What helps us to learn new vocabulary?

Finding meaning 1. The teacher sends us to look up the word in a dictionary 2. The teacher provides the meaning Comment / Suggestion for improvement Looking for the word helps me to remember it Mature students might be interested in doing so Teacher giving saves time Teacher giving meaning is more reliable Teacher explanation needs to be ‘impactful’

Finding meaning 1. The teacher explains in L2 2. The teacher provides an L1 translation Comment / Suggestion for improvement Translation better (usually) Follow up immediately by use of the item in context

Testing 1. The teacher says the words will be tested 2. The teacher says the words will not be tested Comment / Suggestion for improvement Better to say there will be a test … or some kind of follow-up

Activity 1. We are asked to learn or do the task on our own 2. We are asked to submit the task to the teacher Comment / Suggestion for improvement Better to submit to the teacher

Doing something with the item 1. We are told to learn the item 2. We are told to make a sentence with the item Comment / Suggestion for improvement Better to do something with the item? Different experiences: for some people it helped, some not Different learning styles Importance of memorizing time Sentences better for advanced learners Better at the review stage

Added knowledge 1. We are asked to find one meaning 2. We are asked to find out another meaning Comment / Suggestion for improvement At the first time, better one (most common) meaning For advanced students a good idea

Added knowledge 1. We are asked to find a collocation from a website 2. We are asked to create a context ourselves Comment / Suggestion for improvement Find a collocation then use it

Added knowledge 1. We are asked to find new words from the same root 2. The teacher teaches us new words from the same root Comment / Suggestion for improvement We prefer 2 Need to be able to do 1 when teacher not available

Consolidation It helps if the teacher tells us to review all items for a summary test It doesn’t help: too much to review all at once Comment / Suggestion for improvement We will review all the items, even if there are groans… Students need to be aware of the importance of long-term cumulative review

Summary test: some comments

Self-report based test The yes/no test shown to be valid and reliable (Anderson & Freebody, 1983; Akira & Harrington, 2006). The Vocabulary knowledge scale (Paribakht and Wesche, 1996): – I haven’t seen this word before. – I have seen this word before, but I don’t know what it means. – I have seen this word before and I think it means… – I know this word. It means … – I can use this word in a sentence.

Further comments Very quick and easy to prepare, check and do in class Not stressful for students Can we rely on our students to give true answers in a high-stakes test? How might we run the feedback / grading on a test like this if we do it in class?

Anderson, R. C., & Freebody, P. (1983). Reading comprehension and the assessment and acquisition of word knowledge.. Advances in Reading/Language Research, 2, Wesche, M., & Paribakht, T. S. (1996). Assessing second language vocabulary knowledge: depth versus breadth. Canadian Modern Language Review, 53(1), Akira, M., & Harrington, M. (2006). The yes/no test as a measure of receptive vocabulary knowledge. Language Testing, 23(1),