Principles of Vocabulary Instruction
LTP TESOL Certificate
TESOL 5
Dr. Rob Waring
Notre Dame Seishin University
Rob Waring’s TESOL sessions
TESOL 5 Principles of vocabulary learning
TESOL 6 Managing an Extensive Reading program
TESOL 11 Balance in language teaching
TESOL 12 Getting the most out of your materials
Some starting questions
How do you teach vocabulary?
What kinds of words do Japanese students need?
What is the best way to deal with vocabulary for Japanese
learners?
What do you think?
Grammar is more important than vocabulary
It’s best the teacher explain word meanings to the students
The best way to learn words is in context
Translation is not a very good way to learn words
You don’t need to study words, they can just read a lot
Verbs are more important than nouns
Most course books deal with vocabulary quite well
There is a good balance of vocabulary activities in my classes
I teach vocabulary well
Typical vocabulary teaching
Most vocab teaching is from context
Haphazard selection of materials
Different vocab topic in each unit
Too many words at once
Rare words are favoured over common words
Focus on single words not multi-word units and combinations
All students learn the same words
Word teaching = definition and spelling
Teachers give meanings
Typical vocabulary teaching II
Low recycling of vocab in course books and teachers
Teachers leave vocab learning to learners
Vocab learning strategies are rarely taught
Vocab learning techniques are rarely taught
Vocabulary learning goals are rarely set
Dictionary skills are rarely taught
Vocab notebooks not encouraged
Words are kept in lists
Vocab exercises test not teach
Teachers trust the course book to deal with vocab
How many words do learners need to know?
About 2000 everyday words occur in all types of English.
About 4000 words for fairly advanced users
Learners need 7000-8000 word families to read native novels easily
Learners need ‘specialist words’ as well.
Wordlists are available on www.robwaring.com/vocab
What’s a collocation?
Collocations are words which often appear together.
We say
We don’t (usually) say
beautiful girl
handsome girl
blonde hair
yellow hair
big surprise
large surprise
black and white
white and black
go to work
go to job
catch fire
do fire / go fire
high cost
expensive cost
demand a response
ask a response
make a mistake
do a mistake
What’s a colligation?
Colligations are words which often appear together grammatically
We say
depend on someone
be good at something
ask for something
give something to someone
We don’t (usually) say
depend of someone
be good on something
ask on something
give something someone
What collocations do they need to learn?
Verb uses of one word - Idea… “Abandon an idea.”
abandon, absorb, accept, adjust to, advocate, amplify, advance,
back, be against, be committed/dedicated/ drawn to, be obsessed
with, be struck by, borrow, cherish, clarify, cling to, come out/up
with, confirm, conjure up, consider, contemplate, convey, debate,
debunk, defend, demonstrate, develop, deny, dismiss, dispel,
disprove, distort, drop, eliminate, encourage, endorse, entertain,
explode, explore, expound, express, favor, fit, fit in with, follow up,
form, formulate, foster, get, get accustomed/used to, get rid of,
give up, go along with, grasp, hammer out, have, hit upon, hold,
implement, imply, impose – on sb, incorporate, inculcate, instill, jot
down, keep to, launch, meet, modify, negate, oppose, pick up,
pioneer, plant, play with, popularize, present, promote, propose,
put an end to, put forward, put – into practice, raise, refute,
reinforce, reject, relish, resist, respond to, revive, ridicule, rule out,
spread, squash, stick to, subscribe to, suggest, support, take to,
take up, test, tinker with, toy with, turn down, warm to …
What collocations do they need to learn? II
Adjective uses. “An idea is ………...”
abstract, absurd, advanced, ambitious, arresting, basic, bizarre,
bold, bright, brilliant, classical, clear, common, commonsense,
confused, controversial, convincing, crazy, diabolical, disconcerting,
elusive, enlightened, entrenched, exaggerated, extravagant,
extreme, false, familiar, fantastic, far-fetched, feasible, feeble, fixed,
flexible, foolish, grotesque, hazy, heretical, imaginative, inflated,
ingenious, ingrained, innovative, instinctive, intriguing,
irresponsible, mad, misconceived, mistaken, monstrous, newfangled, novel, original, old-fashioned, outdated, out-of-date,
outrageous, peculiar, persuasive, preconceived, preposterous,
prevalent, provocative, (un)real, (un)realistic, remarkable,
revolutionary, ridiculous, risky, sensible, silly, splendid, strange,
striking, superficial, untenable, useful, vague, valid, well-defined …
What else do they need to know? III
Lexical phrases and chunks of language
How’s things?
