Vocabulary Bootcamp: High Frequency Words

Happy Chinese New Year folks! I am enjoying my Chinese New Year break in Kuching with my lovely family. How are you spending your Chinese New Year Break?

I just read an inspiring Malaysian teacher blog. She writes in such confidence and conviction about her kids that I envy her passion and her dedication. Her writing motivates me to dream bigger, so what a great thing it was to have stumbled into her blog (:

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Last week, I implemented Sawittri's vocabulary bootcamp using high frequency words in my Form 2 class. I picked 5 words from the list she sent us and wrote 4 short paragraphs using these 5 words (repetitively) and made copies so that everyone in my class get a copy to read. Then I get them to read aloud. After a couple of turns, most of my kids kind of remembered how to read the sentences from listening to their friends and they read loudly as well. WHICH IS AMAZING because my students often forfeit before they even try when it comes to reading!

So this is how it works:

1. I picked 5 high frequency words.
2. I wrote 4 paragraphs using these words. The paragraphs are written using similar sentence patterns so everything is the same except for the content.
3. I made 7 copies (I have my students sit in 7 groups of four).
4. Students are to take one slip each and passed the story around in their groups everytime I said "SWITCH".
5. Students who can read are asked to read first.
6. Carry on solo reading aloud for a couple of rounds and then call on students who are less confident reading aloud.

I had carried out this activity twice in the same class last week on Thursday and Friday using the same high frequency words but in different sentence formats. I hope that by doing this more often I can encourage my kids to recognize more words and give them more confidence when it comes to reading.

I can't wait to carry out this activity more often and see how far my kids can go by the end of this term!

p/s: I lost one more student from my Form 1 class because he is transferred to another school ): All the best to him in the new school! He is starting classes there tomorrow!

Be bold. And speak English.

How many English teachers out there teaches English in Malay? I do. In my weakest English classes, I do. I feel really bad about it, but it just seemed to me, well, necessary.

I have seen successful examples of teaching using English as a medium as well as content to students with minimum proficiency. Yes, those were inspiring examples, carried out by the humblest of teachers.

However, I never did that in 1USM, and now, 2USM.

On Friday, I dreaded going into 2USM for their English class. Under the SET system, I lost a few of my students who used to help me in class. There have a better command in the language and therefore can always help me to coach some of their friends with their homework too.

I started off with a few commands that we are comfortable with in English: please repeat after me, active listening position, please raise your hand etc. Then I started giving instructions in Malay addressing the agenda for the day.

S who was sitting in the first row said to me in hushed voice "Teacher, speak English."

I was pleasantly surprised. I never thought that my kids would actually want me to speak in English.

So I started to say more English. And to my surprise, some of my kids who are more outspoken than the rest started asking me questions in their broken English: Apa you speak?

It struck me then that if I don't speak English and expose them to English, where else would they be able to do that? If I don't start somewhere, if they don't start somewhere, we will never go anywhere.

Armed with this new mindset, I am determined to make sure I speak English in my classes (: Wish me luck!