Yesterday I talked about $5 Words, today I want to talk about how to teach vocabulary. Last year I had Miss Remmers' Applicable Vocabulary Lists and this year I tried to implement Urbanec's Scintillating Epeolatry (or USE Words) but it's not going so well, mainly (I think) due to the fact that I'm completely overwhelmed at this point and am basically aiming for survival.
These vocabulary lists (regardless of the name) are focused not on what whatever novel the curriculum deems is important (although we study those words as well) but on vocabulary words that I (as well as many other academics) deem valuable in real-life, and often scholarly, situations.
There are several advantages to studying my own vocabulary words. Obviously, as I mentioned, I can choose words that are applicable — that students could actually potentially use. The next big advantage is that I can take my time; I don't have a curriculum telling me that my students need to learn twenty words a week. Often times we just do three or five words a week! But we are able to take a few minutes each day to talk about the words and their applicability and by the end of the quarter my students really know those thirty some words and they are actually USING the words. Sometimes I feel our educational system is geared more toward quantity rather than quality. I don't even think I could memorize fifteen to twenty words a week and retain that information in a cumulative format. With this program, if I can call it that, we test on the previous weeks' words as well as the new words and it's not multiple choice or true or false — it's write this word correctly in a sentence. This way the students are responsible for actually knowing the word and being able to use it, not just rote memorization.
I get so excited when students bring in photos on their cell phones showing me that they saw the word out "there" (you know, in real life) or that they used the word in conversation! Isn't that what teaching is about? I've already talked about why $5 words are important, but this is how I teach $5 words to my students in an applicable and realistic way.
What about you? How do you learn new words? As readers I think we have an easier time of it, but I do find myself getting lazy. I think I need to start a note on my iphone with words to look up and reuse. If I expect my students to increase their vocabulary — shouldn't I increase my own?