FINAL REFLECTION OF VOCABULARY LEARNING

I was quite a rebellious child growing up. My mother always had her hands full with me. I wasn’t the sort of rebellious child that goes around destroying things and hurting people though. Instead, when no one was looking I would do things such as tear apart the kitchen pantry only to have my mother find it completely re-organized an hour later. I wanted to do things on my own agenda. Vocabulary learning was something I hated even though it was inevitable while attending grammar school. I hated it because my mother always tried to push my three siblings and I to learn new words. She would pull the dictionary out and try to quiz us thinking it would amuse us all. Then things got serious, she started bribing us with money. We were all growing older and it was part of that development and expectation that we should be learning new words. She demanded it of us. She also changed the game for the third and final time. Somehow the game didn’t change though, she changed. If we could find a word that she didn’t know and we could “stump” her, then she would give us a dollar. I couldn’t believe how arrogant someone could be in trying to manipulate us to learn vocabulary words. I quit playing when “she changed.”

Unfortunately, vocabulary learning was something I grew to resist in my childhood. It was a conditioned response to my mother’s wishes. Ninth grade and Eleventh grade vocabulary lessons in school were arduous tasks for me. Not because I couldn’t do them, I had this negative association with them. It wasn’t until I met Mark, that my association began to change. Mark is an optimist and a very easy-going individual and believes that we should always be striving to learn more. He loves to learn new words and more importantly, applies them to his daily life. I have always been a very practical learner, so Mark’s view on vocabulary learning appealed to me. I began reading books to Mark because he loved to listen to stories while I loved to read them. Almost immediately we began this game of competition that really wasn’t a competition. It was just a fun way to learn and keep connected with each other. During the reading/listening process we would come across a word that would be one we weren’t familiar with. We would compete to see who could find the definition faster (via dictionary, internet, etc). Then we would learn the definition together, talk about it and figure out if it was a word worth knowing and how we could apply it to our everyday lives. The interesting part about our strategy was that in the next few days we would randomly quiz each other on the new words we had learned to conceptualize them. We thrived on trying to catch the other person “off guard.” We still play this game on occasion.

Something I have noticed about my word learning inclinations is that I need to have my own motivation to build my vocabulary repertoire. My mother would force me to learn words and I couldn’t respond well to her demands. My teachers didn’t care about my word learning, it was their “job” to teach me new words. I couldn’t perform well under these types of environments. It wasn’t until Mark that I realized I could have fun with vocabulary learning. The words that I tend to gravitate towards, however, are the practical ones; the words that just flow in the pieces I read. I want to be able to understand what it is I am reading. The materials and literacy events that I frequent regularly are those that are mostly reference. I find interest in learning about stories that are based on true events or are told to relive a past. While I love reference materials, I do appreciate creativity, such as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings and the messages these stories offer.

Vocabulary building this semester was something new. Once I moved past the difficulty in learning how to blog, I was able to value this learning strategy because it gave us the power to be in control of our own development. It was our choice to post a blog or not, we didn’t have to if we didn’t want to but that would mean repercussions. We were able to choose our own words. This is huge! If I wanted to choose the word Hilarious, I was able to do so without being criticized for my choices. I was part of a learning community that welcomed and fostered word learning in a unique way that was interesting. This gave me motivation to actively word build throughout each week. At one point this semester, I chose a word that was completely meaningless to me but I didn’t realize that until I had worked through the blog writing process. It was an amazing experience to be able to make my own inference as to whether or not the word was important to me as well as others around me. Keeping this journal was one of the most beneficial word learning/building strategies I have ever experienced next to learning new words with my husband, Mark. I wish I had the extra time to continue such a journal. I do plan on keeping up with my word building through the games my husband and I play because it motivates us to be knowledgeable. This is something we both value.

Reading-to-learn and writing-to-learn using this vocabulary strategy aided my ability to understand active word learning/building. I had grown up with this negative word learning association and I had only found one strategy to motivate me to build my vocabulary. Reading-to-learn has heightened that one strategy. I was guided through the blogging process and taught how to create a word journal that challenges my thought processes as well as offering me the benefits of writing-to-learn. I was able to be the “boss” of my own vocabulary development by working through the definitions and practical use of specific words. I learned how to facilitate my word learning through this active process of vocabulary blogging that one: uses technology; two: I continued practicing the strategy of pulling out unfamiliar words to better understand what I was reading; and three: this assignment continued to give me the motivation I craved, for word learning.

Test taking in regards to vocabulary learning still remains a difficult topic for me since it does resemble the need for a teacher to do his/her job but I felt different during our vocabulary tests this semester. The connection I made between vocabulary blogging and test taking was that I should be aware of the words that my classmates are interested in as well. This is a strategy that teachers should be practicing in terms of their students. What is everyone else interested in and how can we bring it all together to make the learning process more authentic and more meaningful as a whole (group)?

As an individual, I have come to quell my rebellious tendencies because I have come to realize that people, such as my mother, are not out to harm me and “make me” perform unreasonable tasks. The people around me only want to help me succeed. Taking an interest in my vocabulary learning is where my mother’s intentions were commendable, but the ways in which she tried to facilitate that learning process were not beneficial to my learning style. This is where I cannot fault her for her attempts. Her role as a parent is to help me learn who I am, not to figure out my learning style and teach me things according to that style. Every experience is a learning experience and I have learned a great deal about who I am because of this one.