Vocabulary Instruction

In high school, my teachers used a few different methods for vocabulary instruction.  For this blog discussion I will be focusing on how teachers in my discipline, which is science, would go about vocabulary instruction.  In high school, most of my teachers utilized lab books for class instruction.  These lab books consisted of all of our lecture notes, activities, and homework for a particular unit.  At the beginning of each of these lab books my teachers would provide us with the objectives of the unit, as they align with the Utah Core Standards, as well as what specific concepts we should take from each lesson.  Part of this introduction to the unit was also the vocabulary we would be required to understand.  I really liked that my teachers provided this to us because it gave me something to look for when my teacher was lecturing, or when we were participating in a class activity.

In a lecture, my teacher would typically provide the word and definition for us.  We would then talk about different examples or describe the process in which this word is part of.  Discussion of vocabulary would usually occur towards the beginning of the lecture in order for us to be able to more effectively dive in to the material.  Being introduced to the vocabulary beforehand allowed us to make more sense of what our teacher was instructing us on.  I feel like my teachers mostly used the approach of teaching individual words, as discussed in the Harmon, Wood, and Hedrick reading.

One method my teachers used that mirrored an example given in the book was instructing us on Greek and Latin roots.  Many words in science contain these roots and having a knowledge of their meanings can help you figure out what other words mean.  In my Human Biology class, we had a whole section dedicated to learning these roots.  I remember my teacher telling us that knowing these roots wouldn't only help us in the class, but would also help us in our future. Being a biology major, learning those roots has helped my immensely in my major, but my teacher also gave the example of this vocabulary helping us when we go to the doctor, or trying to read labels.  This showed me that having a knowledge of different disciplinary vocabularies is very beneficial when encountering daily aspects of society. 

In my classroom, I would really like to utilize some of the ideas provided from studies on page 7 of the reading.  In the study by Lloyd and Contreras (1985), it was found that students learn vocabulary better when they are provided with a hands on activity relating to the vocabulary.  After reading about this, I reflected back to our last broadcast class when we participated in the soil activity.  I think allowing students to get their hands a little dirty helps them to understand what we are really talking about in class. For example, some students when asked to prevent erosion may mirror terracing before learning about it.  Then when they learn about it in the lecture portion of class, they can make that connection of the word to what they did in the activity.  I think the key to teaching vocabulary effectively will be by providing students with a variety of opportunities.  By providing students the access to related reading and other forms of media students will be better able to understand the vocabulary of the discipline.