Week 3 Dialogue Journals (due before week 3's class)
Hello everyone, this week we'll be covering morphology.
You can find all of the relevant material here. There is extra stuff too, but that is just for your reference.
1. Record your interviewee doing the Question/Retell task. You can see an example of Rodrigo doing it it in the folder linked above. Complete the Morphology Analysis chart after your interview. We’ll answer the questions in small groups next week in class.
2. The West reading covers the basic concepts/terms related to morphology and the Carlisle reading focuses on morphological processing and word learning.
You can find all of the relevant material here. There is extra stuff too, but that is just for your reference.
1. Record your interviewee doing the Question/Retell task. You can see an example of Rodrigo doing it it in the folder linked above. Complete the Morphology Analysis chart after your interview. We’ll answer the questions in small groups next week in class.
2. The West reading covers the basic concepts/terms related to morphology and the Carlisle reading focuses on morphological processing and word learning.
Attention!! Group leaders: If your name has an * in
front of it, you are the group leader for the week 3 journal. Please get
your summary and comments posted by Wednesday.
*Jeff, Amy, Jasper, Liz
*Kevan, Lawrence, Dee
*John, Laura, David
Summary guidelines: KEEP IT SHORT! A good summary
is a shorter version of the original that includes only the main points. Try to
keep your summaries limited to 200 words or less.
Everyone else -- your role is to leave a comment on the Leader's summary.
Comment guidelines: Comments should demonstrate your
ability to personalize the material. Whenever possible, share your own experiences
as language teachers and learners that relate to the assigned reading. This
should be longer than the summary.
Week 3 Reading:
West, Morphology: The Inner World of Words
Carlisle, J. Fostering Morphological Processing,
Vocabulary Development, and Reading Comprehension.
**Skim 'west_ morphology' to get an idea of the terms,
then read Carlisle. Summarize and comment on the Carlisle article only.
Questions related to the readings can be posted to the community.
Personalize! Share your experiences teaching/learning
vocabulary.
Note: Group leaders should post summaries and comments as
replies to this post.
Morphological Processing is when people use morphemes, "the word builders of language" (An Introduction to Language - Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams: page 26) such as cat to form other words and to understand other objects or actions. It also helps people to identify more complex words.
ReplyDeleteFree morphemes (base words that can stand alone such as LOVE) and bound morphemes (suffixes, prefixes) are a key part of this process.
Not surprisingly, the greater one's vocabulary level the more that person can use their knowledge to infer meanings for an even greater universe of words.
This processing is quick and often one is not aware that they are going through this process.
Incidental Word Learning
This is the main way for people to learn new words.
When someone hears or reads an unfamiliar word they start to look at the context. The context will often help them to understand the word(s) they do not know.
In essence people are making inferences from the context.
Also, people will look at the word parts in order to see if they can infer what the word(s) mean.
Morphology, Vocabulary Growth & Reading
Research has shown that students learn about 4,000 base words and 14,000 derived words in Elementary School from grades one to five.
The number of derived words shows that morphological processing is key to a students' improvement in vocabulary and reading.
"The ability to use reasoning or problem solving to infer meanings from word structure and context seems to develop..(quickly through elementary school and middle school)." (Vocabulary Development: Anglin - 1993).
This is morphological problem solving.
Learning To Use Morphological Analysis While Reading
What is the best way to help students read a novel or other form of authentic written material and infer the meanings of words?
There are three common methods used for authentic texts:
1. Deriving Meanings from the context;
2. Reciprocal Teaching whereby students create questions about words or text they do not understand and then try to answer the questions themselves; and
3. Teacher-led discussions wherein the teacher goes over difficult vocab with the students. It is hoped that this will lead the students to follow this process on their own one day.
The study authors tried a study with two key parts: morphological analysis and context analysis. The first 15 minutes involved the teacher and student working on improving morphological awareness (prefixes and suffixes) and using the dictionary.
