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August 9, 2022

Personal Dictionaries for Content Area Support

Multilingual Learner vocabulary development tool

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Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Have you or your students used personal dictionaries?

Each content area has its own specialized vocabulary. As such, I recommend having all students in your course, especially Multilingual Learners (MLs), create a dictionary. The dictionary can be as simple as buying a small notebook and adding tabs from A-Z.

When students come across vocabulary that they are unfamiliar with, they write the word, a definition in their own words and draw a small picture to help them remember it. The dictionaries a tailored to each student—they only add the content-specific vocabulary words they don't know.

Why?

  1. All of us learn best from our personal experiences.

  2. When we create something, we develop a sense of ownership.

  3. It's tailored specifically to the student—created in a way that makes sense to them.

  4. MLs can rely on the dictionary as a resource for all types of content learning.

  5. It allows students to track their learning continually.

  6. MLs are more likely to remember the content vocabulary because they graphically represented the word and put the definition in their own words.

Helpful link here:

Examples of personal dictionaries in content areas

  • Have your students used personal dictionaries?

  • What has worked?

  • What hasn’t?

  • Any tips?

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