American Tim Cook has been using Vocabulary.com to teach English to 4th and 6th graders at The Friends School of Ramallah and El-Bireh in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
VC: Please tell us a little bit about your school.
TC: Ramallah Friends has the best reputation of schools in the area, which is generally challenged by poverty. Each classroom has about 30 children, and there are only three to four classrooms per grade. This means that no teacher actually has their own classroom. Instead we walk to the classrooms, and the children stay in the same room all day. Most of the children are used to very typical memorization and worksheet-based lessons, so introducing them to the modern style of interactive teaching has been difficult.
VC: What languages do your students speak?
TC: About 90 percent of students speak Arabic natively, and they have all been studying English since they were five, in classes that are almost always spoken in English. By fourth grade (which is roughly equivalent to third grade in the US), many of the children are fairly good at speaking and writing English.
VC: Have you noticed any particular challenges for native Arabic speakers learning English?
TC: Because the Arabic dialect hardly uses punctuation, students often write massively long run-on sentences without knowing when to place a period. Spelling is also difficult, as students tend to combine two words into one, depending on how they hear it being said. For instance, 'take it,' is sometimes written as 'taket.' Many English language words are not recognizable to these students, even if they can speak the word.
VC: How do you teach vocabulary?
TC: We get vocabulary words from the unit book we are reading in class. They really enjoy words like fossil and skeleton, or words that they can relate to something they know in Arabic. Words like scout or peak, which don't have Arabic translations, are sometimes hard for them to understand because they can't relate to them. Some other challenging words are adjectives, such as anxious and eager. The vocabulary at this level is not that large, so many adjectives are unfamiliar.
VC: How did you discover Vocabulary.com? How you been using it with your class?
TC: I discovered Vocabulary.com when it was referred to me by a friend in the States, and I think it is a great website. Each week I introduce new words, and the children have a week to learn and practice spelling each word. I try to use the words in class as much as possible, as the students don't have a stellar English vocabulary.
VC: What has the reaction been among your students?
TC: The students love to use it. Getting points and awards is such an effective way to inspire the kids to keep on practicing. I recognize it might not be geared towards the elementary level, but it still allows students to practice learning the words and spelling in their own homes. Overall, I love the site.