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Action Research Plan:

Implementing Vocabulary in an ESL Instruction

Kat Prevo

Manhattan College

Author note: Kat Prevo is a student at Manhattan College majoring in Secondary

Education and concentrating in English. This research was conducted at

Manhattan College and DeWitt Clinton High School.

Contact: ​kprevo01@manhattan.edu
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Abstract

Have you ever encountered words that seem so difficult they may as well be another

language? Well, this exact issue is very prevalent throughout DeWitt Clinton High School,

located in the Bronx, NY. Famous writer and poet, Johann Wolfgang states, “​The limits of my

language are the limits of my universe” (Wolfgang). This profound statement is something I

want to influence in the DeWitt Clinton community. A larger knowledge of vocabulary creates a

larger amount of confidence when writing, speaking, listening, and reading. To guide students

into becoming better literacy developers, writers, and cognitive learners, students will use a

vocabulary bank in order to work proficiently in their writing and discussions in the academic

setting. With this vocabulary implementation, the goal is to better help the students of DeWitt

Clinton High School become confident in speaking, writing, reading, and listening to language in

the classroom, with their peers, and into their careers.

Keywords: ​vocabulary, writing, speaking, listening, reading, literacy

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Action Research Plan:

Implementing Vocabulary in an ESL Classroom Instruction

For my research I worked with an 11th grade English classroom. In this classroom, the

students study informational texts, and there is a lot of vocabulary implemented into the texts.

Every class day, the students have very profound ideas and opinions, but sometimes it is difficult

to transfer that into speaking and writing. Each day there is a different interactive practice that is

always individually based and group based. However, I noticed that the students have the same

issue arising, they are not able to transfer their thoughts into words.

The design for the project will be a vocabulary worksheet on their desk everyday. This

sheet will consist of the words the students will use throughout the class, a Spanish translation of

the word, and an English definition of the word. A goal I want to accomplish throughout the

course of this study is the ability to develop their vocabulary by providing them with multiple

comprehension strategies and multiple ways to practice the vocabulary. This will help assist the

students into writing their ideas and responses. Over the course of this action research, I will

hope that my students are able to not only comprehend the text, but think at a higher level that is

more than just summarizing the text. Specifically to English, vocabulary words only provide a

grander platform of ways for student to explain their truest and most insightful thoughts.

Action Plan Proposal

Instead of creating a new lesson plan, I worked with my cooperating teacher’s lesson plan

by adding a vocabulary bank, with the definitions in both English and Spanish. Aside from the

already implemented writing response questions, I added discussion questions prior to the

writing in order to allow the students the use the vocabulary words in their speaking as well, not
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just in writing. I added the vocabulary bank to a lesson on sexual assault and harassment in New

York City, backed with three informational texts containing statistics, reports, and categories of

harassment. After interpreting the three informational texts, the students are instructed to use the

six vocabulary words I added into the lesson plan, “harassment,” “federal law,” “felony,”

“misdemeanor,” “rape,” and “penalties” within their group discussions and independent writing

responses. Every time the student uses the word, they are to tally or make a check next to the

word. My hope with this is that the more the student uses the word in their speaking and writing,

the more the student will understand the informational text and how the topics can relate to their

own life.

Many of the students in the class are ELLs. By having a definition, the students will be

able to see exactly what the word means. Ideally, it would be wonderful if we can pronounce the

words by going over it before class, but it will depend on if the teacher feels there is enough

time. The goal of this vocabulary sheet will be to allow the students become so accustomed to

higher vocabulary that they will feel comfortable writing and speaking these new words. If this

research is successful, the students will have new speaking vocabulary and will be able to

become stronger advocates for the issue of harassment in their community. This will allow the

students not only explain their thinking, but infer and uniquely interpret the text in their own

way.

Literature Review

Canadian poet and novelist, Margaret Atwood once stated, “A word after a word after a

word is a word of power” (Atwood). Similarly, plenty of research has been done on the

importance of reaching higher levels of vocabulary in schools as a preparation for state tests,
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college tests, and life beyond school. Vocabulary has the power to create opportunities, create

confidence, and create a stronger linked community. At DeWitt Clinton High School, it is

vocabulary that sets a lot of the students back, and the language barrier from Spanish to English

does not help the students succeed. I took a look at the three articles, “​Effectiveness and Ease of

Implementation of an Academic Vocabulary Intervention for Linguistically Diverse Students in

Urban Middle Schools,” “The Bilingual Lexicon and the Teaching of Vocabulary,” and

“V​ocabulary Instruction and Mexican–American Bilingual Students” in order to gain more an

understanding on how educators have implemented linguistic strategies to reach higher

understanding of vocabulary within texts.

The first article I looked at was Associate Professor at Harvard Grad School Dr.

Lesaux’s, ​“​Effectiveness and Ease of Implementation of an Academic Vocabulary Intervention

for Linguistically Diverse Students in Urban Middle Schools.” In her research, she studied the

importance of vocabulary intervention in urban middle schools. She worked at a school in British

Columbia in the 90’s where immigration was so popular that the student body consisted of 30

different first languages!! (2011). When a child is not fully proficient in the language of

instruction, it puts of roadblocks in the cognitive process. Dr. Lesaux states that, “The more

words one brings to reading, the more they are likely to learn from the text” (Lesaux, 2011, p. 1).

