According to vocabulary scholar Margaret McKeown, very little vocabulary instruction happens in many U.S. classrooms (Banchero, 2013). Where vocabulary instruction does occur, students often learn to view it as painful and meaningless: weekly word lists and quizzes. Students may memorize words, spellings, and definitions, but these are quickly forgotten. The result of either approach—benign neglect or rote memorization—is stagnation in our students' vocabulary knowledge. The word conscious classroom podcasts illustrates how vocabulary instruction is properly taught in a fun and meaningful way.
