1. Today Vocabulary teaching Vocabulary assessment
The Lexical Approach
Teaching vocabulary in context
Vocabulary assessment
Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS)

2. THE LEXICAL APPROACH

3. Teaching multiword units as individual units (e. g
Teaching multiword units as individual units (e.g. Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992; Sinclair, 1996; Lewis, 1997)
Give me a glass of wine now.
(Subject) + Verb + Object + Object + Adverb
#Pass me a cup of wine tomorrow.
Take a walk in the countryside. Enjoy the cool breeze!
#Make a walk in the countryside. Enjoy the cool wind!
Lexical chunks are socially sanctioned independent units (the units can be words or phrases or sentences)
Lewis advocates de-emphasizing teaching of grammar and vocabulary in favor of teaching of lexical chunks.

4. Lexical items (Lewis, 1997) Words (e.g. pen, ball)
Polywords (e.g. so to speak, at any rate, by and large, by the way)
Collocations (hitch a ride, make a wish, catch a bus, take a walk)
Institutionalized utterances (mainly spoken, e.g. Long time no see! How do you do? If I were you, I’d…, Give me a break! As far as I know)
Sentence frames and heads (mainly written, e.g. I think that …., not only…. but also…. , That reminds me of …).

5. Why is it useful to learn multilexical units?
To improve fluency
To recognize collocational patterns
(e.g. take a walk, make a wish, have dinner)
To sound more native-like / natural

6. Learning lexical chunks (lexical patterning)
Topic: Health – Symptoms
I’ve got a headache
(a) backache
(a) stomach-ache
toothache
a pain in my chest
a pain in my leg
a sore throat
a cough
a temperature (a fever)
I feel sick
ill
unwell
I’m going to be sick!
faint!

7. When recording vocabulary, note collocation patterns…
EAC for Econs and Finance students
When recording vocabulary, note collocation patterns…
Pattern
Examples
NOUN + VERB
people - slip / cars – skid
VERB + NOUN
abandon - ship, make – a wish, catch – a bus
ADJECTIVE + NOUN
handsome – man,
beautiful - woman
CN/ ECEN 1904

8. The Lexical Approach Pre-session 3 Reading:
Moudraia, O. (2001) Lexical approach to second language teaching. Available:
Post-session 3 Reading:
Lewis, M. (1997) Pedagogical implications of the lexical approach. In J. Coady and T. Huckin (eds.) Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp
Let’s try some of the tasks near the end of this reading

9. LEARNING VOCABULARY IN CONTEXT

10. Context Co-text: words before and after the target word
The real-world context that the text refers to
What are the benefits of using decontextualized word lists?
What information can the context gives us that cannot be given by decontextualised word lists?
Learning grammatical and collocational patterns
Understanding the actual meaning of the word / different senses of a word

11. Presenting words in context
Better show students:
It was so stifling in the room that I could hardly breathe.
Rather than:
It was stifling in the room.
Better say:
There’s a word in the first line that means “huge”. What word is that?
“Enormous” in the first line means huge.

12. Provide rich contextual clues - answers
Carnivorous
Vehicles
Huge / enormous
Mean / stingy
Cut
Reduced / offset / compensated for
Revenue / income / money; afford

13. Providing context rich in contextual clues
Since plastic products are non-biodegradable, they are hard to be disposed of and are persistent environmental contaminants.
 To explain more clearly the data collection process, I append some samples of questionnaires used in the study.
It is time we stopped talking of elephants as if they were a commodity; they are not products / mechandise to be traded.

14. VOCABULARY ASSESSMENT

15. Vocabulary Assessment Tools
How do you (or your school) usually assess vocabulary?
What sorts of vocabulary knowledge are being tested in each of the tests?
Do you see any problems with some of the tests?

16. Various vocabulary assessment tools
(available at
Vocabulary Levels Tests (VLTs)
To check vocabulary size
Tests of vocabulary of different levels of frequency
2000, 3000, 5000, word levels; AWL
Aim at score of at least 80%
Word Association Test
Meaning (different senses), collocations
Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS)
To check “quality” or “depth” of vocab knowledge
Vocab Profiler
Lexical richness (type/token ratio) – more different words
More frequent words or more low-frequency words

17. Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS)
“retire” iii. I have seen this word before and I think it means “stop working because of old age” (3 pts) iv. I know this word. It means “stop working because of old age” (3 pts) v. I can use this word in a sentence: He spent more time with his family after retire. (4 pts) He spent more time with his family after he retired. (5 pts) He decided to retire. (? pts)

18. VKS Problems: Self-reported in nature
Level V: ability to produce sentence with target vocab = ability to use the word appropriately?

19. Discussion
Given what we have discussed so far about vocabulary learning and teaching, would you do anything differently next term? What would you keep doing?

20. To sum up… Teach and consolidate the 2000 most frequent words
Provide students with a variety of vocabulary building activities
Encourage students to read widely
Encourage students to become independent learners, esp. for learning low-frequency words outside the classroom
Train students to use vocabulary learning strategies

21. VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES (VLS)

22. Vocabulary learning strategies (VLS)
Taxonomies of Vocabulary learning strategies
Memory strategies, e.g. the Keyword technique, using mental images
Guessing word meaning from the context
Selecting, recording and revising vocabulary
Research studies on VLS of Asian learners

23. Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Important for independent learning of low-frequency words
It is important to use a range of strategies
The quality of strategy use counts for more than the quantity of strategies used
It is important to choose strategies flexibly and appropriately according to context
Strategies can be taught and weaker learners can benefit from strategy training

24. Taxonomy of VLS by Schmitt (1997)
Taxonomy of Language Learning Strategies (LLS) by O’Malley & Chamot, 1990: cognitive, metacognitive, socio-affective
Oxford’s (1990) LLS taxonomy – direct strategies: involving the target language directly and require mental processing of the language (memory, cognitive, compensation) and indirect strategies: (metacognitive, affective, social)
Nation (1990) – discovery vs consolidation strategies
Schmitt’s (1997) VLS taxonomy:
(1) Discovery: discovering the meaning of unknown words
Determination strategies (finding meaning without recourse to others)
Social strategies (consulting or working with others to discover meaning)
(2) Consolidation: remembering words once their meaning has been discovered
Social strategies
Memory strategies (mnemonics)
Cognitive strategies (similar to memory, but without the use of mnemonics)
Metacognitive strategies (planning, monitoring, evaluation of learning)

25. Find out about your use of VLS
Complete the questionnaire* developed based on Schmitt’s (1997).
* Adapted from Loong Y & Chan S W L, A Study of Vocabulary Learning Strategies Adopted by Dentistry Students in Hong Kong In Learning Specialized Dental Vocabulary, September 2012, Asian ESP Journal

26. Preparation for Session 5 - Studies of VLS by Asian learners
Form a group of 4 students.
Each student reads one of the readings
research methodology
results
Next Session – in CRT6.32 (use of concordancers)