Principles of Vocabulary InstructionLTP TESOL Certificate

TESOL 5

Dr. Rob WaringNotre Dame Seishin University

Rob Waring’s TESOL sessions

TESOL 5 Principles of vocabulary learningTESOL 6 Managing an Extensive Reading program

TESOL 11 Balance in language teachingTESOL 12 Getting the most out of your materials

Some starting questions

How do you teach vocabulary?What kinds of words do Japanese students need?What is the best way to deal with vocabulary for Japanese learners?

What do you think?

Grammar is more important than vocabularyIt’s best the teacher explain word meanings to the studentsThe best way to learn words is in contextTranslation is not a very good way to learn wordsYou don’t need to study words, they can just read a lotVerbs are more important than nounsMost course books deal with vocabulary quite wellThere is a good balance of vocabulary activities in my classesI teach vocabulary well

Typical vocabulary teaching

Most vocab teaching is from contextHaphazard selection of materialsDifferent vocab topic in each unitToo many words at onceRare words are favoured over common wordsFocus on single words not multi-word units and combinationsAll students learn the same wordsWord teaching = definition and spellingTeachers give meanings

Typical vocabulary teaching II

Low recycling of vocab in course books and teachersTeachers leave vocab learning to learnersVocab learning strategies are rarely taughtVocab learning techniques are rarely taughtVocabulary learning goals are rarely set Dictionary skills are rarely taughtVocab notebooks not encouragedWords are kept in listsVocab exercises test not teachTeachers trust the course book to deal with vocab

How many words do learners need to know?

About 2000 everyday words occur in all types of English.About 4000 words for fairly advanced usersLearners need 7000-8000 word families to read native novels easilyLearners need ‘specialist words’ as well.

Wordlists are available on www.robwaring.com/vocab

What’s a collocation?

Collocations are words which often appear together.We say We don’t (usually) saybeautiful girl handsome girlblonde hair yellow hairbig surprise large surpriseblack and white white and blackgo to work go to jobcatch fire do fire / go firehigh cost expensive costdemand a response ask a responsemake a mistake do a mistake

What’s a colligation?

Colligations are words which often appear together grammatically

We say We don’t (usually) saydepend on someone depend of someonebe good at something be good on somethingask for something ask on somethinggive something to someone give something someone

What collocations do they need to learn?

Verb uses of one word - Idea… “Abandon an idea.” abandon, absorb, accept, adjust to, advocate, amplify, advance,

back, be against, be committed/dedicated/ drawn to, be obsessed with, be struck by, borrow, cherish, clarify, cling to, come out/up with, confirm, conjure up, consider, contemplate, convey, debate, debunk, defend, demonstrate, develop, deny, dismiss, dispel, disprove, distort, drop, eliminate, encourage, endorse, entertain, explode, explore, expound, express, favor, fit, fit in with, follow up, form, formulate, foster, get, get accustomed/used to, get rid of, give up, go along with, grasp, hammer out, have, hit upon, hold, implement, imply, impose – on sb, incorporate, inculcate, instill, jot down, keep to, launch, meet, modify, negate, oppose, pick up, pioneer, plant, play with, popularize, present, promote, propose, put an end to, put forward, put – into practice, raise, refute, reinforce, reject, relish, resist, respond to, revive, ridicule, rule out, spread, squash, stick to, subscribe to, suggest, support, take to, take up, test, tinker with, toy with, turn down, warm to …

