Reviewing & Enhancing Vocabulary Using a Triangle
Helpful ideas for Multilingual Learners
Photo by Apurv Das on Unsplash
I hope you all had a wonderful winter break. I’m looking forward to sharing new ideas for supporting Multilingual Learners in the new year.
Here’s an easy one that works for all content areas. I shared this strategy with students in my Content Literacy for Multilingual Students course last semester. The soon-to-be music teachers thought it would be especially effective for teaching music vocabulary, scales and notes.
First, hand out a triangle template with a vocabulary word on each point of the triangle.
To differentiate, you can hand out more challenging vocabulary to students at the higher WIDA levels and more based vocabulary to the lower WIDA levels. Use sentence frames to add scaffolding for writing the sentences.
How to:
Write a vocabulary word on each point of the triangle.
Students create a sentence with the two words that connect to those points.
Add a challenge by encouraging students to create a sentence with all three words.
Ideas for Music:
Put notes instead of vocabulary words to practice intervals.
Put rhythmic lengths instead of vocabulary words.
Use different level of difficulty of rhythmic lengths, intervals, or vocabulary words depending on the level of the student.
Example from a social studies classroom:
Examples of what students might write:
1. Both socialism and communism advocate for public control rather than individual.
2. Both socialism and democracy aim for equality.
3. Both communism and democracy are against exploitation.
Have you used this strategy before?
What worked? What extra scaffolding did you use?
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