Download Vocabulary

Vocabulary
What Vocabulary Should be Learned?
cost-benefit approach → teach high-frequency words (see e.g. General Service List)
low-frequency words: don’t invest teaching time BUT focus on strategies that help learners to
learn them on their own (guessing from context, learning from word cards, using word parts,
using a dictionary)
4 Strands of Vocabulary Learning
1. Learning Vocabulary from Meaning-focused Input (Listening and Reading)
3 conditions:
- ~20% unknown tokens (5 in 100)
- very large quantity of input (~ 1 million tokens/year)
- deliberate learning (learner: dictionary use, highlighting, asking for clarification; teacher:
consciousness-raising of unknown words, quickly defining unknown items, noting items on
board)
→ extensive reading programme (based largely on graded readers; estimate: 1 reader in 2
weeks; texts: not purely ‘authentic’, but purpose is authentic: pleasure)
→ listening (e.g. repeated listening to the same text)
2. Learning Vocabulary from Meaning-focused Output (Speaking and Writing)
- necessary to move receptive knowledge into productive knowledge
- activities that encourage the use of new vocabulary (e.g. annotated pictures or definitions)
- speaking activities involving group work (important: careful design of written input)
3. Deliberate Vocabulary Learning and Teaching
deliberate learning is more effective than incidental learning
guidelines for word cards:
1) L2 word on one side, translation on the other → retrieval
2) space the repetitions (a few minutes, an hour, a day, a week, a couple of weeks)
3) repeat the words aloud or in a low voice
4) avoid interference (words of similar spelling or related meaning should not be in the
same pack)
5) keep changing the order (avoidance of serial learning effect)
6) write collocations where appropriate (e.g. for verbs)
deliberate vocabulary teaching: 3 major goals
1) ‘rich instruction’ to facilitate text comprehension = spending a reasonable amount
of time on each word and focusing on several aspects (e.g. spelling, pronunciation,
word parts, meaning, collocations, grammatical patterns, context of use); highfrequency words only!
2) raising learners’ consciousness of words
3) helping learners gain transferable knowledge of strategies and systematic features
of the language (e.g. sound-spelling correspondences, word parts, collocational
patterns, types of associations…)
4. Developing Fluency with Vocabulary across the Four Skills
- fluency activities should not involve unknown vocabulary
- large quantity of familiar material
- focus on the message
- some pressure to perform at a higher-than-normal level
2 general approaches:
1) repetition (e.g. repeated reading, the best recording, rehearsed talks)
2) making many connections and associations with a known item (e.g. speed-reading
practice, extensive reading, retelling activities)
For more information: Schmitt, Norbert (2000). Vocabulary in Language Teaching.