A few days ago, I talked to a middle school language arts teacher and she gave me a great piece of advice. She said the most important thing a middle school teacher can do, no matter her subject area, is help students develop their vocabulary. She continued to say that this is primarily the responsibility of the language arts teacher. She said that the language arts teacher should help all the other teachers on her team to help incorporate the teaching of vocabulary into every curriculum.
The next day, I did an observation. In one classroom I observed, the teacher spent roughly one-third of the class period talking about one vocabulary word. She said she begins every single class period that way and also showed me a curriculum piece that she had developed fully on her own to make vocabulary a strong focus in her classroom, as well as the other classrooms in her school.
After these two experiences, I intend to search for a variety of ways to help make vocabulary a main component of my language arts classroom.
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