I’d rather not …
If it were up to me, I’d …
So, what do you think?
We got a quick bite to eat.
What’s the matter?
What do you mean by that?
Well, what do you know?
Look what the cat just dragged in
Plus THOUSANDS more
What else do they need to know? IV
The grammar systems (e.g. the present perfect tense)
A government committee has been created to …
He hasn’t seen her for a while, has he? No, he hasn’t.
Why haven’t you been doing your homework?
There’s been a big accident in Market Street.
Have you ever eaten Japanese food?
It’s very hard to see the patterns – there are many forms:
Statement, negative, yes/no and wh- question forms,
Simple or continuous
Active or passive
Short answers and questions tags (Yes, I have. …… hasn’t he?)
Regular and irregular - has vs. have walked vs. bought
Present perfect for ‘announcing news’, PP for ‘experiences’, etc.
etc.
What do we know about vocabulary?
• It takes 8-50 meetings (or more) to ‘learn’ a word
• Because we teach a word does not mean they learned it (i.e.
teaching does not cause learning). Note* our text books
assume this. Because they finished the textbook does not
mean they know all the words in the book
• Written and spoken vocabulary are different. Fewer words are
needed for speaking
• Initial word knowledge is very fragile. Memories of new words
that are not met again soon, are lost to the “forgetting curve”.
What do we know about vocabulary? II
• Some words are more difficult to learn than others
• Learners cannot guess new meaning from context if the
surrounding text is too difficult. About 98% coverage needed.
• Words live with other words, not in isolation
• Not all words are equally frequent. There is a core useful
vocabulary everyone needs (about 2000 word families). Not
everyone needs the other 90% of the words in English.
• Students should learn the most frequent and useful words
first, later they can specialize.
Two states of vocabulary learning
Form-meaning relationship
- matching the spelling and sound to a meaning
The ‘deeper’ aspects of vocabulary learning
- multiple meaning senses / nuances of use
- frequency, usefulness etc.
- use in context
- domain (lexical set)
- restrictions on use / pragmatic values
- register – polite, rude, spoken, written, formal, informal
- collocation and colligation
- lexical access speed, fluency, automaticity
- etc.
How well are our courses presenting the language
students need?
Research suggests an average language course:
• does not systematically recycle the grammatical forms outside
the presentation unit / lesson
• has an almost random vocabulary selection without much
regard to frequency or usefulness (mostly based on topic)
• rarely, if ever, recycles taught words either later in the unit,
the book, or the series
• provide little additional practice in review units or workbooks
• has an overwhelming focus on new material in each lesson
Typical Japanese reading texts
In Junior High School
-teaches the first 1000 words quite well
- readability seems adequate – short passages, easy
vocabulary, picture support
In Senior High School
- radical change to low frequency vocabulary
- hundreds of the most important 2,000 words aren’t met
So what do typical texts that Japanese students meet look like?
Short texts
A Typical Reading Text
Many
difficult
words
Definitions given
Many exercises
How much text do learner need to meet?
To have a 9000 word vocabulary you need to read 30,000,000 words
But JH and SH learners meet a total of 100,000 words over 6 years
All Oxford, Cengage and Penguins (800 graded readers) from levels 16 total only 4,000,000 words
(will give you a receptive vocab of around 4000 words)
Number of words
Average Incoming 1st year English major (N=2350)
Average 4th year English major (N=1670)
1820
2460
Average JH English teacher (N=239)
2980
Average SH English teacher (N=195)
3560
Average Japanese College Literature professor (N=74)
6530
(Maeda and Asano, 2001)
How many words do Japanese students
meet in JH/ SH?
