Website of the Week: Wordsift (An 'evolving' dictionary)

Students often don't know what words mean. Yesterday, my 18 year-old students looked at me blankly when I said the word "Evolution". "Darwin?" I ventured. "Monkeys into men? Butterflies changing colours in cities?" Nothing. *Sigh*.

In this case I usually suggest students look at an online dictionary. However this usually results in their being confused about words in the definition. Alternatively students look in a thesaurus and then end up with words in their essays with completely different meanings than the ones originally intended.

Wordsift is a visual dictionary that gives pictures and a 'mind-map' of related words to get around this. It was particularly helpful for Evolution, producing the following screen:

The pictures on the left, taken from google, gave an image that students immediately identified with ("Ah, monkey into men!") and the box on the right gives a series of words. Hold your mouse over them and a plain english definition appears. Click on the other words and a whole new word constellation begins. The map clearly shows how closely related the synonyms are and gives students a chance to find out their meaning by holding the mouse over them.

Great for showing the whole class when stuck with a concept.

Starters: Read! Think! Write!

Giving students an interesting activity to start as they enter the room is vital for settling a class. A thought-provoking starter is created by giving students something to THINK about. I use the read-think-write format to do this.

First, the starter sheet (or overhead) has a THINK! question -- e.g. "Imagine that you have been imprisoned for a crime you did not do....."

I follw this with a short article about the question. I use free newspapers, internet articles, blogs, anything relevant for this part. As I teach lots of students with reading difficulties I try to pick something simple or I will pick two articles -- an easier and a hard one -- before letting students decide between them. Students must READ the article carefully.

Finally, I add questions that students answer in WRITING. The writing doesn't need to be long but it should be reasoned and in full sentences.

By going through this process students have a chance to think, read and write and we are only 5 minutes into the lesson. Whatever else happens between now and the bell at least we know we've achieved that much!

Resources to support new EAL learners

We've all been there. A child turns up for school on Monday with barely anyone aware of who they are. Half-way through Period 2 they are brought to join your class but lo, they don't speak a word of English. Ensuring students are welcomed can be done with social skills and good manners. But finding appropriate activities that will give confidence to such students is tricky, especially if current pupils are working on a complicated topics. There are two ways to get around this:

1. Always have a stock of 'language-related' activities ready
Generic English language worksheets introduce learners to the language while you can source more appropriate material. Such sheets give students a head-start with their English and provide learning at the right level for their language learning - i.e. beginner, or just above. On the downside, students from abroad are often very intelligent and become jaded with continually learning English in a 'baby-ish' fashion rather than grasping new content. This leads to tip 2....

2. For each topic you cover, have some KS1/2 resources ready on a related subject
While students may still be frustrated by having 'easy' sheets, worksheets that are on the same topic can be reassuring for EAL learners. Having resources that are related means the student feels less isolated and becomes less concerned about 'missing out' on topics.

Good worksheets that vary in difficulty and include appropriate pictures without feeling 'babyish' can be found at www.easyed.co.uk/worksheets. There are 99 free downloadable sheets on a variety of topics and straightforward 'english skills' for those subjects which do not easily lend themselves to KS1/2.