Some research into vocabulary teaching and learning

Referring to

pp. 151-155

of: Read, J. (2004). Research in teaching vocabulary. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 146-161.

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What are some of the ways of conducting research into vocabulary teaching or learning?

What conclusions can you draw from these studies reported by Read (2004) about the criteria for effective vocabulary acquisition?

Some research into vocabulary teaching and learning

Dictionary use:

 look at how students use dictionaries  whether they use dictionaries appropriately / whether they need training  whether dictionary use leads to better performance / proficiency  what kind of dictionaries they prefer to use

Some research into vocabulary teaching and learning

Vocabulary in the classroom:

  Look at how students select, record and revise vocabulary in their independent study / whether training improves use of vocab learning strategies Audio- or video- record classes and transcribe these clips. Study how the teacher teaches vocabulary, e.g. whether target words are repeated or recycled / whether vocabulary is taught in lexically rich context, i.e. target words repeated and embedded in easy-to understand context

Some research into vocabulary teaching and learning

Computer applications:

 Use a computer programme to make sure that target words are repeated in different sentences and texts, and see whether students have better retention of these words  Provide (glosses / pictorial clues / videos / L1 translations) via hyperlinks built into an online text, and measure students’ understanding and retention of these words

Criteria for effective vocabulary acquisition

    Students often use strategies inappropriately / need vocab strategy training Better to repeat target words in texts / in the classroom Better to present target words in lexically rich context (comprehensible input for students to guess meaning of the unknown words) Deeper processing of the target words leads to better retention (e.g. mental imaging / studying sample sentences are better than only looking at L1 translations)

Session 2

• Vocabulary size and vocabulary profiles of students • Often used in proficiency or entrance tests; as an indicator of proficiency level • Word frequencies • Which words are more frequently used in the English language? • What kind of words should learners focus on? • Some well-known word lists • Computer applications for assessing and learning vocabulary

Warming Up

Number of words in the English language: Number of words a university educated native English speaker knows: Number of words that you know: Vocabulary size needed for basic communication (i.e., to express what one wants to express, however simply): Vocabulary size needed for reading (understanding any written text):

Can you think of a good way to measure people’s vocab sizes?

New curriculum proposed by EDB

Key Stage (KS) Stage target (no. of word families) Cumulative target (no. of word families) KS1 (Pri 3) KS2 (Pri 6) KS3 (Sec 3) KS4 (Sec 6) 8

Number of words in the English language: Number of words a university educated native English speaker knows: Vocabulary size needed for basic communication (i.e., to express what one wants to express, however simply):

•

1 to 2 million words

Goulden, Nation & Read (1990) estimated that Webster’s Third International Dictionary (published in 1961) contained around 267,000 entries and 54,000 word families. 20,000 word families 2,000 most frequent words

West’s (1953) General Service List:

95% coverage of informal spoken English (but only 80% coverage of written English)

Vocabulary size needed for reading (understanding any written text):

Students need to know 95%-98% of the words in a text in order to understand the text (5,000 words – about 90% coverage, depending on the kind of text being read)

New curriculum proposed by EMB

Key Stage (KS) Stage target Cumulative target KS1 (Pri 3) KS2 (Pri 6) KS3 (Sec 3) KS4 (Sec 6) 1000 1000 1500 1500 1000

2000

3500

5000

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Vocabulary size and text coverage Source: Francis and Kucera, 1982 (as cited in Nation & Waring, 1997, pre session 2 reading)

How many words do you know?

(Measuring vocab size)

Paul Nation’s Vocabulary Levels Test

 measures number of words that are known

at various levels of frequency

 how can you interpret your score?

