Why students need to learn academic words

Method, analyse, conversely. These words are more useful than you think. These and other “academic” words are used in writing and speech at school and other educational settings without being specific to any discipline. They can be used, among other things, to describe research (method, analyse) and to structure speech and writing (conversely). What’s more, knowing them can predict performance at primary school, secondary school and university. In other words, how well students know academic words may affect how well they do at school. But although students are surrounded by academic words, they are not typically taught them at school – so learning them can be challenging.