Relying on Context

Teachers often introduce new vocabulary by providing definitions up front. However, it can be helpful to delay explicit teaching of a word's meaning in two situations: (1) If the initial text intentionally clarifies meaning through a rich context; and (2) When students have the opportunity to see a word used in multiple contexts that provide a nuanced sense of how the word is used before the definition is taught. Learning the definition after encountering multiple examples of the new word has been shown to crystallize the implicit knowledge that children have built up.

How does this work, if students aren’t being taught the words before they encounter them?

We learn words by being exposed to them in meaningful contexts multiple times. The initial exposure provides a sense of what the word sounds like, how it fits into a grammatical construction, and some vague idea of its meaning. Each later exposure makes the meaning a bit clearer. After enough exposure to create a solid memory trace for the word, getting a definition helps clarify the meaning. Then, using the vocabulary word in word-work activities crystalizes it. 

Waiting until after reading a word in a text to provide the definition may seem counterintuitive, but it is responsive to research knowledge about language development. Students develop a more nuanced understanding of a word’s meaning if they try to make sense of the word in context before they are given a definition.

This strategy relies on the right texts or context.

If you look at the context in which many words appear, there's not very much meaning students can infer; the context is not rich enough to make meaning. In other cases, students are expected to comprehend texts in which there are too many words they do not know. Indeed, the capacity to learn new words from context depends on knowing at least 95% of all the words in the text.

The Importance of Rich Context

As an example of the importance of context, students may have no clue about the meaning of pulchritude in this sentence: “Cleopatra's subjects were amazed at her pulchritude.” Power, money, intelligence, stupidity, shyness, dancing ability, and even wardrobe could all be filled in for pulchritude. But they can better understand the meaning in this sentence: “Cleopatra was popular because of her beauty; her subjects commented approvingly on her pulchritude.” 

Use this strategy with caution. 

The students who most easily learn new words this way already know a lot of words. And learners with a limited vocabulary need to learn a lot of words quickly to catch up. They rely more on explicit teaching–but it must be linked to authentic uses, i.e., reading engaging texts that use those words, or learning about a topic in which those words are central. Just offering lists of vocabulary words is much less effective than embedding vocabulary teaching in content.