Use of Word Lists / Vocab Profiler

 To design a curriculum – to focus on words that students need most  To decide which texts to use with students  To decide which words in a text would cause difficulty to students  Word lists are useful for efficient, focused learning of words,  BUT beware of a serial effect, and decontextualised learning 1

Session 3 The Mental Lexicon

 Word association (WA) tests  Comparing the L1 and L2 mental lexicons  Pedagogic implications  Memory strategies (e.g. the Keyword Technique, mental imaging, creating structure for input) 2

Word Association Test

3

Word associations (English)

Prompt Word Associative word Relationship

green water open hill butterfly truth powerful blanket inclination hockey 4

Looking at your word associates

1.

2.

Do you have the same word associates as your neighbours’?

Compared to your neighbours’ responses, do you have similar or different ways of ogranising words in your mental lexicons? ( those of native speakers?

) Are associations of L2 speakers different from 5

Word association and the mental lexicon

Cognitive processes -- how words and meanings are organized mentally (unobservable) ◄

=

► Language associative behavior (observable) 6

green water open inclination hockey

Word Associations

Grass (collocation) Red (co-ordination) Color (super-ordination) Drink (collocation) Melon (compound noun) Clear (collocation) Close (antonym) Door (collocation) Information (sound – stress pattern) Intonation incline Jockey (sound - rhyme)

How words are stored in the mental lexicon

      

L1 / L2 equivalence

(cognates in related languages)

Orthographically Phonologically

(rhyme, alliteration, stress pattern, etc.)

Semantically

red) (synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms e.g. color -

Collocationally

(e.g. make – a wish, catch – a bus)

Morphologically

(e.g. defensive-offensive; television telescope)

Encyclopedic associations

experience of the real world) (based on our knowledge / 8

Meanings of words

 Meanings of words are often understood in relation to other words (relational/ web)  e.g. you understand the meaning of ‘cold’ through your understanding of ‘hot’  e.g. you understand the meaning of ‘roses’ through your understanding of ‘garden’, ‘flowers’ or ‘lilies’ 9

Word Associations and Language Proficiency

 How words are organised / stored in the brain is an indicator of language proficiency level  Or how “native-like” you are 10

Paradigmatic associations

 Always belong to the same word class  Substitutable in syntactic strings  More semantics-oriented  E.g. I want to get a doggie for my daughter.

pet Terrier cat wombat

Syntagmatic associations

 Usually belong to a different word class, but sometimes can belong to the same word class  Collocate well with prompt words in a grammatical string  More grammar-oriented  E.g. Dogs bark.

 E.g. Walk the dog.

 E.g. Dog collar

Phonological associations / Clangs

 E.g. dog - fog  E.g. hockey - hockey 11

L1 mental lexicon

 Phonological Syntagmatic Paradigmatic (developmental) ( younger children older children )  Commonness / Homogeneity in the their mental lexicons (tend to give the same word associates)  e.g.

blanket:

bed, warm, sheet, electric, cover, warmth, wool, soft, bath, snow 12

Mean proportion of NNS and NS response types for WA (Wolter, 2001) 30 20 10 0 60 50 40 Para Syntag Phono No response NNS NS

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L2 mental lexicon similar to L1 mental lexicon

Earlier studies found NS had more paradigmatic associations than NNS. But later studies (e.g. Zareva, 2007) found the same shift in L2 learners, as they get more proficient in the language, and as they grow older Phonological Syntagmatic Paradigmatic 14

L2 mental lexicon different from L1 mental lexicon

 L2 acquisition usually takes place when there is

an already existing mental lexicon

 Many of the meanings and meaning hierarchies that have already been internalized in the acquisition of the course of L1 development will be re-applicable in learners’ L2  Positive / negative influence from L1 lexicon  Connections between words in mental lexicon of L2 learners are more loosely connected and less consistent than those of the L1 learners 15

Looking at your word associates

1.

What kinds of associations do you have most (phonological, syntagmatic, paradigmatic) in your WA tests?

