Old vocabulary, new vocabulary, and the Arab learner

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Old vocabulary, new vocabulary, and the Arab
learner

• Plenary presentationBy Tom Cobb
• Université du Québec à Montréal
• Formerly Sultan Qaboos Univ., Muscat
• Formerly King Saud Univ., Riyadh
• Vocabulary Symposium
• TESOL Arabia
• March 2006

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Words are important

• A deceptively simple idea

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Look familiar?
OK students you win! Vocab IS important
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EFL and ESP in the Gulf in the 1980s

• Working without a plan
• Seemed to be no research
• Yet research there was
• First action, classroom, piecemeal
• Then sustained, empirical, theory based
• which led to The New Vocabulary that we here
  celebrate
• Thesis The Arab learner forced us to invent the
  New Vocabulary

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Wot new vocab?
Some principles

• Lexical knowledge is the strongest predictor of
  reading ability (and inability) 
• Lexis is not a filler for syntactic slots but
  rather syntax is an emergent property of lexis 
• Some zones of lexis are more important than
  others for different tasks
• Different degrees are lexical knowledge are
  needed for different tasks
• Lexical knowledge does not come for free in L2
• Lexical acquisition in L2 requires more exposures
  than natural input provides
• Lexical processing and acquisition are not
  identical across orthographies

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What was the old vocab?
Principles more implicit than explicit

• Modern versions of applied linguistics emerge
  1960s/70s
• Burgeoning ESL industry needs rationale
• After supposed destruction of audio-lingualism
• A.k.a. Behaviorism
• Early idea-borrowing from quasi-related
  disciplines
• (1) General Linguistics
• (2) L1 reading theory
• Neither with much space for vocabulary
• Both with strong assumptions about it

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(1) General linguistics

• Child acquisition of L1 syntax is the great human
  achievement
• While extensive vocabularies can be learned by
  animals
• - chimpanzees (3000 items)
• - dogs (200 items)

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http//www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4451/HeT
alksToAnimals.html
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(1) General linguistics
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(1) General linguistics

• Applied linguists felt need to fit in
• Sightings of the UG and LDA in the FL classroom
• Vocab takes a 20-year break
• No big classroom vocab book between Barnard
  (1972) and Redman/Ellis (1991)
• Reading demoted to uninteresting speech add-on
• Problem EFL/ESP learners are mainly here for
  reading
• Solution Borrow rationale from L1

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(2) L1 reading theory

• 1970s - one dominant L1 theory
• - reading-for-meaning
• - holistic
• - top-down
• - psycholinguistic guessing game
• Kenneth Goodman (1967)
• Frank Smith (1971)
• All vocabulary needed can be pleasurably acquired
  through inference from context
• No need, even wrong, to teach it
• Imported into L2 somewhat uncritically (Grabe
  1991)

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(2) L1 reading theory

• Guessing Game is clearly an idea for young,
  high-SES L1 learners
• No very convincing evidence for it even in L1
• Stanovich 1980
• Rayner
• Decades of phonics v. whole-language wars
• Nonetheless quickly imported into L2 thinking
• 1970s and 1980s
• Did appear match roughly with the emerging
  communicative approach
• For which there was some evidence

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(2) L1 reading theory

• Goodman (1973) extends guessing game to L2

Universals of reading Reading in a second
language reading in first Transfer of
reading ability from L1 to L2 is
automatic Vocabulary will grow through
guessing in L2 as L1
2006 these ideas remain dominant Every TESL
program has a pedagogical grammar course, while
few have a pedagogical vocabulary course
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(2) L1 reading theory

• despite gt50 of class time invariably spent
  explaining words!

• Emperor's clothes syndrome?
• Fortunately not shared by our learners
• Or by independent L2 research that soon emerged
• developed within specifically L2 terms
• borrowing carefully from L1 thinking

EG Threshold theory (Alderson, 1984)
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L2 gets its own reading theory

• Auto-transfer of L1 reading skills/ability?
• Alderson (84) takes the trouble to investigate
• Finding Transfer is not automatic
• L1 abilities skills are inactive
• (e.g., guessing of new words in context)
• Until a threshold of L2 knowledge has been
  crossed.
• Main plank in threshold?
• L2 vocabulary knowledge.

So prior teaching is needed to enable guessing
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Then a second lexical threshold

• Much later a second lexical threshold emerges
• In learning
• Syntax also shown to require a lexical base
• Bates Goodman (2001). On the inseparability of
  grammar and the lexicon
• In new definitions of syntax
• Knowledge of syntax now seems rooted in
  properties of words
• A plank in the lexical approach
• Language is grammaticalised lexis not
  lexicalised grammar
• Lewis (1993)

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How odd in retrospect

• To be teaching word guessing skills to folks
  with a only a handful of lexis
• To be working a class through a grammar points
  conveyed via unknown vocabulary
• To hand learners a reading text with every second
  word a look-up

Alderson (84) began the spade work to get us out
of this tunnel Had taught Arab learners for
years Any coincidence?
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Gulf learner old vocab

• What did vocab look like to the learner when
  vocab was not part of the plan?

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Reading task for intermediate learners seem OK?