What collocations do they need to learn? IIAdjective uses. “An idea is ………...” abstract, absurd, advanced, ambitious, arresting, basic, bizarre,

bold, bright, brilliant, classical, clear, common, commonsense, confused, controversial, convincing, crazy, diabolical, disconcerting, elusive, enlightened, entrenched, exaggerated, extravagant, extreme, false, familiar, fantastic, far-fetched, feasible, feeble, fixed, flexible, foolish, grotesque, hazy, heretical, imaginative, inflated, ingenious, ingrained, innovative, instinctive, intriguing, irresponsible, mad, misconceived, mistaken, monstrous, new-fangled, novel, original, old-fashioned, outdated, out-of-date, outrageous, peculiar, persuasive, preconceived, preposterous, prevalent, provocative, (un)real, (un)realistic, remarkable, revolutionary, ridiculous, risky, sensible, silly, splendid, strange, striking, superficial, untenable, useful, vague, valid, well-defined …

What else do they need to know? IIILexical phrases and chunks of language

How’s things?I’d rather not … If it were up to me, I’d … So, what do you think? We got a quick bite to eat. What’s the matter? What do you mean by that?Well, what do you know? Look what the cat just dragged in

Plus THOUSANDS more

What else do they need to know? IVThe 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 eaten Japanese food?

It’s very hard to see the patterns – there are many forms:Statement, negative, yes/no and wh- question forms, Simple or continuousActive or passiveShort answers and questions tags (Yes, I have. …… hasn’t he?)Regular and irregular - has vs. have walked vs. boughtPresent perfect for ‘announcing news’, PP for ‘experiences’, etc. etc.

What do we know about vocabulary?

• It takes 8-50 meetings (or more) to ‘learn’ a word• 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, are lost to the “forgetting curve”.

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.

Two states of vocabulary learning

Form-meaning relationship - matching the spelling and 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, rude, spoken, written, formal, informal- collocation and colligation- lexical access speed, fluency, automaticity- etc.

How well are our courses presenting the language students need?

Research suggests an average language course:• does not systematically recycle the grammatical forms

outside the presentation unit / lesson• has an almost random vocabulary selection without much

regard to frequency or usefulness (mostly based on topic)• rarely, if ever, recycles taught words either later in the unit,

the book, or the series• provide little additional practice in review units or workbooks• has an overwhelming focus on new material in each lesson

Typical Japanese reading texts

In Junior High School-teaches the first 1000 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 words aren’t met

So what do typical texts that Japanese students meet look like?

A Typical Reading Text

Short textsShort texts

Many difficult words

Many difficult words

Many exercisesMany exercises

Definitions givenDefinitions given

How much text do learner need to meet?

To have a 9000 word vocabulary you need to read 30,000,000 wordsBut JH and SH learners meet a total of 100,000 words over 6 yearsAll Oxford, Cengage and Penguins (800 graded readers) from levels 1-6 total only 4,000,000 words (will give you a receptive vocab of around 4000 words)

Number of words

Average Incoming 1st year English major (N=2350)

Average 4th year English major (N=1670)

Average JH English teacher (N=239)

Average SH English teacher (N=195)

Average Japanese College Literature professor (N=74)

(Maeda and Asano, 2001)

18202460

2980

3560

6530

How many words do Japanese students meet in JH/ SH?

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) x 4

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.

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

The number of words a learner will probably learn from course work (225,000 words over 3 years)

Probably known Partially Known Probably unknown

50+ 30-49 20-29 10-19 5-9 1-4 Total

Course book only 523 210 229 472 580 1,261 3,275

Data from Sequences, Foundations, Page Turners and Footprints by Heinle Cengage 225,000 60,800 570,000 174,000 (=1,029,000)

Add one reader a

week1,023 283 250 539 570 1,325 3,990

Add two readers a

week1,372 380 367 694 877 2,882 6,572

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 knowledgeThey haven’t developed a ‘sense’ of language yet

A linear structure to our syllabuses

Each unit has something newLittle focus on the recycling of vocabulary, grammar and so onThe theory is “We’ve done that, they have learnt it, so we can move

on.” i.e. teaching causes learning

Unit 1

Be verb

Simple adjectives

Unit 2

Simple present

Daily routines

Unit 3

Present continuous

Sporting activities

Unit 4

can

Abilities

Unit 5

….

…..

