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Developing Vocabulary in Second Language Acquisition:From Theories to the Classroom

Jeff G. Mehring

Abstract This paper examines the theories behind vocabulary acquisition in second language learning in order to put these theo-ries into practice in a class. Learning vocabulary is an ongoing process which requires systematic repetition to help stu-dents learn, especially low context vocabulary. Students can retain the vocabulary they find useful and relevant to theirsubject matter by learning vocabulary through context, cooperative learning, and using technology. Results from anaction research project will be reported.

IntroductionUntil recently vocabulary had been widelyoverlooked in the ESL/EFL classroom.Maiguashca (1993) stated that teaching orstudying grammar is based on a set of rules

with a coherent structure which studentsfollow or remember, but the same is nottrue of vocabulary (p. 91). Within the lastfew years, vocabulary has become viewed asan important aspect in second languagelearning, in fact, many believe just as impor-tant as the main skills of reading, writing,listening, and speaking. Nation (as cited inNation and Waring, 1997) explained, Vo-cabulary knowledge enables language use,language use enables the increase of vo-cabulary knowledge, knowledge of the

world enables the increase of vocabularyknowledge and language use and so on (p.6). This contextualized approach to learning

vocabulary will help students increase their vocabulary though authentic interaction. Inthis paper, I will examine the theories be-hind vocabulary acquisition and some re-sults when they were put into practice dur-ing my student teaching.

Theoretical ConceptsBuilding vocabulary is extremely importantfor success in undergraduate or graduate

studies. Nation and Waring (1997) reportedthat 5-year-old native English speakers be-ginning school will have a vocabulary ofaround 4,000 to 5,000 word families, addingroughly 1,000 word families a year untilgraduating from university with a vocabu-lary of around 20,000 word families (p. 7).Bauer and Nation (as cited in Nation and

Waring) defined a word family as the base

word, its inflected forms, and a small num-ber of regular derived forms (p. 7). Thismeans that students such as those in theEnglish Foundations Program (EFP) atHawaii Pacific University (HPU) have anenormous challenge ahead of them, consid-ering that their previous schooling was intheir L1, not English. If one uses Nationand Warings statement that native speakershave a vocabulary of around 20,000 wordfamilies at the time of university graduation,non-native speakers, before finishing EFP1310, an advanced-level class in the EFP,and entering the undergraduate program,

would have to increase their vocabularyfrom between 5,000 to 15,000 word families,depending on their previous English lan-guage studies. The good news is that ac-cording to Jamieson (as cited in Nation and

Waring), once ESL students enter a school where English is the primary language, their vocabulary grows at the same rate as nativespeakers, around 1,000 word families a year;however, the initial gap never closes (p. 7).Understanding where ESL students arestarting from will help in providing the vo-cabulary needed in order for them to im-prove and catch up.

Learning vocabulary is an ongoingprocess that takes time and practice. Nakata

(2006) acknowledged that vocabulary acqui-sition requires continual repetition in orderfor effective vocabulary learning (p. 19).

Vocabulary acquisition is not something astudent can spend time learning or memo-rizing, like grammar, and be successful. Ac-quisition requires the learner to be disci-plined, spending time each day working on

words he/she does not know in order for

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learners to remember high frequency wordsand put them into their long term memory,Nation and Waring stated that learners needto encounter the word multiple times in au-thentic speaking, reading, and writing con-text at the students appropriate level (p. 8).Developing lessons which allow the studentto encounter new words multiple times, al-lowing them to put the new words intohis/her long term memory can be time con-suming. Developing word lists from thecontext of the lesson can reduce the workload, enabling the student to encounter the

word multiple times through reading, listen-ing, and speaking.

Learning new vocabulary through con-text also helps the student understand the

words correct usage and prevents students

from making sentences from dictionarydefinition such as, There is a large cleavage be- tween the rich and poor in America . Learningnew words from a word list is much differ-ent from learning them in the context of asentence or story. Yongqi Gu (2003) statedthat learning new words through context isonly one step students may use, and thatstudents should think meta-cognitively andlearn new words within the context of

where they appear. (p. 14). To help the stu-dent learn the important words from thecontext of a lesson a teacher needs to focuson low context words, which necessitates asecond distinction: high frequency and lowfrequency words. Nation (2005) definedhigh frequency words as words that occurquite frequently in the language, such as the ,a , man , and woman . High frequency wordsoccur so regularly in daily conversation thatif students understand these words, they areable to write and speak in comprehensibleEnglish. Low frequency words, as describedby Nation, are words that deal more withacademic studies, words that appear

throughout all academic texts and courses,but not very often in day to day speech,such as formulate , index , and modify (p. 48).

