For example, I began by having my students bring in vocabulary as part of their homework assignment. We would work together to create a collaborative list that they thought was valuable and I would add on the words that I thought they needed to know. These lists generally ended up in the 40-50 word range, and we sometimes made two or three lists per unit, depending on the unit.
The next step was to allow the students to create their own lists in a Google Doc. There is some danger to this, obviously. I had to stay in the Doc with them and monitor their chats and the appropriateness of the words they were choosing. But, it did give them more agency and make the activity less teacher-centered.
I still maintain some of these lists in our student portal as resources for my students today. They can't possibly reflect everything that we've covered in class, but they can be a good jump-start for my students who need that support system to begin their studying.
I went to an ACTFL session a few years ago about ditching the vocab list (thanks Amy Lenord!!) and became super convicted about this idea. Mostly, when she asked "If you want your students to stop translating everything into English, why are you giving them a list of words translated into English?" Oh. Yeah. About that. Also, she pointed out that my control of the list did not necessarily serve the best interest of my students or their engagement with how the language could benefit their own life.
SO, here's what I do now. We cover a LOT of vocabulary in class. I allow students to be on WordReference constantly in those first days, looking up any word they want to say to complete our activities and express themselves on our topic. Occasionally, I'll create a more interactive activity with some recommended vocabulary (ex: Animals http://bit.ly/2vMlFor / Food http://bit.ly/2HWgVit) but sometimes I will just let them decide. See the photos below for days when we were learning adjectives and houses, for example:
The most important aspect of this was changing how I assess vocabulary. If there wasn't a specific list, and if I truly wanted students to internalize the vocabulary that mattered most to them, I had to assess in more creative ways. Particularly on quizzes and tests! I started to just tell students to use a certain number of new words in each activity, rather than ask for specific words. So, here's an example of what the first page of most of my tests looks like now (this is from a class at the university level, but the format is the same for my high school classes): http://bit.ly/2Hsiesw
Sometimes I will even mimic the format you see above and give them a picture and ask them to describe it using whatever words they know.
In my upper level courses this year, I also experimented with having students keep individualized lists. Both in my French 3 course (which was project-based, so each student needed different vocabulary) and in my AP course (where my students were at different levels), I had students keep a running Google Doc of vocabulary that they learned throughout the unit. Because my courses were small, I could then create individualized assessments for each student. Not sure I would recommend that with big classes, though! You would have to create one very general assessment to allow them to use those words.
So, that's where I am! Let me know what you think!