In the second part the key was the SLAP strategy:
"-SAY the unknown word to yourself;
-LOOK for passage clues to the meaning of the word;
-ASK yourself what the word might mean and find a word or phrase that shows the meaning; and
-PUT the definition in the passage to see if it makes sense."
(Carlisle - page 95).
Their study that these methods can possibly work in the upper elementary years.
Lastly, it was found that scaffolding by the instructor could make a big difference. In this situation the teacher will start the instruction with a key question and/or information. Hopefully the student will thereafter lead the discussion with the teacher helping them reach the correct definition through encouragement, prompts and questions.
(My comment to Kevan's post continued)
DeleteIt is easy to see how “morphological problem solving” can enable learners to grow their vocabulary and improve their reading ability. It has been shown to develop greatly during elementary and middle school years. Hence teachers working with children in these age groups play a crucial role. Importance of engaging students in classroom activities, which would encourage this “morphological problem solving” whereby students would continue to build their pool of base words, prefixes and suffixes to enable them to infer meaning of unfamiliar words and promote vocabulary growth, cannot be overstated. I am planning to find some such activities down the road to use with my own students. Unfortunately, my own language learning back in the day was quite dry and made use of traditional approach to language teaching. Hence, I do not have any personal experiences to draw from. I have to turn to other resources to address this issue…
Carlisle talks about three methods, which could be used to help students derive meaning of unfamiliar words while reading on their own. I have personally used the first method mentioned as a foreign language learner. This is using the context in which the word is used to infer what the word may mean. I believe that I could make use of this method as well as the third method described in my teachings. The third method involves discussions guided by the teacher on unfamiliar words found in a text. This method is used with the hope that, with enough guidance, it would enable students to go through this process on their own while reading texts containing unfamiliar words. In a nutshell, this method is about teaching students to look at a piece of text analytically. I hope to enable my students to gain the ability to be able to use the first and third methods while reading any text. However, I am not quite sure yet, as I only had one class so far, if my students would be at a level whereby I could make use the type of instructional activity referred to as “Reciprocal Teaching.” I have to monitor their progress throughout the semester and make a professional judgment down the line.
Morphological processing, simply put, is breaking down words and analyzing them to derive meaning from unfamiliar words in context encountered in a text. This process, in turn, leads to vocabulary growth in the long run. Although I have never really had any teacher growing up, who guided me to use morphological processing, I remember clearly how during middle school I, on my own, started breaking down words into their building blocks, base words, prefixes and suffixes, and started forming patterns to help me build up my vocabulary faster. This was the key to success in the GCE (General Certificate of Education) examinations I had to take in school. Now I know that what I have been doing was breaking words down to free and bound morphemes.
ReplyDeleteI have been told that Korean school examinations in general are very focused on grammar. If we, as teachers, could show our students how they could engage in morphological processing and guide them until this process is internalized, this skill would benefit them for the rest of their lives and enable them to be in charge of their learning of vocabulary.
Teaching students how to analytically read texts through engaging in morphological processing would, in turn, help them develop their vocabulary and improve their reading comprehension.
I have started using this method to help my students identify words in oral contexts (I am teaching conversation to six high school students). I have used it when I tried to explain what fry pan and sports shoes were during class last Sunday. As these word structures were transparent, they served as a good way to start using morphological processing as a means to deciphering meaning of unfamiliar words for my students.
I found the part of Carlisle reading on incidental word learning very interesting. Something that I have used personally since college, as far as I can recall, but yet I did not know that this process was called incidental word learning. What a powerful tool for learners if we could teach them how to get clues from word structures as well as contexts to derive meaning of unfamiliar words, those words not represented in their “mental lexicon.” Sometimes, when I engaged in this process myself but yet I was not 100% sure if I had “guessed” the meaning of a certain word right, reading further helped to provide me with firm proof for or against my case.
Dee Dee and Lawrence? What do you think of the SLAP strategy?
DeleteSLAP strategy sounds like a good method to help guide students to use contextual analysis for deriving meaning of unfamiliar words. In fact, I have never used it as a learner. I have never used it during teaching either. However, I feel that it could be a little more time-consuming that deriving word meanings from context. Yet I do think that if we use it every now and then with texts containing specific context clues, it will help make our classes more fun for our students… What are your thoughts on it Kevan?
