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Academic Vocabulary Paper

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This paper reviews the research on best practices for teaching academic vocabulary within the classroom. The different types of academic vocabulary are defined. The common themes presented are the importance of limiting the number of vocabulary words chosen for instruction, providing direct instruction of vocabulary, providing students with multiple exposures to words, and creating word rich environment within the classroom. The paper concludes with personal reflection of the author and implications for professional instructional practices.
Key Words: academic vocabulary, direct-instruction- word choice, word-rich environment, word consciousness, instructional practices, vocabulary instruction

Best Practices in Academic Vocabulary …show more content…

It will then present four key components of an effective vocabulary instruction program: word choice, direct instruction of strategies, multiple exposures to new vocabulary, and creating a word-rich environment. In conclusion the paper will present the authors reflection as well as implications for instructional practices.

What is Academic Vocabulary?
When discussing academic vocabulary it is important to first understand what academic vocabulary is defined as. In What is Academic Vocabulary? (Baumann &Graves, 2010, page number?) academic vocabulary is broken into two different categories. Domain-specific academic vocabulary is vocabulary that is specific to certain content. This is vocabulary that is often found in content textbooks. General academic vocabulary words are words that appear across content areas. These are words that may have different meanings across content areas depending on the context in which they are used.

Baumann and Graves also include metalanguage and symbols in academic vocabulary (11, 2010). They define metalanguage as the processes or expressions that are often used in math. Math often has many symbols that are used to represent objects or mathematical expressions. These are also part of academic language and need to be taught as

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