1. What was the
chapter about?
BBR chapter 5 gives several strategies for teaching
students new vocabulary words. Each of those strategies comes with a description
of exactly what skills the strategy will improve, how to prepare to use the
strategy, and how to actually teach the strategy to students.
Tierney and Readence chapter 8 also gives several
strategies for teaching students new vocabulary words. It is obvious that the
two readings share an author, as several of the strategies overlap – as well as
the specific examples used to explain the strategies.
2. What does this
chapter tell you about teaching students?
BBR chapter 5 gives explicit, concrete directions
for teaching unfamiliar academic vocabulary to students. Students do not remember
words if the teacher simply tells the definition to them, but by involving them
in the process of figuring out the definition, students will remember the
definition much more accurately and much longer.
Tierney and Readence chapter 8 reinforces the idea
that students need extra help remembering new vocabulary terms, and that
involving students in the learning process helps them remember the information
much longer.
3. Can this chapter
be applied in your content area?
Latin teaches a lot of grammar – far more than
students have learned from their English and Language Arts classes. Even with
the terms which overlap with English structures, students may not understand
clearly what they are or how they relate to what the students are learning.
These strategies supply ways to help students work through those difficulties
for themselves.
The last strategy – Levin’s Keyword Method – is something
which I already use with my Latin class. I do not call it that, or use exactly
that method, but I use the same general idea. Whenever my students make
vocabulary cards for a new unit, I remind them to draw pictures on their cards
to remind themselves of the meaning of the word. If they see the word “puella”
next to a stick figure of a girl enough times, they will remember that the word
means “girl”.
I'm glad that you found these readings useful. I think that helping students develop vocabulary is definitely a job well suited for Latin teachers. We not only help students learn our vocabulary, but we also help them understand other content specific terms. I have already had a number of my students talk about how they are doing better in English because of the way they understand derivatives. I also really like the way that you use the Keyword Method in my class. I am interested in trying that out in class. Right now I am primarily using pictionary for the students to create concrete concepts of the vocabulary.
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