Vocabulario, BPR Ch.7

For beginning Spanish (or any foreign language) learners, the classes are very vocabulary intensive. There is simply no way around this. Each lesson presents new words and applications (i.e. conjugations) that the student must obtain in order to move on to the next level. The order in which a student learns a foreign language is very rigid - like building blocks.

I agree with Allen that students must be able to know and apply vocabulary; not just memorize it for the test and forget it. Like in many other contents, you must know the material presented now for the new material presented tomorrow. However, I do not feel compelled by Allen's research on vocabulary as I do not believe it is directed to vocabulary-rich contents like Spanish. Nevertheless, I have taken into consideration her processes of learning terms and will try to mold them to my content area.

For example, the fill in the blank activity called "Poop on Poop" can be integrated into a Spanish classroom. Depending on the level of the class (Spanish 1, middle school or high school) is how it should be arranged. For me in a middle school, my fill-in-the-blank activity will probably be in "Spanglish" - leaving the text in English and the word bank in Spanish. I think this will be a fun sponge activity for students in practicing new vocab.