1. Research-based Principles of Vocabulary Teaching Norbert Schmitt

2. Importance of Vocabulary
How important is vocabulary in first and second language use?
 ? 

3. Importance of Vocabulary
How important is vocabulary in first and second language use? 

4. Vocabulary Size
How large a vocabulary size do you need to function in English?
a. 2,000 word families
b. 4,000 word families
c. 6,000 word families
d. 8,000 word families
e. 10,000 word families
f. 10,000+

5. Vocabulary Size
How large a vocabulary size do you need to function in English?
It Depends!

6. Vocabulary Size (Word families)
Daily conversation
2, ,000 (minimum size which enables
basic communication)
5, ,000 (size which enables conversation on a wide range of topics)
Read authentic texts
3, ,000 (begin to read a range of authentic
texts
8, ,000 (size which enables reading
on a wide range of topics)

7. High / Low frequency Vocabulary
Hi-frequency Everything else = Low-frequency vocabulary?
vocabulary
TEACH DISREGARD
2,000 word families everything else

8. Mid-frequency Vocabulary (Schmitt & Schmitt, 2012)
3, ,000 – 9, ,000+
Hi-frequency Mid-frequency Low-frequency
vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary

9. High / Mid / Low frequency Vocabulary
3, ,000 – 9, ,000+
Hi-frequency Mid-frequency Low-frequency
vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary
TEACH ADDRESS IN SOME WAY STRATEGIES

10. Where do these size requirement estimates come from anyway?

11. Fat City (95% coverage)
In December, to the delight of many __________ and the ______ of many doughnut lovers, the New York City Board of Health voted to ban artificial trans fats from restaurants, school cafeterias, pushcarts, and almost every other food-service establishment it oversees, which includes most everything except hospitals. Trans fats don’t occur naturally in the things people like but feel guilty eating, or at least not at high levels (there are small proportions in the fat in meat and dairy products). But artificial ones are plentiful in commercial foods, because they are easy to use, cheaper than natural fats, and keep practically forever. Trans fats are made by pumping _______ gas into liquid fats usually in the presence of _____ so that they will remain solid at room temperature, like butter and ___; and they have the same wonderful properties in pie crusts, cookies, and cakes. Crisco, still _____ for solid shortening made by partial ___________ (of cottonseed oil), soon became the “______” choice for pie crust and fried chicken, making pastry almost as flaky and skin almost as crisp as ___ does.

12. Fat City (95% coverage)
In December, to the delight of many cardiologists and the dismay of many doughnut lovers, the New York City Board of Health voted to ban artificial trans fats from restaurants, school cafeterias, pushcarts, and almost every other food-service establishment it oversees, which includes most everything except hospitals. Trans fats don’t occur naturally in the things people like but feel guilty eating, or at least not at high levels (there are small proportions in the fat in meat and dairy products). But artificial ones are plentiful in commercial foods, because they are easy to use, cheaper than natural fats, and keep practically forever. Trans fats are made by pumping hydrogen gas into liquid fats usually in the presence of nickel so that they will remain solid at room temperature, like butter and lard; and they have the same wonderful properties in pie crusts, cookies, and cakes. Crisco, still generic for solid shortening made by partial hydrogenation (of cottonseed oil), soon became the “sanitary” choice for pie crust and fried chicken, making pastry almost as flaky and skin almost as crisp as lard does.

13. The Truth About Beauty (98% coverage)
Cosmetics makers have always sold “hope in a jar” – creams and ______ that promise youth, beauty, sex appeal, and even love for the women who use them. Over the last few years, the marketers at Dove have added some new-and-improved __________. They’re now promising self-esteem and cultural transformation. Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” declares a press release, is “a global effort that is intended to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a ______ for widening the definition and discussion of beauty.” Along with its thigh-firming creams, self-tanners, and hair conditioners, Dove is peddling the crowd-pleasing notions that beauty is a media creation, that recognizing plural forms of beauty is the same as declaring every woman beautiful, and that self-esteem means ignoring imperfections.

14. The Truth About Beauty (98% coverage)
Cosmetics makers have always sold “hope in a jar” – creams and potions that promise youth, beauty, sex appeal, and even love for the women who use them. Over the last few years, the marketers at Dove have added some new-and-improved enticements. They’re now promising self-esteem and cultural transformation. Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” declares a press release, is “a global effort that is intended to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty.” Along with its thigh-firming creams, self-tanners, and hair conditioners, Dove is peddling the crowd-pleasing notions that beauty is a media creation, that recognizing plural forms of beauty is the same as declaring every woman beautiful, and that self-esteem means ignoring imperfections.

