Effective vocabulary instruction requires the use of
a variety of strategies and as we discussed our articles in small groups I was
definitely struck by a few common themes.
Student choice was definitely a reoccurring theme, as was morphological
awareness. The article that I read
discussed the usefulness and importance of vocabulary self-selection and as a
side note, it mentioned the value of making sure that the given vocabulary
words needed to be present and legitimate in the context of everyday life. The importance of this social/societal aspect
in regard to the usefulness and effectiveness of learning new vocabulary is
what I would like to expand on a little bit on in this blog.
Instructional techniques and strategies are readily
available and easy to look up to the extent that the number of methodologies
can be a bit overwhelming. However, the idea of how instrumental the
environment is in the acquisition and understanding of new vocabulary seemed to
be a bit less explicit.
As my classmates were explaining the main points of
the given articles, I kept making connections to the theories of Vygotsky and
Brofenbrenner. Of the hundreds of
thousands of words that we learn throughout life, I would argue that only a
very small percentage is learned through direct instruction. In my opinion, the articles focused a bit too
much on specific strategies of vocabulary instruction at the expense of
devaluing the importance of the surrounding societal, familial and educational
environment. After all, the top
educational systems in the world vary greatly in their methods of content
delivery, but what they have in common is an overarching societal buy-in to the
importance of education.
The importance of the role of family and community
in the process of literacy development is evident in the Literacy histories of
the members of our class. As professor
Lattanzi pointed out, the mention of school in our literacy histories was
almost nonexistent. Keeping this in
mind, I think that it would be worth looking into more aspects of peer
relations, family situations, and community programs. With this agenda in mind, I have linked a
couple of articles that expand on the notion of the importance societal values
regarding education.
What a great post Jamie and thank you for the useful resources you attached. You managed to articulate the main thought that I had about vocabulary instruction. The fact that you stated your argument far more succinctly than I was both admirable and annoying!
ReplyDeleteMy experience was that I learned so much vocabulary just through communicating and existing, living my life really rather than having vocab taught in an unnatural way. In school what worked for me was being introduced to vocabulary in my subject area lessons. For example, I learned the word erosion in geography, atom in chemistry or conjugate in French lessons. In this way my vocabulary was taught to me in context. I did not even realize I was being instructed in vocabulary. It just all made sense.
Where I do see value in direct vocabulary instruction is in word study. This kind of instruction I can see would motivate students to engage with words and associate many more words with roots and be able to analyze new words and guess their meanings.
Thanks for your thought provoking post.
Thanks for the post Jamie. I have to agree with you that heavy strategy use without context is not the way to go. However, I have to agree with Alison in the fact that word study is important because it helps generate vocabulary and one's knowledge about how many English words work. I think creating random lists of words doesn't make sense, but I do think choosing a few domain specific words to teach explicitly is important to ensure comprehension and understanding of content.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting those articles. I have seen them. What is striking (and very sad) to me is how we value education in the U.S. We seem to not trust intelligent people and we put down teachers and academics. In the community that I teach, dance, sports, and many times vacations have precedent over academic rigor.