Academic vocabulary are words that are specific to learning in the content areas. As students progress through their education the academic vocabulary continues to
become more rigorous. In each content area students are expected to build on the academic vocabulary they learn, year after year. The terms they are learning describe content-specific knowledge and complex process, they also make connections. Within academic vocabulary there are two categories: content specific academic vocabulary and content-general academic vocabulary. These terms are almost self explanatory but to be clear content-specific vocabulary uses terms that are very specific to a certain content/subject and may have slightly different meanings in the different content areas. Content-general vocabulary uses terms that can occur in multiple content/subject areas and have the same meaning.
Amanda Shermer