15. Coverage  Size Requirement
98-99%  8,000-9,000 word families for reading

16. Schmitt, Jiang, and Grabe (2011)

17. Vocabulary Coverage vs
Vocabulary Coverage vs. Listening Comprehension (van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013)

18. Coverage  Size Requirement
95%  2,000-3,000 word families for listening to
spoken narratives

19. English Vocabulary Size of Foreign Learners (Laufer, 2000)
Vocabulary Hours of
Size Instruction
Japan EFL University 2,000-2, ,200
China English majors ,000 1,800-2,400
Indonesia EFL University ,
Oman EFL University , ,350+
Israel High school graduates , ,500
France High school ,
Greece Age 15, high school ,
Germany Age 15, high school ,

20. How to Address Such Large Amounts of Vocabulary?
Why not teach just the most ‘content-ful’ words?
Technical Vocabulary
ESP vocabulary
Academic Support Vocabulary
e.g. Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) 20 20

21. Developing LSP Word Lists
“Technical vocabulary ‘is dependent for a full appreciation of its meaning on the meaning of the other terms in the cluster of which it is a member.’”
(Godman and Payne, 1981: 37,
in Coxhead and Nation, 2001)

22. An ESP Text (Wang, et al., 2008) Technical Vocabulary only
wounds wound healing. wounds
wounds pressure ulcers leg ulcers.
wounds clinical Pressure ulcers
ischemia necrosis hospitalized mobility
Leg ulcers etiologies ulcers
dysfunction
backflow blood blood
macromolecules dermis, nutrients

23. +Medical AWL Chronic wounds challenge wound healing. wounds
involve area, incidence impacts.
chronic wounds pressure ulcers leg ulcers. estimated
affect clinical annually.
ischemia necrosis,
hospitalized mobility impaired. Leg ulcers
variety etiologies. Venous dysfunction
veins backflow venous blood. Venous blood macromolecules dermis
barriers nutrients

24. A Complete Medical Text
Chronic wounds represent a different kind of challenge for wound healing. These wounds do not usually involve a large surface area, but they have a high incidence in the general population and thus have enormous medical and economic impacts. The most common chronic wounds include pressure ulcers and leg ulcers. In the United States alone, these wounds are estimated to affect more than 2 million people with total clinical treatment costs as high as $1 billion annually. Pressure ulcers, characterized by tissue ischemia and necrosis, are common among patients in long-term care settings, but patients hospitalized for short-term care settings are also at risk if mobility is impaired. Leg ulcers can have a variety of etiologies. Venous ulcers are the most common, often resulting from dysfunction of valves in veins of the lower leg that normally prevent the backflow of venous blood. Venous congestion leads to leakage of blood and macromolecules into the dermis, which can act as physical barriers to diffusion of oxygen and nutrients from the

25. Need Foundation Vocabulary
So academic and technical word lists are useful, but cannot replace the need for learners to have a solid foundation of high- and mid-frequency vocabulary in place

26. How to Address Such Large Amounts of Vocabulary?
These are clearly large numbers of word families to learn
Long-term goal
Most teachers do not have the time, expertise, or opportunity to organize large amounts of vocabulary over a period of time
Most will rely on textbooks to provide the principled selection and instruction of vocabulary

27. How to Address Such Large Amounts of Vocabulary?
A single textbook cannot do the job (even a vocabulary textbook)
So are textbook series up to the task? 27 27

28. 28 28

29. Chilean Case Study (Diaz Berrocal)
Ministry sets vocabulary targets for 8 years of ELT schooling
Analyzed mandatory books for the 8 years
( 5th-12th grades)
Counted number of word families in books
Frequency analysis of those word families
How much recycling was there? 29 29

30. Ministry Vocabulary Targets
Comprehended New Learned
5th *
6th *
7th
8th ,
9th ,
10th ,
11th ,
12th , 30 30

31. Textbook Vocabulary Load (without proper nouns)
Comprehended Textbooks
5th 250* 1,086
6th 500* 1,142
7th ,479
8th , ,568
9th , ,027
10th , ,565
11th , ,557
12th , ,696 31 31

