thoughts about vocabulary

[ginlindzey]

I have spent some time lately talking to the Latin 3 and Latin 2 students about what to do to improve what's going on with them.  The Latin 3's were pretty stunned when they got their last test back.   The assignment they had they did very quietly, which is so unlike them.  Like they were shocked into serious work. 

Then this week, on Tuesday, I devoted a whole class period to a discussion with Latin 2 students about how to improve grades.  I gave them some questions, some food for thought, some things they have to face up to needing--like, YA KNOW, the 1st three declensions cold!   Or "showing" their work on tests--circling tense indicators, personal endings, case endings, etc.--in order to help them *see* the right answer. 

They indicated vocabulary was a real problem, esp old vocabulary.  Of course, it is clear to me from the really good students WHO REREAD that it doesn't have to be a problem. I guess I should be glad that  they can at least identify that it is a problem.

In Latin 3 one suggestion about vocabulary I might actually find a way to incorporate.  In the junior English classes they have these master SAT vocab lists that the students learn (why we didn't do something like this with the sophomore English classes, I don't know).  Their initial quiz will be the first, say, 20 words.  Then next quiz will include 10 more, then 10 more, then 10 more.  After 50 they start over.

With AP Latin this year one section on my quizzes is called "the little words"--all those tedious adverbs and such that are easily confused and easily forgotten.  I think it has been helping, especially with all those strange forms of hic.  I told the Latin 3's that now that they've started Unit 4 that they, too, will have a little words section. 

But maybe I should do it differently.  I have two thoughts.  One, include after my usual in-context vocab items the previous quiz's vocab items in a quick multiple choice context.  Two, include not the last week's items but instead any vocab items that are "old" but in the current stories.  It certainly is more logical in some ways because it keeps the focus on rereading the stories.  

Maybe.  It's just one more thing to make the quizzes longer, though.  <sigh>   Then again, couldn't they just, YA KNOW, take charge of their own studying?  WHY is it that it takes a grade being attached before anyone does anything?  Why should I have to include old vocab on a new quiz and make my gradng time longer?  Why can't they, instead, go do some quia drills on their own?  After all, I have spent HOURS and HOURS building those damn things over the years, to make studying easier and more student-friendly.

And instead I'm constantly looking at ways that *I* can change to get more people to pass, as if it's all up to me.  It isn't all up to me; it isn't up to my being able to reach all learning styles; it isn't up to me using every trick I've got.  They've got to WANT it.

I always say that when playing soccer and watching women on my team *not* go for the ball.  Like, they might be on the front line and a through ball gets too far ahead of them and they don't go after it.  And I mutter to myself, "ya gotta want it..."    Anway... I guess most of my students are too immature to want it or it's just Latin.

I have a full program of Latin and I'm hitting the point that all teachers hit--the realization that there are just too many students to help them all.  You can't hold all of their hands; you can't work miracles for all of them.  Some days it doesn't feel like any of them.

I worry that I'm not doing well by my AP students....and that it's not so much because of what we're doing THIS year, but not enough vocab and not enough hard core grammar last year.  But the mistakes I make with them make me think more about what I could have done sooner.  Same with the Latin 3's.  The things they don't get still in Latin 3 that they learned in Latin 2 I'm not better at teaching in Latin 2.  I'm really hammering home more grammar.  I feel better about it.  I feel like...I feel like at least I'm getting these next students better prepared....

(and at what cost to my sanity and health?  ah well....)

Time to grade.

 

 

Comments

I hear ya, sister!

[(Anonymous)]

The ownership of the vocabulary is one of the easiest things to teach but the hardest for the students to possess. It all boils down to the effort the students put into learning and USING the vocabulary. Sure, they can memorize a lit of vocabulary words and spit it back out for the requisite vocab quiz, but do they really know the words? Can they take the same quiz the next day (unannounced) and get the same results? I bet not... and I haven't ever really tried this. Maybe I should. I have found that the Italian words I have learned are the ones I was forced to use in the Italian street, i.e. in meaningful context. Do I have a solution? No, but I keep hammering away at vocabulary and using it more and more ORALLY so that they need to understand the word to figure out what's going on.
P.S. I've returned to the blogosphere after an absence... No reason why, just thought I'd come back and start posting again...

Tools to use

[(Anonymous)]

The reason we teach children anything at all is to give them tools to live as functioning, functional members of society. Period. This applies to everything from reading, math, and shoe-tying to music, languages, and auto repair...and anything else you can think of. Perhaps the most important part of learning to function in the world is gaining the confidence that you really know what you're doing, and can do it without someone (parent, teacher, coach, mentor) holding your hand and telling you how. That confidence can't take root and grow if we adults never let go of the hand.

So as much as you want to find new ways to reach every student, there has to come a point where you say, "I've done everything I can, and everything I should." And stand just a little ways away and let them go. Not every student is going to succeed in every subject, and you are so right when you say "They have got to WANT it!" They do, and you can't make them.

not really anonymous

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, I meant to sign that - Jennifer G.

[slytherinbtch.livejournal.com]

The "why can't students take charge of their own learning" problem is practically a daily conversation at our department's lunch table. The Spanish teacher, French teacher, Latin/Spanish teacher and I bring this up concerning our students constantly. The Spanish students can't be bothered to learn the preterite tense. The French students can't be bothered to learn articles or accent marks. The Latin students can't be bothered to learn case endings and what they actually mean. Round and round and round. It can be very depressing.

I give pop quizzes in pairs over grammar and take the higher grade. My Latin Club offers tutoring after school. We have countless practice assignments in class, where the fact that you try and then try to explain what you did counts more than if you "get a 100%" on it. I make them explain all the sentences and constructions when we go over work. And yet there are still level 1 students who can't tell a nominative from an accusative, or even what a nominative noun means for a sentence. If they can't do that after three quarters of the course, then it's not me, it's them, and there's nothing I can do until they actually want to learn something. It's just frustrating that they sit in my class and don't want to learn anything, just be given a good grade. What's the point?

Sorry to rant in your journal. I just meant to say that I sympathize with you.

[ginlindzey.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, I understand. Midterms are this week (I'm about to look over the Latin 1 and 2 old ones for revising and write the Latin 3 from scratch) and I'm sure they are going to feel that I haven't done enough to review them.

BUT, I've been telling them for more than 2 weeks now that they've got ALL my quia.com stuff online, that they can start by reviewing vocab, that they can get a buddy and start rereading stories. The Latin 2's will tell you that their biggest problem is vocab. Maybe what I should do is tell them that each weekend they should review vocab from old stage X.

With Latin 3, I'm starting to add to my regular in-context vocab quizzes a matching section on "the little words". We're in stage 35 (1st stage of the Unit 4) and it has definitely "reviewed" ALL the little adverbs and such. I'm about to go grade those and see how they did.

I think part of the problem is that they think--at least with vocab--that the problem is so huge they don't know where to start. So maybe having the extra old vocab in a simple matching on the quiz is a good place to start. But frankly, I don't want to mess with it until Latin 3. Latin 3 is where you find out who wants to stick with it versus who just needed their 2 years of credit. Besides, to revise my quizzes yet again would take too much effort!

ha.