What's the Big Deal about Vocabulary?

This article describes techniques for teaching mathematics terminology that allow adolescents to expand their abstract reasoning ability and move beyond operations into problem solving. Mathematics vocabulary instruction is particularly important in the middle grades because this is when "the serious development of the language of mathematics begins" and when mathematical learning focuses on numbers' multiplicative structures and relationships. It is important to address vocabulary deliberately in math class, for, if not taught with its particular requirements in mind, then computation will move to the forefront, and vocabulary will lose its emphasis. The authors present vocabulary teaching strategies particularly beneficial to English language learners because they require students to think deeply, determine relationships, and connect new concepts and words to what they already know. In addition, these strategies visually convey meaning without using complex language or complicated sentence structure. The authors conclude with two points: (1) the ability to speak the language of mathematics is essential to student understanding; and (2) the successful use of the vocabulary strategies will require teachers to match instructional content with the appropriate teaching strategy.