Recommended sequence for learners

 First 2,000 words  80% of text coverage  First 2,000 words + AWL  90% of text coverage of a text that a student would typically read  First 2,000 words + AWL + Technical vocab  95% of text coverage of a text that a student would typically read  First 2,000 words + AWL + Technical vocab + most frequently used prefixes, roots and suffixes 13

Strategies for learning words of different frequency levels

5,000 Word Level (general vocabulary) • Training at guessing words in context • Wide general reading : novels, newspapers and magazines • Intensive reading of a variety of texts • Advanced English Vocabulary workbooks University Word Level (specialised academic vocabulary) • Learn the words on the University Word List (Nation 1990) and Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) • Intensive reading of university texts 10,000 Word Level (a wide, general vocabulary) • Activities similar to the 5,000 word level, • combined with learning prefixes and roots

What do you think are the ten most frequently used words in English?

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10 most frequently used words

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Frequency lists

West (1953)’s GSL (2000 words)

 How to make reading texts more comprehensible for learners  Replacing difficult vocabulary with the GSL words, selected according to:  Frequency  Universality (words used in different countries)  Range (words used to talk about a range of topics)  Usefulness (words used to define other words) 16

Local Situation: Sources of input for the EDB wordlists

  Words taken from:    General Service List (GSL) Most frequent words in British National Corpus (BNC) Academic Word List (AWL) Teacher representatives then further selected words based on their judgment according to:    themes recommended in the Government’s Curriculum Guides vocabulary content of approved textbooks other guidelines set by the research team (e.g. whether words are used in Hong Kong, ease for learning, etc.) 17

Sources for vocabulary lists

GSL Classic list of most frequent 2000 words BNC 100 million word collection from written and spoken texts GENERAL words AWL 570 words that occur frequently in academic texts across disciplines ACADEMIC words 18

Tom Cobb’s Compleat Lexical Tutor ( http://www.lextutor.ca/ )

     Test (to get receptive and productive tests of various word levels) List_Learn (to learn words at various levels with an online concordancer and dictionary; to get lists of words from 1k to 20k level and AWL and UWL) Vocab Profiler (to see the vocab profile of one’s writing / to predict “readability” of a text for learners)  % of words at 2000 word level    % of academic words % of words from beyond the most frequent 2000 type-token ratio Corpus-based Range checks whether a word is used more frequently in spoken or written English in the Brown Corpus. It also checks the range of a word in any of the 15 sub-corpora of the Brown Corpus, i.e. in which and how many of the 15 sub-corpora a word can be found. The sub-corpora cover a wide range of domains such as press, academic, and fiction.

Text-based Range allows you to upload up to 25 texts of your own and check the range and frequency of a word in these 25 texts.

Type and Token

 How many types are there in the following sentence?

 How many tokens (running words) are there in the following sentence?

We need a vocabulary to talk about vocabulary.

Type-Token Ratio (also called “Lexical Richness” or “Lexical Density”)

 How many types and tokens do you see here?

Watch out! I said watch out!

 4 types  6 tokens / running words  Type-token ratio: 4/6 (0.67) 22

Text written by a local HK 12-year

   I have a rubber , an old, small rubber drawer as it is so important for me.

. Although it is so small that I can not use it anymore, I still keep it carefully in my That is a long, long time that I have my rubber brought it to school everyday.

rubber . Four years ago, when I was still an eight-years-old child, my parents bought me a as my birthday present. I put it into my pencil-box and We had an interesting game in the past. We used our rubber to play with in the game. We pushed our rubber one by one and tried not to be pushed out at the desk by another rubber . We pushed and pulled our rubbers , soon our and smaller one day than one day.

rubbers became older

Source: Arthur McNeill

’

s (2004)

“VocabProfile” of a student’s text First 1000 words Second 1000 words Academic words (AWL) Off-list words (Less frequent words)

88% 12% 0%  75 types /137 tokens : 0.55

0%

Examples from Hong Kong sample

 Repetition of key words (need for lexical substitution – synonyms, superordinates / hyponyms, and pronoun substitution)  The need for lexical enrichment ( adjectives adverbs ) and

Substitutes for “rubber”

 It (pronoun)  One (pronoun)  Eraser (synonym)  Item of stationery (superordinate)  Tool? (superordinate)

   I have a rubber , an old, small one . Although it is so small that I can not use it anymore, I still keep it carefully in my drawer as it is so important for me.

