Transcript The Lexical Approach - Strategic Learning Unlimited

Vocabulary
Development for ESL
Students
Andy Gibbons
Bruce Havostal
Bill Camarinos
Introduction
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“Learning a second language is a long and
complex undertaking.” H.D. Brown, Principles of
Language Learning and Teaching
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No one is more motivated to learn a new
language than an ESL student. It is a ticket of
admission to mainstream America
Developing an expanded vocabulary is a critical
component of the complex undertaking of
learning a second language
Introduction (Continued)
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If you go to Google and type in “ESL vocabulary
development” you will be overwhelmed by the
amount of information retrieved.
We couldn’t possibly survey all the known
strategies. Instead:
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Andy Gibbons will focus on the Lexical Approach
Bruce Havostal will describe the strategy of Finding
the Meaning from the Text.
Bill Camarinos will explain a personally developed
strategy he calls the “Practical and Involved
Vocabulary Development Process for ESL Students.”
Some Ways of Teaching
Vocabulary
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Grammar Translation Method
Focus on reading to improve vocabulary
Audio-Lingual Method or Structural Approach-vocabulary
secondary to structural patterns
The Lexical Approach.
Teach students how to find the meaning in the text.
The Practical and Involved Vocabulary Development
Process.
This evening we will be describing the final three
methods on this list.
The Lexical Approach
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An approach to learning language, not just
vocabulary.
Basic premise is that lexis, not grammar, is
the basis of language. (“Language is
grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized
grammar.” Michael Lewis, The Lexical
Approach: The State of ELT and the Way
Forward.
What is Lexis
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Lexis consists of individual vocabulary
words but also consists of word
combinations (“Lexical Chunks”) that we
store in our mental lexicons.
The theory behind the lexical approach is
that language production involves piecing
together ready-made units appropriate for
a particular situation.
Lexical Chunks
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Also known as lexical phrases, formulaic
language, and frozen or semi-frozen phrases.
Different types
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polywords (e.g. by the way, upside down)
Collocations or word partnerships (e.g. community
service, absolutely convinced)
Institutionalized Utterances (e.g. I’ll get it. We’ll see,
If I were you…
Sentence frames (e.g. That is not as … as you think.)
Lexical Chunks (Continued)
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Sentence heads (e.g. The fact was that….)
Text frames (e.g. In this paper we
explore….Firstly...; Secondly…; Finally….)
“Rather than trying to break things into
ever smaller pieces, there is a larger effort
to see things in larger, more holistic ways.”
Michael Lewis, “Pedagogical Implications
of the Lexical Approach.”
Exercise
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Write down a phrase or sentence that
includes the word “figment.”
Implications of the Exercise-Does It
Support the Notion of Lexical Chunks?
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Supporters of Lexical Theory would argue
that we did not extract a syntactical
structure from our grammar mental store
and the appropriate words from our
vocabulary mental store.
They would say that we went into our
lexicon of words and lexical phrases and
retrieved something like “It (is/was) a
figment of (his/her/your) imagination.”
Learning Activities Appropriate
for the Lexical Approach
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Intensive and extensive listening and reading in the
target language.
Repetitive, recycled activities (e.g. summarizing a text
orally one day and then doing the same thing several
days later).
Guessing the meaning of vocabulary items from context
Noting and recording language patterns and collocations
Working with dictionaries and other reference tools.
Finding the Meaning from the Text
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Also called lexical inferencing is a strategy
ESL students use to learn vocabulary.
Involves making inferences “or ‘informed
guesses’ about the meaning of words
based on linguistic and non-linguistic cues
in the text”, Haastrup’s study (as cited in
Soria, 2001).
Lexical inferencing
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These ‘informed guesses’ are based on the
“learner’s general knowledge of the world,
awareness of context and relevant
knowledge” (Haastrup, 1991).”
Nagy codifies this knowledge into three
categories: linguistic, world, and strategic
(Nassaji, 2004).
Inferenceing is a complex mental process that functions on an
Information Processing model
Eggen and Kauchak (2004) Educational Psychology, 6th ed.
Pearson 239
Lexical inferencing
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Is widely used “by second language (L2)
learners when dealing with unknown
words in their reading (Nassaji, 2004)”.
Is directly linked to vocabulary learning
through reading texts (Huckin & Coady,
1999; Nagy, 1997).
Linguistic and Non-linguistic Cues
Include the following:
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Lexis
Phonology/Orthography similarity
Morphology including prefix, suffix, and
stem.
Contextual clues.
Pictures and Captions.
Inferencing Phonology/Orthography
similarity
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Phonology i.e. the sound of the words.
Orthography how the words are spelled.
Example: The artifact was trianguloid in
shape.
What would you infer the meaning of
trianguloid to be?
Inferencing with Morphology
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Morphology is “the science of word forms”
like those involving prefixes, suffixes, and
stems (Fromkin, 2003).
Example: “When the two groups of
pigeons were mature enough, Grohmann
took them out and possed them into the
air. (Chern, 1993)”
In the sentence what would you infer the
meaning of possed to be?
Contextual Inferencing
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Inference clues may be local i.e. in the
same sentence, forward in a sentence
following, or backward in a sentence
prior to the unknown word (Chern, 1993).
Inferencing by Pictures
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The gold blicked magnificently under the
luminous beams.
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What did you infer the meaning of
“blicked” to be?
Advantages of Lexical inferencing
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Speed-students quickly solve problems
and are not slowed down to look up
terms.
Vocabulary acquisition and development
are enhanced (Nassaji 2004).
Fosters higher order thinking skills as
students construct meaning from text.
