Ajayi, L. (2015). Vocabulary instruction and Mexican–American bilingual students: how two high school teachers integrate multiple strategies to build word consciousness in English language arts classrooms. International Journal Of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 18(4), 463-484. doi:10.1080/13670050.2014.924475
Ajayi notes that the combined issues of an increasingly diverse student population in American high schools joined with the demands of high stakes testing and lack of evidence-based, scaffolded instruction for bilingual students are compounding the numerous problems of effective English Language Arts (ELA) instruction for these students. As a result, these students perform poorly on tests, the underlining cause of which, is low vocabulary knowledge. Consequently, Ajayi conducted a study at a Southern California high school, which focused on the vocabulary instruction of two highly effective ELA teachers with respect to their bilingual students. These teachers utilized multimodal strategies such as; word
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The activities were engaging for EL students in part due to the inclusion Moll’s ‘funds of knowledge’ (as cited in Ajayi, 2015) by incorporating translations and cognates from students’ home language and experiences, but additionally because the techniques were more engaging that merely searching the dictionary for a definition. The use of graphic organizers, technology, visual imagery etc. would be conducive to many students’ learning preferences and literacy levels and would also allow students to encounter and manipulate words in a variety of ways. The techniques incorporated by these teachers provide a solid foundation for effective literacy instruction for all populations of less proficient readers regardless of English