Students can infer what the text means even if they only know 80-90% of the words within the

text. However, at DeWitt Clinton High School, when examining informational texts, students are

at 7-8th grade reading levels, bringing their understanding of texts in their 11th grade classroom

down to 50% or less. Dr. Lesaux developed a vocabulary intervention program that deals with

“upper an elementary middle school classroom to increase talk in the classroom, to increase kids
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understanding how words work and how language works” (2011, Lesaux, p. 1). One example

consisted of students looking at the big idea of segregation and reading articles that speak about

single gender education. The students were able to look at a large idea and relate if back to their

own life. After the twenty week program, Dr. Lesaux explains that linguistically diverse students

need rich content day to day to keep them engaged and to take them to the next level (2011).

Similarly, in my action research proposal, I hope that the vocabulary sheet mixed with the large

ideas in their informational texts will guide them to a higher literacy level and higher

understanding for text.

The next text I looked at was ​The Bilingual Lexicon​ written by author ​Robert Schreuder

and Bert Weltens. Both authors take a look at how overlooked bilingual students are. This is

problematic within the classroom because the language of instruction creates confusion for

students who are ESL learners. Schreuder and Weltons record that when it comes to language,

“Information is stored at different levels and separately” (Schreuder and Weltons, 1996, p. 6).

The two researchers go onto sharing the importance of practicing when speaking a second

language. In relation to rehearsing a language, they state the understandable notion that, “The

more practice one has in a second language, the higher one’s level of proficiency will be”

(Schreuder and Weltons, 1996, p. 9). They go onto state that, “Practice effects are found to play

an essential role bilingual speech processing” (Schreuder and Weltons, 1996, p. 9). The idea of

repetition is exactly what I want to enforce in my action research plan. Through the vocabulary

bank, the students have to incorporate the key vocabulary words into their speaking which will

directly help them in stronger writing responses. Schreuder and Weltons validated that learning a
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second language is not an easy task, however, with practice the language will organically

develop into a student’s cognitive abilities.

The last article I looked at was Professor Ajayi’s “Vocabulary instruction and

Mexican–American Bilingual Students.” Professor Lasisi Ajayi works at San Diego State

University. In San Diego, there are many Mexican-American students, but she noticed the

instruction within the classrooms were not allowing students to build off of their first language,

Spanish in order to understand their second language, English. Overall, Ajayi noticed in the

classroom that her Mexican-American bilingual students were struggling heavily with

vocabulary instruction. Over a sixteen week period, two ELA teachers uses multiple strategies to

bridge connections between Spanish and English vocabulary. The two teachers used strategies

such as, “word analysis, cognate use, explicit scaffolding, online word search strategies, visual

imaging, semantic mapping, and semantic feature analysis” (Ajayi, 2014, p. 1). All of these

strategies allowed the students to grasp English vocabulary in a variety of ways, and the results

were extraordinary. After sixteen weeks, the teachers found that incorporating Spanish into

English instruction is crucial for student understanding. There are many ways to do this, and

Ajayi records that it will help students, “make connections between vocabulary instruction and

background knowledge that students bring from home and communities” (Ajayi, 2014, p. 1). In

relation to my action research, this article assisted me in better understanding how vocabulary

intervention can work. There are a variety of methods that can be taught in a ESL classroom. My

cooperating teacher’s lesson plan was on the right track, but I think by adding the vocabulary

bank and discussion questions, the students will have scaffolding instruction that will help them

learn English as well as the ideas in the instruction on a clearer level.

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Data Collection

For the data collection, I used the platform of a lesson plan that was created by my

cooperating teacher. I added the vocabulary bank, with the vocab words provided in Spanish and

English. In addition, I added three questions in which the students were to discuss with their

partner in order to practice speaking the vocabulary words before the independent writing. After

that, they implemented the vocabulary words into their written responses. The students tallied up

the number of times they incorporated the vocabulary words into their work. Four samples of

student's works are the following pages.

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I. Student one:
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II. Student Two

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III. Student Three

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IV. Student Four:

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Data Analysis

When looking at the data, I noticed similar development in their writing responses. The

six vocabulary words, “harassment,” “federal law,” “felony,” “misdemeanor,” “rape,” and

“penalties” provided in English and Spanish allowed the students to increase their understanding

of the words in their writings and conversations.

Student one had a lot of insight when recording observations on the three informational

texts. He referred to figure one, “Index Crimes Reported To Police 2007-20016,” in his first

response and noticed that rape is spoken about strongly in a negative light in current society,

creating more and more victims to report their incidents. When speaking to his partner, student

two about figure one, he struggled with explaining himself and this thoughts on the informational

text. However, in his writings, his complete sentences and insight on the vocabulary words

allowed him to create a strong argument in response question one. In the second response,

student two used more vocabulary words in this responses, and his writing was even stronger

than response one. I saw the most implementation of vocabulary words in response three, when

writing about how students can be advocates for harassment awareness and its penalties. Like Dr.

