THE ROLE OF VOCABULARY IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
Heather Smith
English as a world language
Political and economic developments since the end of the Second World War, particularly the economic power of the United States, have transformed English from a foreign into an international language, so that now second language speakers outnumber native speakers. The question has arisen as to who 'owns' the language, who has the right to establish standards, and even as to what to call it. Jenkins (2000: 11) has proposed ELF, or 'English as a Lingua Franca', to symbolize communication between speakers of different L1s, which is the main reason for learning English today;
'it suggests the idea of community as opposed to alienness; it emphasizes that people have something in common rather than their differences; it implies that 'mixing' languages is acceptable ….. and thus that there is nothing inherently wrong in retaining certain characteristics of the L1, such as accent.'
The native and non-native speaker
Jenkins (2000: 9) states that
'… it is entirely inappropriate, indeed offensive, to label as 'non-native speakers' those who have learnt English as a second or foreign language and achieved bilingual status as fluent, proficient users. The perpetuation of the native/non-native dichotomy causes negative perceptions and self-perceptions of 'non-native' teachers and a lack of confidence in and of 'non-native' theory builders.'
Lewis (1999: 12) is of the same opinion
'Many non-native teachers of English who use English fluently and effectively in a wide range of situations still have an unfortunate tendency to compare themselves to the hypothetical, but nonexistent 'educated native speaker'. ….effective use of English, and a fortiori effective teaching of English, depend much more on a whole range of other factors - personality, confidence, creativity, education and social sensitivity. Non-native speakers need to focus on the combination of factors which make them effective members of the international speech community which uses English, rather than worrying about the unimportant factor of whether they are, or are not, native speakers.'
Lewis (1999: 53) also makes the case for 'sharing' English.
'English is no longer the possession or preserve of its native speakers. It is rapidly becoming the world's lingua franca . Native speakers and non-native speakers alike have differing degrees of ability to use the language more or less effectively in a narrower or wider range of situations. The distinction is not essentially between native and non-native users, but between different levels of linguistic competence per se . The non-native may
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need to become accustomed to understanding language used by native speakers for native speakers; some non-natives may want or need the ability to speak to native speakers even if not like native speakers; a minute percentage may learn to speak English like a native, though even they will not use it as a native.'
Native and non-native speaker vocabulary
There are over 54,000 word families in English and it is estimated that an educated native speaker has a vocabulary of roughly 20,000 word families, a word family being a base word, its inflected forms and some common derived forms. Although native-speaker vocabulary could be a possible teaching objective, it is a very ambitious one, and the gap between native vocabulary size and that of mature learners of English usually remains very large, as many adult learners' vocabulary does not exceed about 5,000 word families.
Research on word frequency, range and the number of words that a learner of English as a second language needs to know have shown that the most frequent 2,000 headwords account for 85 per cent of the words on any page of any book, no matter what the subject matter. The same words give an even greater coverage of spoken language. The challenge for the EFL/ESL teacher is how to get learners to increase their word bank as quickly as possible, concentrating not only on single words, but on how they collocate with others.
Native-speaker fluency
A high level of L2 competence was traditionally deemed to be constituted by fluency and accuracy, but recent computer-based research has added a third factor - complexity - and has confirmed that fluent speech is rapid and consists mainly of words linked together in short, commonly-recurring phrases rather than long, formally correct sentences. Many phrases are more or less fixed, prefabricated lexical items, or chunks, and take different forms such as multi-word items, sentence heads or fully institutionalized sentences. The importance of these language patterns had hitherto been either ignored or underestimated, although it is now thought that native speakers have a mental lexicon consisting of tens of thousands of such items. Researchers believe that it is precisely a speaker's ability to retrieve and use these phrases which permits him to produce fluent, rapid speech.