This helps ease the burden a teacher has when trying to understand what words stu-dents understand; however, low frequency

words are the more difficult aspect forteachers to teach and learners to understand.Creating vocabulary lists from the students

textbooks and presenting these wordsthrough context in the lesson should helpthem to retain and use the new vocabulary.It will also carry through that students learn

vocabulary better when they find the itemsto be useful and are able to put the new

words into use more often while they study. Vocabulary, like other aspects of lan-

guage learning, can be facilitated when donethrough cooperative learning. Yongqi Gu(2003) pointed out that vocabulary acquisi-tion is a very learner-centered activity withthe effectiveness of the learners strategiesdepending on his/her attitude and motiva-tion towards new vocabulary acquisition (p.2). This is true because the main motiva-tional learning factor must come from thestudent, but when learning vocabulary in a

cooperative learning environment it allowsstudents to learn from peers closest to them.Murphey and Arao (2001) pointed out thatstudents felt more relaxed and learned morefrom peers since they saw that making mis-takes is acceptable, having goals is good,and learning English can be fun (p. 2). So,even though vocabulary acquisition is alearner-centered activity in regards to study-ing and being disciplined to set goals, whendone in collaboration with peers studentsmay enjoy the activity more, learning more

vocabulary in the end. Understanding that vocabulary learning is an ongoing process,that learning new vocabulary through con-text, and learning new vocabulary can bedone cooperatively are what guided theclassroom practices below.

Vocabulary Development in Class-room PracticesContext

The course in which vocabulary develop-ment in line with the above theoretical con-cepts was implemented was EFP 1310 Col-lege Listening Skills, an advanced course inlistening and note-taking. It stressed com-prehension of classroom discussions andlectures, as well as a variety of other mediapresentations. The class was taught by twoinstructors: Dr. Hanh Nguyen as the leadteacher and myself as a student teacher. To-gether we worked to develop the students

vocabulary in class. In this class there were

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eighteen students, eleven females and sevenmales. Of the eleven females, seven were

Taiwanese, one Belarusian, one Japanese,one Chinese, and one Indonesian. Of theseven males, three were Korean, two Japa-nese, one Taiwanese, and one Serbian. Onemale student was repeating this class for thesecond time. For two of the males and threeof the females, this was their first Englishlanguage class at a university. The averagenumber of years spent studying English inthe students home country was 6.2 yearsand in the US, just over one month.

Vocabulary Development Activities As mentioned earlier, Nation and Waringstated that learners need to encounter a

word numerous times in order to use it

properly. Building vocabulary is an ongoingprocess, and I believe good progress wasmade during the semester. The biggest ob-stacles encountered were the limited timeand the number of words students had tolearn in order to be well-prepared for un-dergraduate studies. Students now under-stood the importance of a large vocabularyand the amount of work they needed to putforth in obtaining it. In order to build thestudents vocabulary, and help close the vo-cabulary gap as much as possible, we carriedout the following steps: (a) Students as-sessed their present vocabulary level, a start-ing point had to be determined so pro-gresses could be assessed, (b) studentslearned three new words each week, gettingthe students motivated and changing theirattitude on learning vocabulary, (c) theteachers created an academic word list(AWL) extracted from the lectures and thetextbook, developing vocabulary that thestudents would learn in the context of thelectures and use in the class discussions thatfollowed, and (d) the students assessed their

vocabulary at the end of the semester to seeif they made any progress. To see their pro-gress would motivate the students to con-tinue the learning process.

To begin with, the students needed toassess their present vocabulary level. To dothis, students visited http://www.lextutor.ca and took a vocabulary test to de-termine their present level. Sevier (2004)

explained that Test Your Word Level isadapted for the web from Paul Nation andBatia Laufer's word levels tests, developedfor learners with vocabularies of differentsizes and types, with the 1,000 to 10,000most frequent English words (p. 2). At the1,000 word level, the items are multiple-choice and based on either pictures or shortsentences. Learners check their answers andmove on to a second test at a higher level,(80% or higher to move up), or moveddown to a lower level, depending on theirscore. Assessing the students vocabularylevel in the beginning of the semester wasneeded to set a starting point. It also helpedstudents understand where they were and

where they needed to go in order to do wellin undergraduate studies. All of the students

assessed in the EFP 1310 class scored in the2,000 level except three students who wereassessed at the 3,000 level. This means thattheir vocabulary level was between 2,000and 5,000 word families, whereas their na-tive-speaking counterparts would havearound 15,000 word families.

