Chapter 8: Vocabulary Building in the Language Classroom

This chapter underlines the importance of vocabulary instruction for developing readers. Oftentimes in language classes, vocabulary is taught by categories: greetings, days of the week, vocabulary used in the home or school. Words become something that are memorized, divorced from context and quickly forgotten by students. In my own language learning experience, I have a hard time recalling the words for "armchair" or "blouse," yet I can easily remember the words I have used and interacted with in a meaningful way.

When it comes to reading texts, language teachers frequently rely on dictionaries to supply unknown definitions for students. Many teachers view this as a self-efficacy strategy, where students are in charge of their own learning and should know how to help themselves. Yet, the books expertly notes that being told to look in a dictionary is often seen as a dismissal by students, indicating that the teacher has no desire to help. Dictionaries are daunting to students, especially struggling readers. Consulting a dictionary breaks the "flow" of reading a text and can cause students to become distracted. In addition, with students who are unfamiliar with the nuances of a language, dictionaries can be used incorrectly. A French professor I had in college related a story of a beginner student who wrote the sentence, "La porte est un pot," meaning "The door is a jar." What he had meant to say is "The door is ajar," in the sense of being open, but the dictionary (or Google Translate) lead him to the incorrect word. (She ended up having to ask the student exactly what he had meant to say.)

This chapter has excellent strategies that students can use to find meaning in words without consulting a dictionary. The first approach is to use context clues to help define a word. The authors note how syntax and semantics often give an indication as to the meaning. Language learners would benefit from being explicitly told that "is" and "are called" are often followed by a definition of a term. Students can also use surrounding words or sentences to approximate an understanding of a word. Page 269 has a wonderful list of contextual clues that could be taught as reading strategies.

Another beneficial approach for language learners is the use of word structure to define unknown words. The teaching of common prefixes and suffixes will help students get a general idea of a term, which, along with context clues, could give an adequate definition. Bilingual students can build on their strengths through the use of cognates. Especially for speakers of Romance languages, many specialized terms are similar in English due to their Latin root. It should be noted, however, that this strategy only works if the bilingual speakers are familiar with the terms in their native language.