Transcript 2014_5_17_principles_of_vocabulary_LET_lite

Dealing with Vocabulary in the
Foreign Language Classroom
Okayama May 2014
www.robwaring.org/presentations/
Dr. Rob Waring
Notre Dame Seishin University
Typical vocabulary teaching
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Most vocab teaching is from context
Haphazard selection of materials
Different vocab topic in each unit
Too many words at once
Rare words are favoured over common words
Focus on single words not multi-word units and combinations
All students learn the same words
Word teaching = definition and spelling
Teachers give meanings
Typical vocabulary teaching II
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Low recycling of vocab in course books and teachers
Teachers leave vocab learning to learners
Vocab learning strategies are rarely taught
Vocab learning techniques are rarely taught
Vocabulary learning goals are rarely set
Dictionary skills are rarely taught
Vocab notebooks not encouraged
Words are kept in lists
Vocab exercises test not teach
Teachers trust the course book to deal with vocab
Two states of vocabulary learning
Form-meaning relationship
- matching the spelling and/or sound to a meaning
The ‘deeper’ aspects of vocabulary learning
- multiple meaning senses / nuances of use
- frequency, usefulness etc.
- use in context
- domain (lexical set)
- restrictions on use / pragmatic values
- register (polite, casual, rude), spoken, written, formal, informal
- lexical access speed, fluency, automaticity
- collocation and colligation
- etc.
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…
What's a collocation?
Collocations are words which often appear together.
We say
We don't (usually) say
beautiful girl
handsome girl
blonde hair
yellow hair
mild cheese
weak cheese
big surprise
large surprise
go to work
go to job
catch fire
do fire / go fire
high cost
expensive cost
demand a response
ask a response
make a mistake
do a mistake
How much to learn: collocations
fast / quick
yellow / blonde
regular / normal
a round / circle of
meal
hair
guy
friends
train
car
fries
drinks
food
flower
day
golf
shower
strawberry
exercise
wagons
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)
Which collocations?
Transparent 'weak' collocations – easy to learn – don't teach
Beautiful flower, look out of a window, read a book, play a game
Specialized collocations – teach only if needed
Insolvency act, habeas corpus, spaghetti bolognese
Infrequent collocations – don't bother teaching
Rancid butter, a glimmer of hope, circle of friends, by and large
Those that need attention
–Highly frequent collocations (not too many of these)
make/do + noun
–False friends
weak tea, *thin tea;
meet friends / *play with friends
What’s a colligation?
Colligations are words which often appear together grammatically
We say
depend on someone
be good at something
ask for something
give something to someone
We don’t (usually) say
depend of someone
be good on something
ask on something
give something someone
They need thousands of Expressions, Idioms and
Phrases
traffic jam
lunch box
by and large
get along with
put back
set out on
the day before yesterday
How's things?
If you don't mind, would you…?
I'd rather not …
I'd like to …
If it were up to me, I'd …
So, what do you think?
What's the matter?
How frequently do lexical phrases occur (BNC)?
Raw Rank
177
222
272
285
378
1538
1725
2159
2491
2970
3307
3755
4378
5409
5987
7396
7885
9125
Word
out of
per cent
such as
of course
for example
in front of
all right
as soon as
in general
in addition to
next to
on top of
instead of
in charge of
just about
provided that
as good as
with a view to
Per million
words
490
382
321
309
238
65
58
47
41
34
30
26
21
17
15
11
10
8
Raw Rank
11459
13507
14369
16684
19505
22060
28441
43572
48241
51717
58511
74321
76170
82928
83882
89371
Word
Per million
words
in between
6
by and large
5
at random
4
per se
4
old fashioned
3
grown up
2
matter of fact
2
sq m
1
fait accompli
1
straight forward
1
habeas corpus
1
self-same
0
haute cuisine
0
a good deal
0
laissez faire
0
persona non grata
0
Most multi-word units aren't worth teaching
individually
Collocations will always occur less frequently than the words
that make them up
In the British National Corpus (100m words)
Strong occurs 213 times / 1m words
Wind occurs 73 times / 1m words
Strong wind occurs 3.06 times / 1m words
The 'difficult' word compromise occurs 31 times
Most collocations aren't worth teaching individually
But we must teach the prepositions in colligates
How much needs learning?
