Job Discussion Forums

[gaijinalways]

I was reading the latest Guest column; which focused on teaching vocabulary. He had some basic sections that he thought should be focused on, depending on our goals and the goals our students set for themselves.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20100503TDY14T01.htm

I will focus on a few of them (8 in all).

1)Meaning vs. function

I think this is an important distinction, as some words don't have a lot of meaning themselves, but they may have very useful and necessary functions for our students. We also have to concern ourselves with whether we think students just need core meanings and functions, or if they need more a more diverse range.

2)Meaning range

This is somewhat related with the last item, but makes a distinction between words that may have a very specific meaning, often certain professional jargon versus common words that have various meanings depending on the situation.

3) Single words vs. chunks

Quite often when we teach, we might be better off teaching lexical chunks or phrases than having students learn isolated words. Without a specific example sentence with the chosen highlighted word, students may not be able to see how to use it in various situations. Also when looking at pronunciation, chunks are often necessary and more natural sounding than speaking isolated words.

4) Denotation vs. connotation

This relates to chunking, in that we often know how to use a word as well as what other meanings may be implied by its usage. Some expressions with small changes can be adjusted to very different situational uses.

I was wondering, how much thought do you give to vocabulary teaching?

I know that the functional language is high on my list, as well as some chunking, particularly for listening and reading purposes. I am fortunate in that in most of my classes, I don't generally have to teach to prepare for a specific test (unless its one of my own making), but rather to helping students gain general language skills (listed in the department handbooks, but so general as to allow many different methods to achieve those stated goals).

Of course, even a choice of textbooks may to some extent influence vocabulary teaching, but also it may depend how much of the text you decide to use and what you focus on in it.

Below is a vocabulary test engine developed by Lexxia.

http://www.wordengine.jp/

I know they used to have a test you could form a group with and check student scores as well as see which words they were getting wrong. Could be useful, I found the earlier editions they had were buggy (at least on my computer) , but they also have cellphone versions as well.

What about you and your classes? Any vocabulary gurus out there?

[Glenski]

Teaching vocabulary has been a topic that has tickled the back of my brain for quite a while. Here are some rambling thoughts.

1) How to use a dictionary. I mean, really use it, not just search for a word based on its spelling.

2) Vocabulary by theme (kitchen objects, car parts, etc.) or by subject that students study (agriculture, veterinary med, economics, etc.). What they need, you give them.

3) Affixes and root words. In other words, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for the rest of his life.

4) Vocabulary they are missing in their personal lexica. Charles Browne has a nice software (you linked it) that helps students find out which words in the first 1000 or 2000 most commonly used ones that they don't know, therefore must study.

5) Extensive reading. It is not meant to be a system to increase vocabulary by leaps and bounds, but if students read the proper levels, they should be picking up a few words per book, and this is supposed to be a more painless way of enhancing one aspect of learning.

6) TOEIC/TOEFL keywords. Again, what do they need? Check the glossary and teach it.

7) Teaching pronunciation for listening awareness of the vocabulary, again for things like TOEIC/TOEFL recognition.

Glossaries on a Moodle site.

So, whatever floats your boat. Me, I want to find ways of giving a certain group of students (my subject majors) the vocabulary they need for careers. The big problems are finding the time to do it, knowing what words most students don't know, and developing ways to present the vocabulary that aren't mind-bogglingly boring.

With regard to that second item, I have thrown random vocabulary at first-year students and asked random students how much they already knew before class. Answer? A huge range, from 10% to 100%.

[spiral78]

On the issue of Motivation:

What they need, you give them.

I think Relevance is one very important key - but it's more applicable to upper-level students.

I find that Function is more important at mid-intermediate and below, and Relevance plays a bigger role above.

Speaking very generally, obviously.

Strategies:

I also agree that chunking is a very important strategy. Working with concordances can be a very useful way to approach this, if you've got access to one.

