Scott Thornbury how to teach vocabularyPearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Escex M20 JE England and Associated Companies throughour the workt, ween [Link] © Pearson Education Limited 2002 All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by aay means, electronic, mechanical, phomcopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written pecimission of the Publisher The Publisher grants permissisn for the photocopying of those pages marked ‘pharocopiable’ accarding to the following condiiions. Individual purchasers may make copies for their own use or for use by classes they teach, School purchasers may make copies for use by their staFand students, bur this permission does not cxtead to additional schools or branches. Under ne circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale. “The right of Seote Thornbury to be identified as the aurhor of this Work has heen asserted by hier in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Ace 1988, Printed in Malaysia, PP Fiith impression 2007 Produced for the publishers by Bluestone Press, Chaslhury, Oxfordshire, UK. Text design by Keith Rigley. Copy-edited by Sue Harmes, Illustrations on pages 90 und 159 by Margaret Jones, ISBN 978-0-582-12966-6 Acknowledgements We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Cambridge University Press for extracts fiom the Cevalen Word Selector aud English Vecabulary in Ure (Elementary) by McCarthy and O'Dell ansl The New Combridgs English Cource 2 by Swan and Waker; Carcarnet Press Limited and the family of Allea Curnow for Bis pocm "Wild Tron’ published ia Collected Poems, Cummington Press for the poem “Silence! by William Carlos Wiliams published in Tbe Wedge, EM] Music Publishing for the lyrics from Winnabe recorded by The Spice Gids; the poet, Ruth Fainlight, for her poem ‘Handbag’ published in Seliied Pooms by Random House Group Limited: Oxford University Press for an extract ftom New Headway Intermediate by Soars and Soars; ant Pearson Education Limited for an extract fom Longman Lenquage Activator © Longman Group Limited 1993. We are grateful to the following for permission ta reproduce illustrative material: Corbis Stock Marke: for page 166; Language Teaching Publications for page 118; Net Languages for page 43; Oniord University Press for page 97 We regret that we have been unable 10 «race the copyright holder of che following and would welcome aay information enabling us to de se: pages 95. 150 and 165Contents Introduction 1 What's in a word? Introduction Identifying words Word classes, Word families Worl formation Muli-word units Collveations Homonyms Polyscmes Synonyms and antonyms Hyponyms Lexical fields Sole and conneration How words are learned How important is vocal ‘What does it mean 10 ‘know a word’? Eiow is our word knowledge organised? How is vocabulary learned’? How many words docs a leamer need ¢0 kaaw? How are words remembered? Why do we forget words? What makes a word difficult? Whar kind of mistakes do tearners make? ‘What are the implications for texching? any? Classroom sources of words Lists Coursebyoks Vocabulary books The teacher Other students Texts, dictionaries and corpara Short texts Books and readers Dictionaries: Corpus deta Page vi 13 32 535 How to present vocabulary + Presenting vocabulary + Using uanslation + How to illustrate meaning + How to exphin meaning + How co highlight the form + How w involve the learners 6 How to put words to work + Integrating new knowledge into old + Decision-making tasks + Production tasks, + Gans 7 Teaching word parts and word chunks * Teaching word formation and word combination +A lesical approach + Teaching lexical chunks + Tecching word grammar + Teaching phrasal verbs + Teaching idioms 8B How to test vocabulary + Why test vocabulary? + Whar to test + Tepes of test + Measuring word knowledge + Assessing vocabulary size + Doing action research 9 How te train good vocabulary learners + Learner uraining + Using mnemonics + Word cards + Guessing from context + Coping strategies tor production, + Using dictionaries + Spelling rules + Keeping records + Motivation Task File Task Fite Key Further reading Index 15 3 106 129 faa 162 V7B 183 184Acknowledgements Thanks, Jeremy, David and Hester once again. What a team! Thanks are also due to Guy Cok, for his very useful feedback and saggestions. 1d also like to thank the authors and publishers of the books listed in the ther Reading list, without which chis present book could not have been written. (I should add, of course, that no blame must he attached ta those books for any flaws in this one.) And thanks, P. Ir takes two to tandem, sorry, tangi er tang ...Who is this book for? What is this book about? Introduction Hore to Teach Youabutary hes been written for all weachers of Enghsh who wish to improve their knowledge and to develop cheir classioom skills in thes important area. There has deen a revival of interest in vocabulary teaching in recent years. This is partly due to the recent availability of compurerised darabaces of words (ur corpora), and partly due to the development of new approaches to language teaching which are much more ‘word-centred’, such as the ‘texical approach’. This interest is reflected in the many recent titles you will fing in the Further Reading list on puge 183. However, these developments have been slow to reach teachers in a form that is casily transferable to the classroom. This hook aiats t0 bridge that gap: to skerch in the theoretical background while at che sane time suggesting ways in which the teaching of vocabubiry can be integrated inte lessons Given the challenge involved in processing, storing and producing words in a second language. the book attempts to answer the question: what can. teachers de to help? Before locking at specific procedures and techniques, we will need fixse co define what a word is, and how words celate to one another (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 looks at the way this knowledge is acquired, organised, stored and setrieved, and includes a brief discussion of the nature and role of memory. Crucial ta che success of teaching sequence - whether a lesson or 2 whole course — is the selection of items te focus on. There are a number of sources from which to select words, und Chapters 3 and 4 survey these sources ~ including coursebooks, dictionaries, corpora and liverature. ‘Classroom techniques for presenting vocabulary items, ancl for practising chem (or putting them to work) are dealt with in Chapters § and 6 respectively. In Chapter 7, the concept of the word is expanded to inelude both the way individual wosds are Formed from smaller components, and the way words themselves combine to form larger chunks, often with idicmatic meaning. In Chapter 8 the testing of vocabulary is dealt with, white Chapter 9 looks at ways of helping learners to take responsibilicy for their own learning, including wave of coping sith gaps in their vocabulary knowledge cs Practical classroom applications are signalled throughout by this icon © Finally, the Task File consists of photocopiable task sheets, relevant to each chapter. They can be used for individual study and reflection, or for discussion and review in a training context. An answer key is provided:Introduction What's in a word? Intraduction Identifying words Word dasses Word fami 8 Word formation Multl-word units Coflocations Homonyms Folysemes Synonyms and antonyms Hyponyms Lexical fields Style and connotation ‘A word is a microcosm of human consciousness.” (¥ygotsky) All tanguages have words, Language emerges first as words, both historically, and in terms of the way each of us learned our first and any subsequent langaages. The coining of new words never stops. Nor does the acquisition of words. Even in our first language we are contiaually learning new words, and learning new meanings for old words. Take, for exeraple, this description of a wine, where familiar words are being used and adapted to express very spectalised meanings: A deep rich red in colour, Lush and soft aroma with phims and blackberries, the oak is plentiful and adds vanilla to the mix, anractive black pepper undercuerents, The mouthfec! is plush and comfortable like an old pair of slippers, bovsenberry and spicy plum fruit Alavours with liquorice and well seasonad oak, The geaerous finish ends with fine grained tannins and a grippy earchy aftertaste (om web page at [Link] au) If you are not familiar with wine-rasting terminology, you aay have four! this text heavy geing, die to buth he densicy and specialised nature of its vocabulary. For example, you may be famniliar with fusi and plush bat uncertain as to what they mean, or how they differ in meaning, in this context Same words may be entirely new to you - such as gripgy and 1How tp Teach vocabulary Identifying words mouthfeel, Learners of a second language experience a similar bewilderment ever. with much simpler texts. They may be confronted by words that are torally unfamiliar, or are being used in ways thar for them are novel and possibly obscure. They may even be meeting concepts that are simply not represented by words in their first language Their problems are compounded when they need co produce language. Finding the right word to fit che intended meaning is frustrating when your store of words is limited. And when words get confused with each other, ever within this Bmited store, the results can be disastrous, as in this example from a studeat’s composition: Zam uring te compan you about an unnecessary operaton that 1 had ot St Charks Hoptal, last May 24. Te months age, I went to vat Pector Sdrchen, wid qotks at this Respital, because I had adenods that prevented me to breathe. He persuaded me to have a nase cpration te get aut the adenods. 