: Vocabulary as opportunity Luca Owenbridge addresses misconceptions and promotes targeted vocabulary instruction within the classroom.

In this vignette, familiar to maths teachers, lies an opportunity to address misconceptions and to promote targeted vocabulary instruction.

As teachers, exposed constantly to moments like the above, rich in learning potential, we should not shy from these mistakes and misconceptions. We should address them explicitly and fully, as suggested by the EEF’s Guidance Reports on improving KS2/3 Maths and Secondary Literacy.

Following Recommendation 1 of the EEF’s KS2/3 Maths guidance I should address the first student’s misconception and explain that 35 is in fact the Lowest Common Multiple of 5 and 7 and not a Factor at all.

The final student has made an excellent point, highlighting the multiple meanings of the word ​‘factor’ in different subjects. Recommendation 2 of the EEF’s guide to Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools suggests providing ​‘targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject’. Here lies an opportunity to discuss explicitly the differences between a ​‘factor’ of causation in History and a ​‘factor’ of a number in maths.

The guidance suggests that students’ language skills develop from engaging and listening to academic talk. It continues to say that ​“nurturing the development of the academic language of secondary school is crucial, given the increasingly specialised language of subject disciplines”.

Students must move from classroom to classroom, swapping between increasingly complex sets of interweaving subject specific vocabulary. It is easy to see how other words common to a maths classroom, ​‘value’, ​‘prime’, ​‘mean’, ​‘improper’, all need explicit discussion to differentiate them from their meaning in other parts of a school. The EEF also suggests several ways to promote this targeted instruction.

First, they stress that we should be explicitly teaching Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary. The model below helps us to distinguish between vocabulary used in subject disciplines and across the curriculum.

They add that there is limited evidence as to how to do this best but that promising methods include -

• Exploring common word roots
• Undertaking ​‘word building’ activities
• Using graphic organisers
• Undertaking regular low-stakes assessment
• Consistently signposting synonyms
• Combining vocabulary development with spelling instruction

In addition, the EEF call on us to ​“organise vocabulary into meaningful patterns within and across subjects”. Whilst the language of secondary school becomes more complex we can aid students by organising and making explicit the ​“patterns within specialist vocabulary”.

In addition, approaches based on Etymology and Morphology can help students remember new words.

Etymology is the study of the origin of words.

In Biology a teacher introducing ​“symbiosis” might emphasise the Greek origin with meanings like ​“companion” and ​“a living together”. This hook can help students remember the idea that symbiosis involves close physical association and is mutually beneficial.

Morphology is the study of the structure and parts of words.

A mathematics teacher might explore the Latin prefixes and encourage students to spot the patterns. For example, between quarter and quadrilateral and triangle and triple. Patterns can also cross subjects, for example from octagon in Maths to octave in Music.

Crucially, the guidance asserts that there is a shared responsibility between senior leaders and subject leaders to support subject teachers to develop strategies to teach vocabulary and align vocabulary instruction with curriculum development. Developing this planning process at subject level and supporting and leading it across a school is a challenge. The EEF suggest a number of focusses for schools –

• Carefully select Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary for explicit teaching as part of curriculum design,
• Consider links between subjects in curriculum planning and teaching,
• Provide students with rich oral and written language environments (with opportunities for implicit learning) as well as directly teaching vocabulary (explicit learning)
  
• Provide multiple opportunities to hear, see and use new words

Alex Quigley is clear on this final point. Vocabulary teaching cannot be an isolated event. We must facilitate multiple opportunities for students to experience words and understand the implementation of vocabulary instruction as a continual process.

In all subjects, as complexity increases so does the importance of context. This moment is a useful opportunity to stress the importance of this, feeding into the development of Metacognition and critical thinking skills.