just had to share ..

[nalani]

so, in our classes this year, all the teachers are being asked to focus on strengthening vocabulary skills... so everytime I give a lecture, and I see that I'm using a word the kids aren't familiar with, we add it to the vocabulary list. Today, I was discussing formatting pages and making sure they are symmetrical in order to be pleasing to the eye and their project will 'flow'. I asked if anyone could tell me what 'symmetry' is ... a kid raised his hand and said:

"Yeah - that's where they bury people, right?"

It's gonna be a rough vocabulary-filled year.

 

[Gonz]

I hope your vocab project works. God knows how awful the grammatical skills have become.

 

[chcr]

I hope your vocab project works. God knows how awful the grammatical skills have become.

Yeah, some people can't even spell "the" all the time (good job on this one though).

Good luck, Na. I think most kids think grammar is their mom's mom and vocabulary is a foreign car.

 

[Luis G]

 

[Shadowfax]

good luck on that one...

 

[Gato_Solo]

Just don't bloviate in front of the class.

 

[ClaireBear]

Whilst I was on teaching practice I started a similar programme with Year 5 (10-11 year old children) using a whiteboard beside the carpet area... after filling the board in three days (these were key words for their age group too!!!) I decided to narrow it down to two "words of the week" which they had to take home and "use it three times" (taking a que from Matt LeBlancs character Joey from "Friends") to make it "theirs"...

I found it so much easier than stopping every few minutes to scribe yet another "new" word onto the board... it is actually amazing how much children will let wash over them until you make it clear that you would like them to stop you if you use a new/unfamiliar word... TV is truly rotting the intellect of youth!!!!