English!
It is hard for me to relate the meanings of some words to my students that dont have much english skills. I can sometimes look for words or describe a situation that helps them understand
Sean,
this is a good point, especially about English being the language of the workplace; I do think teaching the students the skill of breaking the words down is a great way to help them down the road too.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Commonly to take apart a word I go to the root of the word and work from there, most of the terminology I teach is either Latin, or Greek based so it can be easy to teach parts of words. I can only spend a little time on these as we have to move fast. I have a hard time keeping a lagging student up with the group, I feel they should be caught up in our level of classes. I also try to have them understand that English is the language that we have in the workplace and they should find strategies to cope with that. Not many workplaces will afford the learning curve some require.
Helen,
I agree that etymology is a great way to help students who are not native speakers as they are often able to recognize the root words as you have pointed out here.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I use word anatomy alot in my classes. I work in health care and many of the terms are Latin in origin. This is great for ELL students of the 'romantic languages'. Usually the root of the latin work is very close to a similar word in their language. For example, sanguinous drainage is red, bloody drainage. In Spanish the word for blood is sangre so it is easier for Spanish speaking students to remember what sanguinous means once they know what "ous" means. For American students, I tell them to go look in the grocery store for Sangria wine! I tell them that 'ology' means 'study of' so anytime they have a word that ends in that they will automatically know that it is the study of something.
zack,
this is an excellent point, I really like this idea whether it be for ESL students or simply subjects with newer terms & vocab. Also, this is a great illustration of the value that smart phones can provide even in the classroom.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I agree.Also,when a student is new to their future career they dont quite understand some of the termanology of the related material as they read the textbook so i always let them know about the glossary in the back of the book.
I have found that pictures of related words tend to help me when there is a language barrier. One nice thing with todays times are smart phone apps with word translations.
Trying to have a student delineate between-let alone spell-deontology and teleology when they are English language learners with possible middle-school reading levels is a challenge. One too many words ending in "-ism" can glaze them over. How to get around that while keeping higher ed competencies intact! Wow!
James,
I like this as we do need to think outside the immediate definition. Connecting the word to a picture, story, etc might help them more.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