Lexicographical research
Throughout the history of second language acquisition research, priorities have changed as can be seen by the varying degrees of interest in reading, grammar, conversation or pronunciation in different periods. Until recently, there had been little interest in vocabulary
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acquisition, although many classroom teachers would instinctively say that vocabulary is fundamental to second language use, and learners themselves will often lament the fact that they 'don't know enough words'. Lexicographical research, aided by computer processing of language text, began in the 1980s in response to a need for more accurate natural language description and has since greatly influenced communicative syllabus design and language teaching, in that it has made it possible to study large quantities of natural language so as to see recurring patterns of lexis.
COBUILD (the Collins-Birmingham University International Language Database Project), based on a corpus of twenty million words, is one such computer analysis designed to account for language use.
Nattinger and DeCarrico, in 'Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching' (1992) analysed language and demonstrated that native speech is characterised by what they define as
'multiword chunks', which override traditional word boundaries; learners need to perceive and use patterns of lexis and collocation, thus implying that language production is not rule-governed behaviour, but rather involves the retrieval of larger language units from memory.
Michael Lewis (1999: vi) made corpus lexicography central to his claim that lexical items are at the basis of language use and so should be central to language teaching -
'Language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar' - and his pedagogical suggestions include integrating the communicative approach with a focus on naturally occurring lexis.
Laufer (1997: 31) found that
'by far the greatest lexical obstacle to good reading is insufficient number of words in the learner's lexicon. Lexis was found to be the best predictor of success in reading, better than syntax or general reading ability. Whatever the effect of reading strategies is, it is short-circuited if the vocabulary is below the threshold, i.e., below the minimum of 3,000 word families, or 5,000 lexical items.'
General considerations
The classroom teacher interested in the concept of English as a world language will find that in the literature, the distinction between native and non-native speakers/teachers has been superseded by the concept of the fluent, proficient user, and different levels of
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linguistic competence per se, independently of the user's L1. Research has also shown that it is now vocabulary, not syntax, which is thought to be central to L2 acquisition, and collocation, i.e., knowing the pattern in which a word is regularly used, is central to vocabulary acquisition.
Although the native speaker is exposed to more naturally-produced English than the nonnative, the fundamental difference between native and non-native speakers seems to lie in the native's ability to draw upon a mental lexicon composed not so much of single words as of multiword chunks of language which permit fluent, rapid speech.
'It is our ability to use lexical phrases that help us to speak with fluency. This prefabricated speech has both the advantages of more efficient retrieval and of permitting speakers (and hearers) to direct their attention to the larger structure of the discourse, rather than keeping it narrowly focussed on individual words as they are produced. All this fits very neatly with the results of computational and language acquisition research. (Nattinger and DeCarrico
1992: 32).
Terms such as 'being aware', 'noticing', and 'paying attention' recur frequently in the literature. Lightbown and Spada (2000: 41) report that cognitive psychologists who apply an information processing model to L2 acquisition have recognized 'paying attention' as being fundamental to the early stages of L2 acquisition. The same authors briefly refer to the work of Richard Schmidt (1990), who emphasizes the role of 'noticing' in L2 acquisition, arguing that everything we come to know about the language was 'noticed' consciously. Lewis (1999:154) states that 'the process of acquisition is best aided by making students aware of features of the target language and, in due course, of how their own production of the target language differs from its norms.', while the aim of Haggard's
Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy, mentioned by Sokmen (1997:241) 'is to work consciously on the development of a large corpus of automatic word knowledge'. These findings are perhaps in contrast with the 'natural' approaches where language is learned by osmosis through exposure, and with both the Behaviourist school and Structuralist teaching metholodogy which it spawned, which accounted for learning in terms of imitation, practice, reinforcement and habit formation, as well as with Chomsky's theory of an innate Language Acquisition Device and Universal Grammar, which for so long privileged grammar and syntax over vocabulary in language teaching pedagogy.