2000 basic words to be intermediate level
Each family has 2-3 derivatives
Each word has 2-3 meaning senses
We need to meet each one 10 times to learn it
Each word has 10-15 collocations
Each word is part of 4-5 phrases or idioms
It’s impossible to teach all of this….
We need plan B….
2,000
5,000
12,500
125,000
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 ….
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?
What were you doing when the phone rang?
They need to master grammatical patterns
The grammar systems (e.g. the present perfect tense)
A government committee has been created to …
He hasn't seen her for a while, has he? No, he hasn't.
Why haven't you been doing your homework?
There's been a big accident in Market Street.
Have you ever met a ghost?
It's very hard to see the patterns – there are many forms:
Statement, negative, yes/no and wh- question forms,
Simple or continuous
Active or passive
Short answers and questions tags (Yes, I have. …… hasn't he?)
Regular and irregular - has vs. have walked vs. bought
Present perfect for 'announcing news', PP for 'experiences', etc. etc.
The Balanced Curriculum
Receptive
• Explicit teaching
• Dictionary work
Language Study • Studying from a vocab
book
• Intensive reading
• Language awareness
activities
• Conscious word learning
Fluency
Practice
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Extensive reading
Extensive listening
Watching movies
Browsing the Internet
Listening to the radio or
music
Productive
• Controlled language production
activities.
• Language and pronunciation drills
• Gap fill exercises
• Memorized dialogs
• Sentence completion tasks
• Tests
• ‘Free’ language production
activities.
• Casual conversations
• Debates and discussions
• Email, and online chat
• Diary writing
• Essays
The Balanced Curriculum
Receptive
Language Study
Productive
Build language knowledge and get control over it
Develop learning strategies
Develop a sense of how the language works
Fluency
Practice
Build autonomy
Build pragmatic and cultural knowledge
Balance in Language Teaching
Language Study
Fluency
Practice
Receptive
Productive
- provides new knowledge
about language features
-raises awareness of how
the language works
- raises awareness of
learning strategies
-gives practice in checking
whether something is known
- allows learners to actively
construct language
- focuses on accurate control over
language features
- Learners get a feel for
how the language works
- consolidates the
discretely learned
language features
- allows learners to meet
huge amounts of text
- gives real time opportunities to
experiment with language use
- gives feedback on the success of
language use
- builds fluency of language
production
What happens if they don’t do these things?
Receptive
Language Study
Fluency
Practice
Productive
- Fewer chances to
notice new things
- Hard to add new
knowledge
- Can’t check the accuracy
of what they learnt
- Not enough input
- Few chances to
develop automatic
processing
- Can’t develop fluent
eye movements
- Can’t experiment with their
knowledge fluently
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 1000-1200 common phrasal verbs
There are 1000-1500 common idioms
There are hundreds of common sentences heads and formulaic
phrases
What do we know about vocabulary?
• Because we teach a word does not mean they learned it (i.e.
teaching does not cause learning). Note* our text books
assume this. Because they finished the textbook does not
mean they know all the words in the book
• Written and spoken vocabulary are different. Fewer words are
needed for speaking
• Initial word knowledge is very fragile. Memories of new words
that are not met again soon.
What do we know about vocabulary? II
• Some words are more difficult to learn than others
• Learners cannot guess new meaning from context if the
surrounding text is too difficult. About 98% coverage needed.
• Words live with other words, not in isolation
• Not all words are equally frequent. There is a core useful
vocabulary everyone needs (about 2000 word families). Not
everyone needs the other 90% of the words in English.
• Students should learn the most frequent and useful words
first, later they can specialize.
Intentional / Incidental
Intentional
- aim to directly teach / learn something
- e.g. textbook presentation, dictionary use, wordcards
Incidental
- aim to hope them pick up or notice the target from
exposure
- students are doing something else (e.g. reading a passage
for meaning) but notice something new as they do it.
Deductive vs Inductive presentation
Deductive – ‘telling’
telling / explaining the rule e.g. on the board, in a text or
handout
Inductive presentation – ‘discover the rule’
A: What are your plans for the weekend?
