This lesson uses students' areas of interest both in and out of school to generate personalized vocabulary lists. Working in small groups, grade 3 to 5 students select their own vocabulary words and research their meanings. In a culminating activity that uses text and illustration, each student will create a "My World of Words Journal." During…

This paper attempts to compare the nativist approach on the contextualization of vocabulary with approaches by behaviorists, empiricists, and neofunctionalists. It considers such themes and issues as the following: cognition, comprehension, and communication; prior knowledge and content; the process of contextualization; the skill and process of…

The controlled vocabulary method of reading instruction (popular in the 1950's and 60's in the Dick and Jane basic reading series) had many inherent and numerous strong points. As with all beginning reading instruction methods, including the Big Book, heterogeneous reading group, holism, phonics, library book, and constructivist methods,…

This report details an exploratory study that employs qualitative methods to characterize the academic language used by teachers and students in 4th and 5th grade mainstream science classrooms. Teacher oral language, and to some degree student talk, was observed during content instruction. This type of data allows for a broad descriptive…

English language learners may bring linguistic knowledge in the area of cognates to their learning of new English words, but they also will have special vocabulary learning needs that English speakers will not. They need to learn basic, survival words that English speakers begin school knowing, words such as house, school, walk, and eat. They also…

Montessori's theory of education, as related to speech communication skills learning, is explored for insights into speech and language acquisition, pedagogical procedure for teaching spoken vocabulary, and the educational environment which encourages children's free interaction and confidence in communication. (CH)

Presents a rationale and four lessons for word study and critical thinking in a social studies class using folk songs. (TO)

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, November 1971, Chicago, Illinois. (DD)