(Reviewed by Lightbown and Spada 2000: 35-37)
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Teaching vocabulary
There are some recurring themes in the literature deriving from research into human memory: rapid, automatic access to word meaning, mental systems which keep words well organized for retrieval, establishment of links and building up of associations, strengthening retrieval routes, deep levels of encoding to reinforce word associations, building verbal and non-verbal links, just to name some current fields of research, and a varied range of classroom activities has been devised to put theory into practice. However, a mixed approach to vocabulary teaching, ranging from contextual inferring which works particularly well with high proficiency students, to the use of word lists or word cards, although deemed by some to be anti-communicative and outdated, seems to be in keeping with good classroom practice, in that it helps to create a variety of associational links and can accommodate students' different verbal and non-verbal learning styles.
Whatever the teaching approach, the amount of vocabulary to be learned if L2 proficiency is to even approximate native-like command is enormous. For teaching purposes, Nation and Newton (1997: 238-40) suggest that the 2,000 high frequency words should be taught first, followed by the 800 most frequently-occurring academic headwords if a learner needs to read academic texts or newspapers, or by low-frequency words if learners need English for social purposes only. They suggest teaching high-frequency words explicitly and individually in class through vocabulary exercises such as word building, matching, semantic mapping and studying vocabulary in context, while low-frequency words need not be taught by the teacher, who should concentrate on teaching strategies for coping with vocabulary learning, but should be acquired indirectly through communicative activities such as group-work, information-gap activities, graded reading and story telling.
Nation and Waring (1997: 10) have found that 'between 3-5,000 word families are needed to provide a basis for comprehension.' Indirect or incidental learning, or learning from context is frequently advocated as a means of increasing vocabulary, and extensive reading is often proposed as a means to this end, but 'the problem for beginning learners and readers is getting to the threshold where they can start to learn from context.' (Nation and Waring 1997:11) Research by Liu Na and Nation in 1985 showed 'how we need a vocabulary of about 3,000 words which provide coverage of at least 95 per cent of a text before we can efficiently learn from context with unsimplified text.' (Mentioned by Nation and Waring 1997: 11)
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Unfortunately for the EFL classroom teacher, much, if not all, theoretical and applied research seems to have been conducted in an ESL environment, where real world experience and the need to use English outside the classroom is a powerful motivating force in encouraging independent learner strategies.
'It is, of course, not possible for students to learn all the vocabulary they need in the classroom. The final theme in current trends is to help students learn how to continue to acquire vocabulary on their own. ……..Students come to the classroom knowing that vocabulary acquisition is crucial to their skill in using a second language. There is no need to motivate them to want more words under their command.' (Sokmen 1997: 255).
When this is not the case, teaching slows down under the sheer weight of vocabulary.
Vocabulary teaching in classrooms around the world
Recognition of the importance of vocabulary in EFL/ESL is a matter of concern and interest at all levels in classrooms around the world, as can be seen from the exchange of opinions, ideas and suggestions which took place between July and December 2001 on the TESL-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
discussion list, to which I contribute. On the basis of their day-to-day classroom experience, contributors agree that, at lower levels, reading for gist or for general meaning is not enough on its own, and that students need a system by which to learn vocabulary, whether it be imposed by the teacher, or of their own design.
Other contributors find that more advanced students, usually post graduates, benefit immensely from intensive reading, and do not need to apply specific vocabulary acquisition strategies. All contributors agree that word frequency lists alone (100, 500 or
2,000 basic words) do not provide the kind of language that learners really need, or which interests them, and that courses which focus mainly on grammar, assuming that vocabulary can added later, are not learner-friendly. All in all, it can be seen that there is great interest in vocabulary acquisition and a general awareness of the important role lexis plays in L2 competence, with much original, interesting work being carried out by teachers at classroom level, mainly through trial and error.
