Oh wow. This chapter really threw me for a loop! All of my vocabulary lessons in high school were the generic way of giving us the words, giving us the dictionary definition, and then leaving it alone until test day. Before the test, we'd breifly go over the words to refresh our memory. But, to this day, I couldn't tell you one word I learned that way. I thought it was interesting that teachers just tell students to look the word up or to use context clues, but what do we do if the students don't know how to use the context? Or how to spell the word?
Something that I thought looked fun was the Vocabulary Tree. I think it's a great way to show how words relate to each other and it gives visual learners something to reference. Another visual reminder is having the students draw pictures for each vocabulary word.
Beers brought up that as a teacher, we need to ask the right questions. I think that this is one of the most important things to learn from this book because if we can't ask the students the right questions, they can't give us the right answers, and in turn they can't as US the questions they need to ask!
I also think the vocab tree could have helped learn more words than just the one being studied. It would have been so helpful if teachers would read this book and utilize these strategies.
ReplyDeleteThis Chapter really got me too... I thought that vocabulary was just vocabulary. I didn't think there was much to do besides looking up the words in the glossary or a dictionary. I remember being in school and this not being helpful at all, not sure why I thought I would be able to do the same for my students.
ReplyDeleteBeers gave ideas that I would never even think of. It's exciting to have new ways to teach or help students with vocabulary that will be way more benficial.