Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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Word Wall
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12 thoughts on “Word Wall”
This was my 5th/6th grade word wall this year: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1812931/Words%201.docx“. It had about 12o words.
Do you know this list for the most common French words? You can find a copy here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1812931/200_most_important_words.pdf
It’s bad ass. Now, I have to go through and compare and see if I can let go of some of my words. Like you have pig and I have fish. Stuff like that. Next question is how many words is the upper limit going to represent?
And also, I might point out that I am going to put these in strips of 12 big words each (words of just under 1″ high). So now it looks as if I am committing to having a Word Wall and a Verb Wall both. I’m down with that.
Because all those words and all those verbs are things that they should leave in the spring having acquired. For those with me on this, I appreciate it so we can compare notes. Each year I have greater appreciation for doing comprehension based instruction, especially PQA, that is off the wall, so to speak.
So then each strip of 12 goes up one at a time, one set of words, and one set of verbs, and the next strip of twelve only goes up when the class has acquired the first strip of twelve. As we know, kids love lists anyway.
The reason, besides lack of wall space, that I don’t give the translation on the wall is that, every month or so, I laser words randomly and the kids love to call out the translations of each word as a class. So, if I have gotten enough reps in PQA during that first few minutes of class, there is no need for translations.
This will make huge strides in making what we do totally transparent to the kids. It helps limit our scope, it encourages SLOW, and leads to a solid scaffold for our kids. Ben, I know what you mean about greater appreciation of CI. I am really at the end of my third total year of CI with all levels. I think the first couple years I did CI was comparable to the first few years that I taught traditionally – I stunk! The difference with CI is that I have created a kinder gentler approach that leads in the end to real acquisition and a happier group of kids an a happier me. The evolution of the TCI process keeps me engaged and interested enough to get up every morning excited to go to school. Thanks again to the PLC. Looking forward to planning for next year!
I polled the writing team (10 DPS teachers are writing assessments for the first two weeks of June) and asked how many wish they didn’t plunge too fast into stories in the fall.
I made the point about establishing meaning of the wall words longer, with more PQA, for more weeks, etc. as we have been discussing here lately. Every single one of them said that they go into stories too early.
Thanks Carol…….you just allowed me to give myself permission to not be so hard on myself
That’s how I feel. This was my second year with CI and although they did great with what I gave them, I know so many things that I did not do that I should have done. It’s a process and I can’t wait until my 5th or 6th year and see what my students can do. It’s nice to know that we are not alone in this journey.
Like you have pig and I have fish.
I think some of the words are language and context dependent. There can be no single “Word Wall” that will be definitive for all classes and languages. Each of us must tweak (and continue to tweak) his own word wall. For example,
-Michael Miller up in Colorado includes the German word for “moose” early on; I almost never have occasion to use it, but we use “penguin” and “polar bear” a lot for some reason.
-I have never had a student, even the slowest of processors, have even a hint of a problem understanding fisch in either written or spoken communication. Schwein, on the other hand, needs explanation because we are no longer close enough to “swine” as a commonly-used term, and the difference between the words is too great, for me to count on students’ “getting it” on their own. Some do, but most don’t. So I would include “pig” but not “fish” on my Word Wall.
Oops. Fisch should have been capitalized. Ben, you need an edit function. 🙂
I used to have a cognate corner in my room. We would go over several each week just to make sure that they understood what they were in English.
Thank you Martin,
What a helpful list! I think I will use this year. I have been trying to find such a list and I know there is this guy ( cannot remember his name). Is it Davis perhaps? He wrote a dictionary of most common words in Spanish but I didn’t want to take those words and translate them into French because I couldn’t assume that most high frequency words in Spanish were the same in French.
I take it that these are the very same words you would recommend to me even if I teach Spanish, correct?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Word Wall. For me, it is made up of the district benchmarks. Because of this, I’d like to know if those of you with district benchmark word walls ever give vocab quizzes, either in context of a story or some other way (I’ve learned here that it’s not the best idea to give such a quiz with words out of any kind of context…)
Basically, this question and others I’ve been making on the Plc are related to my fear that others will want proof that I’m still doing what I need to. I work with some that say “cover,” that dirty word.
What do you think? I know Ben only does the listening and reading quizzes, right? Any other suggestions?