“A Focus on Vocabulary”
Worth checking out:
Mysteries of vernacular: Bewilder – Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
I thoroughly enjoyed this reading. I think it reinforces the importance for us teachers to be cognitive of the words we use and more importantly, how they are received. The article made me more aware of how we should not assume that our students, that we ourselves too, have a full grasp of the language we use in the classroom. From my experiences, some teachers gave a list of words with their definitions and expected students to memorize that list. I remember countless vocabulary quizzes throughout high school. Looking back, those tests were not always the most effective way to introduce new terms or help me remember those terms. Through this article, I gleamed some new, practical, and integrated methods for approaching vocabulary.
I think the article effectively argued that for students to “know” or better grasp words, they must come to experience these words incrementally, multidimensionally, and integrally. I think teachers cannot forgot that this requires time, patience, a natural approach, and one that is applicable and relevant to students lives. I think this is particularly challenging with discipline-specific words. I think we must emphasize the importance that vocabulary does not emerge from a vacuum, but is situated in context and relation to other words. Therefore accessing prior knowledge is crucial as it helps students learn from channels or avenues that they already possess––thus reinforcing those connections and memory access.
To take an example: as a social studies teacher, I may teach my students about the concept and policy of “multiculturalism.” There is already so much occurring in a word like this. The word can be broken down into its various elements: “multi”; “cultural”; “ism.” Each one of those parts are interrelated to other words they may encounter. It is also a term that has rich historical and societal weight. It used all the time, particularly in describing Canadian society. Therefore a word like this has great potential to explore related concepts like culture in general, but more importantly for my students––cultures represented in our classroom. It could be their own distinct culture, it would be a debate over the characteristic of a Canadian culture (whatever that may mean), it can even be a discussion about the culture of our class itself. Therefore by making these connections, this word is integrated into a whole slew of vocubalry regarding culture, society, history, backgrounds, politics, and more.
One final comment on the article. The sections on “word consciousness” and “computer-related instruction” I found highly relevant. I recently discovered these fascinating, informative, and useful TED Ed talks called “the mysteries of vernacular.” They can be found here: http://ed.ted.com/lessons?category=literature-language. These short videos can, I hope, help develop a curiosity in the stories and mysteries behind words. Often, these words can be quite confusing or appear out of joint with a majority of other words. It is a resource worth revisiting and perhaps adaptable to the classroom in various forms.
Michael Yang