• The Observer newspaper recently showed how easy
  it is, given a suitable story and a smattering of
  jargon, to obtain information by bluff from
  police computers. Computer freaks, whose hobby is
  breaking into official systems, don't even need
  to use the phone. They can connect their
  computers directly with any database in the
  country. Computers do not alter the fundamental
  issues. But they do multiply the risks. They
  allow more data to be collected on more aspects
  of our lives, and increase both its rapid
  retrievability and the likelihood of its
  unauthorized transfer from one agency which might
  have a legitimate interest in it, to another
  which does not. Modern computer capabilities also
  raise the issue of what is known in the jargon as
  'total data linkage' the ability, by pressing a
  few buttons and waiting as little as a minute, to
  collate all the information about us held on all
  the major government and business computers into
  an instant dossier on any aspect of our lives.
•  
• Headway (Soars Soars, 1991, p. 74)

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Vocab levels of the readers

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Vocab level of the text

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Vocab level of the text

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Putting text and learner together

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What can be learned from this?

• Vague sense of the topic
• Unuseful tolerance of low comprehension
• Some random vocab pick-up

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Where will the missing vocab come from?

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What blew the gaff on all this?

• Arrival of standard testing
• IELTS, even PET
• Students fail simplest reading tests in droves

• But with benefits
• Action research projects
• E.g. Informal vocab testing
• Evaluate teaching against test
• Observe / listen to students

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From a learner

• Dear N.,
• I heard that you are going to join the College of
  Commerce and Economics after you finish your high
  school. I have a lot to tell you about this
  college. The first and important thing is the PET
  test. You must pass this test so you can continue
  your studies in the College. The PET test is not
  easy as it seems. It is so difficult and we have
  to do a lot to pass it.... The English that we
  learned at school is too easy and it's nothing
  compared with the English in the University. Let
  me tell you about myself as an example.
• I thought that I knew English and really in the
  school I was from the three best students in the
  class in English. But here my English is nothing,
  then I thought I learned nine years English in
  the school but I don't have any knowledge and I
  don't know anything about real English. I really
  don't know the fault from who. ...
• Your friend, F.  

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From a teacher Watching a biology lecture

• Biology lecturer teaching about hybridization
• The first time I gave a hybridization analogy, I
  talked about dogs, and then I switched to goats
  and then it even dawned on me that some of them
  aren't going to be in touch with the fact that if
  you mix two different kinds of goats they come
  out looking in between, and I didn't know all the
  specific terms there, what their two different
  breeds of goats are called. You can talk about
  mixing colours, but a lot of them don't know
  their colours yet
• (Arden-Close, p. 258).

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From piecemeal action-research

• to sustained programs of research involving the
  Arab EFL learner

VOCAB SIZE Al-Hazemi (1993) PhD study validates
vocab size instruments in Gulf Still true? -
see Al-Gazette LEARNING FROM CONTEXT Laufer et
al (1985) Investigates supposed ease of
contextual inference Horst et al
(1998) Investigate contextual learning in an
extended task Laufer (1989) Investigates
conditions of successful contextual inference


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From piecemeal action-research

• to sustained programs of research involving the
  Arab EFL learner

UNIVERSAL READING PROCESSES Koda
(1989) Investigates reading in a new
orthography Abu-Rabia Seigel (1995)
Investigate different roles of context in
reading English v. Arabic Randall Meara
(1988) Investigate differences in how Arabic and
Roman words are perceived

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Randall Meara

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So the old vocabulary crumblesBut in all this
research into the Arabic-English interfaceNo
benefits from experience with Arabic?Haynes
(1983) Inferencing study Clues in local v.
global contexts Four language groups Only
Arabic group use global

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But didnt Laufer find Arabic learner is poor
inferencer? Yes but also that 95
comprehension is condition of inference Do
learners get anywhere near that?So a vital
strength never comes into playEven so, an
extra twist on this one

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Headway text global VP
Is not the same as local VPs

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Local inferencer will find an occasional useful
context in this text E.g., New word embedded in
95- known contextGlobal inferencer will get
no chance to use this skill in this
textMaterials and approaches need to
compensate for difficulties of Arab learners
but also build on their strengths

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Homegrown Solutions (1)Compensating and
building on strengthsAWL (2001) has its roots
in vocab needs of Arab learner Jean Praninskas
(1972) Mohsen Ghaddesy (1979) AUB - American
University of Beirut Need for post-2000 vocab
course Concern for coverage Now a big hit
worldwide

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Homegrown Solutions (2) Compensating and
building on strengthsLextutor has its roots in
needs of Arab learner www.lextutor.ca

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In conclusionThe Arab learner helped us break
out of a fairly un-useful approach to vocab
inherited from linguistics and L1 readingAnd in
retrospect, the Arab learner was just a visible
case of any learner

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In conclusionL2 vocab will not happen by itself
up to 95 coverageTextbooks alone cannot be
relied onSufficient coverage and and repetition
must be planned for at ground levelTools for
doing this 1. Testing 2. Computational analysis
of materials

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This talk to be published in conference
proceedingswww.lextutor.cacobb.tom_at_uqam.ca