Teaching Vocabulary
to Generation 1.5 Writers
Gabriella G. Nuttall
CSU, Sacramento
nuttalg@scc.losrios.edu
http://web.scc.losrios.edu/nuttalg/
38th Annual TESOL Convention
San Antonio, Texas
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Generation 1.5 Students: General Characteristics
Nontraditional ESL learners
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Were born or came here when they were very young.
Culturally are average American teenagers but often follow traditional ways at home.
Ear learners, not “eye” learners
Have learned English mostly by listening, not by reading.
Limited knowledge of home language
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Are often academically illiterate in their home language.
May speak home language fluently but often have an American accent and limited
vocabulary.
Growing knowledge of English language
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Continue to improve their knowledge of English in college.
Tend to lag behind NS in reading/writing skills.
Good listening/speaking skills
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Learned English mostly from listening and speaking.
Have strong oral communicative ability.
Tend to do well in coursework that requires oral interaction (e.g., class discussions,
debates, interviews).
Weaker reading/writing skills
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Reading
- Have read mostly novels and fiction in high school.
- Are not familiar with a variety of academic texts.
- Generally read below 13th grade level.
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Writing
- May have been in AP or Honors English classes.
- Have limited academic vocabulary.
- Have received limited or no formal grammar instruction.
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Vocabulary Acquisition: Considerations for Generation 1.5 Students
Recognizing word boundaries is a problem for many Generation 1.5 students (regression,
vocalization, word-for-word reading).
Connecting new words to prior knowledge and recognizing organizational and structural patterns
is also a problem. Gen 1.5 students do well with narratives and have the most difficulty with
arguments.
Gen 1.5 students are more likely to remember a new word if they can see how it “fits” in a
sentence or paragraph (how it relates to other words) and if they use it in their own writing.
Vocabulary lists at college level should be used for academic words that occur across the
curriculum. A great list is the AWL (Academic Word List), developed at the School of Linguistics
and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. It contains 570
word families frequently used across academic disciplines
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/awl/index.html
Both extensive reading on a variety of subjects and intensive reading about one subject are
important for Gen 1.5 students. Research studies have shown that we have to encounter a word
in context at least six times or more in order to learn it well. We learn a word’s meaning nuances
only over time as we keep encountering the word in different contexts.
Multiple meanings of a word are acquired as the word is encountered in different contexts. Some
studies have shown that we learn words better if we can associate them to images (photos,
drawings, videos, real life situations). This is particularly true for Gen 1.5 students who rely on
visual and auditory stimuli to acquire English.
Incorporating Vocabulary: Sequence of Activities
Students freewrite about teenage school violence (e.g., gangs, recent school shootings). This
activity gives the teacher a chance to assess the students’ knowledge of the topic and related key
words (e.g., gang, gang member, shooting, shoot, shot, violence, violent, violently).
Example:
QUICK WRITE
For 10 minutes, write as much as you can in response to the following questions:
Did you ever see students act violently when you were in high school? Were there
violent gangs in your school? What have you heard lately on the news about violence
and shooting in schools?
When you are finished, discuss your freewriting with three or four classmates.
Students review and discuss a variety of materials about teen violence in school, such as:
a. “1996 National Teen Violence Survey” commissioned by the Children's Institute
International of Los Angeles, California http://www.childrensinstitute.org/hearing.html
b. “Youth Violence: Fact Sheet” available at the National Center for Injury Prevention and
Control website http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/yvfacts.htm
c. News briefs found at the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center
http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/News/NewsList.asp#3934
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As the student groups discuss the survey and/or other reading materials, the teacher circulates
among the groups and writes down words the students use incorrectly in their discussions (wrong
collocation, wrong word form). Later, the teacher lists the words on the chalkboard and with the
students’ help composes sentences that use the words correctly. Students write the sentences in
their notebooks.
