Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello!

I am a graduate student in developmental psychology at the University of Virginia. My research interests are primarily related to language development, and I am currently working on developing a series of studies to investigate second, non-native language acquisition. Research suggests that, when learning a native language, a child goes through a so-called "vocabulary spurt." That is, the rate of vocabulary growth for toddlers suddenly increases dramatically, with children learning 10 or more new words each day. I'm hoping to investigate whether children/adults learning a second language go through a similar vocabulary spurt. While research and personal experience strongly suggests that learning a second language is more difficult than learning a native language, there aren't any theoretical reasons why a person shouldn't experience that spike in rate of acquisition.

I write to you to ask, in your experience with ESL programs, whether you have any impressions regarding this. Does it seem that students struggle to learn vocabulary, then a lightbulb goes off and the size of their vocabularies greatly increases? Or do they continuously struggle? Or even pick up vocabulary (not necessarily grammar) easily from the beginning?

I'm hoping that impressions/opinions from ESL instructors will help shape my research so that it is most effective and relevant. Your thoughts -- or the thoughts of those you work with -- would be greatly, greatly appreciated!

--Ashley
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This is an interesting research topic, though I have hardly anything to offer except some classroom observations.

I taught for two onsecutive years at one kindergarten in China; it was not necessary to tell me where to begin with my preschoolers as I had to sort out our communication hurdles on my own, which I feel I did rather well.
I began by demonstrating what they were expected to do, accompanying my demonstrations with as simple English instructions as necessary, which I kept repeating. I also used what I later found to be called the "total physical" method, and again, it worked very well.
They kids learnt basic but essential things, which I recycled in several subsequent lessons. Thus they never had to think in two languages.
It later dawned on me that they were learning to understand what I was saying through demonstrations; in other words: conceptualisation.

Obviously, the key was for them to mentally understand what I put forward to them in a language with which they were not familiar. "Mental" understanding involved more than mere intellectual understanding - it also involved psychical understanding, emotions.

Now my teaching contrasted sharply with the Chinese English teachers'. Theirs was a traditional approach: the teacher "knows" and says what the student "has to learnTHIS WAS WITHOUT ANY DEMONSTRATION> It was pure talking and mimicking - the teachers doing the talking (and thinking), the kids the mimicking (unthinkingly!).
The teachers cared not one jota how their kids felt, and if a kid was not cooperative the teacher could get upset and scold the child.

Nevertheless, the Chinese teachers made their kids "learn" a lot more words in a short time. I once asked how many words they thought the kids needed to "learn", and they didn't have an answer, but when they saw my teaching plan they pointed out it had "too few English vocables".
I taught them around 350 words in one year (twelve months minus a total of maybe 6 weeks of holidays). I counted irregular word forms such as "went"t" as separate lexical items; I taught them basic grammar structures (not grammar lessons per se but grounding them in appropriate sentence formation by using the right tenses and S-V Agreement).
My CHinese colleagues paid no heed to such niceties and in fact, didn't have a good mastery of grammar anyway.

Did I notice any "spike" in the learning of vocabulary by my pupils?
I can't tell for sure. I guess, the beginning was the hardest, when the groundwork had to be done; later, the kids seemed to increase their learning speed although individual cases were known to me of kids that forgot a sizeable porition of their vocabulary.
There were two outstanding pupils - actually more than two, but these two ones were really special. Special because they were at the beginning rather antisocial, throwing temper tantrums and having to be separated from their peers. One would have thought they could not learn English at all; yet over time they formed a special relationship with some teachers, including their foreign English teacher; I noticed then that they had passively registered a lot more than I had actively taught them. They were interested in certain aspects of English - when used in playing or when used in explaining a computer, for instance. They didn't take part in the more formal activities such as drawing and writing until much, much later.

The ages of these pupils ranged from 3 to 6 years, i.e. in year one, they were from 4 to 5 years old, in year 2 they were 5 and 6 years old.