Useful Toolkit for teachers in Quebec

According to the pedagogical implications for vocabulary learning, factors

affecting vocabulary learning, and general teaching ESL approaches to go along with
QEP listed above, here is a useful toolkit for teachers in Quebec to help students to be
successful in their English learning.
a) Promote self-teaching: Collect some more useful sources related to vocabulary
learning and plan to incorporate them into lesson plans and students homework to
promote self-teaching and self-learning among students. Learners need to selfinitiate their own interests so that they can learn a great deal during their own
exploration (Mitra, 2010). In the first week of the school year, a lab time is
definitely necessary for learners to get familiar with some useful online tools for
vocabulary learning. To help them initiate their own self-teaching motivation, and
keep them self-teaching, a goal is necessary. Teachers need to arrange an online
language exchange with a class of students/ learners in another place, such as
Ontario, who are learning French as a second language with the same level as your
students English levels. This lab time language exchange will take place in the
end of the first semester. With this goal in their minds, they know what they do in
class or at home will lead them towards this goal. On top of this, learners also need
something to help their own self-teaching by using the available online tools
presented in class, e.g. dialogue journal weekly, biweekly or monthly, depending
on students language levels. Students will do this regularly throughout the
semester. Students can complete their journals by texts, audios, videos, animations
etc. Their work can be short or long, again depending on their language levels.

b) Educational Adaptation and Differentiation: after my internships, I realized that it

would be very difficult for a teacher to get by the whole school year without any
differentiation in class. It is also useful to apply RtI, a multi-tiered intervention
strategy, including layers of instruction that increase in intensity, such as
decreasing in group size and increasing in amount of instruction (p58, Vaugn &
Bos, 2012, Ch3). To make it happen, a pre-assessment before the instruction or
lesson needs to be conducted. Proper anchor activities and various types of inputs,
such as visual and kinesthetic inputs are also necessary. After differentiating
students according to their readiness and interests, teachers should then assign
them to different activities and proper instructional inputs in order to ensure their
better learning. With the inclusive education in most classes in Quebec, the in class
instructional strategies for students needs would be modified accordingly, known
as educational adaptations. For example, a syllabus/ outline/ checklist/ written
direction would be offered to students to clarify requirements for assignments, and
their workload could be broken down into smaller more manageable parts due to
some students lack of organization, which echoes Vygotskys proximal zone of
development. Extra visual cues, extended time for work completion and constant
reminders should be offered as well. According to Piagets constructivism,
students construct the information they acquire with schemes; therefore, students
need to be part of the learning process. If every teacher could offer these similar
strategies to every single student for their learning, we would have fewer students
who would need extra intervention. For example, eye-contact, clarification of
directions, visual cues for comprehension and completion of tasks, pre-writing or

pre-reading strategy offering, the assistance or support for developing compound

sentences or logical progression, consistent review of learnt vocabulary and clear
directions, procedures and expectations to students should all be the norm in any
regular classroom.
c) Dyslexia and reading strategies: since this project is related to vocabulary teaching
through reading, the special needs for students with dyslexia should be separately
addressed. Dyslexia is considered a reading difficulty. Students with dyslexia may
have more difficulty in their L2 learning (Woolley, 2010). They should receive
effective instruction from culturally and linguistically sensitive teachers. Woolley
has suggested to include instruction partially in students L1 during assessment if
it is possible. Extra reading training should also be offered. More details are
described below.
d) Reading training: L2 reading should be challenging for not only the students with
dyslexia, but also other regular students. Teachers should therefore incorporate
appropriate and suitable pedagogical procedures for reading training. For example,
in order to read well, students should feel the prosody first, in other words, read
fluently (Vaugn & Bos, 2012, Ch8). I am sure it will help ESL learners a lot in
their reading skills, therefore we need to teach students metacognitive strategy,
such as reciprocal teaching (Palincsar, 1986) for reading comprehension in the
second language teaching environments.
e) Vocabulary differentiation exercises: Since students English levels vary in this
class, the from-the-ground-up teaching approach, teaching vocabulary and then
sentence patterns, may bore many students. Therefore, teachers can offer a variety