The second activity required studentsto learn three new words each week. Thefirst time this class was taught each weekstudents were required to write three new

words in a journal along with a definitionfor each word and three example sentencesusing the word in context. They could pickthese words from three sources: the nextlevel up from the website where they hadtheir level assessed, words from their text-book, and words from the AWL providedby the teacher. The website informed thestudents at what level they were assessed;then the students picked words from thelevel above that, studied them, and hope-fully did better on the exam at the end ofthe semester. For example, students who

were assessed at the 2,000 level would then

study words from the 3,000 level to im-prove their vocabulary. If they did not wantto do this, they could choose vocabulary

words from the new vocabulary sectionlisted at the beginning of each chapter ofthe textbook. Their last choice, if they didnot wish to do the other two, was the AWLprovided by the teachers. This list was pre-pared by examining the lectures in the text-

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book, pulling out the academic words, andputting them on a piece of paper to begiven to the students. Some of the words onthis list were the same as the words fromthe new vocabulary section of the textbook.

Getting the students to learn three new words each week posed the most difficulttask. Students did not have these listschecked every week, but at the mid-termand final exams, so a few students quicklycreated these books just before this timeperiod. At first it was planned to have eachstudent post his/her three new words on

WebCT so they could be checked moreregularly and other classmates could learnfrom other students words. After this plan

was put to a vote in class, the students de-cided to place their vocabulary words in a

notebook and turn the notebook in beforethe mid-term and final exams. Learningfrom mistakes, we feel that it would havebeen better to check their vocabulary note-books weekly, or have students post theirnew words on WebCT to help them acquiremore low-context vocabulary, thus creatingan even better activity for the class.

To overcome these weaknesses, whenI had the opportunity to teach the classagain in the following semester (now as thesole teacher), students were required to posttheir three new words on WebCT instead ofin a journal. They could choose the wordsfrom the same areas described above, buteach week instead of writing them in ajournal they needed to post them on

WebCT for the teacher and classmates tosee. The first reason was because the previ-ous semester some students did not keeptheir journal regularly, only making thejournal the day before it was due. The sec-ond reason was so classmates could learnfrom each other, near peer role modeling,and the teacher could use the words stu-

dents were posting as part of the vocabularysection of the test. Students seemed to havetaken a stronger interest in learning new vo-cabulary by transferring words they need to

learn into a vocabulary journal or flashcards to help them study. Whether thisprocess is successful or not will be seen atthe end of the semester when the studentstake the vocabulary exam again to see theirprogress.

The third activity was to provide listsof words for the AWL that appeared in thelectures in the textbook. Since EFP 1310 isan advanced course in the EFP program,and after this course most students enterundergraduate studies, the AWL is the ap-propriate list for this class. If it were a lowerlevel class, lower levels of vocabulary wouldhave been used. By pulling out the contex-tualized vocabulary from each lesson, we

were hoping not only to increase the stu-dents vocabulary but also make the lectures

more comprehensible. I helped with scan-ning and running each lecture throughRANGE a software program developedby Nation (2005). This program allowed meto create a contextualized AWL specificallyfor our class, focusing on the vocabularyfrom the given lectures. Nation and Waring(1997) developed three levels of vocabularylists: level 1 is the first 1,000 word families,level 2 is the second 1,000 word families,and level 3 is the university word list (UWL)or AWL (p. 14). RANGE is used to create

word lists based on frequency and is usefulfor seeing what low frequency words arecontained in a paper, technical informationnote, or a text aimed at foreign readers. Itcreates three ready-made base lists. Figure 1shows an example of a lecture that was runthrough RANGE. The first includes themost frequent 1,000 words of English. Thesecond includes the next 1,000 most fre-quent words, and the third includes wordsnot in the first 2,000 words of English but

which are frequent in upper secondaryschool and university texts from a wide

range of subjects. All three base lists includethe base forms of words and derived forms;thus, the first 1,000 words consist of around4,000 forms or types.