Types
Tokens
Horizon 1, 2, 3 (Junior High)
1,124
9,440
Powwow I, II, Reading (Senior High)
2,857
27,221
Centre tests (680 types / 3000 tokens average
per test) x 4
1,000
12,000
College Entrance tests (590 types / 1600 tokens
average per test) x 4
1,000
6,400
A total of approximately 55,000 running words will be met (not counting
juku and self-study).
A generous estimate is 100,000 words and about 3,500 types over 6
years.
Listening input would be approximately 10% of this.
Lexical coverage of some reading texts
% inside the top
2,000 most frequent
words
Typical beginner level graded readers
99%
Typical elementary level graded readers
97-98%
Typical advanced level graded readers
92-94%
Typical unsimplified native texts
85%
Typical Daily Yomiuri article
87.4%
Harry Potter Chapter 2
94.1%
Typical Time magazine article
80.9%
Japanese High School text (Spectrum U16)
76.8%
Japanese High School text (Milestone)
78%
Japanese High School text (Unicorn)
79%
Source: Browne, C. ECAP Conference, 2008
Lexical coverage of some exams
% inside the top 2000
most frequent words
Keio University
69%
Sophia University
72%
Waseda University
72%
Kyoto University
77%
Nagoya University
68%
Tokyo University
80%
Source: Browne, C. ECAP Conference, 2008
The number of words a learner will probably learn from
course work (225,000 words over 3 years)
Probably known
Course book
only
Add one
reader a
week
Add two
readers a
week
Partially Known
Probably
unknown
50+
30-49
20-29
10-19
5-9
1-4
Total
523
210
229
472
580
1,261
3,275
1,023
283
250
539
570
1,325
3,990
1,372
380
367
694
877
2,882
6,572
Data from Sequences, Foundations, Page Turners and Footprints by Heinle Cengage
225,000
60,800
570,000
174,000
(=1,029,000)
Why can’t Japanese students read, listen, speak
and write well?
Their language knowledge is often abstract, separated, discrete and
very fragile so they forget
There’s too much work on “the pieces-of-language” and not enough
comprehensible, meaningful , connected discourse
They haven’t met the words and grammar enough times to feel
comfortable using them
They CANNOT speak until they feel comfortable using their knowledge
They haven’t developed a ‘sense’ of language yet
A linear structure to our syllabuses
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Be verb
Simple
present
Present
continuous
can
….
Simple
adjectives
Daily
routines
Sporting
activities
Abilities
…..
Each unit has something new
Little focus on the recycling of vocabulary, grammar and so on
The theory is “We’ve done that, they have learnt it, so we can move
on.”
i.e. teaching causes learning
What happens to things we learn?
We forget them over time unless they are recycled and
memories of them strengthened
Our brains are designed to forget most of what we meet - not to
remember it
Knowledge
The Forgetting Curve
Time
What will naturally happen to the learning?
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Be verb
Simple
present
Present
continuous
can
….
Simple
adjectives
Daily
routines
Sporting
activities
Abilities
…..
What does this all imply?
A linear course structure
-is focused on introducing new words and grammatical features
-does not fight against the forgetting curve
-by its very design cannot provide enough repetitions of words and
grammar features for long-term acquisition to take place
-is not focused on deepening and consolidating older knowledge
because the focus is always on new things
This is NOT a criticism of course books. They can’t do everything even
though we might expect them to. Course books are only part of
what students need.
How does learning happen?
