Vocabulary Development for ESL Students

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Vocabulary Development for ESL Students

• Andy Gibbons
• Bruce Havostal
• Bill Camarinos

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Introduction

• Learning a second language is a long and complex
  undertaking. H.D. Brown, Principles of Language
  Learning and Teaching
• 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

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Introduction (Continued)

• If you go to Google and type in ESL vocabulary
  development you will be overwhelmed by the
  amount of information retrieved.
• We couldnt possibly survey all the known
  strategies. Instead
• 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.

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Some Ways of Teaching Vocabulary

• 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.

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The Lexical Approach

• 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.

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What is Lexis

• 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.

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Lexical Chunks

• Also known as lexical phrases, formulaic
  language, and frozen or semi-frozen phrases.
• Different types
• polywords (e.g. by the way, upside down)
• Collocations or word partnerships (e.g. community
  service, absolutely convinced)
• Institutionalized Utterances (e.g. Ill get it.
  Well see, If I were you
• Sentence frames (e.g. That is not as as you
  think.)

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Lexical Chunks (Continued)

• 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.

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Exercise

• Write down a phrase or sentence that includes the
  word figment.

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Implications of the Exercise-Does It Support the
Notion of Lexical Chunks?

• 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.

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Learning Activities Appropriate for the Lexical
Approach

• 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.

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Finding the Meaning from the Text

• 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,
  Haastrups study (as cited in Soria, 2001).

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Lexical inferencing

• These informed guesses are based on the
  learners 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).

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Inferenceing is a complex mental process that
functions on an Information Processing model
Eggen and Kauchak (2004) Educational Psychology,
6th ed. Pearson 239

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Lexical inferencing

• 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).

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Linguistic and Non-linguistic Cues Include the
following

• Lexis
• Phonology/Orthography similarity
• Morphology including prefix, suffix, and stem.
• Contextual clues.
• Pictures and Captions.

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Inferencing Phonology/Orthography similarity

• 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?

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Inferencing with Morphology

• 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?

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Contextual Inferencing

• 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).

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Inferencing by Pictures

• The gold blicked magnificently under the luminous
  beams.

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• What did you infer the meaning of blicked to
  be?

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Advantages of Lexical inferencing

• 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.

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Lexical Inferencing

• (Lexis Grammar Phonology/Orthography
  Morphology Pictures/Captions) sifted through
  (Socio-cultural Knowledge Content Experience
  Beliefs) correct inference.

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Practical and Involved Vocabulary Development
Process for ESL Students

• 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.

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Practical and Involved Method (Continued)

• Students should underline words they dont
  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.

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Practical and Involved Method (Continued)

• 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.

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Conclusion

• We selected Vocabulary Development as our topic
  because we believe that, once the basics of
  English have been subsumed, enhancement of an ESL
  students vocabulary is the best route to
  achieving fluency.
• We focused on some proven strategies
• 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.

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Conclusion Continued

• 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.

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References 1

• Barnhardt, S. (1997, April). Strategy of the
  month Making inferences. Retrieved July 22,
  2005, from http//www.nclrc.org/caidlrin.htmBM2
• 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. OMalley, J.M., (1994). The CALLA
  Handbook Implementing Cognitive Academic
  Language Learning Approach. Addison-Wesley
  Publishing.
• Chamot, A.U., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P.,
  Robbins, J., (1999) The Learning Strategies
  Handbook. Pearson Education White Plains, NY.
• 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
  onlinehttp//www.gabrielatos.com/Inference.htm.

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References 2

• 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). Whats 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.

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References 3

• Soria, J., (2001). TA Study of Ilokano Learners
  Lexical Inferencing Procedures Through
  Think-Aloud. Second Language Studies, 19(2),
  pp.77-110
• 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.