Communicating Vocabulary:

The Word/Category/Description Model

EJ 417

The police had a suspect in custody and were interrogating him, but he denied killing anybody.

How would you respond when a student asks you what a word or a phrase means?

Teacher, what’s a suspect?

• A suspect is a person who the police think may have committed a crime.

How would you respond if a student asked you what these words meant?

archeologistcompassfactory

Halloween

Do you know what these words mean? We will look at ways to define them.

squire protractorscriptorium the Day of the Deadherpetologist hazardous

stingy wyvern

• Today we are going to look at ways to answer the question from students:

What does that mean?

Word/Category/Description

Another way to define vocabulary is to use the word/category/description model. This is a very powerful method for defining nouns and adjectives.

(word) is (category) that/who/where/when (description)

Relative Clauses (Adjective Clauses)

• The WCD model makes good use of relative clauses. It affords teachers an opportunity to provide comprehensible input that includes the structure of relative clauses.

. . . is a person who . . . . . . .is a place where . . . . . . is a time when . . .

. . . a thing that . . .

Day of the Dead

The Day of the Dead is a time whenMexican people gather with family and friends to remember loved ones thathave died.

Scriptorium

A scriptorium is a place in a monastery where medieval monks copied books.

wyvern

A wyvern is a monster that has a dragon’s head, a snake’s body, two legs, and wings.

• A squire is a boy who helps a knight with weapons and armor.

• A herpetologist is a scientist who studies reptiles.

• A prison is a place where criminals are kept.

• Halloween is a time when children wear costumes and go trick-or-treating.

• A herbivore is an animal that eats only plants.

Adding Detail to the Word/Category/Definition Model

• We can also slip in an adjective to add detail to our definition in this model:

The Cyclops was the one-eyed giant that ate many of Odysseus’s men.

WCD Model for Defining Adjectives.

• Relative clauses are also a great way to define adjectives because you can group them with nouns that the adjectives collocate well with.An extinct animal is an animal that does not exist anymore because all the members of its species have died off. An extinct volcano is a volcano that has stop erupting and will never erupt again.

Task 2

• Working in pairs, make a Dictionary of Korean Culture. Define some interesting aspects of Korean culture to somebody who has never visited Korea before.