enhancing the effectiveness of english vocabulary learning and teaching at primary level

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Enhancing the Effectiveness of English Vocabulary Learning and

Teaching at Primary Level

27 August 2007

Arthur McNeill & Tony Lai

Department of Education Studies

Hong Kong Baptist University

English Language Education Section, CDI

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Growing global concern about inadequate vocabulary of L2 learners

“… there is mounting evidence that many learners, particularly in EFL contexts, are not developing their lexicons to levels that would permit them to communicate, read, or write adequately in English, despite years of formal study.” (Atay and Kurt 2006: 256)

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L2 vocabulary learning at primary school is still largely un-researched “… it seems likely that limited L2 vocabulary

would affect elementary school EFL learners in carrying out the basic skills in English. Given the importance of vocabulary to oral and written language comprehension, it is astounding that there have been few experimental studies on English vocabulary learning among elementary school children.”

(Atay and Kurt 2006: 256)

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Recent evidence of inadequate vocabulary of HK university entrants

Most 2004 entrants to CUHK knew between 2000 and 3000 English words only

International research suggests that students need at least 5000 words to cope with university study in English

Growing interest in students’ vocabulary in Hong Kong

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Vocabulary projects conducted by EDBProjects Participants Expected Outcomes

Vocabulary Study

Focus Group wordlists for KS1, KS2, KS3 & KS4

Seed Project on the effective L/T of vocabulary

Seed school & Network schools

effective pedagogies to make good use of

the wordlists and promote the development of vocabulary building skills

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Sources of input for the EDB wordlists

Teachers familiar with the respective KS Frequency data about how vocabulary is

used in English: General English Academic English

Topics and themes listed in CGs Vocabulary content of the recommended

textbooks

Vocabulary Study

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Vocabulary Study

General Service List (GSL) - West, 1953 Academic Wordlist (AWL) - Coxhead,

2000 British National Corpus (BNC)

References of the frequency-based wordlists

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GSL

BNC

AWL

Classic list of the most frequent 2000 words.Very widely used and respected.

100 million word collection of written and spoken English. A new ‘standard’.

570 words which occur frequently inacademic texts across disciplines

Frequency-based lists/corpora

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Frequency-based lists/corpora

GSL

BNC

AWL

“ General” words

“ Academic” words

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Principles guiding final selections

Relevance to learners (now and later) Usefulness Combinability (collocations) Word class distribution Superordinates

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Design of the vocabulary selection procedure

Frequency data from

GSL/BNC/AWL

Word samples by frequency

Teachers select words for own

KS

Initial (incomplete)

wordlist

Rejected items to be considered for next KS

Project team add remaining items

Textbook corpus

Topics from CGs

Completed wordlist

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Vocabulary targets

Key Stage Stage TargetCumulative

Target

KS1

KS2

KS3

KS4

1000 1000

1000 2000

1500 3500

1500 5000

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Wordlists

In alphabetical order

By category

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Does L2 vocabulary teaching need to change?

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Possible pedagogical problems

Over-reliance on reading as a source of vocabulary acquisition

Over-reliance on learner training and indirect learning (i.e. assuming that students will learn vocabulary by themselves provided they learn effective strategies)

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How much vocabulary do L2 students learn from reading?

Finally some empirical evidence of the low extent of vocabulary gains from L2 reading

Claims about number of encounters required to learn a new word vary between 6 and 20

ESL learners in Canada learn 70 new words a year from reading, i.e. 2000 words in 29 years. (Zahar, Cobb & Spada 2001)

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Extensive reading revisited

Disappointing gains from reading of novels (Horst 2000)

Subjects able to select only one correct definition in 12 of the new words in text

Far more vocabulary is learned if the same text is read several times (Horst & Meara 1999)

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Learning new words from context revisited

Encouraging learners to infer the meaning of new words from context may be useful for their academic development.

However, inferring the meaning of new words from context does not lead to vocabulary acquisition. For words to remain in the memory, learners should confirm the guesses by referring to a dictionary or asking their teacher (Mondria & Wit de-Boer 1991).

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Insights from genre: we need to select texts carefully

Expository texts provide greater repetition of key lexis than narrative texts.

Success reported with primary learners who read more expository texts (Gardner 2004).

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Key priorities in vocabulary teaching

1. Providing multiple exposures to target words

2. Cognitive ‘elaboration’ of the form-meaning relationship

Activities which require students to focus on vocabulary appear to promote retention (e.g. “reading plus”, pre-task and post-task vocabulary focus).

