Challenging Vocabulary

I teach English to seventh-graders, many of whom speak English as a second or third language. This is my first year to teach seventh grade.

Last week, we began reading Treasure Island. It took little time for me to realize that, perhaps, my students were not grasping the verbiage of this pirate-y tome. I initially assigned them to read the first ten pages of the story. The next day, I gave them time to make a list of difficult words and discovered that the first two pages were doozies. We would struggle to make it out of the first chapter!

Today I searched online for lesson plans. Sometimes expert teachers, having already navigated the stormy waters of language acquisition, use the Internet as a conduit through which to pour their insights into thirsty information-seeking vessels such as me.

(It’s possible that I just mixed my metaphors. Let’s just move on, shall we?)

I discovered that the expert online lesson plans (pardon the redundancy; doesn’t online imply expert?) included a vocabulary list that was not dissimilar to ours. That first chapter is rough.

I’d like now to direct your attention to the word at the end of the list for Chapter 1: assizes. How many of you, Dear Readers, know what this word means? How many of you can pronounce it correctly? How many of you have managed to retain your composure and not snickered even a little at this point?

I give up. I wanna be a science teacher. They have way more fun.