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

Time

KnowledgeThe Forgetting Curve

What will naturally happen to the learning?

Unit 1

Be verb

Simple adjectives

Unit 2

Simple present

Daily routines

Unit 3

Present continuous

Sporting activities

Unit 4

can

Abilities

Unit 5

….

…..

What does this all 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 does learning happen?

Noticesomething

We don’t understand

Get feedbackTry it out

Get more input

Understandand add to our knowledge

Correct use

Incorrect use

“Then they saw an ancient temple …”

Notice something

Get more input

(feedback)

Try it out

Add to our knowledge

The Cycle of Learning

Central Vocab ConceptsWhat principles emerge from this?

• Two stages of vocabulary learning• Frequency – Usefulness / Need - Range• Receptive – Productive • Contextualized – Decontexualized• Intentional – Incidental learning• Scaffolded learning – Random learning• Single items – Multi-part words• Massed – Distributed practice• Spaced retrieval• Scheduled review / recycling / repetition

Principles of Vocabulary Learning

• 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 or lose• We should not expect things we teach to be known tomorrow• The most important vocabulary to teach is yesterday’s vocabulary

Principles II

Principles III

• 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

How are we going to teach what?

Discrete knowledge ‘Fuzzy’ knowledge

Intentional learning e.g word cards

Selection issues – what do we teach?Sequence issues – in what order?

Scaffolding issues – how do we consolidate previous learning?

Presentation issues – what method?

Incidental learning e.g extensive reading

Rough gradingEnsuring recycling

Engaging textMatching input text to intentionally

learnt materials

Individual wordsImportant lexical phrasesFalse friendsLoanwordsImportant collocations and colligationsBasic grammatical patternsImportant phrasal verbs, idioms etc.Word, phrase and sentence level awareness

Register, Genre …Pragmatic knowledgeRestrictions on useMost collocations and collocationsA ‘sense’ of a word’s meaning and useA ‘sense’ of how grammar fits with lexis - the tenses, articles etc.Discourse level awareness

Extensive practice

• They need extensive practice with words – so they can meet them often– to work out word relationships– to build recognition automaticity– to get a sense of how words go together

• They need chances– to observe new things about words– to hypothesize about their knowledge– to experiment with their vocabulary

How should we teach vocabulary

Focus on units larger than a single wordawful day high season clear conscience traffic jamDemonstrate collocational differences light vs. light suitcase vs. heavy suitcase

light green vs. dark green light rain vs. heavy rain

rough rough / calm sea rough / smooth sandpaper

big surprise large area great successbig smile large family great importancebig problem large population great pleasurebig difference large volume great artist

•

How should we teach vocabulary

Concentrate on word grammar give vs. give someone something

give something give something to someone

borrow vs. borrow s/thg from s/one Focus on basic concepts fork branch

When selecting vocabulary to teachPerform a needs analysisTeach something they are going to meet again soonWords found in a wide range of texts (range) before specialized vocabWords with a wide meaning (coverage) (e.g. go vs. saunter) Words that will be easy to learn (e.g. loanwords) to build the start-up vocab and empower the learnerTeach culture-specific vocabularyTeach the classroom vocabularyTeach ‘instructions’ vocabularyTeach the base meaning firstWork hard on common words with many meanings

Some vocabulary exercises

Match these oppositeshot darkbig coldlight strongweak small

What problems may occur by asking learners to learn words in lexical sets?

chair stool armchair sofawinter summer spring autumnmother father son daughterTuesday Thursday Saturday Sunday ........yesterday tomorrow todaydifferent difficult diffidentspecial spacious splendidanxious nervous worried

Match the word with its meaning regulate observationwell like sandpapernotify rulerough good

Put the following words in the correct sentences

ambitious big-headed intelligent immature rude obstinate moody strict 1.John is always telling people how well he plays guitar. He's so ....……. .2.Many girls of 16 and 17 are far too .............. to get married and have children.3.I see Clive's passed all his exams again. It must be so wonderful to be so ............