DeleteDee Dee: I will say that when I learned Hangeul and Korean vocab I used the first three parts (say; look; ask) when reading a sentence or very short passage. It sometimes would work for me and sometimes not.
DeleteI also feel that when reading difficult text in our native languages we often do this without realizing it except for the fourth part: PUT.
just getting around to this, be with you soon ^^
DeleteI think SLAP sounds pretty good. Although I wasn't sure if the ASK step, and in particular 'find a word or phrase that shows the meaning" part meant they were allowed to look in a dictionary or not? Because the next part, PUT "the definition in the passage to see it it makes sense" seems to indicate so. Or are the students only to find a word or phrase that shows the meaning from the surrounding text of the material?
DeleteAt any rate, I like the idea of equipping kids to help themselves. (teach a man to fish) Especially because these Word Study programs are aimed at kids who could have a reading disability of some sort. As the article mentioned "the ability to use reasoning or problem solving to infer meanings from word structure and context seems to develop dramatically as children move through the elementary-and middle school years" (p 85)
in normal children. But those with some reading difficulties are likely to read less, read easier books, and skip hard parts (Matthews effect, pg 87).
So it seems to me that SLAP could put a stop to the domino effect of reading difficulties, by teaching kids an effective method that they can use on their own to figure out tough words.
I don't currently have any opportunities to use this type of strategy as all my students are pre-elementary. But I will look at opportunities to teach about some prefixes of suffixes, show how they change the meaning of a word, and try to see if kids can infer the meanings of different morphemes.
I'm trying to think of examples that would be appropriate for 7 year olds.
Maybe start with the bound morpheme ~ly
walk slowly. cut carefully. eat nicely. speak loudly.
Any ideas how to relate this to the young-uns?
I am not quite sure about that as I have never taught such young ones. But Amy or John may be able to provide you with some tips as they are teaching kids as well. :)
DeleteI liked the SLAP method in part because of its fun name. The kids would be engaged and easily remember the acronym. Saying a word out loud is a good way to help them internalize the English. Research has shown that looking up a word in the L1 does not promote word retention in the L2. Anything that helps students learn to learn is outstanding.
DeleteMorphological Processing is a means of changing a stem to adjust its meaning to fit its syntactic and communicational context. (Matthews 1991 125-126, 130)
ReplyDeleteEarly age, children start to process morphemes (smallest units of meaning) to things or actions, give them meaning. After children make a mental representation of free morphemes (base words) and bound morphemes (affixes), these become the building blocks that help children break words apart to understand their meanings. The greater a child’s lexical memory the easier they can fetch the meaning, spelling, or pronunciation on words.
If there is no lexical representation available, then a spider web building process begins (inferential) of connecting with cues, meanings to the new word. This is called incidental words learning. The acquisition of these new words/vocabulary relies primarily on contextual cues and morphological analysis.
Reciprocal Teaching and Text Talk are some methods/programs to help infer meaning of the content while reading. The teachers discuss unfamiliar words by looking at the context of the reading and any underling pre/suffixes. The challenge is knowing the ways in which to prepare teachers to properly have analytic talks about the words and texts.
This was EXTREMELY HARD to make into 200 words or less!
DeleteI agree. Sadly mine went over :(
DeleteThe reading is pretty hefty, but the ideas are interesting. Just recently one of my 5th grade students called England “English Land.” He kept referring to it in this way early in the lesson, but as we go along I think the correct usage will sink in.
DeleteThe idea of breaking words down with figuring out what they mean through inference and piecing together from other words is interesting. While my students are not at a particularly advanced level, I can already see the benefit of this type of analysis by teaching them phonics and sounding out the words(as opposed to rote memorization). Bound morpheme play is particularly strong when I am teaching my students the past tense. In my powerpoint presentations and review lessons going over past tense, I have encountered “goed” instead of “went” and “runned” instead of “ran.” These “mistakes” demonstrate the students are thinking about these bound morphemes and the rules of their use. It is a positive thing, I think. I much prefer a shotgun blast of thinking out loud as opposed to hearing crickets chirping.