1 was worried wth this dea, burt Finally 1 accepted ins deesion. Tue axcks later I had been operated. Fhe prcblem was windn He temeved The bandages oF my ro:se. L gave 6 SeauTl! My morse had been changed by a smal noise smilar tc toe pa's renses To sum up, learning the vocabulary of a second language presents the learner with the following challenges: + making the correct connections, when understanding the second lenguage, berween the form und the meaning of words (e.g. mouthfeel, grippy), including discsiminating the meanings of closely related words (cap. Lah and plusb) + when producing language, using the correct form of a word for the meaning intended (i.e. nose not site) To meet these challenges the learner needs to: + acquire a critical mass of words for use in both understanding and producing language + remember words aver time, and be able to recall them readily + develop strategies for coping with gaps in word knowledge, including coping with anknown words, of unfamiliar uses of known words In order to address the ahove issues, it may pay to start at the beginning, and to attempt to define what exactly a word is, Here is a seatence that, at first glance, consists of twenty of chem like looking tor bits and pieces like old second-hand record players and doing them up to look like new. Of course, there ure not twency diffévene words in chat sentence. Ar least two of those twenty words are repeated: and is repeated once, fike three times: f Tike looking for bits and pieces like ... look like new. On the other hand, the first fide isa verb, and the other two are prepositions ~ so is this really a case of the same word being repeated? And then there's looking and foot: ave theseWord classes 1+ What's in a word? vo different words? Or ewo different forms of the same word? Then there's secerid-batid: ro words joined to make one? Probably — the hyphen suggests we treat second-bend differently from, soy, fe got a second band. But what about revord player?’ Two words but one concept, surely? Ie gets worse. What about bit: und piece? Isn't this a self-contained unit? After all, we don't say pieces and bits. Or shings and pieces. A case, pethaps, of three words forming one. (Like bits and bobs) And fecking for: wy dictionary has aa cary for /zek, another for foot jor, and yet another for took after. Three differeat meanings — three different words? And, finally, doing them ups although doing and np are separated by another word, they seem (0 be sa closely Linked a¢ to form a word-like unit (do up) with 3 single meaning: renonute. One word or nwo? The decision as to what counts asa word might scem rather academic. bur there are important implications in terms of teaching. Is it enough, for cxaraple, to teach ¢9 fook and assume that learning fo ok for ant to lock after will follow auromatically? Do vou teach /rok, Jaods, fooking together? Should you teach nvvord and playerau separate items before intcoducing record player? ‘And how do you go about teaching to de-sometbing up when not only is the meaning of the whole more than the sum of its parts, bur the parts themselves are moveable? You can doa flat up or do up a fiat. Finally, bow do {you assess how many words a learner knows? If they know diss and they isnow pieces, can we assume they know bi?s and piece? Docs the learner whe knows bits and picess knew ‘more’ than the learacr who knows only éi¢s and ces? Piers take a closer look a thee diferent aspects of whit constirutes 2 word. Jn so doing, we will attempt to cover the main ways in which words are described and categorised. Knowing hew words are described and categorised can help us understand the decisions that syllabus planners, materials writers and teachers make when it comes to the teaching of vocabulary, We can see from our example sentence that words play different roles in s text. They fall into one of eight different word classes: nouns bits, pieces, cecord, player pronouns, them verbs Hike, looking, doing, to look adjectives old, second-hand, new adverb up. prepositions for, ike conjunction and determiner - Like, like many words in English, can belong to two or more word classes The unrepresented class are the determiners ~ words like a, the, some, tis, hast. In terms of the meanings associated with these word classes, we can snake a cnide division ino owe groups, On the one hand, there are words Tike for, and, them, ¢o that mainly contribute to the grammatical structure of the 3How fo Teach Votabulary Word families sentence. These are called grammatical words (or function words) and arc generally prepositions, conjunctions, determiners and pronouns. On the other hand, there are the content words, thove that carry a high information load. Content words sre usually nouns, verbs, adjectives and alverbs. The sense of a text is more or less recoverable using these words alone: like looking bits pleces old second-hand record players doing up look new Compare this with: | for and like and them to like Typically, where space is at a premium, such as in text messages, newspaper headlines, and road signs, it is che content words alone that do the job: RAIL STRIKE TALKS END. Content words are an open set: chat is, there is no limiz co the sumber of content words that can be added to the language. Here are a few that heve been added recently ~ airbag. emoticon, carjacking, cybersex, quark, Granmatical words, on the other hind, ace & closed set. The Jast time a pronoun was added to the language was in the early sixteenth century. (It was #4em.) ‘Traditionally, grammatical words belonged to the domain of grammar teaching, while the teaching of vocabulary wes moze concerned with content words, Hewever, the rigid division beoveen grammar and vocabulary has become blurred zeceatly. The interdependence of these two systems is a key tenet of what has been called the lexical approach (sce pege 112). We've seen how words may share the seme base or root (e.g. faok) but take different endings: /rots, docking, looted. This is a feature of the grammar of most languages: the use of add-ons (called affixes) to make a verb past Uooked), for example, or a noun plural (4is). These different grammatical forms of a word are called inflexions. Adding affixes serves a grammatical purpose. Ic is also a fundamental principle of word formation generally ~ the adding of affixes to the roots of words (c.g. Alay) to fashion new words. A. word that results from the addition of an affix to 3 roct, and which has « different meaning from the root, is called a derivative: play play + er re + play play + ful So, while, pla, played and pleing are inflesions of play, the words playen replay and playful ace exch derivatives of play. [nflexions and derivatives ace both formed by the process of affixation. Note that -er and -fir are end- of-word affixes, or suffixes, while beginning-of-word affixes, like re-, 1-, pres, de-,etc. ave called prefixes We can now talk about words as belonging to families. A word family comprises che base word plus its iaexions and ‘ts most common derivatives. To take another example, the base form «ndersfand includes the following members in its family:Word formation 1 © whats in a word? understands understanding understeod understandable misunderstand misunderstood. Recearch suggests that the mind groups these different formas of the same word together. Therefore, rather than talk about the number of individual words a person knows, it avakes more sense to talk ahour the number of word families Affixation is one of the wars new words art formed from old. Another one is compounding ~ that is, the combining of rwo or more independent ‘words, 2s im the case of second-band, word processor, paperback, and so on. The fact that many compounds started life as two separate words is evident from their variant epellings. Thus: dish werber, dish-woasher, dishwasher and etl flower, soit -flower, wildflower. This ix one reason why it is tempting to consider seard piayer as one compounded word rather than two single words, ‘Another reason to consider record player single word is that this kind of compound pattern ~ noun + verb + -er~ is a very common, and highly productive, one in English: a reioul player is a raachine that plays records. Likewise dishwasher, hairdryer, bus driver, goulkceper, typewriter; they ate all formed according to the same principle. New words that fallow chis patcern are constantly joining the language: sirensaver, trainspotter, particle accelerator, mail server. Another common pattern is the noun + noun pattern, as in matchbox, clavoraam, feapot, mousemal, etc. OF course, the nwa patterns - noun + noun and noun + verb + -er = can re-combine to form even more complex compounds: dumperuck-driver, candlessick-maker, windscreen wiper, and so on. Two words can be blended to form one new one (called @ blend): Arcata « ach = branch infomation + entertinmient «infotainment, Ot & word can be co-opted from one part of speech aad used as another, a process called conversion. Typically nouns are converted into verbs (or ‘verlved’) as in The shel! impacted against a brick wall. Let branch