Transcript Factors in second language acquisition: opportunity

Factors in second language
acquisition: opportunity,
exposure, uptake and retention
Rob Waring
Essential questions
•
•
•
•
How much language do students need to meet?
What kinds of vocabulary do they need to learn?
How many times do they need to meet words to learn them?
What are the optimal conditions for learning vocabulary?
Types of vocabulary
Individual words:
Affixes:
Multi-part words:
Lexical phrases:
Idioms:
Sentence heads:
Collocations:
Colligations:
Others:
book, table, life, chance, walk, airplane…
used, user, usefulness, user-friendly, disuse…
traffic jam, the day after tomorrow, lunch box…
by the way, to and fro, a kind of,…
let the cat out of the bag, raining cats and dogs
Do you mind if I…, If I were you,.. Could you…?
High season, mild cheese, blonde hair…
agree to do x, agree on X, rely on someone,
have an effect on x, x affects y...
SONY, Paul, twenty-seven, etc. , UNESCO…
How much to learn: vocabulary
Learners need 8000-9000 words to know 98% of the vocabulary
in native novels, magazines and most general reading
Intermediate learners need at least a vocabulary of 2000 words
receptively and 1000 productively to be able to build fluency
rapidly
Advanced learners will need 4000-6000 words
An average high frequency word has about 8-15 common
collocations
There are 400-500 common phrasal verbs
There are 1000-1500 common idioms
There are hundreds of common sentences heads and formulaic
phrases
How much to learn: collocations
fast / quick
yellow / blonde
regular / normal
a round / circle of
meal
train food shower
hair car flower
guy fries day exercise
friends drinks golf wagons hate
Types
Adverb + Adjective: completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied)
Adjective + Noun: excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)
Noun + Noun: a surge of anger (NOT a rush of anger)
Noun + Verb: lions roar (NOT lions shout)
Verb + Noun: commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)
Verb + Expression With Preposition: burst into tears (NOT blow up in tears)
Verb + Adverb: wave frantically (NOT wave feverishly)
How much to learn: Grammar
He walked to the station
Did he see the man?
Who did he go with?
He ate with his mother
He didn’t buy anything
She wasn’t given anything
Were they seen?
Why did he mistrust them?
You bought it, didn’t you?
They were being shown the ….
What were you doing when the phone rang?
If I were you, I’d…
If I won the lottery, I’d …
Could I have that?
Was he going to be there at 12?
How much to learn: grammar
The grammar takes a long time
The main tenses have many different forms
I have given.
You have given.
He/she/it has given.
We have given.
They have given.
Have I given?
Have you given?
Has he/she/it given?
Have we given?
Have they given?
I haven’t given.
You haven’t given.
He/she/it haven’t given.
We haven’t given
They haven’t given.
What have I given?
What have you given?
What has he/she/it given?
What have we given?
What have they given?
I have been given.
You have been given.
He/she/it has been given.
We have been given.
They have been given.
Have I been given?
Have you been given?
Has he/she/it been given?
Have we been given?
Have they been given?
I haven’t been given.
You haven’t been given.
He/she/it hasn’t been given.
We haven’t been given
They haven’t been given.
What have I been given?
What have you been given?
What has he/she/it been given?
What have we been given?
What have they been given?
I have been giving.
You have been giving.
He/she/it has been giving.
We have been giving.
They have been giving.
Have I been giving?
Have you been giving?
Has he/she/it been giving?
Have we been giving?
Have they been giving?
I haven’t been giving.
You haven’t been giving.
He/she/it hasn’t been giving.
We haven’t been giving
They haven’t been giving.
Yes, I have.
No, I haven’t.
Yes, you have.
No, you haven’t.
Yes, he/she/it has.
No, he/she/it hasn’t.
Yes, we have.
No, we haven’t.
Yes, they have.
No, they haven’t
……, have I?
….., haven’t I?
……, have you?
……, haven’t you?
….., has he/he/it?
….., hasn’t he/she/it?
….., have we?
..…, haven’t we?
….., have they?
….., haven’t they?
