As an ENL teacher, I am constantly capitalizing on informal moments during the day when vocabulary comes up and needs clarifying and/or teaching. I personally believe a good portion of our vocabulary learning happens during the informal moments in the day when a word naturally comes up in teaching and/or conversation. Students then are able to better take on the word and even try to use it in their own day-to-day language.
This way of learning vocabulary is a way that allows teachers to sprinkle words in throughout the day and not have to dedicate a part of the literacy block to specifically teaching vocab.
Recently we were learning about weather in one of my co-taught classes and the word "snowplow" was mentioned and one of my ELLs had no idea what that was, so we had to stop and explain and the student was able to take that new word on to his own vocabulary.
This way of learning vocabulary is a way that allows teachers to sprinkle words in throughout the day and not have to dedicate a part of the literacy block to specifically teaching vocab.
Recently we were learning about weather in one of my co-taught classes and the word "snowplow" was mentioned and one of my ELLs had no idea what that was, so we had to stop and explain and the student was able to take that new word on to his own vocabulary.