Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles about Teaching
This Sunday's New York Times Magazine was a special issue on education, with a focus on education technology. I used the opportunity to write an On Language column that explored new theoretical approaches to language learning that are having important practical applications in the English-language classroom.
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Wow! What a response my last column received. Any time The Washington Post excerpts your work, you know you're on to something. My thoughts on teaching vocabulary out of literary context struck a chord with many readers, and I thought it would be beneficial for all if I answered a few questions and shared a few further thoughts this month.
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Traditional vocabulary instruction holds that students learn new words best when they learn them in context. Our "Teachers at Work" contributor Shannon Reed made the startling classroom discovery that context isn't always key.
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The New York Times is a vocabulary-learning bonanza for students at all levels, employing a larger number of what teachers would call "vocabulary words" than any other American publication. And inside The Times, every day, there's a bonanza within that bonanza, the succinct and telegraphic television listings page, whose capsule movie reviews employ more vocabulary — including words, terms and expressions — than any other page in the paper. And quite enjoyably, too.
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We welcome back linguist Neal Whitman, who has noticed that many educators are fond of "choice" language, as in "He made good choices." Neal plumbs the history of this usage and talks to teachers and administrators about how the words "choose" and "choice" have shifted in recent years.
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"Survival of the Fittest" is just one example of the many slam-dunk vocabulary activities that Janet Allen offers to teachers of all content areas in Inside Words: Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary. Check out how this activity could play out in the science classroom in our lesson plan, "Vocabulary Bursting With Energy."
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University of Illinois linguist Dennis Baron explains how a simple grammar lesson can lead to a clash of civilizations.
Everybody knows that a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. It's one of those undeniable facts of daily life, a fact we seldom question until we meet up with a case that doesn't quite fit the way we're used to viewing things. Continue reading...Sign up now (it’s free!)
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