Leseax’s research on her student’s progress in vocabulary intervention, I think after using the

vocabulary words multiple times in writing and speaking, student one was able to create a larger

understanding for the three informational texts. Student one grew stronger in his writings the

more he used the vocabulary words. In total, student one used “harassment” five times, “federal

law” five times, “felony” three times, “misdemeanor” five times, “rape” five times, and

“penalties” two times.

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Next, I looked at student two’s responses. Student two was more shy during the

discussion questions with student one. In fact, when looking at the written responses, it is evident

she did not practice the vocabulary words in her speaking because her first response is lacking

depth, substance, and references to the text as well as the vocab bank. The first response

implements one vocabulary word, “rape,”​ ​but only speaks about the informational text in two

sentences. The second response showed much improvement. Student two incorporated four

vocabulary words over three sentences, and all the words were used in the correct tense.

Response number three shared prevalence of harassment and the importance of creating a

dialogue on the topic at hand. I think student two was inspired by the informational texts.

However, I think her lack of speaking during the discussion questions directly affected her in her

writings. Like ​Professor Ajayi’s “Vocabulary instruction and Mexican–American Bilingual

Students,” speaks out, scaffolding and continuous practice of words guide a student into better

understanding vocabulary. With the lack of repetition and active listening in the discussion, it

directly affected the writing. ​Her strongest words throughout the lesson plan were “harassment”

and “rape.” She only uses ​penalties​ twice in her speaking but not once in her writing.

Student three was partnered with student four for the three discussion questions. Student

three spoke a lot when analyzing the three informational texts. In her writings, she only used the

words “felony” and “misdemeanor” once each, but they were used correctly and profoundly.

Question three was answered with understanding of the topic and how the issue is common in

her community. Student three even gave an example using two vocabulary words within the

proposed scenario. Knowing that student three spoke a lot during the discussion questions, she

was able to answer the written portion correctly and insightfully. When watching her write the
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responses, student three came to a point in her writings where she did not refer back to the

vocabulary bank. Just like researchers ​Schreuder and Weltons discussed in ​The Bilingual

Lexicon,​ the repetition allowed student three to find success in her writing. The process of

linking the word’s definition in Spanish and English came organically for student three. ​The

practicing of the vocabulary words in her discussion with student four directly affected her

writing responses for the better.

Lastly, student four resulted with many similarities to student three. When listening to the

conversation between student three and student for,student three definitely did more of the

talking. However, student four wrote very profound and insightful responses, sharing that he

knew the content and how to apply it to his writing responses. Student four did have some

grammar mistakes in all three responses, especially when it came to his spelling. Words like

“harassment” was misspelled a few times, even though the word was provided in the vocabulary

bank. I noticed the most insight on question three, and it seems like student four really is inspired

by the informational texts he studied prior to his writings. Similar to Professor Ajayi's studies,

student four was able to directly make connections to his background and life and use this

information as a platform four change. Student four presented lots of knight, and his

conversation with student three kickstarter his understanding for the words and how to apply the

vocabulary into his responses. Even though he did not speak as much as student three, I wonder

if listening helped student four understand the vocabulary.

Action Plan Interpretation

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I learned a lot throughout this action research plan and process. During this action plan,

student one, student two, student three, and student four practiced repetition of vocabulary words

in their speaking and writing in order to organically produced understanding for the words and

the texts. Even though speaking and writing were at the forefront of my goals in this research,

student four showed me that listening is just as important as speaking when learning new

vocabulary. In the discussion portion of the lesson, student four spoke mostly to student three,

where student three nodded his head once in a while and seldom responded. At first, I was

concerned if this active listening would allow him to be successful in his writing responses. After

reading the responses, student four came out with the largest insight on the topic, and even

proposed an action plan DeWitt Clinton High School can do in order to combat harassment.

There were a few limitations to my studies. Unfortunately, due to time constraint, the four

students did not have time to learn the pronunciation of the word prior to the start of the lesson,

so corrections had to be made in their discussions. Additionally, the students were all different

ages, 16, 17, 18, and 20. This difference in age may not seem like a large gap, but it may have

affected the results in terms of understanding the vocabulary. Through this action plan, I have

learned that speaking, writing, listening, and reading are all central and equally as important

factors for vocabulary development.

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References

Ajayi, L. (2014, April). Vocabulary instruction and Mexican–American bilingual students: How

two high school teachers integrate multiple strategies to build word consciousness in

English language arts classrooms. Retrieved April, 2018, from

https://www.tandfonline.com

Lesaux, N. K., Kieffer, M. J., Faller, S. E., & Kelley, J. G. (2011, November 09). The

Effectiveness and Ease of Implementation of an Academic Vocabulary Intervention for

Linguistically Diverse Students in Urban Middle Schools. Retrieved from

https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Schreuder, R., & Weltens, B. (n.d.). The Bilingual Lexicon. Retrieved from

https://books.google.com/books