Yes Kevan... Yours were a little more than twice in length. :)
DeleteJohn, I liked the imagery produced by the phrase spider web building process. When I have taught morphemes, I have seen the light in the students' eyes spark when they realize they can now produce and understand many words by understanding small fragments. It is great to watch them build those spider webs of understanding.
DeleteI have to admit that this reading was tough for me. There was a lot being said and a lot to process. However, it was an interesting read - and really gave me a lot to think about in terms of how I go about helping children to learn new words, as well as make/find meaning from texts during reading activities.
ReplyDeleteThanks for summarizing, Jeff – I think you managed to summarize the main points well!
As a kindergarten teacher, I see children learning free morphemes everyday. With my pre-school class especially, children interact with the world around them and we provide assistance by labelling objects or situations to help them find meaning. I see children taking words that they learn and applying them to different and/or similar objects. I had a child who used the word "swimming pool" instead of "ocean" - and while these words are different, I think it useful to see how children use what they know to label the world. Coming back to how children use morphemes, I also see children putting morphemes together in ways to help them make sense of what they are doing, or something that they have seen. Recently my children started using blocks to make keys for submarines that they were making. Later on they started making "key energy" that they would 'plug into' their submarines and they were able to move faster. Key energy became a very popular word in the classroom, and they started using the morpheme of energy to describe what you needed to do something well (baseball energy, writing energy).
Incidental learning was really interesting to read about, especially considering that it explained how we make sense of new words, regardless of our age. I feel as though I have learned a lot of Korean words from using context to find hints. Having just started teaching a vocabulary class at school, I did begin thinking that introducing these words “in isolation” of in context will probably really lessen their chances of retention. While I was teaching yesterday, (This was before I read the article) I found myself helping them to understand the word “unreasonable” by breaking it into “reasonable” (I suppose by going down to reason would have helped), and then reminding them what the pre-fix means.
I was interested in the SLAP technique, as well as the shared reading to encourage children to decode unfamiliar words morphologically. In my own experiences in Korea, I’ve had many children who skip over words, and struggle to get through readings on their own. I’ve done shared reading with a few students – and while I didn’t employ the strategies suggested, I did notice an improvement in the children’s willingness to read.
So, Jeff, I would say that I could definitely implement some of these strategies into my classrooms in Korea. In terms of my vocabulary class – I could possibly try to incorporate the target words into a story to tell before doing the definitions with children as a way to give a context.
Also – I teach an Advanced Reading program, so I think the SLAP technique could be effective to teach children to help them with their independent reading at home.
Thanks again for the summary, hope my comments make sense! xx
The use of morphemes in my classroom has also helped with new language development. My students have trouble with speaking when they don't know the word, but if I teach morphemes to them "ed" "re" "un", then they are more likely to create new words to get around any vocabulary gaps they have. Usually this leads to them finding a new word (that is real) and using it for the rest of the day and memorizing it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get a chance to try any of the techniques this week and I am heavily restricted for next week. (we have open classes T_T) but I look forward to using this in the coming weeks.
I can't find the edit button and it posted it before I was done.
ReplyDeleteThe above was a response to Amy.
Jeff your questions are very important. I am not sure what the key differences in the effectiveness for this would be for SLL and native learners.
One thing that has been focused on in SLL techniques that is vastly different would be the use of the first language. Most reading techiniques (made with native learners in mind) ignore the use of the SLL's native language.
I believe most of the techniques would be useful if they are modified to fit the first language in context.
One of the things I have done is to relate Korean morphemes and relate them to English morphemes. 'To say a negative here you use "un" in Korean you would say...etc'
Amy: I taught in America and I saw incidental learning occurring too, I also see it my 6th grade class, they will pick up words around the room and try them out by speaking them, even if they don't know the meaning. This usually leads to someone asking the meaning or looking it up on their smartphone later.