So . . . Where Do We Start?: Prioritizing Vocabulary in High School ESL

The first thing new ESL teachers ask is, "What do I teach?"

Teaching high school ESL or ELD or ESOL (whatever acronym your school district prefers) comes with urgency.

Students don't have many years of public education left, and if they have to take ESL classes in college, they almost always have to pay for the tuition, and they almost never get to count the credit toward a degree.

So how do we high school English language teachers choose the most essential English to teach in our precious few months?

What Words Should We Teach?

I learned the theory behind tier-1, 2, 3 vocabulary in grad school, but it never was an especially helpful concept. It was interesting to think about how to categorize difference kinds of words but it didn't tell me what action to take to make those categories helpful.

I started to realize why these priorities matter when one of my first lessons in my first year of high school ELD flopped.

I'd spent couple hours planning a lesson on colors in English. I had visuals and activities and I felt prepared. So it was really disappointing when I started to teach my lesson and almost immediately, one of my 11th grade ELLs said, "Is this Kindergarten?"

I was frustrated as I reflected on my lesson that night. What did the kids expect? They were learning a new language, so, of course, we had to start with the beginning.

But where should the beginning be?

That's what I realized I was doing wrong. It wasn't that I was treat them like kindergarteners, but I was teaching words that they didn't really need a teacher to learn.

My priorities were not aligned with the needs of high school English learners.

Since that "Is this kindergarten?" moment, I've learned tiered vocabulary is a helpful place for an ELD teacher to start.

What is Tiered Vocabulary Again?

If you are thinking, "I'm sorry. I really don't remember that whole tiered vocabulary concept from teacher school." I've got you. I didn't really consistently remember it well until it actually became useful to me, and hopefully this post can make it useful to you. But let's do a quick rundown.

(If you are still recovering from thirty-five hours of professional development this back-to-school season and you have had this taught to you seventy-five times, please feel free to skip to the next section.)

According to researchers Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan in their book Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, teachers should prioritize vocabulary based on value and frequency.

Words like "persnickety" might be delightful, but a reading teacher probably shouldn't build an entire mini lesson about "persnickety."

In contrast, a word like "inference" is valuable to teach because it's frequent and valuable in school and even professional settings, but kids probably aren't going to pick it up on YouTube.

Beck, McKeown, and Kucan use this framework to outline three different categories of vocabulary for teachers to balance in their curriculum:

Tier-1 (Low-Priority)	Tier-2 (High Priority)	Tier-3 (Medium Priority)
Everyday words kids will hear and use a lot outside of school. Examples: dog, book, run, walk	High-utility academic words that are useful in many content areas. Examples: infer, analyze, cite, synthesize	Domain-specific vocabulary that are unique to one or two fields of study. Examples: isosceles, mitochondria, preposition, federalism

How Can This Help ESL Teachers?

This all applies to English language learners as much as it applies to English-only students. ELLs also need to learn academic vocabulary. They will also be exposed to plenty of tier-one words without our help. They will also be taught the specialized vocabulary in their content area classes (hopefully).

But I've realized the priorities in a high school ESL class need to be a little different.

I've added to the chart (my changes are in purple):

Tier-1 (Medium Priority)	Tier-2 (High Priority)	Tier-3 (Low Priority)
Everyday words kids will hear and use a lot outside of school. Examples: dog, book, run, walk	High-utility academic words that are useful in many content areas. Examples: infer, analyze, cite, synthesize	Domain-specific vocabulary that are unique to one or two fields of study. Examples: isosceles, mitochondria, preposition, federalism
My definition: Words that ELL students may need support and practice with but probably don't require direct instruction. You don't need to teach an 11th grader which color is red most of the time, but they might need a reminder of the word red. ELL Teaching Strategy: Provide anchors and practice, but don't make these the objective.	My definition: Words that ELL students may have learned in another language but they may not be in their functional vocabulary yet. They may recognize them and even know the translation, but they especially need practice putting these in ELL Teaching Strategy: Plan around these words and especially plan practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening with these words in context.	My definition: Pretty much the same definition. The trick with these words is that you really can't teach them without teaching the concept behind them, and, it can be hard to predict how much background knowledge they will need to learn. ELL Teaching Strategy: Ideally teach these in partnership with the content teachers

In a high school ESL class, tier-2 is definitely high-priority, but tier-1 is the medium priority in my ESL class because I need to think about and scaffold the tier-1 words students will use as we practice the tier-2 words.

I hate to say tier-3 words are low priority in my classes, but they are. These are the words students should primarily be studying in their content-specific classes.

For one thing, as much as I love learning and teaching all the things, I have to admit that I'm much less qualified to teach math than a math teacher, and secondly, as much as I hate to say this as well, I cannot be the primary teacher of every subject.

Students need to practice going to the other teachers and asking for help, and the teachers need to see them trying.

How Do I Teach Colors Vocabulary Now?

So now when I teach colors I don't directly teach the colors. I provide visuals for reference on my walls and in my presentation, and I ask students "what color is this in English?"

I do the same for basic clothing words like "shirt" and "dress."

My direct instruction for these is around tier-2 words. Words that are useful across the curriculum, but that they probably won't see on Duolingo.

Today I taught my level 1 students to use "bright", "pale," "neutral", "warm", and "cool." I taught them to write sentences with the adjectives before the nouns. I taught them to describe their personal style using these words, and next class, I'm going to teach them to make inferences about people based on their clothes, and I'm going to have them practice with sentence stems for inferences.

Which Words Would We Teach If We Really Believed in Our ELLs?

We owe it to our high school ELL students to believe they can learn high-school level material. Being an English learner doesn't mean they are behind their peers. It means they are taking on a more advanced task--succeeding in high school in a new language.

We need to prioritize. We need to go beyond "the pen is on the table." We don't have much time.