Our student’s spoken vocabulary is between 5,000 and 7,000 words, where academically they need about 85,000 to 100,000 words. Quite a disparity. Why such a gap, students aren’t that different from the rest of the population.
Our culture is filled with dude, dude, dude, oh yeah and dude. There are many means for the same word. This is world where you only need a few thousand words. Those words just have to be good multitaskers.
Academics are the opposite. We need tens of thousands of words because we search for as many words as possible to describe one idea.
These two conflicting views of life are the way of our world. It’s no wonder that our students struggle with our academic words, they just aren’t that good of multitaskers. In fact our words are just one of many.
Is there a happy medium we should be seeking, lets add new words that have multiple meaning but are more descriptive of dude. Our student may just need a few new multitasker words at a time that will lead to a want of even more descriptive terms. This will grow there vocabulary in a natural way, just as a young child trying to better describe the world around them.
Not only do we have simple multitasking words, but we have different words for each culture. And some of these "words" are not even words. I know that many of my students must be confussed. They do not know when to use proper words and when to use "their" words. I often wonder if they even know the proper ones anymore. I can not imagine how someone that does not speak english can manage here. Their vocabulary is probably filled with more "slang" english words than the academic words needed to function in "career society."
ReplyDeleteWhat a disparity. There is a true deficit in student vocabulary and their use of the English language. Having grown up in a household that insisted I use proper English. IN our neighborhood ebonics and slang was second nature. I strived to expand my vocabulary in hopes of excelling on the SAT and within my high school I did. I have witnessed first hand the division in vocabulary comprehension. Lately I have found myself using more slang and attribute it to listening to student conversations and replicating it while art school.
ReplyDeleteYour background has a major influence on your vocabulary. I know, going to a majority white school, I talked “so-called” white. But growing up, I learned to code switch. I know how to speak when dealing with authority, my friends, and my family. I think everyone should learn how to code switch; unfortunately, kids now and days do not learn this. They speak the same way when conversing with a friend or an authority figure. Another sad instance is the language they use. I agree, they do use the same words for multiple meanings, but listening to them, it just sounds boring. And when they want to spice it up, they use profanity! This is very depressing!!
ReplyDeleteI most certainly agree. So many of our students experience little vocabulary before entering school that it creates this major disparity. As teachers it is important that we integrate new words into their vocabulary that they need in life. I'm not as concerned with the science or math terminology... just PROPER ENGLISH. Many of the works we have read in past courses have encouraged teachers to embrace the ebonics and slang we encounter in our classrooms, but I disagree. Slang will not get you hired for a job. The word "dude" is not going to get you into college. I'm a little concerned that some individuals in the in our vast educational community want me to embrace words like "dude" or "bro" in my classroom.
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