Principles of Vocabulary Instruction LTP TESOL Certificate TESOL 5 Dr. Rob Waring Notre Dame Seishin University

Rob Waring’s TESOL sessions April 8, July 7 TESOL 5 Principles of vocabulary learning TESOL 6 Managing an Extensive Reading program Autumn, Winter TESOL 11 Balance in language teaching TESOL 12 Getting the most out of your materials

Typical vocabulary teaching Most vocab teaching is from context Haphazard selection of materials Different vocab topic in each unit Too many words at once Rare words are favoured over common words Focus on single words not multi-word units and combinations All students learn the same words Word teaching = definition and spelling Teachers give meanings

Typical vocabulary teaching II Low recycling of vocab in course books and teachers Teachers leave vocab learning to learners Vocab learning strategies are rarely taught Vocab learning techniques are rarely taught Vocabulary learning goals are rarely set Dictionary skills are rarely taught Vocab notebooks not encouraged Words are kept in lists Vocab exercises test not teach Teachers 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 users Learners need 7000-8000 word families to read native novels easily Learners 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) say beautiful girl handsome girl blonde hair yellow hair big surprise large surprise black and white white and black go to work go to job catch fire do fire / go fire high cost expensive cost demand a response ask a response make a mistake do a mistake

What’s a colligation? Colligations are words which often appear together grammatically We say We don’t (usually) say depend on someone depend of someone be good at something be good on something ask for something ask on something give something to someone give something someone

What else do they need to know? III Lexical 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? IV The 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 continuous Active or passive Short answers and questions tags (Yes, I have. …… hasn’t he?) Regular and irregular - has vs. have walked vs. bought Present 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 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 Knowledge The Forgetting Curve Time

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

Short texts Many exercises A Typical Reading Text Many difficult words Definitions given

How much text do learner need to meet? To have a 9000 word vocabulary you need to read 30,000,000 words But JH and SH learners meet a total of 100,000 words over 6 years All 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) 1820 2460 2980 3560 6530 (Maeda and Asano, 2001)

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 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 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 Add one reader a week 1,023 283 250 539 570 1,325 3,990 Add two readers a week 1,372 380 367 694 877 2,882 6,572 Data from Sequences, Foundations, Page Turners and Footprints by Heinle Cengage 225,000 60,800 570,000 174,000 (=1,029,000)

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 knowledge They haven’t developed a ‘sense’ of language yet

A linear structure to our syllabuses Unit 1 Be verb Simple adjectives Unit 2 Simple present Daily routines Unit 3 Present continuous Sporting activities Unit 4 can Abilities Unit 5 …. ….. Each unit has something new Little focus on the recycling of vocabulary, grammar and so on The theory is “We’ve done that, they have learnt it, so we can move on.” i.e. teaching causes learning

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 Knowledge The Forgetting Curve Time

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.

Get more input (feedback) The Cycle of Learning Notice something Add to our knowledge Get more input (feedback) Try it out

Central Vocab Concepts What 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 Because time is limited, we have to teach students how to deal with new words (independent learning) thus they need vocabulary learning strategies Give opportunities for guessing words from context Teach them to use a dictionary properly Teach word learning strategies Work at both levels of vocabulary knowledge Use a systematic approach (set realistic goals) – build on old learning Intentional and incidental learning

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 Individual words Important lexical phrases False friends Loanwords Important collocations and colligations Basic grammatical patterns Important phrasal verbs, idioms etc. Word, phrase and sentence level awareness Register, Genre … Pragmatic knowledge Restrictions on use Most collocations and collocations A ‘sense’ of a word’s meaning and use A ‘sense’ of how grammar fits with lexis - the tenses, articles etc. Discourse level awareness  Incidental learning e.g extensive reading  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? Rough grading Ensuring recycling Engaging text Matching input text to intentionally learnt materials

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

Leitner’s Memory System Spaced, expanded retrieval Image source: www.lexxica.com

Comparison of software Anki Supermemo iKnow! WordEngine Mnemosyne OS Mac, PC, Browser, IOS, Android PC, iOS, Browser Browser, iOS, Android Browser Mac, PC, Browser, Android Import, add Yes Audio / images ? Sync No? No Demo video

Discuss How many of the principles presented here does your school’s program follow? What are the missing elements? How can your school do better?