B: I’m meeting my brother on Friday at 7, and then I’m
playing tennis in Yokohama on Saturday. And you?
A: I’m not sure maybe I’ll stay home.
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
How are we going to teach what?
Intentional learning e.g word cards
Incidental learning e.g extensive reading
Individual words
Important lexical phrases
False friends
Loanwords
Important collocations and colligations
Basic grammatical patterns
Important phrasal verbs, idioms etc.
Word, phrase and sentence level
awareness
Register, Genre
Pragmatic knowledge
Restrictions on use
Most collocations and collocations
A 'sense' of a word's meaning and use
A 'sense' of how grammar fits with
lexis - the tenses, articles etc.
Discourse level awareness
Selection issues – what do we teach?
Sequence issues – in what order?
Scaffolding issues – how do we
consolidate previous learning?
Presentation issues – what method?
Rough grading
Ensuring recycling
Engaging text
Matching input text to intentionally
learnt materials
The Cycle of Learning
Notice
something
Add to our
knowledge
Get more
input
(feedback)
Try it out
What happens to things we learn?
We forget them over time unless they are recycled and
memories of them strengthened
Our brains are designed to forget most of what we meet - not to
remember it
Knowledge
The Forgetting Curve
Time
Leitner’s Memory System
Spaced, expanded retrieval
Image source: www.lexxica.com
A linear structure to our syllabuses
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Be verb
Simple
present
Present
continuous
can
….
Simple
adjectives
Daily
routines
Sporting
activities
Abilities
…..
Each unit has something new
Little focus on the recycling of vocabulary, grammar and so on
The theory is “We’ve done that, they have learnt it, so we can move
on.”
i.e. teaching causes learning
What will naturally happen to the learning?
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Be verb
Simple
present
Present
continuous
can
….
Simple
adjectives
Daily
routines
Sporting
activities
Abilities
…..
Course work and Graded Readers work together
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Be verb
Simple
present
Present
continuous
can
….
Introducing
language
Consolidating and deepening language knowledge
Extensive Reading
What does this imply?
A linear course structure
-is focused on introducing new words and grammatical features
-does not fight against the forgetting curve
-by its very design cannot provide enough repetitions of words and
grammar features for long-term acquisition to take place
-is not focused on deepening and consolidating older knowledge
because the focus is always on new things
This is NOT a criticism of course books. They can’t do everything even
though we might expect them to. Course books are only part of
what students need.
How well are our courses presenting the language
students need?
Research suggests a typical language courses:
• do not systematically recycle the grammatical forms outside
the presentation unit / lesson
• have an almost random vocabulary selection (mostly based on
topic) without much regard to frequency or usefulness
• rarely, if ever, recycle taught words either later in the unit, the
book, or the series
• provide little additional practice in review units or workbooks
• have an overwhelming focus on new material in each lesson
Typical Japanese reading texts
In Junior High School
-teaches the first 1000 most useful words quite well
- readability seems adequate – short passages, easy
vocabulary, picture support
In Senior High School
- radical change to low frequency vocabulary
- hundreds of the most important 2,000 most useful words
aren't met
Research 1: words in Japanese Senior High
Textbooks
Research by Chujo, Yoshimori, Hasegawa, Nishigaki and Yamazaki
中條清美・吉森智大・長谷川修治・西垣知佳子・山﨑淳史, 高
等学校英語教科書の語彙,日本大学生産工学部研究報告B,
2007 年６ 月第40 巻
Research 2
Types
Tokens
Horizon 1, 2, 3 (Junior High)
1,124
9,440
Powwow I, II, Reading (Senior High)
2,857
27,221
Centre tests (680 types / 3000 tokens average
per test) x 4
1,000
12,000
College Entrance tests (590 types / 1600 tokens
average per test) x4
1,000
6,400
A total of approximately 55,000 running words will be met (not counting
juku and self-study).
A generous estimate is 100,000 words and about 3,500 types over 6
years.
Listening input would be approximately 10% of this.
