VOCABULARY TEACHING: Some insights from the research

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VOCABULARY TEACHING Some insights from the
research
Penny Ur ETAI mini-conference, Ohalo January, 2010
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General background

• It is generally agreed today that a wide sight
  vocabulary is essential for proficiency
  (especially reading comprehension).
• This means at least 1,000 items by the end of 6th
  grade
• About 4-5,000 by the end of 10th
• About 7-8,000 by the end of 12th.
• How do we help our students acquire this?

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Agree or disagree?

1. You need to know about 85 of the words of a text
   in order to understand it reasonably well.
2. It helps you remember if you learn items in
   lexical sets (e.g. colors, animals).
3. The most efficient way to learn new words is
   through extensive reading.
4. It helps students remember a word if they first
   found it out through inferencing from context.
5. Providing translations helps learners to remember
   words.
6. We need to review a new item about four or five
   times in order for our learners to remember it.

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You need to know about 85 of the words of a text
in order to understand it satisfactorily.

• Wrong.
• 85 not only does not ensure understanding the
  main ideas it also does not provide sufficient
  evidence to help guess the unknown words (Laufer,
  1997a).

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Extract from Obamas speech

• That is the work we began last year. Since the
  day I took office, we renewed our focus on the
  __________ who __________ our nation. We have
  made substantial __________ in our homeland
  __________ and disrupted _________ that
  threatened to take American ____________.

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You need to know about 85 of the words of a text
in order to understand it satisfactorily.

• Wrong.
• 85 not only does not ensure understanding the
  main ideas it also does not provide sufficient
  evidence to help guess the unknown words.
• In order to understand a text successfully, you
  need to know between 95-98 of the words
  (Schmitt, 2008).

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• That is the work we began last year. Since the
  day I took office, we renewed our focus on the
  _________ who threaten our nation. We have made
  substantial __________ in our homeland security
  and disrupted plots that threatened to take
  American lives.

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• That is the work we began last year. Since the
  day I took office, we renewed our focus on the
  terrorists who threaten our nation. We have made
  substantial investments in our homeland security
  and disrupted plots that threatened to take
  American lives.

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The most efficient way to learn new words is
through extensive reading.

• Wrong.
• (Zahar et al., 2001 Schmitt, 2008).
• We learn new items very slowly through extensive
  reading (about one for each 1000 words read).
• The value of extensive reading is mainly in
  recycling common items and in increasing reading
  fluency.

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It helps you remember if you learn items in
lexical sets (e.g. colors, animals)

• Wrong.
• It is better to teach words in horizontal
  combinations than in vertical lists (e.g. teach
  blue with sky and not blue with red, yellow etc.)

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Research on learning semantic sets

• Tinckham (1993), Waring (1997)
• Question
• Does it help learners to master a new set of
  lexical items if they are all connected to a
  central topic (e.g. clothes, animals)?

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Learners were presented with two sets of items
from an artificial language, and told their
meanings one set all related to the same
domain, the other did not.
rain moshee car blaikel frog umau shirt
achen jacket kawvas sweater nalo
shirt moshee jacket umau sweater
blaikel rain achen car nalo frog
kawvas
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RESULT The learners consistently learned the
unrelated items better.

• The research was replicated by Waring five years
  later with the same results.

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It helps students remember a word if they first
found it out through inferencing from context.

• Wrong, from the point of view of vocabulary
  learning.
• Inferencing is a useful reading skill but it
  does not help the learning of the inferenced
  word.
• Inferencing is not reliable (Laufer, 1997
  Nassaji, 2003)
• Inferencing does not aid retention (Mondria,2003)

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Research on inferencing

• Mondria (2003)
• One group was asked to learn words through
  inferencing from a pregnant context and
  verifying with a glossary, and was then given
  time to memorize. The other group was simply
  provided with L1 translations and given time to
  memorize.
• When tested, the two groups achieved the same
  scores, which were maintained in a delayed
  post-test.
• So it just isnt efficient to make students go
  the long way round doesnt improve learning.

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Providing translations helps learners learn and
remember items

• Right.
• Laufer (1997b) L1 glosses tend to produce
  better remembering than L1 glosses.
• Laufer and Girsai (2008) words practised using
  translation techniques L1 were consistently
  better retained than those practised through
  L2-based exercises.

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We need to review a new item about four or five
times in order for our learners to remember it.

• Not enough.
• The evidence is that learners usually need at
  least ten (maybe more) meaningful encounters in
  order to acquire a new item (Webb, 2007).
• How far do the coursebooks take care of this?

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What does this mean in practice?
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You need an enormous amount of vocabulary

• Do vocabulary expansion activities
• Show and tell
• Brainstorming round a word (associations, objects
  of a verb)
• Word of the day
• A word I heard on television

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You need to know 95-98 of the words of a text in
order to understand it

• Use graded readers for extensive reading (i-1)
• Dont expect students to cope with difficult
  reading comprehension texts on their own
• But DO use difficult texts as a basis for your
  own teaching.

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Extensive reading doesnt provide enough
vocabulary on its own

• Incidental learning of vocabulary is
  inefficient.
• So we need to teach vocabulary deliberately, in
  focused vocabulary activities in the classroom
  and for homework.

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Group words by theme not as lexical sets

• If your book teaches lexical sets
• Choose which are the most important and
  thematize them (learning more vocabulary in the
  process).
• What things can you see in this room that are
  red?
• What things in the real world are blue?
• Forget about purple!

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Inferencing

• Dont expect students to infer meaning from
  context, unless the context makes them
  mega-clear!
• Just give the meanings yourself.

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Teaching vocabulary in and out of context

• New items are usually encountered in context.
• But then decontextualize and focus on them, one
  by one.
• Make sure that there is impact.

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Some tips

• Simply write up on the board, and leave there
• Use lingual lists
• Use (dramatic/humorous) representations
  (pictures? icons? mimes? Jokes?)
• Use mnemonic devices / keywords
• Make students write new items in vocabulary
  notebooks.

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Use translation as well, for understanding,
retension, and testing

• Happy

Happy ???
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• Disappointed If you are disappointed you are sad
  because something has not happened or because
  something is not as good as you had hoped.
• OR
• Disappointed ??????
• Now tell me in English about some situations
  when you were disappointed!

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• How do you say in English?
• ???? ????? book fair
• ???? ?????? ___________
• ????? ????? ___________
• ???? ?????? ___________
• ?? ?????? ___________
• ??? ?????? ___________

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If the book doesnt provide enough review

• then we need to supplement
• Tips
• Weekly (bilingual) dictations
• Cumulative review activities
• Various techniques

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Practical principle review, dont test

• So dont ask them to produce the item in response
  to a picture or definition
• Rather, make them a present of the items, and
  then tell them to do interesting things with them
  that will help fix them in their memories.

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• cellphone life all over the world
• facts countries location
• remote areas earthquake the invention of
• communicate with important events
• photographs hurricane save lives
• for example rescue party the outside world

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Tips

• (Make up a sentence with an item)
• Make up a question
• Make up a sentence with at least two of the items
• Make up a negative sentence
• Make up a true sentence
• Make up an obviously untrue sentence
• Make up a personal sentence

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And more

• Make up a new story that includes all the items
• Once there was a terrible hurricane ...
• Brainstorm (but with full answers)
• How many remote areas can you think of?
• What kinds of people travel all over the
  world?

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Summary

• Vocabulary knowledge is crucial for our students
  success in English
• We need to be aware of how vocabulary is most
  effectively taught and learnt.
• And use our knowledge to inform practical
  classroom technique and materials selection.

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pennyur_at_gmail.com