Teaching Morphology

Morphology

Word Forms:

Overall Rationale- students need to understand that words can change based
on conditions, such as in time. It is also important for students to gain root
knowledge that they can apply to other words to change their form. It is
through this exercise that students can come to their own conclusion about how
words change without being explicitly taught. In addition, this lesson opens up
the discussion about words roots that help students to realize how to change
words based on conditions, such as time.

Materials:

Vocabulary Sheet, Short story using the vocabulary in various forms, pencil/pen

Procedure:

Students are given a vocabulary sheet and introduced to new vocabulary for a
story we are going to read. (Rationale: students need to be exposed to the new
words they might encounter in a text to lessen the cognitive load for the
reading)

The words on the vocabulary sheet are:

(Rationale: These words were chosen because they all went with the story, were
in verb form, and could be all altered the same with -ed,-ing, -s, according to
Anne Curzen in her book How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction it is
important that students understand that the English language is systematically
structured and that the grammar of human language allows speakers to create,
process and understand. (pg 10), Additionally, I looked at using a couple words
that are cognates in the main L1 Spanish for my classes. In the article Dr.
Goodwords Office but There are No Such Things as Words on the website Alpha
Dictionary.com, it discusses the importance of using Lexemes, which are word
endings to increase word understanding in English.)

1. respect
2. defend
3. attack
4. decide
Teaching Morphology

The vocabulary sheet has the word, a space to translate the word into their L1, a
picture and then a sentence from the story using the word in the original form.
(Rationale: Translanguaging is a way, again, to lessen the cognitive load while giving
tools for students to comprehend the story.)

Student first translate the word into their L1, teacher then goes over the words, acting
out or noting pictures as a reference. ( Rationale: Students are able to become linguist
by personally noting the cognates, and giving comprehension to the new words by
comparing the new words to their language)

Sample of vocabulary word

presentation to students

Student then read a section of a modified version of the story. Embedded in the story
are various forms of the words such as

respect: respected, respecting, respects

defend: defended, defending, defends
attack: attacked, attacking, attacks
decide: decided, deciding, decides

In this paragraph students would have to notice that the word

decide has been changed to decided and circle it.

(Rationale: This exposes students to different words forms which according to Curzan
and the videos that I observed in class, is important in the exploration of a new
language)
Teaching Morphology

Next, students are tasked with reading the story in a group with the teacher. After each
paragraph, students are asked to go back and circle the vocabulary words that they
encountered in the paragraph. Teacher notes/corrects as necessary. ( Rationale:
Because my students are illiterate, giving them time to recognize the words, helps
increase fluency and comprehension when reading)

After reading, the students and teacher discuss why the words changed, how they
changed, and discuss the meaning change. (Rationale: students are using speech and
each other to develop concrete ideas about language and how it can change and
why. Additionally, it is a non-threatening environment, as it is very informal to practice
speech, which according to Curzan in her book helps to develop muscles to help
students develop the ability to make the sounds unique to English. )

Teacher then has student practice adding new endings to other words, not found in the
story to practice using the different forms of the words. ( Rationale: Through practice
students can gain a more working knowledge of the rules of English language sound
system, Curzan pg. 63)

After all this is done, students are asked to write their own sentence for the original
vocabulary words using an alternative form of the word.

(Rationale: It is important for students to hear, read, listen, speak and write to develop
their language skills. This is also an informal assessment to see if students can use the
new rules of language by adding the suffixes as needed to have a grammatically
correct sentence, additionally it helps to demonstrate comprehension of the words as
students need to understand the meaning of the changed word in order to correctly
write a sentence (i.e. in the past tense, adding ed), if I wanted to further evaluate
students, I would have them read their sentence to work on pronunciation as I want to
add more time for pronunciation practice per my forum 1 discussion)