Research 3 Lexical coverage of some reading
texts
% inside the top
2,000 most frequent
words
Typical beginner level graded readers
99%
Typical elementary level graded readers
97-98%
Typical advanced level graded readers
92-94%
Typical unsimplified native texts
85%
Typical Daily Yomiuri article
87.4%
Harry Potter Chapter 2
94.1%
Typical Time magazine article
80.9%
Japanese High School text (Spectrum U16)
76.8%
Japanese High School text (Milestone)
78%
Japanese High School text (Unicorn)
79%
Source: Browne, C. ECAP Conference, 2008
Lexical coverage of some exams
% inside the top 2000
most frequent words
Keio University
69%
Sophia University
72%
Waseda University
72%
Kyoto University
77%
Nagoya University
68%
Tokyo University
80%
Source: Browne, C. ECAP Conference, 2008
Research 4 (Waring 2013)
Aim:
1. Find out which words are in textbooks
2. Find out how many words students can learn from
them
6 Japanese Junior High texts
21 Japanese High school texts
18 Korean Middle School texts
15 Korean High School texts
Middle
School
School
5 Mexican
Middle
andHigh
Senior
High texts Total
Japan (Average)
14,066
20,977
35,043
Korea (Average)
23,483
37,950
61,433
Mexico
126,043
106,493
232,536
Likely uptake (words met more than 10 times
from reading 30 texts at each level)
Japan
Korea
Mexico
Course books
only
JH
JH & SH
147
476
184
925
854
1,276
Course books
plus reading
JH
JH & SH
403 +174%
1,187 +149%
602 +227%
1,468 +59%
959 +12%
1,677 + 31%
How long will it take to teach them?
An average word needs 8-50 meetings for it to be learnt
receptively from reading (more for productive use)
An average word's meaning takes 10-15 meetings to learn from
word cards or word lists
To learn the collocations and 'deeper' aspects of language
learning takes MUCH longer.
There's little research into the rate learning of collocation,
colligation or lexical phrases from reading
We know nothing at all about how long it takes to master a
particular grammatical form e.g. a tense, the comparatives,
relative clauses
Short texts
A Typical Reading Text
Many
difficult
words
Definitions given
Many exercises
How are students typically taught to read?
From textbooks with short difficult texts
Doing lots of exercises to practice the grammar and vocab, reading
skills and strategies
Teacher leads the students
All students read the same teacher-selected material
All students read at the same pace
All students read at the same difficulty level
The text may or may not interest all learners
It's hard to develop fluent eye movements – fluency and reading speed
– too many 'reading speed bumps'
This is called INTENSIVE READING or STUDY READING
'Study Reading' is good
Provides good opportunities for the teaching of discrete
language points (e.g. vocabulary and grammar)
But….
There is no skills practice
The 'grammar' in the texts is not like actual spoken grammar
They can't develop reading speed
It's hard to learn the patterns in the language because the
student doesn't read much
Not everyone is reading at their own ability level
The text book may not interest everyone
Intensive Reading (course books for example)
Provides good opportunities for the teaching of discrete
language points (e.g. vocabulary and grammar)
Few chances for the development of fluent eye movements
Few chances to learn the patterns in the language because
the student doesn't read much
Little allowance for student interest in what is read
Little allowance for reading at their own ability level
Often difficult for students to add new language to the
existing store of language because the material is too
difficult
Features of Extensive Reading
All the students read different books
Student selected material
Wide variety of material (genres)
The reading will probably interest the student
Longer texts
Very few difficult words
Reading at the student's fluent reading ability level
Mostly out-of class reading
Emphasis on the skill of reading
All reading is in the second language – no Japanese needed
New words are often met in later chapters
Emphasis on reading for comprehension / enjoyment
Provides input for speaking and writing
When reading extensively, students should READ
It is CRUCIAL that learners read at the RIGHT level
Read something quickly and
Enjoyably with
Adequate comprehension so they
Don't need a dictionary
If they need a dictionary, it's too hard and they will read slowly,
get tired and stop
Their aim is fluency and speed, not learning new language
Typically students read at home or out of class- it doesn't take
much class time for HUGE benefits
We add the reading to our existing program, we don't replace it.
Extensive Reading is easy because …
The students 'just read'
Once the library is ready, there's little to do
Get the students to manage the library
Online assessment if you wish - www.moodlereader.org
It doesn't take much class time – they can read at home
EASY is GOOD – it builds fluency, speed and confidence
Reading at the right level
How do Intensive and Extensive Reading fit
together?
