Vocabulary

Wow! I just finished listening to some of the pod casts on the Voice of Vocab website. I had never thought of using vocab in that way before. The students were using the vocabulary in original sentences and conversations that might actually occur on a daily basis. They had evidently written a script for the podcast, but were using the words in sentences that pertained to them and their life. A definition and part of speech is given for each word, this clarifies why the speaker is using the word in a given context.
This is a dynamic way to think about using vocabulary. Students are not simply handed a list of words at the beginning of the week and expected to have them memorized by rote on Friday. They are given an opportunity to use the words and make them important in their life by using them in real world contexts. Also, this is an interesting approach to teaching vocab because it does not necessarily take up more time during class, but it allows auditory learners to benefit from hearing the word multiple times with the definition and a sentence while they are studying. I think this is a great use of not only pod casting, but also of vocabulary words. This would be interesting to implement in a Spanish classroom where students may want to hear a Spanish speaker pronounce their vocabulary words and use them in sentences. The possibilities are endless.