The Magic of Word Frequency in vocabulary teaching?

vividou · Post by **vividou** » Tue May 23, 2006 2:13 am

Do you think if we present various texts with the target vocabulary frequently appeared, the students will learn it more effectively??

Looking forward to your replies!!

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue May 23, 2006 4:16 pm

It's certainly true that if students need to keep revising vocabulary items in order to remember them. There are plenty of ways of doing it though, not just texts, and doing the same activities every time may not work for all your students.

vividou · Post by **vividou** » Fri May 26, 2006 2:08 pm

i agree! then what do you think is the best way to enhance students' vocab acquisition?
Cause i am going to do a research on word frequency, so your help is greatly appreciated!

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri May 26, 2006 3:58 pm

I don't know if there's a "best way" - you have to know your students and do what you think will work for them. For example, word games to recycle vocabulary from previous lesson can make for a good warm up (or warm down), if you have the same group in the same room every day you can have a "word bag" pinned to the wall, you might want to try something more "serious" if your students are suspicious of "fun" activities... the only limit is your imagination.

vividou · Post by **vividou** » Sat May 27, 2006 1:49 am

Thank you very much!
what if i present my students with various paragraphs which contain those target vocab in high frequency?will that help them improve their vocab learning in one month?

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sat May 27, 2006 1:17 pm

There's no harm in trying, and teachers should bever be afraid to innovate and try new things. I doubt it'll do any harm and the worst that can happen is that you waste a couple of hours. I'd be wary of texts which seem too contrived though.

How about you give it a go and tell us if it works? You'll need some way of assessing their learning to find out if it's more effective.

ssean · Post by **ssean** » Sat May 27, 2006 11:29 pm

i did a similar sounding research and found flash cards very effective, the target language on one side and L1 on the other, can be used in small group work as well. this is supposing your learners share a common L1 of course.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sun May 28, 2006 10:07 pm

When I think back to my French and Spanish classes at school, the words and phrases I remember best were the ones that came up in songs. For example, I remember the ne...plus construction from a song that went Je ne crois plus au Pere Noel. Maybe the fact that it was set to music helped me to remember.

However, I think the most important things to bear in mind are (1) variety and (2) know your students. Be wary of anyone who says "I did this with my particular set of students in a particular context and it worked". By all means try it out but don't expect any miracle methods from anyone, ever. You may need to do things in a different way depending on many factors.

There was a speaker at a colloquium I once attended who said "Don't adopt, adapt", which was probably one of the best pieces of teaching advice I've ever had.