Language objectives: Augmenting content- specific vocabulary and building knowledge about vocabulary that can be applied to future learning contexts.
Materials: Dictionaries, photos from maga zines or the Internet,
index cards, and text books from the students’ subject areas.
Time: 15–20 minutes
in class, or several days
outside of class, depending on the homework
schedule.
Procedures:
Step 1: Present the concepts of polysemy and
collocation.
Find out if the students are famil iar with
the terms or if
they can guess what the terms mean by using their knowledge of word parts.
Step 2: Briefly explain the concept of polysemy and provide students with examples that are
relevant to their subject
areas. For example, the word party describes either a celebration or
a political party. Likewise, the word power has different meanings when it is used in math emetics,
electrical engineering, and political
science contexts. Allow students several minutes to work in pairs and brainstorm more examples from their subject areas.
Step 3: Briefly explain the concept
of collocation and provide students with examples that are relevant to
their subject areas. For example,
the terms
thesis statement and sentence fragment
in the English class, prime number and greatest
common factor in the mathematics class, and global warming and cellular respiration in the science class contain
words that customarily
appear with each other to describe a given concept. Allow students
several minutes
to work in pairs and brainstorm more examples from their subject areas.
Step 4: Inform students
that they will be
adding to the brainstorming
lists to create a
word bank that can be used
as a resource in their classrooms and as a
model should they choose
to have their learners complete the same activity. The remaining steps can be introduced
in class—with an accompanying model
created by a student
or the teacher—but can also be
completed as homework.
Step 5: Students select five examples
of polysemy that appear in their subject areas and are
appropriate for
their grade level. They create a
flashcard for each term with a picture on one side and a brief definition of how the term is
used in
different contexts
on the other side.
