Applied Linguistic in Teaching

Vocabulary

4.

GROUP 4
1.
NGUYEN XUAN AN
2.
NGUYEN HA TRUC ANH
3.
NGUYEN THI QUE CHI
NGUYEN HUYNH NHU HIEN

Outline
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

What vocab should be learned?

Introducing Lextutor.com
How vocab should be learned?
Strategy Development
Assessing vocab knowledge

1. What vocabulary should be learned?

Learners' needs
What vocabulary?
The usefulness
of the vocabulary
items

How to measure the usefulness of

items?
Frequency-based studies show:
- The very wide spread of frequencies.
- Some items: being small in number, occurring
many times. (high frequency items)
- Some items: being large in number, occurring
only once. (low frequency items)
Lists of words that will be useful in the early
stages of learning a language.

Kinds of vocabulary:

1. High-frequency words:
- A small group of words;
covering a very large proportion
of the tokens in spoken and
written text; occurring in all kinds
of uses of the language.
- The classic list of high-frequency
words is Michael West's (1953)
General Service List which
contains 2,000 words.
- Teaching & learning: the first
and main vocabulary goal of
learners.

2. Low-frequency words:
- A large group of words; covering a
very small proportion of the tokens
in any text; occurring in all kinds of
uses of the language.
- The American Heritage Word
Frequency Book (Carroll, Davies
and Richman, 1971): in printed
school English there are 88,533
distinct word families.
- Teaching & learning: not deserving
teaching time; training learners
strategies to deal with such
vocabulary.

What about learners' needs?

3. Academic words:
- For learners intending to do acedemic study in English.
- Academic word list (Coxhead, 2000): 570 word families which
account for 8.5-10% of the tokens in a wide range of academic
texts.
4. Technical words:
- A variety of types which range from words that do not usually occur
in other subject areas (cabotage, amortisation) to those that are
formally like high-frequency words but which have specialised
meanings (demand, supply, cost as used in economics).
- 20-30% of the running words of a text (Chung and Nation, 2003).

Specialized vocabulary should be treated like high-frequency

vocabulary (needs both deliberate attention and the
opportunity to learn it through use.

panding General and Academic vocabula

with Lextutor
Introduction

The Compleat Lexical Tutor is divided into

three sections: Learners, Researchers,
and Teachers.
This website contains a vast range of
resources for both teaching and learning
vocabulary and grammar.

Learners

List-learn
Look up new words

+ Learn the words in

context
+ Learn collocation

Tests

Frequency based tests: Recognition

DIAGNOSTIC: YES/NO TEST

equency based tests: Recognition

DIAGNOSTIC: PHRASE TEST

Group Lex

Learners can learn new vocabulary, example

sentences, word class, definitions.

Learners can add their

own vocabulary words,
example sentences,
word class, definitions.

Learners can select

these words to
create multiplechoice quizzes

Group Lexiconis a collaborative

vocabulary exercise builder.

RESEARCHE
RS

Frequency
analysis

This tool is excellent for getting an

overview of the frequency profile of a
text.

Familiarizer

This tool is useful for studying word

families.

VocabProfilers

Off-list words

Academic words

K2 words

K1 words

This tool helps techers and students know

how to deal with each kind of vocabulary.
+ Choosing material for class work.
+ choosing vocabulary to teach/study.

TEACHERS

th-Word and Rational Deletion clozes

This tool helps teachers design cloze

tests.

Conclusion

The Compleat Lexical Tutor is

recommended for those looking both for
practical, easily-developed activities as
well as a bit of inspiration.

3. How vocab should be learned?

3.1 Learning vocab from meaning-focused input
(Listening & Reading)
Three major conditions:
the unknown vocab should make up only a very
small proportion, preferably around 2 per cent
(1/50)
there needs to be a very large quantity of input,
preferably one million tokens or more per year
learning will be increased if there is more deliberate
attention to the unknown vocabulary

It also helps to make learners aware of new words by

glossing them (Watanabe, 1997), highlighting them in

the text and by using dictionaries.
In fact, most research shows the clear advantages of
integrating incidental and deliberate vocabulary
learning approaches (Schmitt, 2008).
It is also important to remember that incidental
learning is cumulative, and therefore vocabulary needs
to be met a number of times to allow the learning of
each word to become stronger and to enrich the
knowledge of each word.

The core of the meaning-focused input strand of a

course is a well-organized, well-monitored,

substantial extensive reading programme based
largely, but not exclusively, on graded readers (for
substantial reviews, see Day and Bamford, 1998;
Waring, 1997a).
Graded readers are particularly helpful for learners
in the beginning and intermediate stages, as they
best realize the three conditions for learning outlined
above

Second language learners need to be reading at least

one graded reader every two weeks in order for

noticeable learning to occur.
Learners find it impossible to respond authentically
to texts that overburden them with unknown
vocabulary. A list of very good graded readers can be
found on the website of the Extensive Reading
Foundation.

