Enhancing Effectiveness of
Vocabulary Learning and Teaching
at Secondary Level
October & November 2012
English Language Education Section
Curriculum Development Institute
Education Bureau
1
Objectives of today’s programme
•
To enhance teachers' understanding of effective
vocabulary learning and teaching
•
To develop and explore strategies for effective
learning and teaching of vocabulary to promote the
development of vocabulary building skills
•
To introduce to teachers how to make effective use
of the resource package ‘Enhancing English
Vocabulary Learning and Teaching at Secondary Level’
to develop appropriate learning and teaching
materials to improve the quality of vocabulary
learning and teaching in the secondary English
2
Language classroom.
Evaluation on the lesson
The teaching focuses mainly on
meaning (direct Chinese
translation) and the
pronunciation of the target
vocabulary.
Should students be
taught mainly
meaning and
pronunciation of the
vocabulary?
Reading aloud and being told the
Chinese meaning of the
vocabulary may not help students
to retain the vocabulary learnt
and retrieve for use it later.
How can we help
students to retain and
retrieve the
vocabulary learnt for
use?
Does covering all vocabulary
from the textbook/vocabulary
book mean that we are helping
students to strengthen their
vocabulary power?
How can we help
students to strengthen
their vocabulary
power?
3
Understanding
of effective
vocabulary
learning and
teaching
4
Why do we teach students vocabulary?
Why do students learn vocabulary?
• Communicative purposes (tackling texts &
expressing ideas)
Inside
Classroom
(lesson
activities)
Outside
Classroom
(daily life
exposure)
Under teachers’
control
Under students’
control
5
How to enhance and strengthen
students’ vocabulary power?
•
•
Introducing vocabulary in context.
Students learn and apply target
vocabulary items purposefully and
meaningfully.
Purpose
of communication
The need
to learn what they do not
know
The motivation
to learn
6
Dimensions of vocabulary
knowledge
Spelling
Pronunciation
Meaning
Connotation
Word formation
Hyponymy
Lexical field
Word families
Synonymy & Antonymy
Homonymy
Style & Register
Word combination
7
Meaning of words
• Literal meanings (Denotative meanings)
• Implicit meanings (Connotative
meanings)
– E.g.
“blue”
“heart”
8
Lexical field, Hyponymy
• Semantical relations
– E.g.
Food: vegetables, meat, fruits, drinks, dessert …
Vegetables: lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, tomato…
Meat: pork, beef, lamb …
Fruits: banana, orange, apple, durian, grape …
Hyponyms (lexical members,
sub-categories)
9
Word formation
• Affixation (e.g. cybercrime)
• Blending (e.g. infotainment, email)
• Clipping (e.g. ad, blog)
• Giving a new meaning to an existing
word (e.g. mouse, traffic)
• Conversion (e.g. google, text)
10
Word combination
• The patterns the words appear
– E.g. multi-word units (formulaic expressions,
idioms): a piece of cake, give me a hand, get cold
feet …
• The ways words are used
– E.g. word collocations: play badminton, go
fishing, make my lunch, take up a post …
11
The Mental Lexicon
With proper use of vocabulary building skills,
students can organise the words they learnt
and build associative networks in their minds
effectively.
12
Key priorities in vocabulary teaching
•
Promote cognitive ‘elaboration’ of the form-meaning
relationship through instructional intervention
•
Guide pupils in the development of vocabulary
building skills
•
Provide multiple exposures to target words using
vocabulary-focused activities and create opportunities
for vocabulary use
13
Strategies for
effective learning
and teaching of
vocabulary
14
Some effective strategies
• Create associations by
– Making use of lexical relations
– Attending to word collocation (multi-word units)
• Teach word formation (e.g. affixation, blending,
clipping …)
• Use graphic organizers
• Create multiple exposure to words taught15/
learnt
Creating Associations
Two Strands
Topic Strand
(associative networks)
Collocation Strand
(associative networks)
focus on size
(breadth)
focus on word combinations
(depth)
paradigmatic
approach
syntagmatic
approach
help students expand
the size of the vocabulary bank
help students understand
the usage of the vocabulary
16
Paradigmatic approach
•
Develops associative networks
•
Associations are based on semantic categories
•
Deliberate organisation of words into
hierarchies
•
Associates with receptive vocabulary
17
Paradigmatic approach (cont.)