That is a long, long time that I have my favourite chosen possession . Four years ago, when I was still an eight-years-old child, my parents bought brought it to school everyday.

it for me as my birthday present. I put it into my pencil-box and We had an interesting game in the past. We used our eraser to play with in the game. We pushed our stationery one by one and tried not to be pushed out at the desk by another opponent . We pushed and pulled our weapons , soon our rubbers became older and smaller one day than one day.

Text written by a local HK 16-year old under exam conditions

Many students strive for academic excellency, but what is the motivation behind their hardwork? In this essay, I am going to explore the different aspects of learning, and analyse the pros and cons of each motivating factor.

The hunger for knowledge and wisdom can motivate students to learn. They hope to widen their horizons through reading, watching educational programs, travelling and other ways. To them, the world is a fascinating place, full of wonders and mysteries to unravel. Their love of learning motivates them to seek knowledge in all areas, from science and mathematics to arts.

Source: McNeill ’ s (2004)

“VocabProfile” of a student’s text First 1000 words Second 1000 words Academic words (AWL) Off-list words (Less frequent words)

73% 6% 10.5% 10.5%  69 types / 96 tokens = 0.72

Lexical enrichment

I was sweating. Ms Ip neared my table and put the exam paper in front of me. I closed my eyes and opened them a fraction of an inch. There, on top of the paper, was a 33. My heart sank. Then my teacher took away the paper and put another one in front of me. I took it and saw an 88 in the mark box. The first paper belonged to my neighbor, Sally.

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Lexical enrichment

I was sweating [

adv

]. Ms Ip neared my table [

adv

] and put the [

adj

] exam paper in front of me. I [

adv

] closed my eyes and [

adv

] opened them a fraction of an inch. There, on top of the paper, was a 33. My heart sank. Then my teacher [

adv

] took away the paper and put another one in front of me. I took it [

adv

] and saw an 88 in the mark box. [

Adv

] the first paper belonged to my neighbor, Sally.

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Lexical enrichment

I was sweating [

heavily

]. Ms Ip neared my table [

unexpectedly

] and put the [

horrible

] exam paper in front of me. I [

immediately

] closed my eyes and [

slowly

] opened them a fraction of an inch. There, on top of the paper, was a 33. My heart sank. Then my teacher [ me. I took it [

without thinking swiftly

] took away the paper and put another one in front of ] and saw an 88 in the mark box. [

Fortunately

] the first paper belonged to my neighbor, Sally.

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Discussion

 What are the benefits of using word lists (such as GSL, AWL)?

 To design a vocabulary curriculum  To decide which texts to use with students  To decide which words in a text would cause difficulty to students 33

Task and Discussion: What criteria can we use in selecting words for learners?

Other than frequency, what criteria can we use to decide which words our learners should learn?

Words that learners should focus on

   Usefulness    Frequently used (frequency ) ; high-frequency words need to be learnt both receptively and productively whereas low frequency words can be learnt receptively Used in a wide range of topics/domains (range) Related to the personal experience Ease of learning   Words that look familiar to students, e.g. “quiet” as an adjective > “quiet” as a verb) Words made up of some familiar word parts (prefixes, roots, suffixes), e.g. prepare, predict, precede Relevance to students’ needs  specialized or technical words related to a particular discipline that the student is studying 35

   

Local research on vocabulary size and vocabulary knowledge

Littlewood & Liu (1996)

  40 first-year HKU/CUHK students knew around 3,500 words

Barber (1999, as cited in Fan, 2001)

 found a positive correlation between students’ vocabulary knowledge and their HKCEE results

Cobb & Horst (2000)

   – post session reading CityU students knew the most basic 2000 words; also performed well at 3000 word level But low scores on UWL level Vocabulary growth over a period of 6 months: No

Fan (2001)

  – post session reading Vocabulary scores positively correlate with language proficiency Students from Chinese-medium schools and those with E in HKAL need help with vocabulary 36