Quantity of input, which directly affects repetition,

can be partly achieved through repeated listening,

where learners listen to the same story several times
over several days.
Deliberate attention to vocabulary can be
encouraged by the teacher quickly defining unknown
items (Elley, 1989), noting them on the board, or
allowing learners the opportunity to negotiate their
meaning by asking for clarification

3.2 Learning Vocabulary from Meaning-focused Output (Speaking

and Writing)
Learning from meaning-focused output, that is, learning through

speaking and writing, is necessary to move receptive knowledge

into productive knowledge.
Can be enhanced through several ways:
Activities can be designed, such as those involving the use of
annotated pictures or definitions, which encourage the use of
new vocabulary.
Speaking activities involving group work can provide
opportunities for learners to negotiate the meanings of unknown
words with each other. Such negotiation is often successful and
positive
Because the learning of a particular word is a cumulative
process, using a partly known word in speaking or writing can
help strengthen and enrich knowledge of the word

Guidelines for designing speaking activities include:

predicting what parts of the written input are most

likely to be used in the task, using retelling, role play
or problem-solving discussion which draws heavily
on the written input, and encouraging creative use of
the vocabulary through having to reshape the written
input to a particular purpose.
Written input to a writing task can play a role similar
to that which it can play in speaking tasks.

4. Strategy development

There are 4 major strategies that help with finding the

meaning of unknown words and making the words stay in

memory:
Guessing from context
Learning from Words Cards
Using Word Parts
Dictionary use

Guessing from context

It is the most useful of all the strategies
Learners need to have plenty of comprehensible supporting context
Most context provide information that can take knowledge of the

word forward
For L2 learners, learning from guessing is part of meaning-focused
input strand and an opportunity to use the higher frequency words
in meaning- focused output.
Training guessing skill should focus on linguistic clues including
wider context, common sense and background knowledge.
Successful guessing from context depends on good listening and
reading skill.

Learning from Words Cards

and Using Word Parts
The key word technique is used to help link the form of a
word to its meaning
Ex: a Thai learner learn the word fun(the key word)
Think of L1 that sounds like the word fun ( in Thai,
fun = teeth)
The meaning of the key word is combined in an image
with the meaning of L2 word( a big smile showing teeth

Using word parts to help remember the meaning of a word

Analysis of the words into parts is like the first step of the
key word technique
The second step is to relate the meaning of the parts to the
meaning of the whole word
To make use of word parts, learners need to know the

most useful word parts of English( prefixes and suffixes)

and need to be able to relate the meanings of the parts to
the meaning of definition

Dictionary use
Dictionaries

may

be

monolingual,

bilingual,

or

bilingualized
Dictionaries can be used receptively to support reading
and listening or productively to support writing and
speaking.
Studies indicate that many learners do not use
dictionaries effectively as they could, so training in
dictionary use has benefits.
Dictionaries may also use as learning tools
Both teachers and learners should have attention to all the
above strategies

5. ASSESSING VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE

Vocabulary test can have a range of purposes:

- To measure vocabulary size
- To measure what has just been learned
- To measure what has been learned in a course
- To diagnose areas of strength and weakness

TEST SAMPLES:

1- Vocabulary Level
Tests:
- Using the matching format
- Including the blanks where
learners can write their
answers on.
2- Productive levels tests:
- Using the sentence cue to
recall the form of the words
- Providing the first few
letters of tested words.

- Help the teacher decide what

vocabulary level learners
should be working on.
- Help the teacher decide what
vocabulary work they should
be doing with learners of
groups of learners.
- Help to show whether
learners knowledge of a
word has begun to move
towards productive
mastery.

3- X- Lex and Y- Lex

tests:
- Using Yes/ No format
- Asking learners to decide
whether they know the
word or not on the
screen.

- Help to estimate
overall vocabulary size
and a profile of
vocabulary known at
each 1000 frequency
band.

4. Vocabulary Dictation
tests:
- Consisting of 5 paragraphs
with each successive
paragraph containing lessfrequent vocabulary

- Help to determine
the extent of
learners listening
vocabulary quickly.

5. Vocabulary Size
Test:
- Being designed as a
proficiency test to
measure total
vocabulary sizes.

- Being able to be used with

learners with a very wide range
of proficiency levels.
- Measuring what is supposed to
measure and not other things.
- Distinguishing learners
different proficiency levels and
vocabulary knowledge.
- Comparing learners of various
proficiency levels.
- Being easy to score and
interpret the scores.
- Having clear and unambiguous
test items.
- Being able to be administer in
efficient ways.