“Then they saw an ancient temple …”
Notice
something
Understand
and add to
our knowledge
Try it out
Get
feedback
Correct use
Incorrect
use
We don’t
understand
Get more
input
The Cycle of Learning
Notice
something
Add to our
knowledge
Get more
input
(feedback)
Try it out
Central Vocab Concepts
What principles emerge from this?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Two stages of vocabulary learning
Frequency – Usefulness / Need - Range
Receptive – Productive
Contextualized – Decontexualized
Intentional – Incidental learning
Scaffolded learning – Random learning
Single items – Multi-part words
Massed – Distributed practice
Spaced retrieval
Scheduled review / recycling / repetition
Principles of Vocabulary Learning
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
There is not enough class time to teach everything about a word
We don’t need to teach every word in the book
Select the vocabulary carefully - Useful and frequent words first
Single words as well as phrases and collocations
Learners must be set vocabulary learning goals
They need massive input to build vocabulary knowledge to
deepen vocabulary connections
We should teach words the students need
Forgetting will happen - > revise, use or lose
We should not expect things we teach to be known tomorrow
The most important vocabulary to teach is yesterday’s vocabulary
Principles II
• Because time is limited, we have to teach students how to deal
with new words (independent learning) thus they need
vocabulary learning strategies
• Give opportunities for guessing words from context
• Teach them to use a dictionary properly
• Teach word learning strategies
• Work at both levels of vocabulary knowledge
• Use a systematic approach (set realistic goals) – build on old
learning
• Intentional and incidental learning
Principles III
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Language focus work needed
Give opportunities for developing fluency and automaticity
Not everything can be learn intentionally
Initial meetings should be followed by deeper level processing
Opportunities for elaborating word knowledge
Let them experiment (force them to think)
We do not need to teach all words to be available for use
Concept check understanding
Understand the task requirements of vocabulary exercises
Give opportunities to develop the pronunciation
How are we going to teach what?
Discrete knowledge
Individual words
Important lexical phrases
False friends
Loanwords
Important collocations and colligations
Basic grammatical patterns
Important phrasal verbs, idioms etc.
Word, phrase and sentence level
awareness
 Intentional learning e.g word cards
Selection issues – what do we teach?
Sequence issues – in what order?
Scaffolding issues – how do we
consolidate previous learning?
Presentation issues – what method?
‘Fuzzy’ knowledge
Register, Genre …
Pragmatic knowledge
Restrictions on use
Most collocations and collocations
A ‘sense’ of a word’s meaning and use
A ‘sense’ of how grammar fits with
lexis - the tenses, articles etc.
Discourse level awareness
 Incidental learning e.g
extensive reading
Rough grading
Ensuring recycling
Engaging text
Matching input text to intentionally
learnt materials
Extensive practice
• They need extensive practice with words
– so they can meet them often
– to work out word relationships
– to build recognition automaticity
– to get a sense of how words go together
• They need chances
– to observe new things about words
– to hypothesize about their knowledge
– to experiment with their vocabulary
How should we teach vocabulary
Focus on units larger than a single word
awful day
high season clear conscience traffic jam
Demonstrate collocational differences
light vs.
light suitcase
vs. heavy suitcase
light green vs. dark green
light rain
vs. heavy rain
rough rough / calm sea rough / smooth sandpaper
big surprise large area
great success
big smile
large family
great
importance
big problem large population great pleasure
big difference
large volume
great artist
•
How should we teach vocabulary
Concentrate on word grammar
give vs.
give someone something
give something
give something to someone
borrow vs. borrow s/thg from s/one
Focus on basic concepts
fork
branch
When selecting vocabulary to teach
Perform a needs analysis
Teach something they are going to meet again soon
Words found in a wide range of texts
(range) before specialized vocab
Words with a wide meaning (coverage) (e.g. go vs. saunter)
Words that will be easy to learn
(e.g. loanwords) to build the start-up vocab and empower
the learner
Teach culture-specific vocabulary
Teach the classroom vocabulary
Teach ‘instructions’ vocabulary
Teach the base meaning first
Work hard on common words with many meanings
Some vocabulary exercises
Match these opposites
hot
dark
big
cold
light
strong
weak
small
What problems may occur by asking learners to
learn words in lexical sets?
chair
winter
mother
Tuesday
yesterday
different
special
anxious
stool
summer
father
Thursday
tomorrow
difficult
spacious
nervous
armchair sofa
spring
autumn
son
daughter
Saturday Sunday ........
today
diffident
splendid
worried
Match the word with its meaning
regulate
well
notify
rough
observation
like sandpaper
rule
good
Put the following words in the correct
sentences
ambitious big-headed intelligent
rude obstinate moody strict
immature
1.John is always telling people how well he plays
guitar. He's so ....……. .
2.Many girls of 16 and 17 are far too .............. to
get married and have children.
