Domain III: Vocabulary and Language Patterns

In the Vocabulary and Language Patterns domain there are three important areas: Vocabulary, Language Patterns and
Self-correction / Reformulation

Vocabulary
In order to score a student's vocabulary, the teacher needs to think about the amount of words the student uses, the accuracy with which they are used, and their appropriacy to the context and audience. A high-scoring student will have a wide range of vocabulary that s/he can use effectively to talk about the current topic, but that is not too simple or too complicated for the audience (depending on whether the audience is made up of group members from the same class, a class of peers, students from older or younger school years, teachers, parents, etc.). A wide vocabulary is only effective if it is used in grammatically correct or at least easily-understandable sentences, and so the two parts of this domain have to be considered very closely together.

Language Patterns
Like vocabulary, language patterns are looked at from several point of views: quantity, variety, and appropriacy. The most difficult of these aspects is appropriacy, because it requires the speaker to be aware of the audience and make adjustments to the linguistic difficulty level so that the listener(s) can follow the interaction or presentation. A speaker can have a very strong command of English language patterns but not realize that they need to use simpler sentence structures or avoid low-frequency phrasal verbs because classmates or group members may have a lower English ability level than her or himself. Teachers are very familiar with making judgements of students' grammatical accuracy and stage of acquisition of grammatical patterns, but many are less accustomed to thinking about appropriacy. However, a teacher's familiarity with the abilities of the students in his or her own classroom and observing each student during teaching and learning activities will have prepared the teacher to make sound judgements about what language patterns are appropriate for the students in the class or group.

Self-correction / Reformulation
This is a minor element of the Vocabulary and Language Patterns domain, but students who are able to self-correct are students who are already self-monitoring, self-assessing, and learning from speaking. Teachers encourage students to self-correct or reformulate (to reformulate is to say the same thing in a different way, using language the student is sure s/he can get right) as part of language development.