What words do these meanings refer to?

a) a book with a lot of information about the world, places and peopleb) something you eat withc) send, deliver or transport something

Fill in the blank 1.The president asked his secretary to make a c_______ of the letter to put in the files2.The secretary thought that making c_______ for her boss was not her job.

Choose the correct word a) She told me to take a few days to ______ his job offer

a) think b) wonder c) consider d) decide b) Call the airline to ______ your reservation.

a) affirm b) confirm c) contest d) agree

Trouble in the family. By THE DOC1

I bumped into young Fiona the other day - not her usual cheerful self, by any means. 'Just walked down the road with my dad', she said ruefully2. 'And, as usual we fought all the way'. Well, I've got news for Fiona, and her dad.Nothing is more natural. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say, if there were NO tensions in the family something is wrong! It's a sign they either don't care enough, or they're building up pressure that will eventually explode.Oh, I know there's nothing more exasperating3 for a mother than to see her teenage be at loggerheads with4 Dad. It's as bad for dad to see a teenage girl seemingly unable to hit it off with5 her mother. It may comfort them to know teenage rebellion is a sign of normality, not a sign they've failed as parents. Changing standards always lead to family tension, too. I honestly don't think we can expect youngsters to stick to the rules6 our parents set for us. ...........

1. coll abbr doctor 2. regretfully 3. irritating, producing ill-feeling 4. coll disagreeing or quarrelling 5. coll get on well 6. coll respect the rules

Which of these words form strong word partnerships with all the words in each line

below?food meal white wine red winesandwich restaurant

salad chicken cheese freshly made clubdry medium sweet crisp fruityIndian fast plain spicy richfamily Chinese vegetarian trendy elegant

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Based on the research of Ebbinghaus, Pimsleur, Leitner, and Mondria, electronic flashcards automatically repeat each new word at spaced time intervals, and until the learner achieves long-term, instant-recall ability.

Leitner’s Memory System

Image source: www.lexxica.com

Spaced, expanded retrieval

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory

Memorization software

Anki http://ankisrs.net/Supermemo http://www.supermemo.com/Memosyne http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/Open cards http://www.opencards.info/Quizlet http://www.quizlet.com AWL Builder http://www.charlie-browne.comFlashcardDB http://flashcarddb.com/SocialDecks www.socialdecks.comFlashcard friends http://www.flashcardfriends.com/

Comparison of softwareAnki Supermemo iKnow! WordEngine Mnemosyne

OS Mac, PC, Browser, IOS,

Android

PC, iOS, Browser

Browser, iOS, Android

Browser Mac, PC, Browser, Android

Import, add Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Audio / images

Yes Yes Yes ? Yes

Sync Yes No? Yes No No?

Demo video Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

iKnow.jp

iKnow.jp

iKnow.jp

iKnow.jp

Memosyne

Anki

Online Intentional Learning Apps

Current vocab software do quite well:recognition, productive practicespellingspaced repetitionsequenced /scaffolded learningimmediate feedbacksometimes and LMS included for trackingalmost all is controlled practice

Online Intentional Learning Apps

They don’t do so well with these things:indicating frequency or usefulnessengagement – too functionalgeneral appeal – not all will like these methodpoor tie in well with current reading and courseswide variety of features - ? Lack of clear principles?often lack context and pronunciationfew contrasts with antonyms and synonymsgenerative vocabulary (adding uses take a test -> take a drive, take a rest, take

time-out, take a XXXX)uneven block sizes (20-50 optimal)

Integrated Software solutions

EnglishCentral.comNative level input from thousands of YouTube videosFacility to practice your speech / pronunciationVocabulary tracking

DynEd.comHighly controlled and sequenced learningFocus on listeningPronunciation modeling and practice

Rosetta StoneIntegrated solutions in dozens of languages