Two levels of word knowledge
Initial ‘form-meaning’ level
‘Deeper’ knowledge
Learning how the meaning is
connected to its spelling and
pronunciation
Learning how the word works in
communicative situations and with its
co-text
WHAT
collocation, colligation, multiple
meaning senses and nuances, topic
area, register, frequency, spoken or
written etc.
•Quite easy to learn
•Fast (if done well)
•Restricted only to the meaning level
HOW
•Takes a long time
•Requires massive exposure
•Can’t realistically be taught – too
much to do.
‘Concrete stuff’: Individual words,
affixes, lexical phrases, idioms, multipart words, sentence heads etc.
WHICH
pencil
= /pensil/ =
‘Abstract stuff’: collocations,
colligations, spoken/written, register
etc.
Intentional vs. Incidental learning
Intentional learning
Incidental learning
Direct focus on learning when the
focus is to learn words
FOCUS
wordlists, word cards, vocabulary
exercises, dictionary use
E.G.
•Can be learnt systematically
•Meanings are learnt 16 times faster
than with incidental learning
•Retention high if learnt well
•Decontextualized or ‘local’ learning
level
Best for ‘form-meaning’ level learning
Learning ‘by accident’ - as a result
of focusing on something else
from reading or listening,
watching movies, listening to
songs, casual conversation
LEARNING •Slow and fragile learning
•Input tends to be random and
unpredictable, unsystematized
•Contextualized (chances for
integrative learning)
USE
Best for ‘deeper aspects’ of
vocabulary learning
Terms
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Opportunity: the chance that students have to meet words
Exposure: the texts/ language that students actually meet
Uptake: the rate at which things are learnt
Retention: the rate at which words are learnt or forgotten
Uptake and retention
Intentional learning
-fast – (Mukoyama 2005)
-retention is good if the quality of learning is good
-can’t learn the deeper aspects of vocabulary this way
-each collocation is too infrequent
-too many to learn
-necessarily need to be learnt in context
Incidental learning
-20-50 meetings to learn a word’s meaning
-knowledge is fragile as the meeting is often fleeting
The Forgetting Curve
Number of
words
Knowledge
Occurrence rates
No. of words to read to meet it x times
Frequency
Word
1st
BE
No. % of corpus
10,387
4.989%
2nd
THE
10,027
Top 25
SOME
Top 50
1
5
10
20
20
100
200
401
50
1,002
4.816%
21
104
208
415
1,038
1,192
0.573%
175
873
1,747
3,493
8,733
SENTENCE
606
0.291%
344
1,718
3,436
6,871
17,178
Top 100
OUT
323
0.155%
645
3,223
6,446
12,892
32,230
Top 500
PREDICT
50
0.024%
4,164
20,820
41,641
83,281
208,203
Top 1000
ORGANIC
18
0.009%
11,567
57,834
115,668
231,337
578,342
Top 1500
TIMETABLE
9
0.004%
23,134 115,668
231,337
462,673 1,156,683
Top 2000
COMMERCE
4
0.002%
52,051 260,254
520,507 1,041,015 2,602,538
Top 2500
BIOCHEMICAL
2
0.001% 104,102 520,508 1,041,015 2,082,030 5,205,075
Top 3000
REFUND
2
0.001% 104,102 520,508 1,041,015 2,082,030 5,205,075
Opportunity
In EFL environments:
• Natural opportunity is low
• Natural opportunity takes time, effort and commitment
• Opportunities have to be sought
• For many, creating language opportunities can only be done
realistically through course requirements
Exposure
How frequently do learners meet words?
How much text do learners meet?
What kinds of words do learners typically meet?
