Chapter Seven

As an English education major I feel like I see how important vocabulary is for the students, but I don't think too many others understand it.  So many students learn a word and it's definition only for the way it will be used on a test and then forget about it.  When I read in the chapter about how important the link between vocab and concepts are, I feel like it really clicked.  There is no way a teacher can teach an entirely new concept to the class without first teaching the vocab it includes.  Allen said, "Teaching concepts requires building the conceptual base and adding levels (vocabulary words) to the concept (92).  Knowing how to use the words you are learning is so important, and is something I think a lot of people take for granted.  Vocab words usually end when students enter high school, but this is the time to really improve their vocab.  When I was in high school I had the same English teacher my sophomore and senior year and I am now so grateful that I did.  She had a game called "Stump the Amster" and we would have to bring in words from the dictionary to try and stump her, but then she would turn our lists into spelling and definition tests.  My vocab expanded so much because of those two years and even though at the time it seemed annoying, I am so glad she made us do that.  I really believe that more secondary English classrooms need to keep the vocab going strong in the classrooms.  I really liked the classroom map strategies that were mentioned in this chapter like the "Context Plus" and the "Concept Circles".  I feel like these strategies are great to use in junior high/high school classrooms to help the students before the concepts get too intense.  I am always worried that I won't have any good tools to help my students, but I think these will be really great.