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Figure 1. An example of RANGE analysis output (see the Appendix for the sample text of this analysis)

Tables Table 1

Three Base Lists Created from RANGE Software Program

Types found in base list one

Type Range Freq F1

a 1 9 9

all 1 2 2

also 1 1 1

and 1 3 3

bank 1 2 2

business 1 13 13

employees 1 2 2

Types found in base list two

Type Range Freq F1

competition 1 1 1

critical 1 1 1

hurt 1 1 1

lot 1 3 3

rush 1 1 1

Types found in base list three

Type Range Freq F1

affect 1 3 3

community 1 2 2

factors 1 2 2

financing 1 1 1investigate 1 1 1

obtain 1 1 1

project 1 1 1

range 1 1 1

require 1 1 11

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After scanning each lecture and run-ning it through the program, we pulled outonly the level 3 words, the AWL, and putthem into a word document. Before each

lecture, the teacher printed out the appro-priate AWL and gave it to the students toprepare them for the lecture. This practice

was inspired by the notion that new wordsare best learned in context, or as Sternbergclaimed, Vocabulary using context is themost effective, or even a relatively effective,

way of teaching that vocabulary (p. 89).Since students had the chance to study andunderstand the vocabulary before listeningto the lecture, we aimed to help them toconcentrate on the content of the lecture

and hear the vocabulary being used in con-text. Extracting the high context vocabularyfrom the lectures was a great way to focuson the content words from the lessons sostudents would be using them regularly inclass, hopefully committing them to longterm memory. It also saved the teachers alot of time by not having to read the lec-tures and pull the vocabulary out. This al-lowed more time to focus on presentationof the lessons and vocabulary.

The final activity took place at the endof the semester when students revisited the

website, http://www.lextutor.ca, and hadtheir vocabulary assessed a second time tosee if it had grown. All of the studentsscored at the same level from the beginningof the semester, except one student whoscored higher. The use of the same exam atthe end of the semester gave validity to theirscores since the level of the test did notchange. Even though most students scoredat the same level in the end, I do not believethat the vocabulary learning activities donein class failed. One level contains roughly

4,000 word forms and types, so a student

may have tested into the lower end of level2,000 at the beginning of the semester, andtested at the same level but toward thehigher end at the completion of the semes-

ter. Since the test does not show this inmore detail, it is difficult to know if the stu-dents have or have not made some progress.

Conclusion Vocabulary acquisition has become an ex-tremely important part of second languageacquisition, and teachers cannot rely on stu-dents acquiring the needed vocabulary justthrough interaction with the language. I al-

ways understood that vocabulary was im-portant in second language learning, but

understanding what words to teach and in what manner have helped me to better planmy lessons so students can acquire the nec-essary vocabulary. Students need to betaught vocabulary in context so that theycan retain the words and use them morefrequently. Learning how the computer canhelp to develop word lists from the stu-dents textbooks has enabled me to focuson the words that were necessary in eachlesson. Allowing the students to use thenew vocabulary during the course of thelesson should help them retain it in theirlong term memories. Using a computerprogram to assess the students present vo-cabulary level also helped me to see what

words needed to be taught to help studentsprogress or catch up. In the end, however

vocabulary is presented to the students, likeall materials, it must be in appropriate situa-tions, giving them the chance to use the vo-cabulary and build upon their language rep-ertoire.

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Appendix

Sample text for RANGE analysis exampleStarting Your Own Business

When starting your own business, it is important that you put a lot of thought into what you aregoing to do. 60-85% of all business will fail, so the first point is to start with something youknow well. Study what the kind of store you want to open. If it is a retail store, then look around.Do you see someone else selling what you plan to sell? How many possible competitors do yousee?

The next step to plan: There are two reasons for business planning. One is that it makes the en-trepreneur investigate where he will open his business and what factors could affect his business.Second, a business plan will also help the entrepreneur obtain financing from a bank. All banks

will require a business to make sure enough thought and planning have gone into the project be-fore the banks gives any money.

Looking at the first point: By looking at your possible market from a business persons point of view, you may look with a more critical eye. You dont want to rush into something where youcould lose a lot of money. Possible factors that could affect your business range from employees,to possible growth of the community, to your competition. If there are not a lot of people livingaround your business, where will your employees come from? Is the community going to grow

where you plan to open your business or is it shrinking? If it is shrinking will that hurt your busi-ness?

The second point is more for the bank. They like to see that you have thought through many ofthe possibilities that could affect your business. They want to see that you know what your ex-penses will be, how well you know your product, and how much money you think you can makeselling your product.

(Prepared by Jeff G. Mehring, 2005)