But Can Your ESL Students Understand You?

One term that ESL teachers and researchers often use when talking about instructing ESL students is guarded vocabulary. Yesterday, I posted a video link to Stephen Krashen talking about comprehensible input and how important it is that your students be able to understand you. One way to help with this is by using guarded vocabulary, so I wanted to explain the term a little more so you can be sure to implement it in your classroom.

According to Herrera and Murry in their book Mastering ESL and Bilingual Methods, guarded vocabulary does NOT involve "unnatural speech or raising the volume of instruction" (p. 275) but rather involves " linguistic actions on the part of the instructor that increase the comprehensibility of instruction" (p. 275). So what does that mean? What are these linguistic actions? Well here are some ideas...

• Slowing the rate of speech
• Emphasizing word enunciation
• Simplifying the vocabulary used. In other words, stating things as simply as possible
• Using more consistent vocabulary with appropriate repetition (songs, raps, chants, etc)
• Using shorter sentences with simpler syntax
• Inserting more pauses between phrases

I hope these ideas are helpful and you are able to implement some of them right away! First, try making some observations about your speech and see which of these ideas your students could most benefit from.