32. Textbook Vocabulary Load (without proper nouns)
Comprehended Textbooks
5th 250* 1,086
6th 500* 1,142
7th ,479
8th , ,568
9th , ,027
10th , ,565
11th , ,557
12th , ,696 32 32

33. Textbook Vocabulary Load (without proper nouns)
Comprehended Textbooks
5th 250* 1,086
6th 500* 1,142
7th ,479
8th , ,568
9th , ,027
10th , ,565
11th , ,557
12th , ,696 33 33

34. Frequency of Words in Textbooks
Shared with COCA 3000
Proper nouns
Without With
5th 67% 83%
6th 70% 86%
7th 68% 83%
8th % 83%
9th % 82%
10th % 76%
11th % 77%
12th % 76% 34 34

35. Frequency of Words in Textbooks
Shared with COCA 3000
Proper nouns
Without With All <95%
5th 67% 83%
6th 70% 86%
7th 68% 83%
8th % 83%
9th % 82%
10th % 76%
11th % 77%
12th % 76% 35 35

36. Recycling of 1st 3,000 Words
Former Texts New Text # Recycled %Recycled % %
, %
, %
, %
, %
+10
, %
+10+11 36 36

37. Chilean Case Study Conclusions
Textbooks do not match Ministry goals
No obvious approach to vocabulary selection or recycling
Ministry gives size goals, not specific word lists
Publishers given no guidance as to what words to use
Different publishers do not liaise with each other to build coherent program 37 37

38. Vocabulary Knowledge is a Complex Construct

39. What Does It Mean to Know A Word?
Form Spoken form
Written form
Word parts
Meaning Form and meaning
Concept and referents
Associations
Use Grammatical functions
Collocations
Constraints on use
(register, frequency…)
(Nation, 2001: 27) 39

40. Lexical Organization
“Vocabulary size is not a feature of individual words: rather it is a characteristic of the test taker’s entire vocabulary.”
(Meara and Wolter, 2004: 87)
Size is a feature of the overall lexicon 40 40

41. Lexical Organization
Nature of the Lexicon must be connected with vocabulary knowledge
Better connected and more highly organized lexicons should relate to more vocabulary knowledge 41 41

42. Automaticity Should also lead to faster speed of access and use
Fluency 42 42

43. How to Facilitate this Complex Learning for Large Numbers of Words?
Incidental Learning
Explicit Intentional Learning 43 43

44. Incidental Learning
Many practitioners believe that all necessary vocabulary can be learned incidentally simply by being exposed to, and by using, language 44 44

45. Incidental learning does occur in L2 (Reading)
Do Things Fall Apart? (Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt, 2010)
Nigerian language Ibo
Spelling recognition: (2-4)=16% (10-17)= 85%
Word class recall: (2-4)=7% (10-17)= 54%
Meaning recognition: (2-4)=33% (10-17)= 80%
Meaning recall: (2-4)=5% (10-17)= 48% 45 45

46. Incidental learning does occur in L2 (Listening)
(Van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013) 46 46

47. Problem: Incidental learning is limited by amount of exposure
It takes at least 8-10 reading exposures to develop an initial form-meaning link and more for meaning recall knowledge (even more for listening)
Other word knowledge types (e.g. collocation, register, derivative forms) will likely take many more exposures
Most L2 learners do not read enough to ensure this number of repetitions (Cobb, 2007)
SO incidental learning is useful, but not sufficient 47 47

48. Intentional learning
Virtually all research shows that intentional learning with an explicit focus on the target linguistic features results in learning that is
Stronger
More durable
More consistent among learners
Productive mastery seems to come mainly from productive engagement 48 48

49. Is Knowledge of the Form-Meaning Link Enough?
Learning a word might require more than just learning its meaning and form
For receptive use, perhaps a meaning-recall level of mastery might suffice
See/hear word form and retrieve/recall meaning
All of the other ‘contextual’ word knowledge aspects are already in the discourse/text 49 49

50. Various Kinds of ‘Word Knowledge’ are Learned Differently
But for productive use, learners have a concept in their head, but must produce the appropriate lexical form
This requires most (all?) of the ‘contextual’ kinds of word knowledge
These contextual aspects (e.g. collocation, connotation, register constraints) are more difficult to teach, and probably require large amounts of exposure to acquire incidentally 50 50

51. Different Types of Exposure and Learning
Explicit Intentional Learning
Can focus on most useful (frequent) words
Stronger learning
Mainly useful for ‘teachable’ word knowledge aspects like form-meaning, word class, affixes
Hard to cover enough words
Hard to build in enough recycling 51 51

