The Decreasing Level of General Working Vocabulary
In the last ten years, I have noticed the shrinking vocabulary of post-secondary students. Some of the problem,in part,comes from the telecommunications bubble that many young people live in (facebook anyone?) Another problem is that there are fewer students who gain information from print (books, newsmagazines, newspapers). I usually survey my class to see who reads what. Few read anything of substance. I'm considering using a vocabulary survey at the beginning of the class to see where the class is as far as basic vocabulary then see where to go. There are some who need remedial work! Any other suggestions out there?
I never realized that was happening! I've been so fixated on the complete disregard for grammar that I hadn't noticed the shorter vocabulary. Now I see it.
Patrick,
I couldn't agree more. Vocabulary is becoming an increasingly rare substance held by fewer and fewer students. The shortage of it is a major barrier to effective. It may make for fast reading to use the same 20 words over and over again but when it comes to describing something in detail, what is the student going to do?
Steve Baker
I really love this idea and I think I will try to integrate it as well.
Deborah,
Great idea! You are expanding their vocabularies while showing the richness of words, not only in their field but also in their life. Keep up the good work.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
Each class session I try to use a nonmedical "big word" that I then challenge the student to use appropriately at some time during the class/lab. The students seem to enjoy learning words they can use on friends outside the class. I try to encourage them by informing them of the impact that vocabulary has on other's assumption of one's intelligence.
Hi Patrick,
I have found the same problem with vocabulary. In the online enviroment, my courses are only five weeks. Because of this limited time frame, I try to structure some of my course assignments around having the students visit news magazines and other sites to help them experience other venues to enhance learning. For example, I took the students on a virtual field trip to google finance. This proved to be quite successful in terms of expanding the social networking bubble.
Warmest Regards,
Randi Plante
Patrick,
I use pretesting in my courses for some of the reasons you list. I am trying to find the baseline of experience and communication proficiency of my students so I can plan my instructional delivery from there. I think you are on the right track with this approach.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
