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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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 word families to read native novels easily
Learners need ‘specialist words’ as well.
Wordlists are available on

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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”.

11. 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

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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

15. 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

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

17. 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)

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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, , , , (=1,029,000)

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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 ….
…..

26. 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.

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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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

33. 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

34. Leitner’s Memory System
Spaced, expanded retrieval
Image source:

35. 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

36. 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?