Students read two or three articles about teen violence, its causes, and preventive measures,
beginning with a recent news article from an “easy-to-read” newspaper (e.g., USA Today) and
ending with a more challenging one, such as the New York Times. The most difficult article should
always be read last when the students have already worked on some vocabulary and are more
familiar with the topic.
Students circle or highlight key words, i.e. important words that are repeated often in the reading
and relate to the main ideas. (The Web Vocabulary Profiler really helps with this task).
The teacher explains important words the students could not understand from the context.
Students brainstorm other words they will need to know to write about the topic. The teacher
writes these words on the chalkboard. Students begin a word list. Class identifies sentences
where the words occur.
Students read a textbook excerpt or other academic text about the topic, such as, “Teens: The
Company They Keep” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/teens.cfm
Teacher helps students identify text organization (e.g., generalizations, definitions, examples)
and identifies vocabulary, such as transition words, that occur with certain text structures.
Teacher explains off-list words and gives simpler synonyms the students can use in their writing
(e.g., tolerance/tolerate = being open-minded/accept).
Students write summaries of the articles and responses. By reading their summaries, the teacher
can identify problems with word forms related to word collocation (e.g., “Teachers are
*responsibility.” “Teenage *violent is a big problem”).
Students have group discussions and/or a whole-class discussion about the readings. Teacher
takes notes about how well the students understand the topic and use vocabulary but does not
participate actively in discussions. She intervenes only if the students go off topic.
Students come up with possible essay questions based on the readings, such as “Who is
responsible for teens’ violent behavior? Explain.” “Why is teen violence increasing?” “What can be
done to prevent teen violence in high school?” The essay question has already been chosen by
the teacher. This exercise is to help the students practice inferencing skills.
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Web Vocabulary Profiler
The Web Vocabulary Profiler was created by Tom Cobb of the Université du Québec à Montréal
and is based on the original Vocabulary Profiler developed by Batia Laufer and Paul Nation at
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
http://www.lextutor.ca/ (click on “vocabprofile” to identify word categories and word frequency)
What the WVP categories mean:
K1 Words: 1-1000 most frequent words (blue).
K2 Words: 1001-2000 most frequent words (green).
AWL Words: Words in the Academic Word List—i.e., words commonly used in academic texts
(yellow).
Off-List Words: Words that do not occur often in academic texts and are not among the 2000
most frequent words (red).*
Type: All the different words that are used in the text (repetitions are not counted). For example,
the is counted 1 time as a type.
Token: The repetitions of the word in a text, that is, all the different times that the is used in a
text or corpus.
Type/Token Ratio: The number of types divided by the number of tokens and then multiplied
by 100 (e.g., if you have 5 instances of the in a sentence, the type-token ratio is 1:5).
Important: Before you paste your text in the WVP window, check spelling and eliminate dashes
since misspelled words and symbols are not recognized by the profiler.
*NOTE: Some off-list words will surprise you. The word provocative, for instance, is an off-list word and not an
academic word. The VP identifies academic vocabulary, not sophisticated vocabulary. Academic words are words
that occur often enough in college/university textbooks (i.e., across the curriculum) to be considered relevant to
academic studies, such as criteria, objectives, and resolve. Some of the "off-list" words in the VP belong to formal
vocabulary used by educated writers but do not occur often enough across the curriculum to be
considered academic.
The VP can be used to evaluate reading materials for students at various proficiency levels.
Comprehension and learning are facilitated when the text has a 1:20 ratio (one new word
per 20 familiar words).
Excerpt: [K1 Words: regular font; K2: italics; AWL: underlined; Off-List: bold]
During the brainstorming, teens generate hundreds of issues and causes for teen violence. Some of the
causes of violence most frequently mentioned include parental neglect, lack of acceptance by peers and lack of
values and ethics. The students, as a group, prioritize their ideas and narrow the list down to the three to five
most critical issues that teens face. Students then brainstorm solutions and action items for each issue. Again,
hundreds of ideas are generated and the list is narrowed down to the top three to five best ideas for combating
teen violence. Regardless of where Think Tanks are held, teens across the country tend to come up with many
of the same solutions to violence: greater respect between teachers and students, tolerance of diversity and
greater sensitivity to threats.
