In this blog, experience primary school teacher and English adviser Shareen Wilkinson (Mayers) explores approaches to teaching vocabulary, focusing on one strategy for explicitly teaching vocabulary in context.
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In the English classroom How we did it – planning We began by looking at the curriculum. What KS4 content did students struggle most with? What vocabulary could we teach them to help them communicate their ideas more clearly? We looked at our literature texts, the demands of GCE English Language and then at our […]
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It started with a book… Closing the Vocabulary Gap by Alex Quigley is the book that started the Stretford High School English Department’s endeavor to improve our students’ vocabulary. Quigley opened the dialogue for a problem we knew existed but weren’t sure how to solve. His book clarified the classification of words we needed students […]
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Award-winning children’s author Christopher Edge shares strategies for talking to children about their reading Books can help children and young adults to make sense of the world, provide an escape from it and maybe, one day, inspire them to build a better one, so in these strange times, making space for reading in their lives […]
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Examiners’ reports are a wealth of information, giving data about how many students tried each question as well as breaking down misconceptions for every section. Are there any key messages that we can draw from the examiners reports to improve the performance of our students? Sam Holyman has looked through the reports to give you […]
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I have noticed that students often don’t know why they are studying English Language or the overall requirements of the final exams they are approaching. They have a vague notion that they have to get a GCSE in English but they have no real idea of what they should be doing or what their everyday […]
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Anhydrous, exothermic, fullerene, isomerase, medulla, monomers, ribosomes, titration, xylem… How many of these words do you know? For a scientist – or even a knowledgeable GCSE science student, no less – this list of complex words will trigger a wealth of background knowledge. For many pupils, however, the same list of words would likely provoke […]
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Summer exams are almost here. It is a time for cautious optimism, but also a little teacher anxiety, as we will our pupils on to succeed. Worried questions race through our minds: what if they don’t understand the question? What if a word in the question trips them up? What if they give up? Each […]
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The Oxford Language Report: Why Closing the Word Gap Matters found evidence that an increasing number of children in UK schools have a limited vocabulary – a word gap – which is holding back their learning. The report brings together the thoughts of a number of leading academics and practitioners, based on market research with over 1,300 primary and secondary teachers. Over half of those surveyed reported […]
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In 2018 we surveyed over 1,300 primary and secondary teachers about their experiences of the Word Gap in schools and collated our findings in the Oxford Language Report. Following on from this research, we partnered with Teachit to develop downloadable packs of resources and initiatives that can be used in the classroom. The Read more