Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition
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Transcript Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition
Vocabulary Acquisition
Learning and teaching vocabulary
Coady, J and Huckin, T Second Language
Vocabulary Acquisition, 1997, CUP.
Historic trends
Knowing words
Orthographic knowledge
Oral production
Tracking acquisition
Vocabulary enhancement strategies
Mnemonic methods
Extensive reading and SLA
Lexical approach
Knowing a word
What does knowing a word mean?
What does ‘knowing a word
mean?
We need to know:
Form (pronunciation and spelling)
Structure (the root word and its inflections)
Syntactical information
Meaning: referential; affective;pragmatic
Lexical relations with other words: synonymy, antonymy etc
Common collocations
(Laufer B 1997 What’s in a word….)
Learners/users will often only partially know a word
And this can be represented on a cline:
Not at all _________________________________fully
(katamuku) (shiru)
(natsukashi)
Factors affecting learnability
Make a list of factors which affect
learnability
Factors affecting learnability
Pronounceability
Orthography
Length
Morphology: inflectional complexity; derivational complexity
Synformy (similarity to other forms)
Word class (nouns easiest; adverbs most difficult)
Semantic features of the word: idiomaticity; polysemy
(Laufer B 1997 What’s in a word…)
How should we teach vocabulary?
Think of five strategies that a teacher has at
his or her disposal
How should we teach vocabulary?
Integrate new words with old
Provide a number of encounters with the word (7
occurrences in a coursebook leads to learning?)
Promote deep-level processing
Facilitate imaging and concreteness
Use a variety of techniques
Encourage independent learning
(Sokmen A 1997 Current trends in teaching language vocabulary.)
Criteria for selecting vocabulary to
be acquired
Think of as many factors as you can that
might be considered in selecting or
highlighting new vocabulary.
Vocabulary Syllabus
Criteria for selection
Frequency: the more frequently a word is used, the sooner it should
appear
Coverage: words with broader coverage should be taught first (eg go
before walk or travel)
Range: words found in a variety of texts
Learnability: words which are similar, easily demonstrated meanings,
which are regular.
Opportunism: words that are relevant to learners’ immediate
situation.
Centres of interest: lexical sets that will interest learners in a
particular group.
(adapted from, O’Dell F 1997 Incorporating Vocabulary into the
Syllabus)
Practical presentation
This web site includes some practical
ideas for developing vocabulary
acquisition:
http://sched.sbu.edu/courses/fb1/Present
ations/Vocabulary_files/frame.htm