The Light Bulb Turned On

Through the course of my education at UW-Oshkosh, I have taken several language arts courses. The topic of teaching vocabulary has come up in almost all of these courses. I have read the research about teaching vocabulary, and I have practiced different methods and techniques of teaching vocabulary but it was not until my science methods class on Wednesday (August10th) that the light bulb turned on, and something just clicked inside my head. Professor Fleming was guiding us through an activity,when she said " Don't ever introduce vocabulary before the activity." She then showed us through an example, by defining the term "model" through the activity. Now, I have read the research and listened to lectures about how to teach vocabulary but it was not until today that it truly become clear to me through the example that was given.

As I think back on my own education, I can remember how I was exactly taught new vocabulary words for each new unit I was studying. Almost always, before beginning a new unit the teacher would write the vocabulary words on a board followed by the definition. We would then record the word and the exact defintion given into our notebooks. Learning vocabulary like this did not work for me, and I am sure for most students it does not work. Students, including myself, do not retain vocabulary this way and even if they do they only know the word and it's exact defition and no conception of how it is to be used in a sentence, or how it is really related to the content. Using the word and defining it through the activity is much more vauluable. Not only am I able to better recall the meaning of the word, in this instance "model" but I am also able to recall how it was used in a sentence, and what a real "model"looks like becasue I drew one with my own hands.

The statement that was made by Professor Fleming,"Don't ever introduce vocabulary before the activity", was so simple and one that I will easily remember and continue to use.