Teaching vocabulary within the curriculum

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A half-day workshop to help secondary teachers to develop students' academic language and subject-specific vocabulary.

Recent recommendations from the EEF suggest that to improve literacy in secondary schools, teachers should ‘provide targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject’. Focussing on the importance of disciplinary literacy, participants at this workshop will:

  • Engage with recent research on vocabulary

    Understand the vocabulary gap and the evidence on vocabulary development – how many words do students need?

  • Understand the role of academic language in the curriculum

    Explore links between vocabulary and reading comprehension, and compare academic language with every day and exploratory talk.

  • Develop knowledge of word morphology

    Using morphology and etymology to improve students’ understanding of subject-specific language.

  • Try out strategies for direct vocabulary instruction

    Examine practical and effective classroom approaches to teaching subject-specific vocabulary and help students access and use academic language

Sessions

Introduction:

  • Definitions
  • The difference between word recognition and comprehension

Factors affecting readability

  • The role of cultural capital

Academic vocabulary

  • The 3 tier vocabulary model
  • Nominalisation

Word knowledge and morphology

  • Etymology and morphology
  • Subject specific language

Practical strategies for use in lessons

  • Strategies for indirect and direct instruction
  • Further resources

Training availability

Owing to the ongoing situation with COVID-19, delivery of face-to-face training has been suspended. Please explore our online training opportunities. If you have a specific query about our face-to-face course email Marlene Vasquez-Cain.

Secondary student writing with pen