Combine everyday, academic and technical language purposefully.
warm · surface
increase · therefore
evaporation · particle
Science: everyday: warm, surface; academic: increase, therefore; technical: evaporation, particle. “At the surface, particles escape, so the liquid gradually evaporates.”
Separate everyday, general academic and subject-specific words needed for one task.
Identify the subject concepts before building the bank.
Choose a few words at each level and connect them to meanings.
Model how words from different levels work together in one sentence.
Let learners select only the words their own explanation needs.
Reduce the bank to technical terms, then ask learners to construct their own supporting wording.
Keep the subject challenge. Offer one model, visual or language prompt where needed, then check a fresh independent response.
Separate everyday, general academic and subject-specific words needed for one task.
Identify the subject concepts before building the bank. Choose a few words at each level and connect them to meanings.
Ask learners to explain which technical word adds precision and which connective expresses the relationship.
Reduce the bank to technical terms, then ask learners to construct their own supporting wording.
Ask learners to explain which technical word adds precision and which connective expresses the relationship.
Adapt these prompts to the task and your learners.
Our purpose is: Combine everyday, academic and technical language purposefully.
Which detail supports your explanation? Show me how you know.
Try the new case on your own. Show the detail or reasoning that supports your answer.
Which support do you still need, and which part can you now do independently?
Maths: combine everyday context, compare/justify and gradient/intercept.
Humanities: combine people/place, consequence/evidence and sovereignty/migration.
Use a small word bank, visuals and partner rehearsal when needed. Extend with precise explanations and qualifications. Judge the support from the response to this task.
Keep the strategy. Change the subject.
Use the task, response and evidence check as a starting point for your curriculum.
Organise the words for an evaporation explanation into everyday, academic and technical groups.
Everyday: warm, surface. Academic: increase, therefore. Technical: evaporation, particle.
Ask learners to combine words from all three groups in one accurate explanation.
Build a three-level bank for interpreting a recruitment poster.
Everyday: people, join. Academic: encourage, however. Technical: enlistment, propaganda.
Check that technical vocabulary sharpens the claim rather than replacing reasoning.
Build a bank for interpreting repeated language in a passage.
Everyday: alone, again. Academic: emphasises, suggests. Technical: repetition, narrator.
Ask which word names a feature and which explains a possible effect.
Build a bank for interpreting a straight-line graph.
Everyday: rise, cross. Academic: increases, constant. Technical: gradient, intercept.
Ask learners to connect the rate and starting value accurately.