Words...the stumbling blocks

Many subject areas, as I see, have specialised vocabularies which learners will have to understand and be able to use and ICT is no exception. In many cases this will involve explicitly introducing new vocabularly and providing a range of activities so that learners can practice their new vocabulary which ideally should include learning the correct pronunciation of those new words.

In addtion, the current practicum invilves dealing with students who are new immigrants as well as refugees. This means 30% my class comprises of students from non-English background. Some of the following activities seemed to be helping:

• allows the learner to create and integrate a new mental map of the subject area
• involve visual elements to demonstrate the new words
• involve audio elements to practise pronunciation, rythym, intonation and stress of new words
• may include interactive activities to make learning the vocabulary more engaging, for example, crosswords, matching, cloze, quizzes, labelling diagrams
• opportunities to use online glossaries and dictionaries for learners to re-inforce vocabularly at any time during their learning, Google translater is most frequently used.

Ideally learning new words (concepts) should occur within the context of other learning which means  that the learners will be able to see or hear the new words being used in authentic contexts. This is found to make the vocabulary of immediate interest and relevance to the learner. And the ICT integration suggests the following design steps:

• Select the vocabulary items that need to be learnt and practised.
• Select graphics, photos and audio to support the vocabulary.
• Design the activities which will explicitly practise the words
• Prepare the activities using appropriate ICT tool.
• Upload the vocabulary activities to the web, either on a stand alone website or into a Learning Management System.
• Integrate the activities into a complete learning sequence.
• Prepare supporting resources for learners on how to use the vocabulary activities.

Yet. I find this involves a lot of bending of the school's ICT policy. I am fiercely supported by my AT. Sill I find that the management is sitting on their hands. However, I find numbers of tools and resources available the moment the green signal is given:

• Hot Potatoes - http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/index.php
• Audacity - a free audio editor. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about.php
• Dictionary.com - http://dictionary.reference.com/
• Case Study - http://netspot.com.au/gtcasestudy/gippstage_06.htm
• Glossarist - http://www.glossarist.com/
• Using Glossaries in Moodle - http://docs.moodle.org/en/Glossary with instructions at http://docs.moodle.org/en/Adding/editing_a_glossary