flat
bedroom
bathroom
kitchen
stove
sink
cupboard
tap
strainer
18
Syntagmatic approach
•
Develops associative networks
•
Associations are based on collocations (word
combinations)
•
Focuses on:
•
•
•
multi-word units (e.g. ‘See you later.’, ‘Have a good
trip!’, ‘keep abreast of’ …)
collocations (e.g. ‘go shopping’, ‘have a shower’, ‘play
football’ …)
Associates with productive vocabulary
19
Some examples and links of graphic
organisers for recording vocabulary
Vocabulary
Word Cluster
Word
Detective
Adjective
Organiser
Synonyms &
Antonyms
• http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/GO/vocab
_dev.htm
• http://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/VocabularyGrap
hicOrganizers.html
• http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/vocabulary20
organizer/
Can we re-plan the teaching
of food items?
Teach the food
items in discrete
items
Focus on meaning
/ pronunciation
Teach the food items
in a context (E.g. introduce
the target food items using a
restaurant review)
•Introduce synonyms,
antonyms, homonyms, word
formation, word
collocation …
•Introduce lexical relations
to help studetnts categorise
the words
•Design a purposeful and
meaningful task to allow
students to apply / use the
words learnt
21
Multiple exposures to new words
•
Teachers are always puzzled: Why do students fail to
recognise words that have already been ‘taught’?
•
Far more vocabulary is learned if the same text is read 6 to
20 times (Horst & Meara 1999)
•
REMEMBER: Provide sufficient encounters with the
target vocabulary
Create ways of
RECYCLING previously
taught vocabulary
22
Hands-on activities to
develop students’
vocabulary building
skills
23
Hands-on activities to develop
students’ vocabulary building
skills
Activity 1: Meeting friends for fun- Word pair race
Activity 2: A trip to nature – Compound Uno
Activity 3: A leaflet about Ocean Park
24
Situation for Activity 1
Four exchange students from the US have recently joined
an overseas exchange programme in your school. You and
your classmates are selected as the ‘Student Ambassador’
who are responsible for planning various fun activities for
them.
25
Activity 1: Meeting friends for
fun- Word pair race
• In three minutes, brainstorm different fun activities that you and
your classmates could do with them in the coming weekend based
on the following verbs and nouns/ noun phrases.
• Write down your answers in the table provided.
NOUNS
VERBS
do
have
play
go
make
lunch
a party
surfing
shopping
sightseeing
a drink
badminton
golf
tennis
the cooking
swimming
gymnastics
26
Activity 1: Meeting friends for funWord pair race
do
have
go
make
play
27
In what ways can Activity 1 help students to
develop vocabulary building skills?
The use of word collocation to help students retain the
target vocabulary
28
Situation for Activity 2
You have joined an ‘English Uno Competition’ organised
by English Club of your school and will compete with
other classmates. Listen carefully to the procedures on how
it will be conducted.
29
Procedures of conducting Activity 2
1.
2.
3.
4.
Form groups of four and each gets a deck of
word cards from the facilitator.
Each competitor takes four word cards after
shuffling. The remaining cards can be put on
the desk.
Take one card from the deck, turn it over and it
becomes the starting card.
Decide who is going to start first. The starter
should try to find if any of the word cards
matches the starting card. He/ she can put it
on the left/ right hand side of the starting card
to form a compound noun. The turn will then
go to the one on his/ her left who can continue
by hitting any card to start another matching.
30
Procedures of conducting Activity 2
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
However, if the starter does not have an
appropriate word card that matches, he/ she
has to take one word card from the deck.
If this happens, it is the next competitor’s turn
to match a word card with the previous card on
the desk.
As long as a competitor cannot match the word
card with another one, he/ she needs to take a
word card from the deck.
During the process of playing, all competitors
should agree with the matching of the cards.
Each competitor can only hit one card in each
round.
The first competitor who gets rid of all the word
cards is the winner of the competition.
31
In what ways can Activity 2 help students to
develop vocabulary building skills?
The use of word formation to help students’ form
compound nouns and guess meanings of unfamiliar words
32
Situation for Activity 3
You work as a summer intern in Hong Kong Tourism Board
and one of your duties is to improve a short description about
Ocean Park. Now, read the following draft.
33
Activity 3: A leaflet about
Ocean Park
Step 1: Underline the repeated ideas/vocabulary of the draft
below.
Let’s have fun in Ocean Park!
