Welcome to the Syllabus for Wonderful Words: Vocabulary Matters!
Moderators: Brenda Binkley, Anne Hernandez,Jennie Farnell
In the course of the 5 weeks, you will learn collaboratively to:
Three chats will be held to discuss content and pre-defined topics, build rapport and create a sense of community that draws on everyone’s experience. These will be live sessions with recordings available afterwards. All sessions will be at 14:00 GMT. (See what time that is for you)
Much of the content derived from the discussions will be made available through a wiki created during the five weeks, which will be kept online for future reference.
January 13 - 19, 2014
Getting acquainted.
Introductions by Brenda Binkley, Anne Hernandez and Jennie Farnell.
Created a Yahoo email address
Joined Wonderful Words Yahoo Group
Introduced yourself to the group
Completed a survey about the session
Created a PBworks account
Moderators: Brenda/Anne/Jennie
January 20 - 26, 2014
In Week 2, we’ll review and discuss selected research on vocabulary acquisition and retention and discuss and the use of web resources to enhance vocabulary instruction.There are also two articles from ETP you might like to read
We’ll also introduce you to English Central, which is a paid website (free seats available to us during this session!). Finally, we’ll provide you a list of websites which you can use to create various vocabulary activities with your students. Please take a quick look at the websites and identify one which you’d like to examine further. Next week we’ll be introducing the websites in more depth and asking you, in small groups, to review one of the websites and share your evaluations. For now, please glance through them, find one that looks interesting to you, and sign up for a small group.
Read at least one current research article about Second Language vocabulary acquisition and retention
Posted your responses to three discussion questions on PBWorks Wonderful Words Participants
Replied to at least one of your fellow participants' discussion postings
Reviewed the tutorial for EnglishCentral and joined (optional)
Selected and signed up for the website review/evaluation group of your choice
Moderators: Andrea/Brenda
January 26 - February 2, 2014
During Week 3, you’ll begin to interweave the research we discussed last week with various web sites you can use to create your own vocabulary tools. Our focus this week will be on tools which are already created; that is, sites that you can use with your students for focused vocabulary practice but where you don’t have to create your own vocabulary activities.
Brenda will be focusing on websites that may be considered more adult, while Jennie will be looking at websites that can be used with younger learners. However, many of the websites can be used with learners of any age, so there will be some cross over.
Read the identified article or summaries
Posted your responses to two discussion questions on PBWorks Wonderful Words Participants
Collaborated with your group to review one website (Collaboration tool examples: Google Docs and PBWorks)
Posted your collaborative summary on PBWorks Wonderful Words Participants
Moderators: Brenda/Jennie
February 3 - 9, 2014
The focus this week will be on website as tools; that is, websites which you or your students can use to create your own focused vocabulary projects. It will involved identifying your class’ or your students’ vocabulary needs and then designing a project which will focus on those sets of words. Most of the tools we look at can be used either by the teacher solely, to create activities for his/her class, or by your own students, to put responsibility for vocabulary acquisition into their own hands.
By the end of Week 4, you will have:
Read the identified article or blogs
Posted your responses to the three discussion questions on PBWorks Wonderful Words Participants
Reviewed the summaries of Week 3 websites and posted feedback
Designed a vocabulary project using either webtools of your choosing OR a classroom based activity
Shared that activity in PBWorks Wonderful Words Participants or a link to your PBWorks Wiki page.
Moderators: Brenda/Anne/Jennie
February 10 - 16, 2014
We’ve made it to Week 5 -- congratulations and thanks for sticking with us while you balanced participating in Wonderful Words with the rest of your busy lives. We’ll use this week for reflection and sharing.
Reviewed and commented on Week 4 projects
Shared your learning experiences with fellow participants
Evaluated which strategies, approaches, and tools will or won’t work in your environments
Discussed how what doesn’t work could be adapted / modified for various situations
Completed the EVO survey
Moderators: Brenda/Anne/Jennie