Innovations in English language teaching for migrants and refugees

The teacher talked the children through the process of working out the meaning
of commotion.
There are many clues in the text to help us work out what commotion means.
Words such as sobbing, crashed and yelling means there is a lot of noise.
Words such as jumped, knocked over and fell show that there are lots of things
happening at the same time. The last sentence sums it up with ‘as the noise and
confusion mounted’. This is the author’s clue about what commotion means –
a scene of noise and confusion.
During shared reading attention is drawn to words and phrases which have more than
one meaning, collocations, idiomatic phrases, figurative language and connotations
of words. Children are asked what they understand by the words or phrases within
the given context. This supports comprehension, and provides starter words and
phrases for follow-up focused vocabulary work. Exploring meaning of abstract nouns
within the context of topic-related cross-curricular texts is particularly useful.
Shared reading sessions are also used to model the use of dictionaries and
demonstrate the process of thinking through and deciding which definition is the
most likely within the context of the text.
Shared reading also provides an opportunity to check for understanding of words
children are expected to know. A recap of the seasons with the question: ‘can
we name our seasons?’ led to everyone contributing autumn, winter and so on,
except for one Malay pupil who had joined the class in the last six months whose
contribution was mango season, durian season, monsoon season. It provided
an excellent opportunity for the teacher to explore how seasons are described
differently in different countries and the possible reasons for this. It led to a lively
multilingual discussion in which children who had visited their parents’ country of
origin were able to share their knowledge of how seasons were described.
When exploring similes and metaphors within the context of the text, children can be
asked to create an image of the metaphor in their mind. They then explain the image
in words or through drawings to a partner. A few explanations can be shared with the
whole class to discuss and develop a shared understanding of the metaphor as well
as the writer’s reasons for choosing it.
Guided reading sessions are also used to reinforce and practise these skills and
follow up independent work providing opportunities to use the new vocabulary.
This scaffolded approach means that when the new vocabulary is used in sentences,
it is more likely to be used appropriately.
Two strategies which are very successful in developing appropriate and accurate
use of new vocabulary are cloze procedure and text substitution during shared and
guided writing. These generate a dialogue for making word choices for particular
contexts and for particular effects, encouraging risk-taking in drawing on the
children’s own vocabularies in first as well as additional language, and nurturing
an enthusiasm for words. Pupils’ individual vocabularies offer a rich resource for
30 | Developing vocabulary in a multilingual classroom