Reading
Pain
(too hard, poor
comprehension,
high effort,
de-motivating)
Intensive
reading
(Instructional
level, can
learn new
words and
grammar)
90%
Low
98%
Speed reading
practice
(very fast,
fluent, high
comprehension,
natural reading,
enjoyable)
100%
% of known vocabulary
Slow
Reading speed
Low
Extensive
reading
(fast, fluent,
adequate
comprehension,
enjoyable)
Comprehension
High
High
What's the balance?
Language focus activities- learning the grammar and vocabulary,
reading skills, pronunciation etc. (i.e. coursework)
PLUS
Massive amounts of easy fluent reading with graded readers
Massive amounts of fluent listening
The focus should be on deepening and consolidating knowledge
of things they learnt in their course books
Build strategic competence
Students are not born knowing how to use dictionaries
We should teach them to learn words well and systematically
Spend a LOT of time on building ‘guessing from context’ abilities
Translation line by line reading – effect on
language development
Total dependence on the teacher – no student independence
Teacher selected material – no respect for student interests
No respect for different ability levels
No respect for reading skills development
Input is not recycled in the next lesson – a linear structure
No fluency practice
Slow and tedious – likely to be boring
Very little text is read
Rarer words get more focus than more useful words
Often (far too) difficult
Retention is notoriously low
Knowledge gains are temporary only
Restricts learners to ‘word by word’ analysis
Often used as an excuse for a linguistics lesson
Translation line by line reading – effect on learning
Language input is reactive, not planned
Language input is not systemized – there’s no syllabus or curriculum at all
Not meaning centered (form centered) – thus little will be remembered
Little or no discourse level instruction / practice
Translating one sentence does not mean whole text comprehension
Sentence level translating does not mean there is an understanding of the
sentence
Checking one student can translate does not mean the others can
Each student only worries about her sentences
Only two brains are working on each sentence
Often used as an excuse to improve the students’ Japanese!
If this is the only method of instruction:Students likely to die from boredom
Excellent way to kill a love for English
Why can’t Japanese students read, listen, speak
and write well?
Their language knowledge is often abstract, separated, discrete and
very fragile so they forget
There’s too much work on “the pieces-of-language” and not enough
comprehensible, meaningful , connected discourse
They haven’t met the words and grammar enough times to feel
comfortable using them
They CANNOT speak until they feel comfortable using their knowledge
They haven’t developed a ‘sense’ of language yet
So what needs to happen?
We have to ensure our curriculums and courses:
• build in recycling and repetition of words and grammar structures
• give students chances to see how the grammar and vocabulary are
used together in real discourse
• give students chances to deepen and consolidate the language they
learn in their course books (or they forget it)
• allow students to develop their own ‘sense’ of how the language
works
• give students chances to use language rather than just study it
Principles of Vocabulary Learning
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There is not enough class time to teach everything about a word
We don’t need to teach every word in the book
Select the vocabulary carefully - Useful and frequent words first
Single words as well as phrases and collocations
Learners must be set vocabulary learning goals
They need massive input to build vocabulary knowledge to
deepen vocabulary connections
We should teach words the students need
Forgetting will happen - > revise, use it or lose it
We should not expect things we teach to be known tomorrow
The most important vocabulary to teach is yesterday’s vocabulary
Principles II
• Because time is limited, we have to teach students how to deal
with new words (independent learning) thus they need
vocabulary learning strategies
• Give opportunities for guessing words from context
• Teach them to use a dictionary properly
• Teach word learning strategies
• Work at both levels of vocabulary knowledge
• Use a systematic approach (set realistic goals) – build on old
learning
• Intentional and incidental learning
Principles III
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•
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Language focus work needed
Give opportunities for developing fluency and automaticity
Not everything can be learn intentionally
Initial meetings should be followed by deeper level processing
Opportunities for elaborating word knowledge
Let them experiment (force them to think)
We do not need to teach all words to be available for use
Concept check understanding
Understand the task requirements of vocabulary exercises
Give opportunities to develop the pronunciation