Vocabulary Training for SEN Students

Vocabulary Training for SEN Students

Things we will cover today.

• Adapt your teaching approach to suit the understanding level of SEN students
• Effectively use predictive text to enhance vocabulary and spelling
• Carefully plan your questions to avoid complexity
• Introduce key vocabulary, including verbs and nouns, to students
• Explain the purpose of activities to students and encourage the use of interesting vocabulary
• Model the acquisition of new vocabulary and fact-checking to students

What do you already know about adapting your vocabulary teaching for SEN students?

Adapting Teaching Approach

• Modify approach based on level of understanding
• Use modeling to demonstrate grammar
• Utilise predictive text for wider vocabulary and spelling

Use of Predictive Text

• Encourage students to attempt difficult spellings don't just spell it for them.
• Promote use of wider vocabulary
• Explain the purpose and benefits of predictive text

Planning Questions

• Carefully design questions to avoid complexity
• Adapt sentence structures and vocabulary depending on the level the student is in for their English lessons.
• Provide ample response time for students

Introducing Key Vocabulary

• Explicitly introduce verbs and nouns - have these displayed around your classrooms
• Emphasise the importance of key vocabulary - again have these around in your classrooms
• Use examples and visual aids to support understanding

Time Management in Teaching

• Allow sufficient time for student responses
• Provide practice opportunities before moving on
• Ensure students grasp the purpose of activities

Explaining the Purpose of Activities

• Emphasise the use of interesting vocabulary 
• Link activities to real-life contexts
• Encourage creativity and expression

Modeling Vocabulary Acquisition and Fact-checking

• Demonstrate the process of acquiring new vocabulary
• Show how to fact-check information
• Encourage students to follow similar strategies

Ways to help at SupaJam

1. Select and play recordings of songs that have lyrics containing advanced vocabulary words (words beyond the students’ own English Level). At the end of each song, discuss with the students the words that have been used in the music.

2. After having learned their definitions, have students dramatise the meanings of advanced vocabulary words. These can be quick improvisations of single words, or more involved dramatic presentations.

1. As teacher, make up a story that includes a number of advanced vocabulary words, and then tell the story to the class in your own words. On subsequent days, have students’ retell the story while being prompted to use the vocabulary words that were contained in the original telling.

Write down 3 things you learned in this lesson.

Have students enter three things they learned in this lesson. With this they can indicate their own learning efficiency of this lesson.

Write down 2 things you want to know more about.

Here, students enter two things they would like to know more about. This not only increases involvement, but also gives them more ownership.

Ask 1 question about something you haven't quite understood yet.

The students indicate here (in question form) with which part of the material they still have difficulty. For the teacher, this not only provides insight into the extent to which the students understand/master the material, but also a good starting point for the next lesson.