Tom

12-3-10

Chapter: **The research base for effective vocabulary instruction for adolescents**

"Vocabulary knowledge has shown a strong relationship to comprehension and students' academic success."

"high achieving high school seniors know about four times as many words as their classmates" <- citation from 1941

I'm joining this conversation late and thinking about literature I know better related to English Language Learners who supposedly have considerably less language than their native peers. Imagine having about 400-500 words versus several thousand!

Language acquistion tells us that sometimes we may have "input" comprehensions meaning that we can understand what we //hear// or //read// prior to being able to "output" abilities, demonstrating that we know something that we //say// or //write//. So, if this is true, than within the content areas, we need to do a better job as teachers creating a variety of exposures to VOCAB, content area language, many inputs and then many output trials.

So...with English language learners, they suggest that we do a bunch with //word walls//, creating ongoing visual access to new words. They also suggest that we use props ("realia") to teach words so that the input is accompanied by a visual cue/image to remember.

But about outputs, how do we create enough chances for students to put out/try out and use the new language that they are learning. Certainly, it has to extend beyond simply defining and memorizing definitions.

I am remembering back to my own 10th grade year and something happened. I'm not your average student. Meaning that I was pretty motivated and very interested by language. But I remember that I got very interested in looking up words and writing 2-3 word definitions of the words in my school books - mostly, literature. I would underline the words in the text and at the btm of the page, I would write my definition. At the time, I was partially motivated by a goal to improve my scores for future SAT tests - ugh. But it became a habit that involved "monitoring" my own reading and paying attention to when I didn't understand something and often, doing something about it.

What I'm wondering about is the //relevance// question. How do we find ways to invite/help kids see the relevance in vocabulary? Where does it matter in my life, kind of questions that they should have, when rejecting mindless, routines of 'learn this. now learn this..'