Research Article #4

In the article, “Words as Tools: Learning Academic Vocabulary as Language Acquisition” by William Nagy and Dianna Townsend, the focus is placed on exploring the need for language proficiency and how academic vocabulary needs to be explicitly taught to students to increase academic proficiency. Furthermore, the article discusses the instruction of academic vocabulary. With a purpose to provide recommendations on how to implement this practice effectively, the article goes into depth about what it means to be academically proficient readers.  

It is suggested that in order to teach this concept, teachers must first know the definitions of academic language and academic vocabulary. The article claims that academic language is “specialized because it needs to be able to convey abstract, technical, and nuanced ideas and phenomena that are not typically examined in settings that are characterized by social and/or casual conversation” Further, that academic language is “both oral and written” and that they are both important, although they may have some differences. More importantly, the article states, “Academic language, therefore, is a tool that promotes a kind of thinking different from that employed in social settings. Learning academic language is not learning new words to do the same thing that one could have done with other words; it is learning to do new things with language and acquiring new tools for these new purposes.”

The article continues to discuss the characteristics of academic language stating that it differs form conversational English in many ways. Some characteristics include academic language involving, Latin and Greek vocabulary, morphologically complex words, nouns, adjectives, prepositions, grammatical metaphor, informational density, and abstractness. As the article continues to explain these factors in depth, it states that all of these factors work holistically as a functional unit, not separately.

The article further states that there is a difference between academic vocabulary and conversational vocabulary. It claims that “Academic Vocabulary words are typically broken down into two categories: general and discipline-specific (Hiebert & Lubliner, 2008).” Conversational Vocabulary is used repeatedly and this oral practice helps students make meaning with those words in many authentic accounts. This article further states that “it is repeated exposures to these (academic vocabulary) words and opportunities to practice using them in authentic contexts that allow students to own these words and use them with facility in the contexts in which they both garner and support meaning of technical or theoretical ideas.”

Response

Teaching academic vocabulary should go hand in hand with learning the academic language. With this instruction differing from everyday conversation, it is important that students learn the differences early on and discover opportunities to use these tools to help them with their ongoing educational process. Furthermore, if students understand the background of their instruction, they can use it as a foundation as they continue to build other tools that can aid with their academics in the future. Understanding that there is a functional and holistic nature to their instruction can also help expand their vocabulary. This could imply that students who read well are making meaning and connections while they read and that in fact, is what makes them a proficient reader.

            In our world, technology is reigning supreme and each day our students are faced with learning this new technology and how its function in their lives serves them. As with technology, there are many aspects in society that require students to be able to read proficiently and have a vast knowledge of vocabulary. Everything around the students further promotes that interventions mentioned in the article such as, providing multiple encounters of words, can foster vocabulary growth and life connections.

Words as Tools: Learning Academic Vocabulary as Language Acquisition.

Nagy, William, Townsend, Dianna.

Reading Research Quarterly. Vol. 47. Issue 1. Pages 91-108. January-March 2012