Lesson Plans & Activities

The Vocabulary of Empire

• Grade Level:

  Gr. 12 | Age 18

• Subjects:

  Colonization, ESL, Literature, Reading, Spelling, Vocabulary, Historical Cultures & Periods, Writing, Reading & Language Arts, World Languages

• Language:

  English

• Posted:

  Jun 15, 2011

Total views: 5108

Summary:

In the first presentation of the lesson, students guess at the origin of the words and their meaning. They are given a pdf printout of the lesson, and must look up the meaning and origin of each word, adding to their "dictionary" as they find more words. Mention should be made that other languages, such as Spanish and French, have been controlled for centuries by national academies that permitted inclusion of neologisms and words from other languages very rarely.

Give students an incentive by creating a scoreboard and assigning a grade value.
Assign pairs or groups to be in charge of a language or region and get them to add to their Mimio slide every week.
Make sure that the class dictionary is published and tested on an ongoing basis.

Possible ancillary results, in addition to vocabulary expansion: it quickly becomes apparent to students that most "SAT vocab" words are Latin-based, that most Anglo-Saxon words or words from the empire give almost no clues to their meaning unless you KNOW them, and that learning a second language is very useful (BTW learning another language really well can be VERY useful -- recent studies have shown that in bilingual people, the onset of Alzheimer's is delayed by as much as five years -- see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101108161226.htm, among other sources).

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Tags/Keywords:
british empire vocab, english as a second language, english vocabulary, non-english roots of english language

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  • History & Social Studies
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  Subjects

  • Education
  • History & Social Studies
  • Mathematics
  • Physical Education & Health
  • Reading & Language Arts

  • Science
  • Technology
  • Visual & Performing Arts
  • Tools
  • ESL

  • World Languages
  • Counseling
  • Media Lessons
  • Staff Development

  Grades

  • Pre-K | Age 5
  • Gr. K | Age 6
  • Gr. 1 | Age 7
  • Gr. 2 | Age 8
  • Gr. 3 | Age 9

  • Gr. 4 | Age 10
  • Gr. 5 | Age 11
  • Gr. 6 | Age 12
  • Gr. 7 | Age 13
  • Gr. 8 | Age 14

  • Gr. 9 | Age 15
  • Gr. 10 | Age 16
  • Gr. 11 | Age 17
  • Gr. 12 | Age 18
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  Subjects

  • Education
  • History & Social Studies
  • Mathematics
  • Physical Education & Health
  • Reading & Language Arts

  • Science
  • Technology
  • Visual & Performing Arts
  • Tools
  • ESL

  • World Languages
  • Counseling
  • Media Lessons
  • Staff Development

  Grades

  • Pre-K | Age 5
  • Gr. K | Age 6
  • Gr. 1 | Age 7
  • Gr. 2 | Age 8
  • Gr. 3 | Age 9

  • Gr. 4 | Age 10
  • Gr. 5 | Age 11
  • Gr. 6 | Age 12
  • Gr. 7 | Age 13
  • Gr. 8 | Age 14

  • Gr. 9 | Age 15
  • Gr. 10 | Age 16
  • Gr. 11 | Age 17
  • Gr. 12 | Age 18

Posted by: mimio_aconrad