ETC_Final Project

New Word Acquisition Assignment:

1. Target Audience –Adult Students attending College level Diction Class, class has a combination of native and English language learners in attendance.
2. Materials – Students will find and submit thirty words of their choice. Preferably words they have difficulty pronouncing or are new to them. Using on Campus Speech Lab or home Computer with Internet access to Wordia.com and Dictionary.com, Software to write or copy past information, i.e. Word, Open Office, Printer to transmit results, Recording Equipment. Audio and Video. Assistance will be provided in Speech Lab during regularly scheduled hours.
3. Objectives – Student will demonstrate learning of new English vocabulary words through writing and speech.
4. Procedure – Choose 30 words for this Assignment – words will be relevant to each individual student and chosen by that student. May use Top 100 mispronounced words as a guideline if needed.

1.     Write each word

2.     Give the syllables of the word

3.     Give the pronunciation

4.     Part of speech, i.e. vt-verb transitive

5.     Other forms of the word.

6.     Etymology-word origin

7.     Definition 1

8.     Definition 2

9.     A synonym

10. Use the word in a sentence of your own. Can use any form of the word.

11. Record yourself saying the Word 2 times out loud and provide to instructor.

12. Record a two short videos like the ones on Wordia discussing word of your choice

13. View two other students’ videos and write a response

14.  Ten minutes of each of the classes proceeding due date will be devoted to sharing your status with a partner and exchanging ideas.

5. Web 2.0 Tool – wordia.com, dictionary.com.
6. Social Participation/Social Learning – Students will share and critique each others work
7. Making Connections – Choose new words that are relevant to your life or the works you will be using for the course. Each student will be different depending on their needs.
8. Create/Produce – Produce a written description and recording of 30 separate words. Create a voice recording of pronouncing each word twice. Produce a video recording or do a performance describing two of the words you chose both denotation and connotation of the word.
9. Reflection- Student will write a reflection of their experience acquiring new vocabulary words, using wordia.com and using dictionary.com.
10. Assessment – Checklist

            a)The list of words with definitions, synonyms, etc. will be worth 10 points each. One point for each item on list.

1.     Wrote each word

2.     Gave the syllables of the word

3.     Gave the pronunciation

4.     Gave the part of speech

5.     Gave another form of the word or wrote n/a if appropriated.

6.     Gave etymology-word origin

7.     Gave Definition 1

8.     Gave Definition 2

9.     Gave A synonym

10. Used the word in a sentence of their own, using any form of the word.

b) The spoken words will be worth 5 points for each word properly pronounced.  

c) The videos or performance will be worth 20 points for each produced. 10 for content interesting/relevant, 5 for connotation, 5 for denotation explained.

d) The video assessments will be worth 10 points each, offered appropriated constructive feedback to other student.

e) The reflection will be worth 15 points. Student reflected on assignment as a whole, the usefulness of acquiring new words and the likelihood of using acquired words in the future or repeating a similar process.

Reflection on New Word Acquisition Assignment:

I used this process to complete thirty words for a diction class assignment.  The process made the words concrete and I will be able to add them to my vocabulary and use them well.  Unfortunately, after numerous tries both through my efforts and the efforts of my teammate working in a school environment, I was unable to access the sites full school capabilities. I do, however, still like the concept of having students define words in a way that has meaning to them. I, also, appreciate the ability to be exposed to new word in a somewhat random format by using the words of the day or the most popular videos. I understand the school version of the site has security for uploading student videos and words that are recorded and categorized according to subject matter. Engaging words in multiple ways is important to form the connections needed to incorporate the new words into our vocabularies.