Teaching Vocabulary Well

     When teaching vocabulary to students, it is not enough to simply provide a list of words and their definitions and ask students to study them. This approach all but ensures students will only learn the words for an assessment and them forget them after receiving the next set. Instead of giving words to students and expecting them to learn on their own, teachers must promote word consciousness. Students should be able to understand why learning the words matters outside of a good grade on an assessment. 

    Choosing words that best benefit the students ensures vocabulary instruction will stick. Selecting words that appear in text across the curriculum or belong to a morphological family of words will help ensure the vocabulary proves helpful and meaningful to students. 

    To ensure relevant vocabulary sticks with students, teachers should employ a variety of strategies when teaching the words to students. Teachers can help students learn words through graphic organizers or using context clues from the text. In my experience as an adolescent learner, vocabulary words tended to stick in my memory when teachers taught the words in creative and relevant ways. When teachers found ways to connect vocabulary to aspects of everyday life (particularly day-to-day life at our school), I was more likely to remember the words. Assigning students a focused, narrowed list of words and teaching students to use the words in their speech and writing means the vocabulary will more likely stick with students long after the unit ends.