tomorrow. But other parts of speech can be converted as well: she upped and eft (preposition werb) a balloon flighe i an absolute must (verb ~* coun). Finally, new words can be coined by shortening or elipping longer words: flu (from influenza), email (feom electronic mail) and darn (from dormitory), in the following text, indicates words fermed by affeation, 2 compounds, } convexsion and 4 clipping: Weighed down by details? The 4UMB Clk! PC Card Drive from Jomega, a lightweight’, removeable! storage! drive for PC users, will soon sort chat out, Designed with peopie on the go" in esind, the Clik! PC Card Drive removes the need for additional cables and cumbersome! storage back-up”. Each Clik! disc has the capacity to store 40 megas* of information quickly and conveniently. With packaging! akin to yourHow to Teach Vocabulary Multi-word units favourite pair of Cutler and Gross spees', this stream-Lined? system is an essential lubricant! to life in the fast lane. feo Wallpaper magazine, Time Life) Even when words are not joined co form compounds, we have seen that groups of more than one word, such as dirs and pieces, do up, Zook for, can function as a meaningful unit with a fixed or scmi-fixed form. Technically these are known as multi-word units, but they are often called simply lexical chunks. For example, in the following extract (in which two weekers are discussing the Australian car industry ~a Holden is an Australian car) the lexieal chunks are in italics: KEITH: Its amazing bow the bleeding car industry's swung rowed. Its Holdens for year: and now Fords have got it. Heli and orudy. (...] Yer after yeae they're laying arace off towards the end of the year 30 they knew this vas coming ~ it wasn't ou af the ble, jo: 1 think thar they shipped @ foe of the accessory overseas too. Befoce they did a lot of ve bits and pisces themselves (fram Slade D, The Texture of Carat Comversation) ‘The chunks vary in terms of how fixed, and how idiomatic, they are. For example, ove of the due is bach idiomatic (that 's to say, its meaning §s not easily recoverable from its individual compenen:s) and fixed ~ you can't say _from the blue or out of the green, for example, Wel! and traly and bits end pieces {as we have seen) are also fixed, but less idiomatic, Year affer year, on the other hand, is only semi-tived. It allows a lirnited amount of manipulation: we can say month after month and day after day. Note that bath a lof of and (for years axe typical of the enarmous number of chunks that are used to express vague quantities and qualities: loads of, that sort of thing, more or lest, now and again. Tis amazing hove ... belongs to a sct of semi-fixed multi-word units chat function 29 sentence frames: they provide a stractuze on which to *hang’ a sentence, and are especially useful in reducing planning time in capid speech, Especially common in informal language are compounds af verb + adverts (like swung round), or vert + preposition (fest after). These are known as either phrasal verbs or multi-part verbs. Because they are often idiomatic (like day off) and can sometimes be separated (laying more workers off and aying off more workers, they prescnt a formidable challenge 10 learners. (la Chapter 7 you will find mare on chunks and phrasal verbs.) ‘To handle the fucc that chore are multi-word items that behave like single words, the term lexeme was coined. A lexeme is 2 word or group of words that fonction as a single meaning unit. So, to return to the sentence that started this chapter: } like looking for bits and pieces like old second-hand record players and Going them up te took like new. we could count deoking for, bite and pieces, record players, doing ... up and ta Fook as single lexernes, along with J, like, old, them, eteCollocations 1 © Whats in a word? en how words couple up! to form compounds, and how they ‘hunt in packs in the shape of multi-word vnizs, There is a looser kind of associ- ation called collocation. ‘Two words are collocates if they occur together with more than chance frequency, such that, when we see one, we can make a facrly safe bet that che other is in the neighbourhood. The availability of corpus data (i.e. databases of text ~ see page 68) now allows us t9 check the statistical probability of rwo words co-occurring, The most frequent collocite of record, for example, is world. Another is set, So we have no trouble filling in the blank when we hear someone say She set ¢ new tworld Collocation ig not as frozen a relationship as that of compounds or mult word units, and two collecates may not even occur ext to each other ~ they may be separated by‘ one or more other words. Sef, for example is the second most frequent collocate of record but it seldom occurs right next to it: He see the junior record fre 1990, Notice that set and record can also collocate in quite a different sense: Just co set the record straight ... \n face ser the record straight is such a strong collocation thet it almost has the status of a chunk, and indeed it gets a separate entry (under record) in dictionaries, as do some other strong collocates with recerd, such as for the record, off the record and on record. Collocation, then, is best scen as part of a contimuam of strength of association: 3 continuum thar moves from compound words (second-hand, record player), through multi-word units ~ of lexical chunks ~ (éits and pieces), including idioms (out of the blue) and phrasal verbs (da np), to collocations of more or less fixedness (set the record straight, et a new world record). Here is a text with some of its more frequent collocations underlined, while che more fixed mulsi-word units are in italics: A record umber of 54 seams will be competing in three sections as the Bryants Carpets Intermediate Snooker League gets underuay this week. Once again all three sections ert fiksly to be very closely contested. In Section A, defending champions Mariner Automatics, captained once again by the most successful skipper in the league, Joh Stevens, will he the team t Beat. ‘The biggest threat is ety te come from Grimsby Snooker Club A, and P and J Builders who will have Steve Singleton ae che Aelme for the Gust time. (from the Grimsby Evening Telegraps) it should be clear from this passage the extent to which word choice is heavily constrained by what comes before and after. This is pechaps the single most elusive aspece of the lexical system and the hardest, therefore, for learners to acquire. Even the slightest adjustments to the collocatians - by substituting one of its components for a ear synonym (underlined) — urns the text inte non-standard English: A record Jot of 54 teams will be competing in chrce sections as the Bryantc Carpets Intermediate Snooker League reaches underway shat week. One time again all three sections are possibly to be very nearly contested,How 19 Teacn vocabulary Homonyms Polysames By way of an example, in the leamner's text in the Introduction to this chapter (page 2) there ace a number of collocations that are non-standard: to get out the adenoids (for #0 remove ... } Iwas worried with this idea (for The idea worried me) I gave a shout {for [ shouted) Taken individually, cach of these 'mis-collocations! and nowhere near az serious as the nose—netse confusi they may bave a negative effect on some readers. perfectly inielligible . but in combination We have seen how dhe and lite can be two quite different words: J Hike booking ... look fike ret. Words that share the same form but have unrelated meanings are called homonyms. For historical reasons, English is rich in homonyms: avell, bat, shed, deft. fair, ete. Thus, while fair in the sense of beautifat or pleasing comes fiom an Old English word (/ager), its homoaym (fair, as in Skipton Fair, comes from Latin feria by way of French faire, While homonyms provide a headache for the learner, their ambiguity is a rich source of humour. Like the joke about the duck who went toa chemist’: to buy lip-salve, ‘Will you be paying by cash or credit care?” asked the pharmacist. Just put it on my bili,” replied the duck. Another potential source of confusion are the many words in English that sound the same but are spelt differently: barse and hoarse, nicer and need, tail and tate, discrete and discreet, afoud aud cllzwed, These are called homophones (licrally ‘same sound’). There are also words thae are pronounced differently but spelt the same: @ windy day, but @ long and windy road; 2 live concert, but where de yon live?, a lead pips, but lead singer. ‘These are called homographs (Literally ‘same writing’) ‘As if homonyms, homophones and homographs weren't enough, another potential source of confusion for tearners ~ and a challenge for teachers ~ is the fact that very many words in English have different but overlapping meanings, Take fair, for example. Clearly these (wo senses of fair are homonyms: She had long fair hair. My pig won first prize at Skipton Fair. But what about these? ‘This isn't fair on anyone, but it does happen. We have a fair size garden and we may as well make use of it, She was only a fair cook. The sun's rays can be very harmful, beating on unprotected fair skin This fair city of ours ... fh will be fair and warm. Although there appear to be six different senses of fiir cepresemed here, ranging from reasonable through gute large, average, pols, beautifil to dey and pleasant, there is an underlying sense that at least some if not all of theseSynonyms