3.I see Clive's passed all his exams again. It must
be so wonderful to be so ............
What words do these meanings refer to?
a) a book with a lot of information about the
world, places and people
b) something you eat with
c) send, deliver or transport something
Fill in the blank
1.The president asked his secretary to make a
c_______ of the letter to put in the files
2.The secretary thought that making c_______
for her boss was not her job.
Choose the correct word
a) She told me to take a few days to ______ his
job offer
a) think b) wonder c) consider d) decide
b) Call the airline to ______ your reservation.
a) affirm b) confirm c) contest d) agree
Trouble in the family. By THE DOC1
I bumped into young Fiona the other day - not her usual cheerful self, by any
means. 'Just walked down the road with my dad', she said ruefully2. 'And, as usual
we fought all the way'. Well, I've got news for Fiona, and her dad.
Nothing is more natural. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say, if there were NO tensions
in the family something is wrong! It's a sign they either don't care enough, or
they're building up pressure that will eventually explode.
Oh, I know there's nothing more exasperating3 for a mother than to see her
teenage be at loggerheads with4 Dad. It's as bad for dad to see a teenage girl
seemingly unable to hit it off with5 her mother. It may comfort them to know
teenage rebellion is a sign of normality, not a sign they've failed as parents.
Changing standards always lead to family tension, too. I honestly don't think we
can expect youngsters to stick to the rules6 our parents set for us. ...........
1. coll abbr doctor
2. regretfully 3. irritating, producing ill-feeling
4. coll disagreeing or quarrelling 5. coll get on well
6. coll respect the rules
Which of these words form strong word
partnerships with all the words in each line
below?
food
meal
white wine red wine
sandwich
restaurant
salad
dry
Indian
family
chicken
medium
fast
Chinese
cheese
freshly made
club
sweet crisp
fruity
plain
spicy
rich
vegetarian trendy elegant
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Based on the research of Ebbinghaus, Pimsleur, Leitner,
and Mondria, electronic flashcards automatically repeat
each new word at spaced time intervals, and until the
learner achieves long-term, instant-recall ability.
Leitner’s Memory System
Spaced, expanded retrieval
Image source: www.lexxica.com
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Spaced Repetition is the science of long-term memory
Memorization software
Anki
Supermemo
Memosyne
Open cards
Quizlet
AWL Builder
FlashcardDB
SocialDecks
Flashcard friends
http://ankisrs.net/
http://www.supermemo.com/
http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/
http://www.opencards.info/
http://www.quizlet.com
http://www.charlie-browne.com
http://flashcarddb.com/
www.socialdecks.com
http://www.flashcardfriends.com/
Comparison of software
Anki
Supermemo
iKnow!
WordEngine
Mnemosyne
OS
Mac, PC,
Browser, IOS,
Android
PC, iOS,
Browser
Browser, iOS,
Android
Browser
Mac, PC,
Browser,
Android
Import, add
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audio /
images
Yes
Yes
Yes
?
Yes
Sync
Yes
No?
Yes
No
No?
Demo video
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
iKnow.jp
iKnow.jp
iKnow.jp
iKnow.jp
Memosyne
Anki
Online Intentional Learning Apps
Current vocab software do quite well:
recognition, productive practice
spelling
spaced repetition
sequenced /scaffolded learning
immediate feedback
sometimes and LMS included for tracking
almost all is controlled practice
Online Intentional Learning Apps
They don’t do so well with these things:
indicating frequency or usefulness
engagement – too functional
general appeal – not all will like these method
poor tie in well with current reading and courses
wide variety of features - ? Lack of clear principles?
often lack context and pronunciation
few contrasts with antonyms and synonyms
generative vocabulary (adding uses take a test -> take a
drive, take a rest, take time-out, take a XXXX)
uneven block sizes (20-50 optimal)
Integrated Software solutions
EnglishCentral.com
Native level input from thousands of YouTube videos
Facility to practice your speech / pronunciation
Vocabulary tracking
DynEd.com
Highly controlled and sequenced learning
Focus on listening
Pronunciation modeling and practice
Rosetta Stone
Integrated solutions in dozens of languages