[Sashadroogie]

I think it is essential to raise learners' awareness of word-colour. This is not really focused on too much in English language teaching, where native speakers rarely, if ever, think of word-colour, but to speakers of my native language this is of the utmost importance, as this shapes our perception of the world. We tend to 'hear' colour, though this concept may be beyond most anglophones. Luckily, my students get the benefit of my expertise in this area, and though they can never fully get to grips with the rainbowic selection, they at least get some exposure to a different way of thinking.
















Now (green) where (brown) did (white) I (purple) put (steel-grey) that (gun-barrel-grey) vodka (crimson) bottle (orange)?

[spiral78]

Yeah, I KNEW there was vodka involved in this one!!

I'm GREEN with vodka-envy, and wishing for some RED caviar(e) to accompany it about now

[Sashadroogie]

Man! Black caviar is where it is all at! Sadly, illegal now in Russland. Officially, at any rate. Though there seems to be a suspicious amount of 'Iranian' black stuff floating around these days. No such restrictions on the vodka, though - thank the lord.

Anyway, back to less colourful matters - the teaching of vocab. Yes, chunking, collocations, boundaries of use etc. are all hugely important. But the one area which just possibly supersedes them all is almost not something that can be explicitly taught. Namely, 'tolerance of ambiguity'. I find, as do many more scholarly researchers, that the more successful learners are those can tolerate not knowing exactly how to translate each word (or grammar structure, for that matter) directly into an L1 equivalent.

Usually, this ability can be observed indirectly in the learners who will naturally scan/skim a text and get a basic gist, despite not knowing every lexical item. The other type of learner get mired halfway through the text, due to the over-use of a dictionary, usually before giving up in frustration.

Not something that can be taught, I think, but conciousness-raising activities can lend themselves to promoting tolerance.

[spiral78]

Interesting. We use tasks to highlight strategies that support 'accurate guessing of vocab in context,' but I hadn't consciously made the connection between tolerance of ambiguity. I could add some class discussion of this to the unit, actually, to re-inforce the overall goal of making reading efficient in academic/professional contexts.

Obviously, one clue that a word/word group is important is how frequently it's repeated, and how many synonyms it has in a text.

We use lots of text analysis tasks. It could be interesting to analyse how much has to be explicitly known about the vocab to achieve the goals of a reading task.

[J.M.A.]

[Sashadroogie]

Yes, probably more of a reading strategy, but I think it is relevant to listening too. Learners can learn lexis from either form of text receptively, if they allow the context to unfold, for want of a better word, rather than immediately focus on just one word that they don't know, and in so doing, put blocks on any further input clues. In any case, it is a good communication skill generally, if not just for vocabulary, and certainly worthy of classroom attention.

[J.M.A.]

[spiral78]

And this of course will depend on the type of task you give them. There is a basic threshold of linguistic knowledge students need in order to do the kind of reading we're talking about (actually any sort of mildly efficient reading).

Yes, obviously I was taking the specific texts we use into account.

[J.M.A.]

[spiral78]

Hmmm. Actually, I agree that task type is one factor, but also text type.

Sorry if I wasn't (and am not now) clear!

The new idea I got from the thread (so far) is that 'tolerance of ambiguity' (which I think is generally accepted as a positive trait in general language learning) could be an item I can introduce to my text analysis classes, to further help those students who obsess about exact meanings see why sometimes an 'educated guess' is sufficient (and more expeditious).

How much ambiguity is allowable is, of course, related to the specific text and its purpose and complexity.

[J.M.A.]

[Sherri]

It has been a long time since I posted here, but I am very interested in vocabulary right now. I would recommend looking at Paul Nation's page:

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation.aspx

There are several good books listed on this site. Look closely at the zip files. You can download a program to analyse text for vocab. among other useful resources. I use these a lot. Also there is a good site for vocab testing, not as "cute" as word engine but very good.
http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r21270/levels/

I highly recommend "Learning Vocab in Another Language" by P Nation to get you started. I am working on building a 4-strands based curriculum now.