BRENDAN C. A. MENG

Another area of content within my pedagogy which is continuously emphasized through various instructional activities is that of vocabulary. Whether in biology or earth science, vocabulary-anchored instruction as a strategy is spiraled throughout the year and is a skill that is continuously monitored in my students so that I can adjust instruction in response to my students' learning needs. As a continuous process, vocabulary-anchored instruction presents opportunities for me to present and introduce new vocabulary terms through various ways such as direct instruction, through notes, or graphic organizers. With a variety of formats for implementation I am able to provide multiple models and representations of each vocabulary word. Vocabulary is also constantly assessed throughout the year as fundamental knowledge in all of my classes. In doing so, students are provided continuous opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge through a variety of learning activities which in turn allows them the opportunity to engage in assessing their own progress in building their vocabulary repertoire. I believe it is essential for students to be introduced to content vocabulary prior to delivery of content so they can understand what they are learning about to the fullest. This belief demonstrates my understanding of the cognitive processes associated with various kinds of learning and how to stimulate these processes, specifically memorization and recall. Key vocabulary for each unit is always incorporated into learning activities in attempts to implement developmentally and linguistically appropriate instructional strategies to achieve learning goals. In order to effectively accomplish building vocabulary comprehension in all my students, my abilities to successfully differentiate instruction by employing various appropriate instructional formats for introducing vocabulary concepts is paramount. Ultimately my goal of placing such a focus on content-specific vocabulary is to build the confidence of my learners so they can feel successful in communicating with one another in a scientific context.