Ocean Park is a must-see for both people in Hong Kong and
tourists. Ocean Park is located in the southern part of Hong
Kong Island and easily accessible.
Ocean Park is an interesting place with lots of interesting
things to see and do. For example, there are lots of sea animals
such as dolphins, sea lions and seals. These sea animals can do
lots of interesting tricks. In addition, there are exciting rides
that will surely give you an exciting experience.
34
Activity 3: A leaflet about
Ocean Park
Repeated ideas/ vocabulary include:
• Subject (‘Ocean Park’)
• Adjectives describing Ocean Park (‘interesting’ & ‘exciting’)
• Quantifier (‘lots of ’)
• Noun (‘Sea animals’)
35
Activity 3: A leaflet about
Ocean Park
Step 2: lexical substitution
Let’s have fun in Ocean Park!
Ocean Park is a must-see for both people in Hong Kong and
tourists. Ocean Park is located in the southern part of Hong
Kong Island and easily accessible.
Ocean Park is an interesting place with lots of interesting
things to see and do. For example, there are lots of sea animals
such as dolphins, sea lions and seals. These sea animals can do
lots of interesting tricks. In addition, there are exciting rides
that will surely give you an exciting experience.
36
Activity 3: A leaflet about Ocean
Park
How to avoid repetition of vocabulary?
• Lexical substitution
e.g. Use of pronouns & synonyms
* Discuss, in groups, how the content of the draft could be
improved with the application of lexical substitution.
37
Activity 3: A leaflet about Ocean
Park
Step 3: lexical expansion
Let’s have fun in Ocean Park!
Ocean Park is a must-see for both people in Hong Kong and
tourists. It is located in the southern part of Hong Kong Island
and easily accessible.
The amusement park is an amazing place with lots of interesting
things to see and do. For example, there are various sea animals
such as dolphins, sea lions and seals. These marine animals can
do various funny tricks. In addition, there are exciting rides that
will surely give you a thrilling experience.
38
Activity 3: A leaflet about Ocean
Park
How to further enrich the draft?
• Lexical expansion
• Use of ‘ODSACROM’- the use of adjectives according to
the following categories before a noun :
Opinion, Dimension, Shape, Age, Colour, Religion, Origin,
Material (ODSACROM)
+
Noun
39
Activity 3: A leaflet about
Ocean Park
e.g. Application of ‘ODSACROM’ when describing a
church
1. Opinion- A graceful cathedral
2. Dimension (i.e. size, length, width)- a big
compound, a 45-metre tall tower, a thin layer
3. Shape- a cross-shaped church
4. Age- a modern/ classic building
5. Colour- a white house
6. Religion- a Catholic church
7. Origin- a Chinese temple
8. Material- wooden windows
40
In what ways can Activity 3 help students to
develop vocabulary building skills?
- The application of ‘lexical substitution’ and ‘lexical
expansion’ to enrich the content in writing
- The use of ‘ODSACROM’ to expand and enrich the
vocabulary when writing
41
Vocabulary learning and teaching summary
Step 1: Background of vocabulary learning and teaching
•Communicative purposes
•Teaching in context
•Inside classroom (daily lessons)
•Outside classroom (daily life exposure)
Step 2: Introducing various vocabulary teaching strategies &
vocabulary learning activities
•Instructional intervention
•Retaining of vocabulary
Step 3: Retrieval and application of new vocabulary learnt
by students in the future
•Teacher’s role- creating opportunities for retrieval of target vocabulary when
designing tasks/ conducting class activities
42
Wordlists for the
English Language
Curriculum
43
Wordlists for the English Language
curriculum
• A compilation of words with reference to the vocabulary
content of the English coursebooks on the CDC
Recommended Textbook List
• Provides teachers with a general indication as to what and
how many words students should learn
• Four stages: KS1, KS2, KS3, SS
• Two categories: alphabetical and thematic
• Teachers are encouraged to design meaningful tasks and
activities to help students to develop their vocabulary
knowledge and skills; Mechanical memorisation not
encouraged
44
Wordlists in alphabetical order
Select the
required
key stage
of words
and click
‘Show
Wordlist’.
45
Wordlists in alphabetical order
Click the letters
to select words.
Words with
different
meanings are
shown on the
right column.
46
Wordlists by category
Select the
required
category/
categories,
key stage(s)
and click
‘Show
wordlist’.
47
Wordlists by category
Words are
shown by
category.
48