This study surveyed 649 secondary middle and high school English teachers from two U.S. states on their vocabulary instructional practices and on the professional development they had received to do so. The results showed that teachers are likely not selecting enough words of which to explicitly teach the meanings and that their methods of teaching are more teacher directed than student directed. It is unclear whether teachers are selecting mainly Tier II words, as recommended by research, but that they are clearly not differentiating their instruction for English Learners. In addition, as is true for teachers at all grade levels, teachers are not providing adequate instruction in independent word-learning strategies and spending much time raising students' consciousness about words and language in general. However, teachers with more than eight hours of professional development were significantly more likely to provide several types of instruction and to utilize specific assessment procedures.