Vocabulary and TOEFL candidates
Knowledge of other languages can certainly make a positive contribution to EFL vocabulary acquisition. I have done quite a lot of private work preparing Mathematics,
Physics and Chemistry graduates for the TOEFL test, and I have invariably found that vocabulary presents no problem for them in that context. Indeed, I am often surprised, when working through trial test papers with them, at how easily they can match words to
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definitions, identify synonyms and antonyms, use affixes correctly and infer meaning from context. I put this down to the fact that most of them did three years of French at middle school and then took up English at secondary school, where they also received a solid five-year grounding in Latin if they came through the academic scientific course (Liceo
Scientifico), and in Ancient Greek as well if they studied Classics (Liceo Classico). With those backgrounds, and being native speakers of Italian, academic English, with its bias towards terms of Greek and Latin origin, poses no problem for them whatsoever. In fact, they could probably out-perform many a native speaker on similar, receptive-skills tests.
However, what they lack, but what is not really their immediate objective when preparing for TOEFL, is fluency in speaking, and the ability to actually use their reservoir of vocabulary.
Vocabulary and teacher training courses
Vocabulary enrichment is never the specific aim of official teacher training courses in Italy, it being taken for granted that teachers already possess all the English they need to perform their jobs. However, there are often incidental 'how to' requests of a practical nature that arise during training sessions, such as how to use songs, how to use authentic materials, how to acquaint students with English language theatrical productions which they will be going to see, or how to deal with original-language films, and these provide an opportunity for some peripheral language work which is often a cross between cultural awareness raising and vocabulary building at teacher-level. (This may not be as advanced as one would think, as during one of the Re-conversion Courses to qualify future teachers of English at secondary school level which I taught in 2000, almost half the participants were unable to pass an informally-administered Cambridge PET [Preliminary English Test] which was used as an entry test). I try to concentrate on denotative and connotative meaning, as well as quotations, sayings, proverbs, set phrases and clichés and to get participants to find any equivalents in Italian, if they exist, thus hoping to find a foothold to make remembering easier for them, as I cannot really gauge what has been understood, assimilated and retained or else forgotten and lost. (See Appendices 1 and 2).
Vocabulary and elementary or false beginner students
Apart from explicit vocabulary teaching, where I usually follow the course book, I invest a great deal of time in teaching study strategies and establishing vocabulary-learning systems which learners must then use, so as to make them aware of what they should be
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doing, and to get them to take responsibility for their own progress, or lack of it. Students often arrive at secondary school without adequate study or dictionary skills and this in itself becomes a vocabulary-acquisition strategy which needs to be taught and insisted upon under the teacher's guidance, although I am only too painfully aware that teaching does not necessarily cause learning.
Although teenagers may be 'motivated' and desirous of learning English for any number of reasons, learners in non-academic, technical or vocational courses frequently resist using a dictionary as they are too impatient to do the slow, repetitive, time-consuming background work and independent dictionary consultation necessary to learn and retain vocabulary. To try to come to terms with this problem, four years ago my colleagues and I decided to adopt the Oxfo rd Study Dictionary in all our first year classes. It is a small, light, bilingual dictionary, which is not daunting to consult for our less-than-patient students and yet gives us more than adequate material to work with over a five-year period.
One system I use is copy-copy-write-memorise . Early during the first term of first year, I teach a twelve-lesson unit on how to use the dictionary, with a large number of exercises to do both in groups and pairs in class and individually at home, and after that students always have to bring their dictionaries with them to English lessons - no mean accomplishment on my part! - and use them when prompted to do so. In addition, once a week, usually at the end of a lesson, I write a few informal expressions on the board in
Italian, which translate as, for example, 'How awful!', 'What a mess!', 'I can't be bothered.',
I don't feel like it.', and which I know are in their dictionaries. They have to copy them from the board and add them to a list of idiomatic expressions in their notebooks; then, for homework, find the English equivalents in their dictionaries and copy them; create a context by writing a sentence or two using each expression; and finally, memorise two expressions of their own choice per week. After a couple of weeks I quiz them on what they have learned and do so on and off throughout the year.
