week talks about a program called Word Generation that researchers in Boston developed to help middle school students learn academic vocabulary. The program is comprised of a series of daily fifteen minute lessons, and they all appear to be freely available on their site.
They seem like decent lessons, though I’m wary of “parachuting” daily lessons into a classroom that are not connected to the ongoing curriculum. I’m more inclined to using a standard template for short lessons that can be easily adapted and connected to the thematic units that are being used in class. It’s on my “to do” list to write more in-depth about our academic vocabulary lessons in a future post, and it’ll certainly be in a book I’m writing (with my colleague Katie Hull) that will be coming out next year. That said, however, I also can’t blame busy teachers who might want to use what appears to be a high-quality series of free lessons that are all set to go. The Word Generation site also has some other useful resources, including a page on Twelve Myths of Word Learning.
Kate Kinsella is well-known for her research on helping students learn and use academic vocabulary. The California Department of Education has put a series of her videos and materials on their website.
The videos don’t at all capture her dynamism that you see in person, but downloadable “apply the concepts” materials are worth their weight in gold! And, they’re free.
Here’s a great Academic Vocabulary List from Jim Burke.
Academic Vocabulary and Haiku Deck is from ELL Teaching 2.0.
Art and Science of Teaching / Cognitive Verbs and the Common Core is by Robert Marzano
Common Core Ratchets Up Language Demands for English-Learners is from Ed Week.
Academic Language for English Language Learners is from Colorin Colorado.
8 Strategies for Teaching Academic Language is from Edutopia.
My colleague and co-author, Katie Hull Sypnieski, and I just published a post over at Edutopia titled English-Language Learners and Academic Language.
ELLs’ Literacy Improved Under Popular Instructional Model, Study Finds is from Education Week.
The Vocabulary of Test Directions is from Vocabulary.com, and provides links to help students learn the academic vocabulary list that Jim Burke has developed.
Lex for EFL has created some interactive academic vocabulary activities that are useful.
U.S. Department Of Ed Releases Useful Guide On Teaching Academic Language To ELLs
Academic Language and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know is from Colorin Colorado.
Mary Ann Zehr shared an interesting article on How To Start Academic Conversations. I got tired just reading about what the researchers were having the teacher do in the classroom, but I was intrigued by their ideas of students learning simple hand gestures to reinforce academic conversation prompts.
Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners is a website collecting all the resources, including PowerPoints and materials, from a big conference on this topic in July, 2014.
Teaching Academic Listening (and transferral to the General English classroom!) is by Lizzie Pinard.
New video series: Engaging ELLs in Academic Conversations is a Colorin Colorado post about a useful Teaching Channel resource.
How To Start Academic Conversations is a useful article.
Teaching academic vocabulary: a guide for beginners is an exceptional post by Adam Simpson.
How Using First Language Supports Can Propel Academic Content in English is from Teach Learn Grow.
Rather than a laundry list of talk prompts, use data 2 select prompts that target moving Rs 2 the next level of talk pic.twitter.com/3MN3GlF8vC
— Shana Frazin (@sfrazintcrwp) April 11, 2015
Academic Language Function Toolkit is from the Sweetwater School District and looks very useful.
Other Academic World Lists By Grades/Subject:
Grades K-6 Tier II Vocabulary Lists – Hyde Park School District
Academic Vocabulary – Berkeley School District
Academic Word Lists by Subject and Grade – Tennessee Department of Education
Tier Two Vocabulary List for High School
Cognitive Verbs and the Common Core – a list by Robert Marzano
15 Academic Vocabulary Resources is from TESOL.
Three major research findings about vocabulary instruction worth remembering pic.twitter.com/SCVQYIwChc
— Kylene Beers (@KyleneBeers) February 20, 2016
HOW TO MAKE ACADEMIC VOCABULARY STICK is by ERICA BEATON.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions for adding to this list, or what you think about the ones already there.
Also, drop me a line if you have ideas about other topics for future “The Best…” lists.
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