Exposure
Data from a ‘typical’ 4 skills 5–level course book series for
Mexican High Schools (Sequences by Heinle Cengage)
-Includes all the units, instructions, exercises, workbook
material, supplementary teacher’s material and listening texts
-Teachers say students complete about 70% of the material
-Only 20% of the class is taught in English
-Little homework other than the course book materials are
given
-Data do not include out of class exposure
-Data do not include student to student talk, student writings
Exposure
Number of words in a typical 5 level course by frequency
30-49
20-29
10-19
5-9
Function
1k
2k
Other
Total
Names
50+
84671
92390
1942
6465
1291
179003
2106
7756
616
3986
1434
42
5462
812
2021
4302
175
6498
1527
309
3414
160
3883
1131
Function
1k
2k
Other
Total
41.25%
45.01%
0.95%
0.00%
87.20%
3.15%
0.63%
0.00%
3.78%
1.94%
0.70%
0.02%
2.66%
0.98%
2.10%
0.09%
3.17%
0.15%
1.66%
0.08%
1.89%
1-4
Total
189
2496
2685
953
105171
12572
2873
205287
7145
0.00% 51.23%
0.09%
6.12%
1.22%
1.40%
1.31% 100.00%
Exposure
Different words (types) in a typical 5 level course by frequency
Function
1k
2k
Other
Total
Names
Function
1k
2k
Other
Total
50+
40
434
22
30-49
20-29
10-19
5-9
1-4
Total
167
35
456
14
202
16
163
60
2
225
34
131
322
13
466
109
42
506
27
575
177
52
1263
1315
367
937
997
1305
3239
717
13.40%
5.16%
5.03%
4.04%
1.30%
0.00%
28.93%
0.68%
1.08%
1.85%
9.94%
15.62%
1.61%
30.78%
0.00%
0.00%
0.06%
0.40%
0.83%
38.99%
40.29%
15.31%
6.24%
6.95%
14.39%
17.75%
1.23%
40.60% 100.00%
Uptake
What uptake can we expect from a typical course?
How much text do learners meet?
-Possibly 200-300,000 words over a typical 5 level course.
How frequently do learners meet words?
-Function words - very very frequently
-De-lexical words - (have, be, do etc.) - very very frequently
-800-900 words (25-27%) are met enough times for
acquisition
-400-600 (10-15%) words will be partially known
-1300 words (over 65-70%) will probably not be learnt
Cautions
‘Acquisition’ assumes meeting the words enough times over 3
years is sufficient
The data do not include multiple meanings, collocations, idioms,
multiple-meaning senses, multi-part words, grammar, etc.
The above data are for possible uptake rates from a typical
course (individual results will vary)
The data are calculated on input frequency (receptive
vocabulary)
Productive vocabulary size is typically 1/4 to 1/5th of the
receptive. We can expect a productive vocabulary of 200-300
easy-to-access words and another 200-300 partial-access
What to do?
Courses in general tend not to recycle vocabulary enough to
allow for deep acquisition
Most courses are linear in design – always teaching new
things in each unit / lesson
Learners need a good balance of intentional vs. incidental
learning
Start with lots of words, phrases, lexical chunks, sentence
heads first. Focus on communicability. Grammar later
Continue the coursework to provide the framework and
initial knowledge of words, grammar etc.
Massive text exposure to build incidental learning
Course book plus Extensive Reading
Uptake if they add 1 graded reader per week
50+
30-49
20-29
10-19
5-9
1-4
1k
707
93
44
68
47
32
2k
223
107
90
162
125
168
93
83
116
309
398
1125
1023
283
250
539
570
1325
1k
17.72%
2.33%
1.10%
1.70%
1.18%
0.80%
2k
5.59%
2.68%
2.26%
4.06%
3.13%
4.21%
Other
2.33%
2.08%
2.91%
7.74%
9.97%
28.20%
Total
25.64%
7.09%
6.27%
13.51%
14.29%
Other
Total
3990
33.21% 100.00%
Course book plus Extensive Reading
Significant improvement in vocabulary (800 --->1600 words)
More of the words in their course book reach the ‘acquisition’
level (27% ---> 40%)
They will have a better sense of how the vocabulary and
grammar fit together
They will have a better sense of collocation, and other deeper
aspects of vocabulary acquisition.
Take home:
We can learn lots of words at the form-meaning level quickly
Initial word knowledge decays quickly unless learnt well
Deeper aspects of word knowledge grow over time
We can expect students exposed to normal levels of input from a
course to acquire less than a thousand words receptively and
a few hundred productively
Adding a Extensive Reading almost doubles their vocabulary
learning
Thanks for listening
This presentation is available from
www.robwaring.org/presentations/
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