and antonyms Hyponyms 1 © What's in a word? meanings are related. Try substituting pleusing, for example, and you'l find that i more or less fite most of these ‘context. Dictionary rites Uexicographers) classify words like fair az being polysemous — that is, of having mulnple but related meanings, each of which 1s called a polyseme. Hold is another good example of a polysemous word: (held the picture up te the light. {was heid overnight in a cell, You nead to hold a work permit (Mis Smith is holding a party next week. Marxists hoid that people are all naturally creative. He was finding it a strain to Nott his students’ attention ‘They'll probably hold the Londen train if we're late in The theatre itself can hold only a Himited number of people, Will you tell her the offer still haicls ‘Thase books hold the bed up. {All examples of fai and bold are from the Collins CORUILD English Dictionary) If the polysemous nature of English vocabulary provides a challenge to dictionary compilers, it is 2 corupieic headache for learners. At what point can you be said co know a word such as fair or Aold— when you know iss most basic meaning, or when you know the different shades of meaning represented by all its polysemes? This is an issuc we will retura to when we Took at the teaching of word meaning Synonyms ase words that share a similar meaning. Thus: 9d, ancient, antique, aged, elderly age 2) synonyms in that they share the common meaning of wo? young/new. However, there the similarity ends. We are more Likely to talk about an eld record player and even ar ancigue onc than an elderly rar plaer or an aged em, Syronyme are simi but eldom the sams Even between words that seem interchangeuble, such as taxi and ab, of aubergine and egg-piant, one will be preferred over the other in certain contexts and by farticular speakers. Notice we were forced to define off in terms of whut it is not! not youg/new. Words with opposite meaings ~ like old and sew ~ ate called antonyms. Agaia, like synonyms, the rclation between such opposites is not always black and white (to use two antonyms) and the very nation of ‘oppositeness’ is croublesome. The opposite of an old woman is a young svomau, but the opposite of an old recard Player is a mew one, aot a young art. Your old boyfriend, however, could be either rhe boyfriend who is not your ‘young boyftiend or th: one who is not your mew boyfriend. Nevertheless, like synonyms, antonyms have a useful defining function and are chesefore a convenient teaching resource. Hyponym ix another -nym word that is uselul when talking about che way word meanings are related, A Ayponymous relationship 1s a Aind of relationship, as in A hammer is x ined of tooi or A kitai is a kind of bird (anda 9Hew to Teech Vocabulary Lexical fields 10 Aind of frxit). Thus, Bammer is a hyponymn of teat; Aire a hyponym of bind (and fiuid). Co-hyponyms share the sare ranking in a hierarchy: banner, saw, sorewodriner are ul) co-hyponyms, foo! is the superordinate term. But savy also has 4 superordinate relation to different kinds of saw: fressave, chainsaw, jigsaw, exc. We can illustrate these relations like this: tool hammer strewariver saw fretsaw chainsaw jigsaw A similar kind of relationship ie a purt oft a8 in a keyboard ts part of a computer Notice that this is quite different from saying a deyhoard is v kind of computer. In this poem by William Carlos Williams, the words that have this kind of relationship (called meronymy) are underlined, while co-hyponyms ate ist ieali Under a low sky this quiet morning of red and yellows leaves ~ A bird disturbs no more than one twig of the green leaved peach tree Thas, feavesand wigs are parts of trees, while red, ye/ow and green are kinds of colours. In the following passage (fom a short story by David Gucerson) there are a number of words that arc connected to the idea of Christmas (Christmas Eve, the [Christmas] tree, lights and carol) We were at my sister's house for Christmas Eve, fire in the fireplace, lights on the tree, Christmas carols playing on the stereo. Outside the window a light snow blew down. Icicles ing from the gutters and in the yard the grass looked sprinkled with powder. By morning everything would be white. As Christmas-themed words, saat, icieler and fireplace could also be included, since they all belong to. mental scenario associated with northern hemisphere Christmas celebrations. Words chat have this kind of thematic relationship ace said 0 belong to the same lexical field, Tree, carcds, fireptace and fights all belong to the lexical fietd of ‘Christmas’ -aithough all of them. with the possible exception of care/s ~ belong to other lexical fields as well Notice char the ext also contains 4 lexical field of weather-related words1 # What's in a word? that partly overlaps with the Christmas words (sow, élew, iriles, powder, white), as well as words connected with the Aause theme (fireplace, sterco, winder, gutters, yard, yrass). Here's an extract quoted earlier in this chapter: KEITH, Ics amazing how de bleeding car indusiry’s swung round. Ir’s Holdens for ycars and now Fords have got it. Well and truly. [.... | Your uftec year they're laying more off towards the end of the year so they knew this wes coming — it wasnt out of the blue. yO: L think that they shipped a lor of dhe accessory overseas 100, Before they did a lot of the bits and picces themselves. Expressions like she dleding car indusiry, out of the bhue and bits aud pieces, suggest a style of language that is closer to spoken, informal Englich than to a’ formal written style. Moreover, the use of Afceding suggests British or Australian English rather than North American English. British, Austratian aid Nordh American ace different varieties of English. More than anything, choice of words is an indicator of scyle and place of origin Dictionaries typically indicate the style and variety of a word by conventions such as che following: Am North American English Aus Australian English Br British English fmi formal infml informal literary poetic slang taboo (from The Cambridge Iniernational Dictionary of Englisd, CUP) A distinction is often made between style and register. A register of English ina variety of the language as used in specific contexts, such as legal English, academic English, or technical English. Discrepancies in style and register ae uf disconcerting as unusual collocations. Take, for example, this email received (fram somebody | had never met): Dear Scott, T have booked Diana to arrive in Barcelona at 22.25 (10.25pm) on Saturday 19th August. T hope the fateness of the hour doesn’t discommode you roo mach, Di will be flying out of Barcelona on Friday 25th August at 1.25pm. Are you cool with these arrangements? If not, can change them na probs. Also, I'ny still trying to track down the article you want. Regards, [1 4How to Teocl Vocabulary Conclusions Looking ahead 2 Note the diferencs in spe between words and expressions lke farms of the hour and discommode (formal, and somewhat archaic, on the one hand) and are you vol, no probs, track down (colloquial and spoken, on the other). Linked to style is the issue of connotation, Two words may be syaanyms, but each may evoke quite different associations. Famous and nocorious both have an underlying meaning of well-Rnown, but oaly the latter has negative connotations. In this bok, you will find the term learners used in preference to sindents or pupils, which have somewhat passive connotations. In the following newspaper text, the emotive connotations of the underlined words emphasise the writer's disapproval of an event that itself was triggered by politician’s use of the negative (or pejorative} term ‘mongrel’ EX-PRIME Minister Ted Heath last night torpedoed William Hague’s desperace bid to shut gown the Tory race sow. Te compared maverick MP John Townend — who described the British as @ ‘mongrel race’ - to Enoch Powell and said he should be kicked out of che party: Sir Ted, who booted Powell out in 1968, warned ‘many other’ right-wing MPs shared Townendi’s extreme views. (from The Set newspaper) {n this chapter the aim has been to show that a word is a more complex phenomenon than at first it might appear. For example: + words have different functions, some carrying mainly grammatical meaning, while others bear a greater informational load + the seme word can have a variety of forms + words can be added to, or combined, to form new words » words can group together to form units that behave as if they were single words * many words commeniy co-oceur with ather words + words may look and/or saund the same but have quite different meanings + one word may have a variety of overlapping meanings + different words may share similar meanings, or may have opposite meanings * some words can be defined in terms of their relationship with other words - whether, for example, they belong to the same set, or co-pteur in similar texts + words can have the same or similar meanings but be used in different situations or for different effects Now that we have looked at some of the complexities of vocabulary, the next chapter will examine how words are learned, both in the first language and in a second language. We will also expiore how theories of learning might impact on the teaching of vocabulary — a theme that will be developed in subsequent chapters‘How important is vocabulary? w words are rned important is vacabutary? fhat does it mean to ‘know @ word’? How is our word knowledge organised? Hows is vocabulary learned? How many words dees a learner need to know? How are words remembered? Why do we forget words? What makes a word difficult? What kind of mistakes do learners maka? eevee evoe What are the implications for teaching? “Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed." This is how che linguist David Wilkins summed up the importance of vocabulary learning. His view is echoed in this advice to students from a eecent coursebook (Dellar H and Hocking D, innovations, LTP):'IF you spend most of your time studying grammar, your English will not improve very much. You will soe most iniprovement if you leara more words and expressions. You can say very little with grammar, but you can say almost anything with words! Most learners, too, acknowledge the importance of vocabulary acqui- sition, Here are some scatements made by learners, in answer to the question How would you like to improve your English? + Oral is my wcaiiness and 1 can't speach a Fluent sentence in Engiah, Sometimes, I am lack of usdFul vocabularies 40 express my cpnens. My protlem is teat I Forget tie uxrds soon after T nave locked in the dictionary. For example whon I read & Enghsr book. + ‘Luguls Ike to wmprove my vocabulary. 