Bolstering Vocabulary with Teacher Talk in the Classroom

Kristen Haase is an elementary ESL teacher in Pennsylvania, where she also serves as the ELD team leader and is a member of the school’s leadership team. Carmen Shahadi Rowe is an ESL instructional coach for an urban school district in Pennsylvania. She has served as a Spanish and K–12 ESL teacher and administrator at the district level and is the founder of Accelerating Language, LLC.

Introduction 1. Prepared for Life 2. The Principle of Substitutionary Language 3. The Importance of Oral Language Inside and Outside the Classroom 4. Strategies for Implementing Substitutionary Language: Where do I start? Strategy #1: Ridding Ourselves of Informal Language Strategy #2: Using Substitutionary Language While Giving Directions Strategy #3: Substituting More Nuanced Words and Phrases for Common Ones Strategy #4: Using Content Vocabulary Across the Curriculum Strategy #5: Getting Your Morning Started Right Strategy #6: Using Multiple Meaning Words Across Content Areas Strategy #7: Exposing Students to a Full Range of Signal Words at the Sentence Level Strategy #8: Bolstering Our Speech with Literary Devices Strategy #9: Capitalizing on Root Words and Their Family Members Strategy #10: Modeling Elevated Language at the Discourse Level Strategy #11: Modeling Discourse to Address the Common Core Standards Strategy #12: Emphasizing Character Traits and Theme 5. Building a Schoolwide Culture of Substitutionary Language: How can we enlist the help of all school staff? 6. Engaging Caregivers to Use Elevated Language