52. Different Types of Exposure and Learning
Incidental Learning
Get exposure to a wide variety of words
A way to get more recycling
Provides context for learning ‘contextual’ types of word knowledge
Incidental learning is useful, but the uptake is slow and inconsistent 52 52

53. Different Types of Exposure and Learning
Intentional and incidental learning are complementary
They add different things to vocabulary knowledge
They need to be combined in any principled vocabulary program 53 53

54. Formulaic Language
All of my discussion up until now discusses single words, lemmas, or families
There is a large amount of lexical patterning in language
Formulaic language needs to be brought into the discussion of vocabulary use, acquisition, and pedagogy 54 54

55. What is Formulaic Language?
Recurrent multi-word lexical items that have a single meaning or function (Schmitt, 2010)
It is a umbrella cover term for a number of formulaic categories
Idioms
Collocations
Phrasal verbs
Lexical bundles
Lexical phrases
Phrasal expressions
etc

56. Learner Use of Formulaic Language
Learners don’t use many idioms
Learners do use many high-frequency collocations (nice day)
Learners don’t use many lower-frequency but tightly-bound collocations (preconceived notions)

57. Learner Use of Formulaic Language
But learners often do not use the collocations that they know very appropriately
Inappropriate collocations is a leading problem in learner language
Learners often use words with their correct meanings, but do not understand the correct context of use (collocation, register, frequency)

58. Learner Use of Formulaic Language
Learners consistently overestimate their comprehension of reading texts that contain formulaic sequences that they either fail to identify or misunderstand, even at high levels of proficiency
(Martinez and Murphy, 2011)

59. Learner Acquisition of Formulaic Language
Boers & Lindstromberg (ARAL 2012) reviewed acquisition research:
Learning from exposure requires repetition (frequency)
Intentional learning produced better results
Raising awareness of formulaic language is not a powerful accelerator of learning
Knowing the component words makes learning a formulaic sequence easier
Providing learning strategies (dictionaries, concordance lines) produced mixed results

60. Pedagogical Implications
Meunier review (ARAL, 2012)
If formulaic sequences are so important:
They need to be included in teaching syllabuses and materials
We can’t assume they will just be learned from exposure
They need to incorporated into language tests to a greater extent

61. Pedagogical Implications
But what formulaic sequences?
In order to incorporate formulaic sequences into their teaching and testing, most practitioners need a list of formulaic sequences to address
But what criteria to use?

62. Formulaic Framework (Martinez, 2013)
Infrequent Frequent
take credit take issue take time take place
,556
(per 100 million – BNC)
Transparent Opaque
take credit take time take issue take place

63. Formulaic Framework take time (2) take place (1) Transparent Opaque
Frequent
take time (2) take place (1)
Transparent Opaque
take credit (4) take issue (3)
Infrequent

64. Formulaic Framework take time (2) TAKE PLACE (1) Transparent Opaque
Frequent
take time (2) TAKE PLACE (1)
Transparent Opaque
take credit (4) take issue (3)
Infrequent

65. PHRASE List (Martinez & Schmitt, 2012)
PHRASE List (PHRASal Expressions)
Some formulaic sequences are very frequent
500 phrasal expressions within 5,000 BNC frequency level
Based on same frequency as individual BNC words
Phrases which are opaque and not easily guessable (1)

66. PHRASE List LEAD TO (CAUSE) 13,555 (1st 1,000 frequency level)
Excessive smoking can lead to heart disease.
HAVE GOT TO (must) 12,270 (2nd 1,000 frequency level)
You have got to try this salad.
BY THE TIME (when) 3,607 (3rd 1,000 frequency level)
By the time dinner started there were none left.

67. Integrated Phrase Frequency Spoken Written Written Example
List (per 100 million) general general academic
Rank
HAVE TO 83, *** ** * I exercise
because I
have to.
GOING TO , *** ** x I’m going to
(FUTURE) think about it.
WAS TO , x *** ** The message
was to be
transmitted
worldwide.

68. Integrated Phrase Frequency Spoken Written Written Example
List (per 100 million) general general academic
Rank
MAKE UP *** ** x You’d better
ONE’S MIND make up
your mind.
AT WORK x *** *** There were
strange forces
at work.

69. Download Research Articles
Most Norbert Schmitt (& co-author)
publications are available for free
download at his personal website: