Chapter 2: How Do you Spell That? Words Skills: Language and Activities for Talking About Words

Last Class We looked at two classroom interactions and talked about the importance of choosing the right collocation:

Last Class The first classroom interaction we looked at was talking about the letters in a word: Courage has seven letters. Courage is a seven-letter word. Courage begins with C. Courage ends in E. Courage has an R in it.

Last Class (2) The second classroom interaction we looked at was giving hints, asking for hints, and indicating you are stumped. Would you like a hint Do you need a hint? Can I have a hint? Could you give me a hint? I’m stumped. I give up.

Guess My Word Activity We did a word riddle activity to practice these interactions: What begins with T, ends with T, and is filled with T?

Answer: TEAPOT

Today’s Class Today we are going to continue looking at classroom English again. Specifically we are going to look at language used to negotiate the spelling and meaning of a word and some activities we can use to teach our students this skill.

CI 3: The Spelling of a Word Students are constantly wanting to know how words are spelled. Here are some ways they can approach that: How do you spell whale/that/it? How is whale/that/it spelled?

Collocation with Spell Note that HOW collocates strongly with SPELL. Also: You spell a word. A word is spelled. Here you is the general you, meaning people.

Whale is spelled W-H-A-L-E. It's spelled W-H-A-L-E Whale is spelled W-H-A-L-E. It's spelled W-H-A-L-E. You spell it W-H-A-L-E.

As a teacher you will have to indicate when your students have spelled something correctly or misspelled something: You spelled (word) correctly. (Word) is spelled correctly. You misspelled (word). (Word) is misspelled. You spelled (word) incorrectly. (Word) is spelled incorrectly.

Correcting Spelling We can combine our letter skills with ‘not’ to correct our student’s misspelled words. KAT: CAT begins with a C not a K. LITE: LIGHT ends in G-H-T not T-E

SLIPER: SLIPPER has two Ps. SLIPPER is spelled with two Ps There are two Ps in SLIPPER.

In Class Task 1 Look at practice 2-1: How would you correct your students if they misspelled: knife, ocean, battle, and lamb as nife, osean, batle, and lamb

Clarifying a Letter Another interaction that teacher will have is clarifying a letter. For example, A student might ask: Was that D or T?

A good way to clarify a letter is to attach it to a common noun that has a well-known spelling. That’s T as in TIGER.

It’s important to choose a noun that will not lead to more confusion: Did you say B or P? I said B. B as in BEAR. Can you see any problems arising here?

In Class Task 2 Practice 2-2 How would you clarify the following letters? L, R, F, P, D, A, E

In Class Activity Each of you will be given a card with some writing on it. There are three spelling mistakes on that card. Show that card to a partner. Your partner will “correct” your spelling. If your partner can’t correct the spelling then give them some hints (like last class). Record the misspelled words on your activity sheet.

Chapter 3: What Does that Mean? Words Skills: Language and Activities for Talking About Words

Meaning of a Word Another common interactions language students and teachers have is asking or saying what words mean.

What does blustery mean?   What does blustery mean? What does that mean? What's blustery? What's that?

Using Synonyms to Define Words One way to define a word is to use a synonym: Blustery is another word for windy. It's another word for windy. It means windy. It's a synonym for/of windy.

In Class Task 3 Define the following words using a synonym: thin weary locate depart cautious persuade

Using Antonyms to Define Words Blustery is the opposite of calm. It's the opposite of calm.

In Class Task 4 Define the following words using a antonym: best shy true destitute spicy cooked

Appositive An appositive is a noun or a noun phrase that defines, describes or renames a noun next to it. Here are some examples. Sue, my neighbor, was injured in car accident. Ammonites, some of the most common fossils, went extinct millions of years ago.

Appositives are used to clarify nouns all the time Appositives are used to clarify nouns all the time. In spoken English, ‘you know’ is often inserted between the noun and the appositive or before the noun to indicate that a definition or clarification is coming up: Jack, you know, the guy we met last week, is coming over today.

You use appositive when you think the listener does know the noun, but they are just having troubles remembering it. You use them to help jog your listeners memory so to speak.

In Class Task 5 How would you use an appositive to clarify these words? castle sheep dragon Mars ammonite Edison medusa