Transcript The AWL and Lower Levels

www.swansea.ac.uk
The AWL and Lower Levels
Fit for Purpose or
Fit for Change?
Neil Harris
English Language Training Services
www.swansea.ac.uk
Workshop Overview
•Part One – 20 mins
Part Two – 20 mins
•Where are we all at?
•Discussion
•The Academic Word List
(AWL)
•Exchange of Thoughts and
Ideas
•The Challenge: The AWL and
“Lower Level Learners”
•Conclusions?
•Key Concepts in Vocabulary
Learning
•A Possible Solution
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Where are we all at?
I teach students whose level is lower than IELTS 6.0
I teach the AWL explicitly at lower levels (IELTS 5.0 and lower)
I don’t teach the AWL at all at lower levels.
I use Skills in English in my teaching (levels?)
I use Language Leader in my teaching (levels?)
I use my own materials to teach the AWL
I am generally happy with the way I teach the AWL
I am generally happy with the way my students learn the AWL
I want to be able to deal better with the AWL at lower levels
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The Academic Word List
Averil Coxhead 1998
Based on a corpus of 3,513,300 tokens(running words ) / 70,377 types
28 subject areas, 4 subcorpora (Arts, Commerce, Law & Science)
Excludes West’s GSL (1953)
570 word families
Each word family: min 15/28 subject areas, 10 occurrences in each subcorpus
Divided into 10 sublists (Sublists 1-9, 60 items: Sublist 10, 30 items)
Based around word families, not lemmas
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The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level
Learners
1. Entry level of our students
2. Availability of materials at lower levels
3. Students’ Profile: L1 / Typical Learning Styles
4. The AWL itself?
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The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners
Entry Levels
Do lower level “EAP” students in the UK have
sufficient mastery of the GSL to move onto
the AWL?
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Answering the Nation et al VLT
l
business
2
clock
3
horse
l
business
part of a house
2
clock
6 part of a house
animal with four
3
horse
3 animal with four
legs
4
pencil
4 something used
for writing
5
shoe
6
wall
legs
4
pencil
5
shoe
6
wall
something used
for writing
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VLT Results, Swansea University EUS2 Jan 2011
2K
3K
AWL 5K
Total
Adv
893
629
817
346
3057
UI
698
469
478
249
2141
19 Arabs
Int
726
483
532
311
2319
1 Vietnamese
PreInt
702
565
476
298
2306
70 students:
48 Chinese
2 Italians
9 Adv, 28 UI, 23 Int, 13 Pre-Int
CEFR A2 – B1
2500
CEFR B2 – C1
3750
Milton, J. (2009), Measuring Second Language
Vocabulary Acquisition (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, p.187
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The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners
Materials
Most published materials are for learners who
are Upper Intermediate and above
Concern: How much does textual processing
load interfere with AWL study?
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The AWL and Published Materials I
Huntley, H. (2006), Essential Academic Vocabulary: Mastering the Complete Academic
Word List (Boston: Heinle)
(Website: CEF Higher Intermediate-Advanced)
http://elt.heinle.com/cgi-telt/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M2b&product_isbn_issn=0618445420&discipline_number=301
Schmitt, D. & Schmitt, N. (2005), Focus on Vocabulary: Mastering the Academic Word List
(White Plains NY: Pearson Education, Inc)
(Website: Higher Intermediate - Advanced)
http://eltcatalogue.pearsoned-ema.com/Course.asp?Callingpage=Catalogue&CourseID=RX
Campbell, C. (2009), EAS Vocabulary Study Book (Reading: Garnet Education)
(Back cover: Upper Intermediate to Proficiency, IELTS 5.0-7.5+, CEF B2-C2
GSL plus AWL Sublists 1-5)
www.swansea.ac.uk
The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners
Students’ profile
Not just a question of low entry levels:
• L1 issues (Chinese and Arabic)
• Typical learning styles (rote learning of
the AWL item by item as a list)
www.swansea.ac.uk
The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners
The AWL itself?
• Based on word families (not lemmas)
• Identifies the most frequent family member
but no other clues (polysemy, part of speech,
frequency, changes in meaning)
• Design appeals to rote learners
www.swansea.ac.uk
Rethinking the AWL and materials design for
lower levels
Development of in-house materials
2009: Weekly spelling tests
2010: Towards a more student-centered approach:
• students worked in groups to research and present their choice of
words
• students devised their own revision test items
More engaging but quality of work uneven!
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Rethinking the AWL and materials design for
lower levels
What if...
...materials took best practice into account and...
... took into account the challenges previously identified
... recycled texts which the students had already processed for
meaning (typically for reading skills) for explicit AWL instruction
... did not overload the students but tried to encourage deep learning,
but what about…lexical activation and personalisation at lower levels?
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Key Concepts in Vocabulary Learning
• Words must be encountered numerous times in order to be
learned.
• Different contexts provide different kinds of information about a
word.
• Students learn best when their attention is focused on the materials
to be learned.
• Learning a word entails more than knowing its meaning, spelling,
and pronunciation.
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Key Concepts in Vocabulary Learning
• Learners typically do not know all the family members of a word
family, even if they know some of these word forms.
• An understanding of collocations is equally important for the
natural use of words.
• Collocations should be presented in authentic contexts.
Schmitt, D. & Schmitt, N. (2005), Focus on Vocabulary: Mastering the Academic Word List (White Plains NY: Pearson
Education, Inc)
www.swansea.ac.uk
Extending the key concepts
• Confusing words should not be taught together (risk of learners rote
learning from the list)
• Good learning techniques inform classroom activities(eg flashcards
created in class)
• Learning takes into account the likely uptake of vocabulary by word
class (nouns
verbs
adjectives
adverbs)
• Use of lemmatisation to overcome the assumption that AWL list users
(Milton 2009:12) “have the kind of knowledge of word formation to
make them comparable with native speakers” (eg learner populated
lemmatised lists)
www.swansea.ac.uk
A Possible Solution – latest SU in-house materials
• Use reading passages already encountered for
skills work (course books)
• Revisit these texts for explicit AWL instruction
• Audit texts using Tom Cobb’s compleat lexical
tutor
• Devise activities which focus on most frequent
AWL item in the family plus nouns and verbs
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In-house AWL Materials – some benefits
• Decreases processing load for students
• Saves time sourcing suitable texts for
exploitation
• CB sourced texts often already trialled /
suitably graded for level
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In-house AWL materials – some disadvantages
• Copyright
• Data entry potentially very time-consuming
• Risk of students becoming bored
• Is the source material “academic enough”.
Does it matter at this level?
• Reduced control over AWL items (cannot
choose which items to include)
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Can lemmatisation help?
Word families are the standard
• Base word and all inflections and derivations
Lemmas may be better?
• Base word and regular inflections and most frequent
derivations which do not change the part of speech
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What might it look like?
analyse
analyse
analysed
analyser
analysers
(vb)
analyses
analyse
analyses
analysed
analysing
analyze
analyzes
analyzed
analyzing
analysing
analysis
analyst
analysts
analytic
analytical
(n1)
analysis
analyses
(n2)
analyst
analysts
(n3)
analyser
analysers
(adj)
analytic
analytical
analytically
analyze
analyzed
analyzes
analyzing
(adv) analytically
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Over to you
• What could you borrow from these ideas for your
students?
• What would you keep?
• What would you change?
• What would you reject?
• What questions would you like to raise?
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