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Some teaching implications

Enhance L2 vocabulary acquisition through instructional intervention

• More direct teaching of vocabulary• More vocabulary-focused activities

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Vocabulary now:Cinderella has arrived at the ball

Landmarks of the 1990s: Lexical Syllabus (Willis) Lexical Approach (Lewis) Some excellent books for teachers about

vocabulary teaching (e.g. Nation, Schmitt & McCarthy)

Vocabulary software (concordancing; frequency profiling)

Corpus linguistics Enormous expansion in L2 vocabulary research

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What has changed since vocabulary became “centre stage”?

Language teaching now attaches importance to: Collocation:

“blond+girl”; “torrential+rain”; “rising+prices” Multi-word units/formulaic language:

“see you later”; “have a nice day” Word-building: compounding; affixation Lexical relations such as antonyms:

“high/low”; “ancient/modern”

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Vocabulary building skills recommended in CG

Word formation

Affixation (e.g. unhappy, careless) Compounding (e.g. foot+ball=football) Conversion (e.g. cook a meal, a cook) Derivation (e.g. excite, exciting,

excited, excitement)

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Vocabulary building skills recommended in CG

Word association Synonyms (e.g. happy, glad) Antonyms (e.g. bright, dark) Homonyms (e.g. catch a bus, catch a cold) Collocation (e.g. make a wish, watch TV) Lexical sets (e.g. furniture – table, chair,

desk, cupboard)

*please refer to CG (CDC, 2004): pp. 168-171

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What challenges does L2 vocabulary present to teachers?

AREAS OF FOCUS

BREADTH DEPTH

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1. Productive vocabulary

What are the main vocabulary issues in HK students’ writing?

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Text written by a primary school pupil in a HK exam I have a rubber, an old, small rubber. 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 rubber. Four years ago, when I was still an eight-years-old child, my parents bought me a rubber as my birthday present. I put it into my pencil-box and brought it to school everyday.

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 rubbers became older and smaller one day than one day.

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Vocabulary Profile (VP) provides the following breakdown (RANGE, 2002)

Word List Tokens Types Families

1: 1st 1000

2: 2nd 1000

3: AWL

4: not in the above

Total

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I have a rubber, an old, small rubber. 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 rubber. Four years ago, when I was still an eight-years-old child, my parents bought me a rubber as my birthday present. I put it into my pencil-box and brought it to school everyday.

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 rubbers became older and smaller one day than one day.

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Lexical characteristics of L2 student writing

Repetition of key words rather than lexical substitution

Under-use of super-ordination Need for lexical enrichment (in particular,

adjectives and adverbs)

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What vocabulary skills are involved in developing lexical richness? Avoiding repetition of words

(e.g. by lexical and pronominal substitution) Knowing and using synonyms Ability to give definitions Knowing the name of the immediate

superordinate Knowing the name of the member of the group

(e.g. “item”, “piece”, “article”, etc.) Use of metaphor (e.g. using known words in a

metaphorical sense)

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“General” superordinates can also help

EXAMPLES:

Stuff

Problem

Issue

Thing

Material

Business

Behaviour

Phenomenon

Trend

Pattern

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Lexical expansion of a first draft

“My hobby is swimming. Every Saturday I go to the swimming pool in Ma On Shan. I swim for one hour. At the end, I feel good. Then I go to McDonald’s with my friend.”

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Lexical feedback on a first draft

“My [adjective] hobby is swimming. Every Saturday I go to the [adjective] swimming pool in [precise location] Ma On Shan. I swim [how exactly do you swim?] for one hour. At the end, I feel good [a better adjective?]. Then I go [better verb of movement] to McDonald’s with my friend.”

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2. Pre-requisites for vocabulary building

Two Strands:

TopicStrand

CollocationStrand

focus on sizefocus on

word combinations

paradigmaticapproach

syntagmaticapproach

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Paradigmatic approach (topic strand)

Deliberate organization of words into hierarchies

Develops associative networks Encourages efficient vocabulary learning Paradigms are fixed (but ‘open’) Other associations are more personal

(e.g. acoustic, visual, ‘linkword’)

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Assumptions about paradigmatic arrangement

Allows for efficient vocabulary growth because the system is ‘open’ and allows for additions

Associated with receptive vocabulary knowledge in particular

Retrieval of words operates through the ‘cohort’ principle

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FLAT

LIVING ROOM BEDROOMS KITCHEN BATHROOM

fridge cooker

saucepan

frying pan

Example One:

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Vehicles

car train bicycle

handlebar wheel saddle

tyre

spoke

Example Two:

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Teaching the names of the superordinates

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horse cow tiger

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Teaching the names of the superordinates

animals

horse cow tiger

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What is the missing word?

?

football tennis basketball

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?

desk chair cupboard

What is the missing word?