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Explaining the discrepancies in results generated by different studies

 Design of the WA tests:  Whether the prompt words are high-frequency (familiar) or low-frequency (unfamiliar) words to the learners  Whether the prompt words are presented aurally or visually  Age / proficiency level of the learner 17

Pedagogical Implications

Developmental/ cognitive aspect:

 Younger learners tend to favor syntagmatic associations: dog-bark  Older learners tend to favor/ are capable of handling paradigmatic associations / semantically-related groups e.g. synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms: dog-cat or dog-pet 18

Superordinates and Hyponyms

Lion ???

Tiger Horse ???

Sports ???

???

19

Semantically related input

Living room Bedroom Fridge Flat Kitchen Utensils Bathroom Saucepan Frying pan

20

Teaching synonyms /antonyms together?

21

Interference effect when learning closely related words (synonyms and antonyms)

   Higa (1963) found that pairs of synonyms took longer to learn than pairs of unrelated words. Higa (1965) reported that the closer the semantic relationship between words, the more difficult it may be to learn the words in a set.

Laufer (1990) reported that synonymy is one of seven interlexical factors that can reduce the chances of vocabulary acquisition.

Suggestion: Do NOT introduce totally novel synonyms or antonyms at the same time.

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 Fervent  Ardent

Synonyms

23

The match has attracted many

enthusiastic

supporters of Liverpool.

1.

The match has attracted many

fervent

supporters of Liverpool.

This technology has been widely

applied

in Hong Kong.

1.

This technology has been widely

deployed

in Hong Kong.

Slight advantage for thematically related words

 Slight advantage for thematically group words (Tinkham, 1993, 1997) 26

Memory

 Number of items to be presented each time  Memory loss  Number of exposures for learning to happen  Recycling (intervals, methods)  Memory strategies (the Keyword technique / mental imaging / creating structure for input) 27

Memory

 Number of items you can hold in your short term memory?

 How many times do you need to encounter a word before it is learnt?

28

Word retention

 teach 8-12 vocabulary items in a 60-minute lesson (Gairns & Redman, 1986)  The chances of learning and retaining a word from one exposure is only 5-14% (Nagy, 1997)  5 – 16 times for a word to be learned (Zahar, Cobb & Spada, 2001)  An important role for recycling (revisiting) of the vocabulary learnt

Importance of Revision

Spaced / Distributed Repetition

     

Recycling of vocabulary

Horst & Meara (1999) – far more vocab is learnt if the same text is read several times (the first reading focuses on understanding meaning, while the later readings focus on the forms) Following a piece of news for several days (word repetitions and synonyms); encountering the same words in different contexts Vocabulary quizzes Different parts of speech (e.g. “shoulder” as a noun, and as a verb) Other meanings (polysemy) of a word (e.g. “head as a body part, the school head, the department head, head of a queue) Replacing general words by specific words (e.g. nice – attractive, elegant, terrific)

The “Bathtub” Effect

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Memory Strategy – Using Mental Images

(Adapted from forthcoming “Loong Y & Chan S W L, A Study of Vocabulary Learning Strategies Adopted by Dentistry Students in Hong Kong In Learning Specialized Dental Vocabulary, September 2012, Asian ESP Journal”)

Memory Strategy – The Keyword Technique Step One:

Think of a word that you know that has a similar sound (

audionym “Keyword”

)

Step Two:

target word Create a

mental image

to link up the Keyword with the (Adapted from Brahler, C. J. & Walker, D. (2008). Learning scientific and medical terminology with a mnemonic strategy using an illogical association technique. Advances in Physiology Education, 32, 219-224. Post-session 4 Reading )

The

“

keyword

”

technique

Japanese word and meaning English word that has a similar sound Link and visual image created

kurai (dark) karada (body)

The

“

keyword

”

technique

Japanese word and meaning

kurai (dark)

English word that has a similar sound

cry karada (body) colored

Link and visual image created

A baby cries when it is dark a colored body

Kurai - Cry

 Imagine the visual of a baby crying when it ’ s dark

Karada - colored

 a colored body

Memory strategy – group words

 Which word list is most conducive to word retention?

40

Do you know of any other mnemonics / memory strategies?

41

Reading

Post-session 3 reading

 Zareva, A. (2007).Structure of the second language mental lexicon: How does it compare to native speakers' lexical organization. Second Language Research, 23(2), 123-153. 42

Preparation for the next session

 Read one of the pre-session articles.

 Explain to your group the research methods and key results .

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Assignment

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