1 have tae Facing that 2 always use the sane domilc expressons to caprass different sort oF trings. + Ld Ihe te enlarge my vocabulary (this wird L also had te find dictonary). Teo efter my speaking ic hard coused by viscing werds, However, vocabulary teaching has not always been very: responsive to such problems, and teachers have not fully recognised the tremendous communicative advantage in developing an extensive vocabulary, For 2 long BHow to Teach vacabulary 14 Lime, teaching approaches such as the Direce Method and audiolingualism gowe grester priority to the ceaching of grammatical struerures. In order not fo distract frum the learning of these structures, the eumber of words introduced in such courses was kept fairly low. Those words which were taught were often chosen either because they were essily demonstrated, of because they fitted neatly into che ‘structure of the day’. The advent of the communicative approach in che 1970s set the stage for a major re-think of the role of vocabulary, The communicative value of a core vocabulary has always been recognised, particularly by tourists. A phrase book or dictionary provides more communicative mileage chan a grammar ~ in the short term at least. Recognition of the meaning-making potential of words meant that vocabulary became 2 learning abjective in its own right. In 1984, for example, in the intraduction to their Cambridge English Course, Swan and Walter wrote that ‘vacabulary acquisition is the largest and most important task facing the language learner’. Coursebooks began to include activities thac specifically targeted vocabulary. ‘Revertneless, mors langunge courses were (am sil are) organised around grammar syllabuses. There re good grounds for retaining # grammatical erganisation. White vocabulary is largely a collection of items, grammar is a system of rules, Since one rite can generace & great many sentences, the weaching of grammer is considered to be more productive. Grammar mukiplics, whike vocabulary merzly adds. However, «wo key developmenis were to challenge the hegemony of grammar. Onc was the lexical syllabus, that is, 2 syllabus based on those wores that appear with a high degree of frequency in spoken and written English, The other was recognition of the role of lexical chunks (see page 6) in the acquisition of language and in achieving fluency. Bath these developments (which we will look 2t more closely in Chapter 7) were fuelled by discoveries arising from the new science of corpus linguistics, ‘The effect of these developments has been to raise awareness 2s to the key role vocabulary development plays in language leerning. Even if most coursebooks still adopt a graramatical syllabus, vocabulary is no longer treated as an ‘add-on’ Much more attertion is given to the grammar of words, ta collocation and to word frequency. This is reflected im the way coursebooks are now promoted. For example, the back covers of three recent courses claim: Strong emphasis 09 vacabulacy, with a perticular foccs on high frequency, useful words and phrases. (from Cetting Edge Intermediate) ‘Well-defined vocabulary syllabus plus dictionary training and pronun- ciation practice, including the use of phoretics. (fram New Headway English Course} a suongly lexical syllabus, presenting and practising hundreds of natural expressions which students will find immediately useful. (From Snaovations)What does it mean to “know a word’? 2+ How words are learned We have been talking about the importance of having an extensive vocabulary — that is, knowing lots of words. But what docs it mean to draw a word? At the most basic level, knowing a word involves knowing: + its form, and + its meaning 3€T tell you that there is, in Maori, a word that takes the form zangi, vou can not really claira to say you ‘know fangi’ since you dant know what éartgi means. The form of the word tells you nothing about its meaning. So, what does dangi mean? Well, it means sovnd, But is chat sound the noun, or serend the verb, as in éa sound? In fact, it can mean bath ~ so part of knowing the meaning of tangi is knowing its grammatical function. But tangi doesn't mean only sonnd; it also means lamentation, dirge ane to sweep. In fact the waiala fangr (funeral lamenc) is an integral part sf the fangibanga, ot Meorl funeral ceremony, so much so thar ¢angi has come tv mean (colloquially) simply fieneraé, But, of course, not a funeral in the European sense. A Maoti éangi is a very dilferent kind of ceremony. For a start... and so on). In other words, knowing the meaning of a word is not just knowing ite dictionary meaning (or meanings) ~ it also means knowing the words commonly associated with ir (its collocations) as well a ies connotations, including its register and its cultural accretions. Finally, we need to distinguish berween receptive knowledge and productive knowledge. Now that you know the meaning of rang? you can probably make sense of the opening passage from the short story Tang’ by Witi Thimacra Do not liste to the wailing, Tama, Do not listen to the women chanting their sorrows, the soaring waiata tangi which sings alone and disconsolate above the wailing. Icis only the wind, Tama. Do nar listen to the sorrows of the marae Assuming you understood angi in this extract, you may still feel uncomfortable about working the word into a letter or dropping it into a zonversation, (And so far you have only had its written form, noc its spoken form.) In other words, you have receptive, but not productive, knowledge of the word. Receptive knowledge excevils productive knowledge and generally ~ but not alwnys ~ precedes it. That is, we understand more words than we utter, and we ustally understand them Agfore we are capable of uttering them, 15How to Teach Vocabulary How is our word knowledge organised? 46 To summarise, word knowledge can be represented as in this diagram for the word tangi: Tae spoken Seorm: ey The seven form Tang The «nesningtsh sound. weep, me, Janwemraven, Mas corse 10 rou fered. Als, ehaes, aecony, ematical behasiaue eg t's sed as both a mows and ¢ verb 1 can be used passively ‘The word's lrequency’ age 12 high Hequency weed in Moon. a well ut being, tse 10 NZ Engst Serivatines fongilemge (wou, angie (pansive Fhe earmoxations foamy (or associations of the werd: saa has sun assoctations wiih arndtional Maus cultuee, evoking the uaa af the mare eomemunity anead The cattocations of the word: c.g. viata angi (Cuneta song): eangt eka (= tert sound: harmonious) “he ese of ie Setudsepuken rod wise. ‘sed cology o mea Vimercitovecomnorly sed Rew Zech Engiveeo What is involved in knowing the word tangi” Of course, even a proficient speaker of Maori may not ‘know’ all these aspects of the word rangi: word knowledge is incremental and takes time. What is sometimes called a state of initial frzziness seems wv be an inevitable part of vocabulary learning. The above diagram for the word tangi suggests thet the way words aze stored in the mind resembles Jecs a dictionary than a kind of network or web. This is an apt image: the mind seems to store words neither randomly nor in the form of a list, but in a highly organised and interconnected fashion ~ in what is often called the mental lexicon. “The mistakes we make offer an insight into the way the mental lexicon is organised, For example, the speaker who says' watched this Maori éangzon television’ i confusing two words that are similar in form, if quite different in meaning: tengi ond tango. This suggests that words with similar sound structure are closely interconnected, so that the search for ene may sometimes activate its near neighbour The comic effect of this kind of mistake (called 3 malapropism) has not been lost on writers, including Shakespeare: sorrom: ‘Thisbe, che Howers of odious savours sweet ~" qumce: ‘Odious’ ~ odorous!2» How words are learned ‘As in a dictionary, similar forms sven to be located adjacent to cach other, Bat if every time we ‘looked up’ a word in the mental lexicon, we started with ite form, we would have 10 scroll through a great many similar- sounding but totally unselated words: zandem, tangent, tangle, tango, etc ‘This would be very time-consuming. ‘To