of information and questions to prompt students participation with up-to-date

relevant videos and photos as well as animated facial expression and body
language. However, in order to encourage every student to participate, the focus of
the activities is relatively simple, so the students with lower English levels do not
feel stressed, and the students with higher English levels will not feel bored
because of the various information and questions. Teachers can incorporate
technology, such as animated slide shows, students own experience and the
teachers own experience together with the learning objectives. Hands-on activities
can always come in handy. In the Say and touch game, for example, one of the
students in their seats calls out loud a name of a newly learnt vocabulary word,
another student goes and reads a sheet with words and numbers on it and then
clicks the right number on the board to reveal the word. Drawing during
explanation can also help students to build the imagery concept and lexical
expression. After students say the words, teachers should also repeat the words
many times, in order to give immediate feedback for students pronunciation and
to increase the repetitive rate of the words. Teacher should also repeatedly use
vocabulary in different forms and situations (listening, speaking and reading in
class, and writing as homework). Sufficient wait time and proper pause are also
crucial for students information digestion. They are also necessary for a big class,
so the information can be delivered appropriately.
f) Reading material selection: In order to make sure vocabulary repetition and
recycling happen, teachers should carefully select appropriate in-class and home

reading material to assure the focused vocabulary repetitively appears in students

reading.
g) Exploring the bilingual instructions on the packages of products sold in Canada:
Among Lightbowns ten generalizations (Lightbown & Spada, 1995),
interlanguage interests me the most. When we learn a language, whether an L1 or
L2, our minds or brains tend to categorize the input and build a language process
system (a systematic interlanguage). I was amazed by seeing my own children
learning their first language and undergoing a similar learning process as my own
second language learning. (It is difficult to compare my first language learning
with theirs, since it took place a long time ago.) The categorization helps us
understand the world and the language in this case. Before we accept or internalize
a piece of new information, it interacts with our old knowledge first and then finds
a suitable place in our minds or brains. This can therefore explain both the
intralingual errors and interlingual errors that a child or an adult makes during their
L1 or L2 learning. I think a teacher can thus well use students previous
knowledge on L1 and other old existing knowledge to help them acquire their L2.
For example, although the students in Canada speak different languages, the bigger
environment around them is the same. Students can learn to use information in
their community for their own L2 learning by making good use of the bilingual
information offered everywhere in Canada, which also satisfies the broad area of
learning in QEP, citizenship and community life and media literacy; the crosscurricular competences, use information and use information and
communication technologies.

h)

Offer both lexical and imagery explanation for vocabulary: According to Paivios
dual coding approach (Paivio, 1990), our memory performance is mediated by
linguistic process as well as an imagery model of thought. Teachers can offer
photos, real objects or videos during vocabulary explanation to help learners build
a clear structure of the vocabulary in their minds.

i) Digital and audio books: Most digital books can be displayed on Kindle Reader. It
comes with an immediate digital dictionary, which can make reading more
pleasant. Many digital books also come with an audio version to allow learners to
work on their pronunciation. Learners can become familiar with the vocabulary
both through written and audio inputs.
j) Strategies /process teaching: Teachers should also teach appropriate strategies or
learning processes to cooperate with learners different intelligences, attitudes,
ages and motivations.
k) Proper websites selection: For exploding online authentic information, a basic
critical media literacy lesson should be offered. As a second language learner
myself, I use a variety of online tools, such as google translator, Reverso,
imTranslator, and YouTube, to help me learn. For building the connection between
students and teachers through technology, GoFormative, Kahoot, and VideoAnt
are some websites for students to work on at home. The relationship between the
students and teachers mostly starts from learning experience sharing. Also, since
children learn by modeling. (p167, Agne, 1999), it is our responsibility to
present some make-life-easier learning tools that we have been using or exploring,
and to have our students engaged. The interaction between students and the

teachers will increase. Our positive attitude towards continuing learning will pass
to our students and students can keep learning on their own through the convenient
technology even after they graduate from school. Overall, school is not the only
time and place that learning happens.
l) Assessment: Teachers should design different assessments to meet various student
needs in inclusive education for better educational adaptation. We may need to
offer different evaluations, observational or descriptive, in different situations,
formal or informal, in order to diminish students text anxiety issues and to
consider students multi-intelligences and learning difficulties. There are also
different purposes for our assessments. 1) Assessments as influence on cognitive
processing. Students expectations about the kinds of tasks they will need to
perform and the questions they will need to answer will influence whether they
memorize isolated facts or strive to learn a meaningful, integrated body of
information. (Shepard, 2000) 2) Assessments as learning experiences. Assessment
can further strengthen students vocabulary acquisition. Assessments should
include different instruments to be more compatible with students ability levels
and needs. For example, multiple choice can be a good choice for testing students
knowledge on a specific word, but may not ideal for testing students skill on
putting the word to use.
m) A sense of community: Students achieve at higher levels in the classroom when
they have a sense of community that is when they have shared goals and are
respectful and supportive of one anothers efforts. (McMillan et al, 2011).