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ParadigmaticAssociation

SyntagmaticAssociation

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ParadigmaticAssociation

SyntagmaticAssociation

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ParadigmaticAssociation

SyntagmaticAssociation

Receptive

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ParadigmaticAssociation

SyntagmaticAssociation

Receptive

Productive

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Syntagmatic approach (collocation strand)

E.g. Topic: transport

Car – drive – fast – wet – road

Brakes – skid – collide - accident Develops associative networks Word combinations are the key to productive use

of English Focus on multi-word units

(e.g. ‘See you later.’, ‘Have a good trip!’) Collocations

(e.g. ‘go shopping’, ‘have a shower’, ‘play football’)

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Assumptions about syntagmatic arrangement

Associated with productive vocabulary because it is based on the words which tend to occur together in sentences

The associations are based on collocations rather than semantic categories

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PEOPLE ACTIONS OBJECTS PLACE

From receptive to productiveProviding opportunities to combine words

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PEOPLE ACTIONS OBJECTS PLACE

Chef cook meals restaurant

Teacher

Singer

Pilot

From receptive to productiveProviding opportunities to combine words

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Helping learners to create useful word associations

ACTIVITY:

FINDING/CREATING PATTERNS IN A LEXICAL SET

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environment Beggar Energy Pollution Smoke

Care Environment Protect Spit

Community Flag Recycle Steal

Crime Fund raising Reduce Volunteer

Donate Government Save Vote

Electricity Plastic Serve Waste

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environment Possible associations - Collocations

(e.g. verb + noun) Recycle waste Reduce crime Protect (the) environment Serve (the) community

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environment Possible associations - Compounding

(e.g. noun + noun) Community care Energy waste Pollution crime Government volunteer

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environmentFinding semantic categories

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environmentFinding semantic categories

PROBLEM SOLUTION

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environmentFinding semantic categories

PROBLEM

Pollution (smoke, spit, waste,..)

SOLUTION

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environmentFinding semantic categories

PROBLEM

Pollution (smoke, spit, waste,..)

SOLUTION

Save energy

Reduce waste

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KS2 Wordlist: Caring about our community and environmentOther categories? People? Organisations? Nouns? Abstract nouns? Concrete nouns? Verbs? Words which can be both nouns and verbs?

THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THIS ACTIVITY IS TO DEVELOP LEARNERS’ ASSOCIATIONS BY ENGAGING WITH THE WORDS

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3. From Form to Meaning

Starting with a focus on word form

Activity: reading a postcard

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Find the words which end in “-ing”Dear Chris,This summer our family holiday is really interesting. We’re spending a week in a mountain hotel in Japan. The hotel activities include walking, mountain climbing and canoeing. The view is amazing. We can see wild birds flying around and hear the river flowing past. In the evening, we eat in the hotel dining room, then watch TV. The programmes are a bit boring, mostly singing contests and game shows. The trip is tiring but great fun. I’m looking forward to showing you the photos.Andy

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Find the words which end in “-ing”Dear Chris,This summer our family holiday is really interesting. We’re spending a week in a mountain hotel in Japan. The hotel activities include walking, mountain climbing and canoeing. The view is amazing. We can see wild birds flying around and hear the river flowing past. In the evening, we eat in the hotel dining room, then watch TV. The programmes are a bit boring, mostly singing contests and game shows. The trip is tiring but great fun. I’m looking forward to showing you the photos.Andy

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Put each “-ing” form into a category

Verb in the continuous

aspect

Adjective Verb used as a noun (gerund)

After “see”,

“hear”, etc.

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Put each “-ing” form into a category

Verb in the continuous

aspect

Adjective Verb used as a noun (gerund)

After “see”,

“hear”, etc.

Spending

Looking

Interesting

Amazing

Boring

Tiring

Walking

Climbing

Canoeing

Showing

Flying

Flowing

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Put each “-ing” form into a category

Verb in the continuous

aspect

Adjective Verb used as a noun (gerund)

After “see”,

“hear”, etc.

Spending

Looking

Interesting

Amazing

Boring

Tiring

(Dining

Singing)

Walking

Climbing

Canoeing

Showing

(Dining

Singing)

Flying

Flowing

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Using mini-activities or games in vocabulary learning and teaching

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Key priorities in vocabulary teaching

1. Providing multiple exposures to target words

2. Cognitive ‘elaboration’ of the form-meaning relationship

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Some teaching implicationsGENERAL APPROACH Enhance L2 vocabulary acquisition through instructional

intervention

IN PRACTICAL TERMS WE NEED MORE: Direct teaching of vocabulary Development of learners’ own word associations Vocabulary-focused activities Process-writing with lexical feedback Conscious reflection about words Systematic re-cycling of target vocabulary (multiple

exposures)