speed things up, words ate also interconnected according co their shared meanings ~ all the fluit words being interconnected, and all che dething words interconnected too. So, if I want to say I had a delicious mango for breakjart, the lexicon activates the fruit department before criggering a search of words beginning with wang-. This accounts for the fact that, in experiments, subjects find that unsweting the first of the following two questions is easier ancl quicker than answering the second: 1 Name a fruit thar begins with p. 2 Name a word thar begins with p that is « fruit, In ech case the word search simultaneously focusus on form: and meaning, the but it seems the brain is hetter disposed to begin the search vi meaning-based (thesaurus-like) lexicon than the form-based (dictiona like) one. Phis also accounts for the fact that, once subjects have acc a the fruit category, they are able to find other fruits moze quickly. All of this suggests a semantic (meaning-based) organisation, but one that also has a form-based (or what is called mexphological) back-up. ‘The two systerns work in tango, sorry, in tandera. This explains why malapropisms (such as odious/adorows) are not only similar in sound 10 the intended word, but ace almost always the same part of speech and often share aspects of their meaning. Hence, many learners of English confuse chicten and Aitchen: not aly do the two words sound alike, they are both nouns and they share elements of meaning in that they belong to the same lexical field, We can think of the mental lexicon, therefore, as an overlapping system in which words are stored as ‘double entries’ — one entry containing information about meaning and the other about forrs. These individual word entries are then linked to words that share similar characteristics, whether of meaning (mango/papaya) or of form (taugiftango) — or both (chicken/kitchen). The aumber of connections is enormous. Finding s word is like following a path chrough the nenwork, or berter, following several paths at once, For, in order to economise on processing time, several pathways will be activated simultancously, fanaing out across the network in a process called ‘spreading activation’. Linked to this system are other areas of cognition, such as world kaowledge (like an encyclopedia) and memory (ke « personal diary or autobiography}, so that activation of a ward like Jangi ar mango or tange also triggers general knowledge and personal experiences that extend beyond the simple ‘dictionary’ reanings of these words. Knowing a word, then, is the sum wtal of all chese connections — semantic, syntactic, phonological, orthographic, morphological, cognitive, cultural and autobiographicat. It is unlikely, thecofore, chat any two speakers will ‘know’ a word in exactly the same way. 7How to Teach Vocabulary How is vocabulary 18 tearned? Knowing a word is one thing — but how is that knowledge acquired? In leerning their first language the first words chat children learn are typicully those used for labelling - that is, mapping words on to concepts - so that the concept, for example, of dog has a name, dag. Or doggie. But nat all four- legged animals are dogs: some may be cats, so the child then has ta learn how far to extend the concept of dog, so us nor to include cats, but to include other people's dogs, coy dogs, and even pictures of dogs. In other words, acquiring a vocabulary requites not only labelling but eategorising skills. Finally, the child needs to realise that common words like apple and dog can be replaced by superordinate terms Hike furit and anol And that anima can accommodate other lower order words such as cat, Aorse and depbant. This involves a process of network butilding ~ conistntcting a complex web of words, so that items like é/ack and white, or fingers and foes, ox fanrity and brother are imterconnected. Network building Serves link all the tabels and packages, and lays the groundwork for 3 process che continues for as long as we are exposed to new words (and new meanings for old words) ~ thet is, for the rest of our lives Ta what ways is the development of a second language (L2) lexicon any different from that of the firse language (1.1)? Perhaps the most obvious difference is the fact that, by definition. second language learners already have a first language. And not oily do they have the words of theie first language, but they have the concepeual system that these words envode, and the complex newark of associations that link these words one with another. Learning a second language involves both learaing a new conceptual sys- tem, and construsting anew vocabulary nenwork a second mental lexicon. Consider, for example, che problems I faced when learning Maori kinship term: The word seina is used by (1).a boy when speaking of his younger brother; (2) giel when speaking of her younger sister. The word vatana is used by (1) a boy when speaking of his older brother; (2) a girl when speaking of her older sister. The word srahinc is used by a boy when speaking of his sister. The word sungane is used by a gitl when speaking of her brother. Grom Harawica K, Teach Yoursedf Maori, Reed Books} The cultural ‘distance’ between Maori and European conceptual systems is tively large, but for most language learners there will be muuch more that is shared than is foreign. Even learning Maori, | dick not have to relearn the concept of Aand, for example, or of forse. The fact thet the adult learner's concept system is already installed and up-and-running, means that he or she is saved a lot of the over- and under-gencralising associated with first Tanguage learning. An adult learnee is unlikely to confuse a dog with a cat, for example. However, there is a downside to having a ready-made conceptual cystem with its associated lexicon, Faced with learning a new word, the second Ianguage learner is likely to short-cut the process of constructing a network of associations ~ and simply map the word directly onto the mother tongue2 © How words are leamed equivalent. Thus, if 2 German-saeaking learner learns the English word fable, rather than creating « direct link from dable to the concept of table, they are more likely to ercate a link to their Li equivalent (Tises). The L1 word acts as a stepping stone ta the target concept. Perhaps ~ in order to pre-empt an over-dependence on mental translation ~ learners should be advised to follow Christopher Isherwood’s advice: When Christopher began giving English lessons, he would iry to convey to his German pupils something of his awa mystique about the German language. ‘A table doesn’: mean cin Tisch — when you're learning a new word, you must never say to yourself it means. That's altogether the wrong approach. What you must say ta yourself is: Over there in England, they have a thing culled a table. We may go to England and look at it and say “dhar’s our Tisch”. But it isn’. The resemblance is only on the surface. The wo things are essentially different, because they've been thought about diGierently by two nations with two different cultures. I'you can grasp the Fact that that ching in England isn't merely cailed a table, it really 1 table, then you'll begin to underseind what the English themselves are like OF course, if you cared to buy a table while you were in England and bring it back here, it would ‘became ein Tisch, But not immediacely, Germans would have to think about itas ein Tisch for quite a long while, first. (from Christopher and His Kind, Eyre Mettuen) Isherwood is suggesting that the words ¢ahie and Tiieb are not synonymous = chat their meanings do not map onto cach other snugly. While this example may be a litde far-ferched, it is true that the degree of semantic overlap between words in different languages cen vary a lot, This is often a cause of lexical errors. A Spanish speaker who complains that her shoes make ‘her fingers hurt’ is over-generalising from Spanish dedo which means both finger and doe. Likewise, a German speaker who has left his clock’ at home, may in fact mean his cuateés Ubr stands for both elect and wtih, Many cross-language errors are che to what are known as false friends. False friends are words that may appear to be equivalent, but whose meanings do aot in fact correspond. Examples of false English friends for speakers of Polish, for example, are: actually (akiualyte in Polish means ‘at present ‘cursently’} apartment (apartament in Polish is a ‘hotel suite’) chef (szaf'is Polish for ‘chie!" or ‘boss’) ares (dres is Polish for ‘uacksuit’) history (histeria in Polish means ‘story’) lunatic (lunatyd in Polish is a 'sleepwaller’) pupil (pupid in Polish is a ‘pet’ or favourite) Over-teliance on transfer from L1 could, conceivahly, resule in a Pole say- ing:'Tell the chef that actually there's v hinatic in a dress in my apartment!” Generally speaking, however, languages that share words with similar formas {called cognates) have many more real friends chan false fiends, AndHow to Feach Vocabulary How many words does a tearner need 20 te know? Kealian learner of English, for example, need not feel suspicious of the English word apartment (appartamento in Italian}, nor garage (the sare in Italian), garden (giardine), or bakony (balcone) arnong thousands of others. As well as false friends and real friends, there are strangers: words that have no equivalent in the Lt at all, since the very concept does not exist in the leamer’s lexicon, Supposedly