Page Text: Core Practices
Vocabulary instruction
Every Somos* Unit features a set of Core Vocabulary words. These are the words that are at the core of communication for that unit. While the expectation is that these words are new to students at the outset of the unit, it is often the case that students have previously heard or read the Core Vocabulary terms. There is no harm in teaching a unit that uses Core Vocabulary that your students can already interpret or produce. If the Core Vocabulary words are new to your students, then following the suggested lesson plans as written should provide your students with sufficient scaffolding to develop the ability to interpret and possibly use the Core Vocabulary in productive contexts by the end of the unit.
An acquisition-focused approach to language teaching is inherently different from a learning-focused approach. In a learning-focused approach, it is expected that students master something as a result of instruction. Quantitative expectations such as knowing a set of words in the target language, being able to conjugate verbs in a particular tense, or employing a grammatical pattern such as correct word order when combining nouns and adjectives do not translate to an acquisition-focused approach.
In an acquisition-focused approach, both the instructional activities and the expected outcomes change. Acquisition-focused instruction is not a different means to the same end; it is a different means to a different end. At the end of a unit of instruction in an acquisition-focused language course, there are not checkboxes for vocabulary or grammar items. While it is true that students may know words at the end of a unit that they did not know before, the knowledge of those words is not the goal of the unit. The goal is growth in proficiency , and it can only be measured qualitatively. As students grow in proficiency, they will begin to interpret written and oral texts and produce more complex texts and speech on a broader range of topics.
How to use Core Vocabulary in Somos
In Somos* and other acquisition-focused lesson plans, the Core Vocabulary is there to help teachers plan instruction. As teachers consider how they will communicate with their students, looking back at the list of Core Vocabulary from previous units can help them to remember which words their students have already been exposed to and may be familiar with. The teacher can then consider how to use those words to present new ideas to students during instruction. In this way, a teacher’s familiarity with a Core Vocabulary list is a valuable tool for helping their students to understand communication in class.
Some examples of how an awareness of Core Vocabulary can help teachers plan lessons:
When using circumlocution to present a new idea, the teacher can consider how to use past Core Vocabulary terms to share the message.
Upon finding a new resource that connects to the topic of the unit, the teacher can consider how to present the resource using the Core Vocabulary so that students understand (ex: planning a ClipChat script)
To say it another way, the Core Vocabulary list is not a forward-focused list, but a backward-focused list. The goal is not to ‘get students to learn’ the next set of vocabulary on the list; it is to keep using all of the vocabulary on the list that students have already seen or heard.
How to evaluate knowledge of Core Vocabulary
In an acquisition-focused model of instruction, you don’t evaluate knowledge of Core Vocabulary.
Reading, writing, and/or listening assessments are included with most units in The Somos* Curriculum. While vocabulary acquisition impacts interpretive and productive performance, no assessment tool in the curriculum is intended to be used to evaluate knowledge of Core Vocabulary.
Core vocabulary and Interpretive assessments
In order to understand the reading and listening passages for a given unit, it is likely that students will need to understand the Core Vocabulary from that unit and from previous units. However, because students’ performance on the assessment is evaluated using a rubric, students may be able to use context clues and other reading skills to demonstrate a high level of understanding even if they don’t remember the meaning of the Core Vocabulary words when they hear or read them in the context of the Interpretive Assessments .
Core vocabulary knowledge and Productive assessments
Similarly, the Writing Assessments in Somos are evaluated in reference to a holistic rubric . The rubrics provided in The Somos* Curriculum do not attend to specific vocabulary knowledge, and so students are never held to the expectation that they must be able to use a specific word or set of words in productive contexts by the end of a unit. In the instructions for some assessments, vocabulary suggestions are included: however, these suggestions are there to help jump-start the writing process by giving students ideas about what they CAN write about. They are NOT to be used as requirements, and because they are not referenced in the rubrics for the Writing Assessments, students should never be penalized for not using the suggested vocabulary words in their presentational writing samples.
In sum, the goal of a given unit is not Mastery of the Core Vocabulary; it is gradual growth in proficiency. At no point should students learning Spanish with The Somos* Curriculum should not be tested on explicit knowledge of Core Vocabulary.
Learn more
For more information on what Vocabulary Instruction looks like in Acquisition-focused courses, such as programs that use The Somos Curriculum, please read this blog post .
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