We can help students accelerate their academic language growth by increasing the exposure that students have to academic language
placed in meaningful contexts within texts.
We believe learning should take
place in a meaningful context that emphasizes the practical application of skills in order to encourage transfer to the classroom and campus.
«Prop boxes enable children to act out what they know, cement their concepts, practice
skills in a meaningful context, and learn with and from other children who also are engaged with the materials,» says Ann Barbour, a professor of early childhood education and the co-author of Prop Box Play: 50 Themes to Inspire Dramatic Play.
The key strategies he has found include asking students to integrate multiple skills (such as reading and making comparisons) at once, presenting
questions in meaningful contexts, and using a variety of information forms, such as text, diagrams, and symbols.
With technology integrated into a specific assignment, preservice teachers have the opportunity to use their choice of technology
medium in a meaningful context.
Multimedia simulation software incorporates video, sound, graphics and text which allows learners to explore computerised microworlds with exposure to a
language in a meaningful context.
In an attempt to dispel the pervasive misconception that isolated drill in skills is better than learning
skills in a meaningful context, the development of reading and writing skills is described within authentic literacy events.
Character, skills, knowledge — it all needs to be wrapped up
in meaningful context.
One study, for example, found that engaging children in acting out words after explicitly defining them enhanced word learning as measured by standardized assessments later on.28 In other words, when teachers made children aware of the meaning of the words and then engaged them in using those words
in a meaningful context, children achieved greater gains than from explicit instruction alone.
And they brought together some skills, non-lawyer skills, in terms of being able to analyze data [and] put
it in meaningful context for us to evaluate as well as negotiating with firms effectively.