Chinese has no equivaient for the Engtish wards privacy or community. Tn this case, the Chinese learner of English is in a position not dissimilar to « child learaing his or her Ll; they are earning the concept and the word in tandem. The way colour terms are distributed in different cultures is also a possible source of conceptual strangeness. Russian, for example, distinguishes beewcen two kinds of blue: sinij vs goluboj, for which English has no satisfactory equivalents. But one needs to be careful nat ¢6 read too much into such reported differences; like the Inwits one hundred different wards for snow, they may in fact be language myths. fy analogy with false friends, real friends and strangers, it may be the case that, for a good many second language learners, most of the words in their L2 lexicon are simply acquaintances. They have met them, they know them by name, they even understand them, but they will never be quite as familiar to them as their mather tongue equivalents. This is because the associative inks in dhe second language lexicon are usually less firmly established chan mother tongue links. To extend the metaphor: learning a second language is like moving to a new town — it takes time to establish conncetions and turn acquaintances into friends. And what is the difference between an acquaintance and a friend? Well, we may forget 2n acquaintance, but we can never forget a fiend. (For more on remembering and forgetting, see below.) A farther major difference between first and second language vocabulary earning is in the potential size of the lexicon in each case, An educated native speaker will probably have 2 vocabulary of around 20,000 words (91, more accurately, 20,000 word familics ~ see page 4). This is the result of adding about a thousand words a year to the 5,000 he or she had acquired by the age of five. An English dictionary includes many more: the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, for example, boasts ‘over 80,000 words and phrases’, while the Oxford English Dictionary contains half a million encties, Most adult second language learners, however, will be lucky to have acquired 5,000 word families even afver several years of study, ‘This relatively slow progress has lees to do with aptitude than with exposure. The average classroom L2 leeraer will experience nothing like the quantity nor the quality of exposure that the L.1 infant receives. It has been calculated that a classroom learner would need more than eighteen years of classroom exposure to supply the same amount of vocabulary input chat ‘occurs in just one year in natural sectings. Moreover, che input that infants reccive is tailored to their immediate needs ~ it is interactive, and it is often highly repetitive and patterned — all qualities that provide optimal conditions for teaming, By comparison, she average L2 learner's input is, to2+ How words ale learned say the least, impoverished. Civen these constraints, how many words docs the learner need to know? ‘The answer must depend to a large extent on the tearner’s needs. A holiday trip to an English-speaking country wou'd obviously make different vocabulary demands than a year's study in a British university. But is there such a thing as a threshold Level ~a core vocabulary chat will serve int most situations? One figure chat is often quoted is 2,000. This is around che number of words that most native speakers use in their daily conversation. About 2,000 words, too, is she size of the defining vocabulary used in dictionaries for language learners. There are the words and suffixes that are usecl in the dictionary’s definitions. Moreover, a passive knowledge of the 2,000 most frequent words in English would provide a reader with familiarity with nearly nine out of every ren words in most written texts. In this posagrap, far examples fy only the flowing words fall outside the top 2,000 words in written English: ewedidary (mentioned twice), sAresbold, care, quoted, native, ditionarresdictionarys, suffives, definitions, moreower, pastive, familiarity 208 paragraph. In other words, fourteen out of 14 running words, or exactly ten per cent of the text, would be unfamiliar co. the learner who had learned the top 2,000. ‘And very many of the words in the preceding parageaph — such as the, £, a, un, world, in, but, is, there, that, will and one — are extremely common indeed. In fact, it has beer calculated that the most frequent 100 words in English make up almost fifty per cent of most texts. That is to say, a half of this book consists of merely 100 words! ‘Of course, the musjority OF these 100 high frequency words are grammar - of function ~ words, such as bas, fo, did, she, were, etc., and not content words like answer, depend, large, extent, learner, needs, ete. On theit own, as we saw in Chapter 1, function words have very restricted usefulness: try having a conversation with the ten most frequent words in written English: the te, of a, and, ny I, was for, thal! There is w strong argurnent, then, for equipping leamers with a core vocabulary of 2,000 high frequency words 2s soon as possible. The researcher Paul Meara estimated that at the rate of 50 wards a week (nor unreasonable, especially if the emphasis is taken off grammar teaching) this target could be reached in 40 weeks, or one academie year, more or less. OF course, this is the minimum or threshold evel. Most researchers nowadays recommend a basic vocabulary of at least 3,000 word families, while for more specialised needs, working voeabulary of over 5,000 word families is probably desirable. Students siming to pass the Cambridge First Certificate Examination (FCE), for example, should probably aim to understand at least 5,000 words even if their productive vocabulary is half thut number. On the other hand, students preparing for academic study might be better off working from a specialised academic word list. A cecendly published academic word list consists of just 570-word Families, covering a variety of disciplines — arts, commerce, law and science — and includes such items as analyse, comceps, data and vesrarch. These 570 word families account for one in every ten words in academic texts. For example, the following words occurring in the paragraph we analysed zbove are covered in this 21How to Teach Vocabulary az academic list: core, quoted, passive and paragraph, Knowledge of this academic list (on top of che 2,000 most frequent words in English) would have thus reduced the unfamiliar words in that paragraph to a mere ten, A preoccupation with vocabulary size, however, overlooks the importance of vocabulary depth. Vocabulary knowledge is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, that is, a case of either knowing a word or not knowing it Consider, for example, these different degrees of ‘knowing’ in my awn knowledge of Spanish, using words taken randomly from the Q section of the dictionary: quero (cheese) can understand and produce it (both in speaking and writing) without effort querer (want) can understand it and produce it, though need to think about past infegular forms quedar (stay) can understand it and produce it, bur only in its main non-idiomatic senses reirdfeno can understand it in context only, and can produce epcrating theatte) ie iprompted (eg. with fas lower) but not confident abort corcect word stress riche can understand it in contest oaly, and can't produce Iankrupssy) ic even if prompted quicio (hinge) probably wouldn't understand it even in context, and certainly can't produce it ‘This suggests that, at the very least, estimates of vocabulary size must take into account productive and receptive knowledge. Then there is knowledge of spelling and pronunciation, of derivative forss and of different shades of meaning. Finally, there is the degree of control over word knowledge: is the word readily accessible, or does it require prompting? (Think of how you answer crossword clues: some words come only when several letters have been filled in; others require no prompting at all) Again, these different aspects of knowing’ suggest thac the czsk of acquiring a functional lexicon is more complicated than simply memorising wards from lists. Tn the ond, however, exactly which words a learner nceds to know is a very personel matter. Itis not easy either to predict learners’ needs nor to ensure that the words that have been selected for teathing will be learned. Nor will there be time, especially in non-intensive language courses, far all the words thot the learners need to be explicitly taught. A good part of vocebulary acquisition has to be incidental. Incidental learning is facilieated through exposure to language input, in the form of extensive reading, for example Tnpur from the teacher and from other learners is also an. imporzane eesource for incidental learning (see Chapter 3). ‘Most important of al, peshaps ss that che teacher encourages an enthu- siaam for vocabulary acquisition, and provides learners with the strategies for self-directed leatning ~ strategies that will be discussed in Chapter 9.How are words remembered? 