Ordering and retrieving vocabulary, particularly multi-word items, can be a problem, as
Lewis recognises:
'It is essential to develop students' skills in recording new lexical items they meet in or out of class in formats that are a positive aid to retention. In each case the physical formatting should mirror or highlight the real-world occurrence of the language.'(1997: 267).
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In order to create a general system for vocabulary organization which should be conducive to easy retrieval, I get my students to buy a small, loose-leaf ring-binder for vocabulary so they can add new material as required in an orderly way. Although I ban the use of dictionaries during class tests, I allow students to use their personal vocabulary notebooks, which is really an underhand way of getting them to keep their notebooks up to date and add new material on their own.
I begin by establishing sections such as 'useful classroom expressions', 'verbs', idiomatic expressions', or else general categories such as 'food and drink', 'sports', etc., which students can add to themselves or which I vary according to my classes' needs, after which each learner decides on his own system, use of colours, titles, and so on, which he has to stick to. I indicate what vocabulary from the coursebook has to go into the notebook, or else supply data as it comes to hand, often incidentally during lessons, more often than not in the form of short lists on the board, which students have to organize in any way they like. I often check what they do and have found practical, functional solutions such as alphabetical lists, semantic maps of all kinds, drawings, groups of words in different colours, or highlighed in different ways, translation sections, and even pages dedicated to 'loves' and 'hates', but also a chronic inability to create any kind of order at all, as well as ostentatiously manifested indifference.
Learner characteristics such as motivation, aptitude, personality, intelligence, personal preferences and age of acquisition (reviewed by Lightbown and Spada, 2000) have all been put forward to explain varying degrees of success in second language learning. I would point out that my students are all non-academic oriented boys who are studying
English because it is compulsory. On the rare occasions when I have a girl or two per class, I find that they are neater, tidier and much better at organizing and rearranging data than boys are, both on paper and on PC, and are also more willing to spend time on revision and routine dictionary work. I do not subscribe to the idea that younger teenage girls are innately 'better' at learning languages than boys of the same age are, but I would suggest that, in general, they are more inclined to activate and apply the study skills and learning strategies which have been taught in class, and therefore they make more rapid progress, at least initially. I am unable to say whether their success is due to greater integrative motivation or whether motivation is due to success.
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Mnemonic devices can produce striking results if motivation is of the right kind. The Italian teenage passion for British and American rock music is a powerful motivating device which can be harnessed for vocabulary-learning purposes, both at home and in class, albeit not the vocabulary that a teacher would probably include in the essential words she thinks learners need. (See Appendix 3) It is one activity in which students will even use a larger dictionary if their Oxfords prove to be inadequate, and they spend hours trying to translate songs in an effort to understand what they hear. Given their enthusiasm, I am quite happy to use songs in class and spend extra time on explanations during lessons, as well as during the morning break, provided that the boys who ask the questions take written notes. The problem lies in context and register - and ambiguity. I have stretched a point and told my students that a word doesn't mean anything without a context, so they have to supply one when they ask. In this way I hope they will become used to looking beyond single word boundaries. As for register, we have established three categories - 'normal', colloquial and vulgar, and they have to add the new phrases in the appropriate section. .
Although grammar becomes a problem because they pick up far too many unacceptable forms of the 'I-ain't-gonna-come-no-more' type, they do learn a lot of vocabulary in this way, and in a stress-free atmosphere.
I would suggest, however, that, in any case, the revision necessary for consolidation and retention is ultimately the student's responsibility.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, if
'in acquiring full knowledge of a word like the noun wind , a learner has, of course to acquire its meanings(s), pronunciation and morphology; also its grammatical behaviour (noun; countable, also after the with general/homophonic reference); its set-relationship with hyponyms such as gale and breeze ; its collocating verbs ( blow, sweep ), adjectives ( strong, north, cold, light, bitter, prevailing ) and partitive nouns ( gust, breath, puff ) in the frame 'a
…… of wind ' (Moon 1997: 42-43), then 'teaching' vocabulary is like taking a horse to water, but making it drink is another kettle of fish.
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