Lexical Inferencing
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(Lexis + Grammar +
Phonology/Orthography + Morphology +
Pictures/Captions) sifted through (Sociocultural Knowledge + Content +
Experience + Beliefs)= correct inference.
Practical and Involved Vocabulary
Development Process for ESL Students
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Have students watch the Evening News or Late
News and pick out a story of interest.
They should make a note of all words heard in
the story that they did not understand.
On the following day have them pick up a copy
of “The Express” or “The Examiner.”
They should read through, several times, the
printed story that corresponds to the one they
saw on TV.
Practical and Involved Method
(Continued)
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Students should underline words they don’t
understand and look them up in their
dictionaries. They should listen to the
pronunciation on their electronic dictionaries.
Students should prepare to give a summary and
answer questions on the story they have
selected.
Besides summarizing and answering questions,
students should be asked what words they
underlined.
Practical and Involved Method
(Continued)
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Students should be asked what they were able
to learn about the words from context and what
they found in the dictionary.
Students should enter their new words into their
personal dictionaries.
This method also lends itself to expanding
discussion beyond the contents of the story. For
example, if US government organization is
discussed in the story, they could be asked to
make a comparison with that of their native
country.
Conclusion
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We selected Vocabulary Development as our
topic because we believe that, once the basics of
English have been subsumed, enhancement of
an ESL student’s vocabulary is the best route to
achieving fluency.
We focused on some proven strategies
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Andy described the Lexical Approach which considers
words and groupings of words as the basis of
language.
Bruce discussed the strategy of finding meaning from
the text.
Conclusion Continued
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Bill exposed you to what he has developed
and has been using successfully for the last
three years. Besides helping vocabulary
development, this Practical and Involved
method improves conversation, reading, and
knowledge
We hope that this overview has been
helpful.
We have references and some handouts
that we will be sharing with you.
References 1
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Barnhardt, S. (1997, April). Strategy of the month: Making inferences.
Retrieved July 22, 2005, from http://www.nclrc.org/caidlrin.htm#BM2
Belisle, T.A. (1997, November) Developing Vocabulary Knowledge in the
Immersion Classroom Retrieved July 22, 2005 from
http://www.carla.umn.edu/immersion/acie
Brown, H.D., (2000). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. (Fourth
Edition.) Pearson Education: White Plains, NY.
Chamot, A.U. & O’Malley, J.M., (1994). The CALLA Handbook: Implementing
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Publishing.
Chamot, A.U., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P., & Robbins, J., (1999) The
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Chamot, A.U., (2004). Issues in Language Learning Strategy Research and
Teaching, Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, Vol. 1, pp. 14-
26.
Chern, C-L. (1993) Chinese Students’ Word-Solving Strategies in Reading in
English. In Huckin, T., Haynes, M., and Coady, J. (1993) eds. Second
Language Reading and Vocabulary Learning. Ablex Publishing Corporation,
Norwood, New Jersey: pp 67-85
Eggen and Kauchak (2004) Educational Psychology, 6th ed. Pearson 239
Fromkin, V. & Rodman, R. (2003) An Introduction to Language, 7th ed.,
Orlando, Fl. Harcourt.
Gabrielatos, Costas, (2002). Inference: Procedures & Implications for TEFL.
Revised version of TESOL Greece Newsletter 63& 64 (September &
December 1999),(Full text available
online:http://www.gabrielatos.com/Inference.htm.
References 2
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Giridharan, B. & Conlan, C. (2003). L2 Vocabulary Acquisition: Investigating
the Key to Lexical Comprehension. HERDSA
Hunt, Alan. (1996) Constraints on Inferring Word Meaning from Context.
Journal of Inquiry and Research 63(February 1996) pp.239-49, Osaka,
Japan.
Lewis, Michael (1993). The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and the
Way Forward. Hove, England: Language Teaching Publications.
Lewis, Michael (1997). Pedagogical Implications of the Lexical Approach:
Putting Theory into Practice, In J.Coady and T. Huckin (Eds.), Second
Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Rationale for Pedagogy, pp. 255-270.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nassaji, H. (2004). The Relationship between Depth of Vocabulary
Knowledge and L2 Learners’ Lexical Inferencing Strategy Use and Success.
The Canadian Modern Language Review, 61, 1(September) pp.107-134
Krashen, S., (1997). Foreign Language Education: The Easy Way. Language
Education Associates: Culver City, CA.
Roskams, T., (2001). What’s a guess worth? Chinese students’ inferencing
strategies for unknown words while reading, Retrieved July 22, 2005 from
http://www.sunzil.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/views/5/500048.pdf pp.65-102
Rubin, J. (1975). What the ‘Good Language Learner’ Can Teach Us, TESOL
Quarterly, Volume 9, pp. 41-51.
Sinclair, J.M. and Renouf, Antoinnette (1988). A Lexical Syllabus for
Language Learning, In R. Carter and M. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary and
Language Teaching, pp. 140-158. Harlow: Longman.
References 3
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Soria, J., (2001). TA Study of Ilokano Learners’ Lexical
Inferencing Procedures Through Think-Aloud. Second
Language Studies, 19(2), pp.77-110
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Swain, M. & Canale, M., (1980). Theoretical Bases of
Communicative Approaches to Second Language
Teaching and Testing. Applied Linguistics, 1: 1-47
Wesche, M. & Paribakht, T.S. (1994). Enhancing
Vocabulary Acquisition through Reading: A Hierarchy of
Text-Related Exercise Types. Applied Linguistics, 1: 1-24
Zimmerman, C.B. (1997). Historical Trends in Second
Language Vocabulary Instruction, In J.Coady and T.
Huckin (Eds.), Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition:
A Rationale for Pedagogy, pp. 5-19. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.