Transcript Marie Schein

Developing Vocabulary Skills
With StudyMate
• Most SLA experts agree that vocabulary is
central to language acquisition
• A lexical knowledge contributes to L2
proficiency
• Different students learn L2 words in different
ways
• All students will face different “learning
burdens” (Nation 2000) for different words
Strategies to Learn
Vocabulary
• Interaction with peers and/or instructor
• Exposure to comprehensible input
• Mnemonics such as word associations, word
grouping, studying the spelling of words,
saying words aloud, etc..
• Other memory strategies such as verbal or
written word repetition, word lists, word
games, miming the words, etc…
Different Strategies for
Different Learners
• Explicit learning may work better at the
beginning level
• Implicit learning will work better with
more advanced students
• All students will benefit from exposure
to a greater number and variety of
strategies
Explicit Vocabulary Learning
with StudyMate: Our
Experiment
• eCollege is TCU’s course management
software
• StudyMate exercises are created in Microsoft
Word and embedded within eCollege
• StudyMate offers a variety of explicit
vocabulary learning exercises that foster
repetition and audio/ visual attentive tasks to
help our visual learners
StudyMate Activities
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Flashcards with or without audio
Crossword puzzles
Matching
Pick a Letter
Fill in the blanks
Challenge
Others
The Experiment
• Upon the invitation from our Center for
Teaching Excellence, we began to create
StudyMate activities in the fall semester 2007
• Students accessed StudyMates activities
through our eCollege course shells
• During the last week of the semester, our
CTE staff administered a survey through
eCollege course shells
The Survey
• 96 students participated in the survey
• 9 classes were selected: 3 French, 2
German, 3 Spanish, 1 History
• Survey was administered through
eCollege