Once the initial brainstorming process ends, teens expand and enrich these ideas. The final outcome is a
report with recommendations for students, parents, teachers, school administrators, law enforcement officers and
legislators that will help them to predict and prevent youth violence.
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Source: Marsh, Brice. (2003). CSC computer scientist gives teens a voice to end violence. CSC website. Retrieved
3/24/05 from http://www.csc.com/features/2003/32.shtml
The VP can also be used to compare students’ passive and active vocabulary knowledge. If your
students read well but use a limited vocabulary in their writing, then the problem is related to
activation. The students need to be given tasks that require the use of the passive vocabulary.
Student Sample:
Teens can talk about their problems but they do it on line. They list all the problems they have which cause
violence and stress. Then, the teens get to vote on the most important problems. They say that parent don’t
care about them and peer don’t accept them. The other problem is that teens lack of values and ethics. It’s
interesting that no matter the state teens think that teachers need to respect them more, tolerance diversity
and notice teens who can cause problems.
VOCABULARY ASSIGNMENT 1
a. Find the word lack in the dictionary. Write the dictionary definitions and examples next to the
corresponding part of speech:
Lack (n.)
Lack (v.)
b. Which of the words above is followed by “of”? Look back at the sentence where you use lack
in your paragraph. Should you use “of” or not? Why?
c. Write two sentences with the verb lack and two sentences with the noun lack.
1. ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Finally, the VP can also be used by students to check their own vocabulary use. Students can
paste their summaries, responses and/or essays into the WVP to see a lexical profile of their
writing. If a student’s vocabulary derives mostly from the most common 1000 words of English,
then he/she can be given specific reading and vocabulary tasks to improve his/her lexical
knowledge.
VOCABULARY ASSIGNMENT 2
Reread ¶s 7 and 8 in “CSC Computer Scientist Gives Teens a Voice to End Violence.” Then answer
the following questions:
1. What does Brice Marsh mean with “tolerance of diversity” and “sensitivity to threats”? You
may look at the notes you took during our class discussion to answer this question.
2. Do you agree that tolerance of diversity and sensitivity to threats can help prevent teen
violence? Explain.
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Vocabulary Resources
Folse, K. and Farina, M. (2005). College Vocabulary 3. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Goen, S., Porter P., Swanson, D., & Vandommelen, D. (2002). Working with Generation 1.5
students and their teachers: ESL meets composition. The CATESOL Journal, 14(1), 131-171.
Harklau, L. (2003). Generation 1.5 students and college writing.
http://cal.org/resources/digest/0305harklau.html
Holten, C. (2002). Charting new territory: Creating an interdepartmental course for Generation
1.5 writers. The CATESOL Journal, 14(1), 173-189.
Lewis, M. (2002). The lexical approach. The state of ELT and a way forward. Boston: ThomsonHeinle.
Lowry, M. S. (1999). Lexical issues in the university ESL writing class. The CATESOL Journal,
11(1), 7-37.
Nation, P. (ed.). (1994). New ways in teaching vocabulary. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Nation, P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Singhal, M. (2004). Academic writing and Generation 1.5: Pedagogical goals and instructional
issues in the college composition classroom. The Reading Matrix, 4(3).
http://www.readingmatrix.com/current.html
Stahl, S. A. (1999). Vocabulary Development. Brookline, MA: Brookline Books.
Stockdale, J. G. III. (2004). Definition plus collocation in vocabulary teaching and learning. The
Internet TESL Journal, X (5), http://iteslj.org/Articles/Stockdale-Vocabulary.html
Thonus, T. (2003). Serving Generation 1.5 learners in the university writing center. TESOL
Journal, 12(1), 17-24.