InTASC STANDARD 6: The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to

engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learning progress, and to guide the teacher’s and
learner’s decision making.
Name of Artifact: Vocabulary Enhancement Project
Course: TSL 614 (H001): Teaching Vocabulary
Date: Fall 2017
TESOL Standards Addressed: 3e, 4a
Rationale:
The second artifact that I have chosen to represent standard six is the Vocabulary
Enhancement project from a class on teaching vocabulary. This project first forced me to realize
that textbook activities are not always authentic sources of the language since they are written
with English speakers in mind. Thus, I saw the need to use the textbook as only one of my
resources or to change the directions for activities so that they better fit instructional objectives
and so that they are better assessments of the area we want to judge (listening, speaking, reading,
or writing). I thus picked activities from a Spanish II textbook that needed to be enhanced or
adapted to better serve the purpose of vocabulary instruction and formative assessment. As a part
of this project, I first explained why I chose to enhance the particular activity, in accord with
what I know about how students learn vocabulary and how it should be taught. I discussed what
the book instructions were and then proceeded to design each activity with various grade levels
and certain proficiency levels in mind. I redesigned the vocabulary activity to directly correspond
to the way that students learn different aspects of vocabulary. Each activity includes explicit
directions for student and teacher, details about the opening, body, closing, and the follow-up
assessment.
Because I created six different activities, I had various ways to help students to grow in
the many areas of vocabulary knowledge. Some activities draw attention to the way that several
words may work together as a unit to construct one meaning. Another activity focuses on the
usage of pictures as an aid in sounding down lexemes into the mind by its connection to a
concrete object or idea. To illustrate, students have to arrange pictures to form a logical sequence
of events and then use the correct lexemes to describe the actions taking place in each picture.
There is a distinct cognitive mapping that must take place during this activity. Watcharee and
Watjana (2017) note, “Early researches have shown that the human brain processes images
quicker than it processes words, and images are more likely than text to remain in our long-term
memory” (p.24). Because of this, students are likely to conjure an image in association with a
specific lexeme, and the image can, in turn, lead to retrieval of the lexical item. Assessments like
these can provide much information about the structure of activities that are most helpful in
vocabulary acquisition. Once students learn to convey ideas through vocabulary, they are on the
path toward discourse.

Watcharee P., & Watjana S., Advisor. (2017). A case study of learning vocabulary
through pictures.