2+ How wards are learned To achieve the kind of ourcomes described im the last section, the learnes needs not only to learn a lot of words, but to remember them, In fact, learning is remembering. Unlike the learning of grammar, which it essentially a rule-based system, vocabulary knowledge is largely a question of accumulating individual items. There are few shart cuts in the form af generative rules: it is essentially a question of memory, How, then, does memiory work? And what are che implications for teaching vocabulary? Researchers into the workings of memory customarily distinguish between che following systems: the short-term store, working memory, and long-term memory. ‘The short-term store (STS) is the hrain’s capacity to hold a limited number of items of information for pericds of time ap to a few seconds. It is the kind of memory that is involved in holding in your head a telephone umber for as long 36 it takes to be able 1o dial ic. Of co repeat a word chat you've just heard che teacher modelling, But successful vocabulary learning clearly involves more than simply holding words in your mind for 2 few seconds, For worde tw be integrated into long-term memory they need to be subjected to different kinds of operanions. Focussing on words long enough to perform operations on them is the function of working memory. Many cognitive tasks such as reasoning, learning and understanding depend on working memory. It can be thought of as a kind of work bench, where information is first placed, studied and moved about before being filed away for later retrieval. The information that is being manipulated cen come from external sources via the senses, or it can be ‘downloaded’ from the long-term memory. Or both. For example, a learner can hear 2 word (like ¢ang1), download s similar word from long- term memory {like tanya), and compare the two in working memory, before deciding if they are the same or different. Material remains in working memory for abour ewenty seconds. This capacity is made possible by the existence of the articulatory loop, a proces of subvocal repetition, abit ik «loop of adio tape going round and round, Lr enables the short-term store to be kept refreshed. Having just heard a new word, for example, we can can it by as many times as we need in arder to exarmine it (fangi... tang! ... [Link] ...) ~ assuming that noi too many other new wards are competing for space on the loop. The holding capacity of the articulatory loop scems to be a determining factor in the ability co leara languages: the lenger the loop, the better the learner. Ox, to ptt it another way, the ability to hold a phonological representation of a word in working memory is a good predictor of language learning aptitude. Likewise, any interference in the processes of subvocal repetition — e.g. distracting background talk — is likely to disrupt the functioning of the loop and impair learning. Another significant featuce of the articulatory loop is that it can hold fewer L2 words than Li words. This bas a bearing on the lengch of chunk a Iearner can process at any one time. Also linked to working memory is a kind of mental sketch pad. Here images ~ uch as visual mnemonics (or memory prompts) ~ can be placed and scanned in order to elicit words from long-term memory into working memory (see Chapter 9 for more on mnemonics). 23How to Teach Vocabulary 24 Long-term memory can be thought of as « kind of filing system. Unlike working memory, which has 4 limited capacity and no permanent cantent, long-term memory has an enormous capacity, and its contents are durable cover time. However, the fact chat learners can retain new vocabulary items the lengsh of a lesson (Le. beyond the few seconds’ duration of the short-tenn store) but have forgotten them by the next lesson suggests that long-term memory is not always as long-rerm as we would wish. Rather, it occupies « continuum from ‘the quickly forgotten’ to ‘the never forgotten’. The great challenge for language learners is to transform material from the enickly forgotten to the never forgotten. Research into memory suggests that, in order to ensure that material moves inte permanent long-tetm memory, 2 sumber of principles need to be observed. Here is a brief summary of some of the research {indings that are relevant to the subject of word learning: Repetition: The tisme-honoured way of ‘memorising’ new material is through vepeared rehearsal of the material while it is still in working memory — i.e. levting the articulatory loop just ran and run, However, simply repeating an item (the basis of rote Hearing) seems 10 have little long-term effect unless some attempt is made to organise the material at the same time (see below). But one kind of repetition that is important is repetition of encounters with a word. It has been estimated that, when reading, words stand a good chance of being remembered if shey have been met at least seven times over spaced intervals. (Are you stil in any doubt, for instance, as to the meaning of fangi?) * Retsieval: Another kind of repetition that is crucial is what is called the retrieval practice effect. This means, simply, that the act of retrieving word from memory makes it more likely that the learner will be able to recall #¢ again latet. Activities which require retrieval, such as using the new word in written sentences, ‘oil the path’ for future recall, Spacing: It is better to distribute memory work across a period of time than to mass it together in a single block. This is known as the principle of distributed practice. This applies in both the chort term and the long. term. When teaching students new set of words, for example, it is best to present the first cwo or three items, then go back and test these, then present some more, then backtrack again, and so on. As etch word becomes berter learned, the resting interval can gradually be extended. ‘The aimn is to test each ites at the longest interval at which it can reliably be recalled. Similarly, over a sequence of lessons, newly presented vocabulary should be reviewed in the next lesson, but the interval between successive tests should gradually be increased. * Pacing: Learners have different learning, styles, and process data at different rates, so ideally they should be given the opportunity «o pace their own rehearsal activites, This may mean the teacher allowing time during vocabulary learning for learners to do ‘memory work’ ~ such as ‘organising or reviewing their vocabulary ~ silently and individually.2 + How words are learned Use: Putting words co use, preferably in some interesting way, is the best way of ensuring they are added to long-term memory. It is the principle popularly known as Use it or foe it. In Chapter 6 we will look at ways of putting words ro work. Meanwhile, the fallawing paints all relate ro ways of manipulating words in working memory. Cognitive depth: The more decisions the learner makes about a word, and the more cognitively demanding these decisions, the bette: the word is cememibered. For example, a relatively superficial judgement might be simply to match it with a word that rhymes with it: e.g. fango/manga A deeper level decision might be ta decide on its part of speech (noun, adjective, verb, etc), Deeper still might be to use it to complete a sentence, Personal organising: The judgements that learners make about a ward are most effective if they are personalised, In one study, subjects who had read a sentence aloud containing new words showed better recall than subjects who had simply silently rehearsed the words, Buc subjects who hac! macs up their own sentences containing the words and read them aloud did berter still Imaging: Best of all were subjects who were given the task of silently visualising a mental picture to go with a new word, Other tests have shown that casily visualised words arc more memorable thant words that don't inmediately evoke a picture, This suggests that ~ even for abstract words ~ it might help ifleurners associate them with come mental image. Interestingly, it doesn’t teem to matter if the image is highly imaginative or even very vivid, so long as it is self-generated, rather than acquired ‘second-hand’ Mnemonics: These are ‘tricks’ to help retrieve ixems or rules that are stored in memory and that are not yet automatically retrievable. Even native speakers sly on mnemonics to help with some spelling rules: e.g. i before ¢ except after c. As the previous point suggests, the best kinds of mnemonics are often visual. The most well-attested memory technique is che keyword technique, which is described in Chapter 9. Motivation: Simply wanting to Jearn new words is no guarantee that words wil be remembered. The only difference a strong motivation makes is that the learner is likely to spend more timc on rehearsal and practice, which in the end will pay off in terms of memory. Bur even unmotivated learness remember words if they have been set tasks that require them co make decisions about them: Attention/arousal: Contrary to populdr belie{, you can’t improve your vacabulary in your sleep, simply by listening to a tape. Some degree of consciuuls artention is requized. A very high degree of attention {called asousel) seems to correlate with improved recall. Words chat tigger a strong emotional response, for example, are more ensily cecalled than ones that dor’s. This may account for the fact that many fearners seem to have « knack of remembering swear words, even if they've heard them only a couple of times. 25How 10 Teach vocabulary Why do we forget words? 26 + Affective depth: Related to the preceding, point, affective (i.e. emotional) information is stored along with cognitive (.¢, intellectual) data, and may play an equally important rele on how words are stored and recalled. Just a8 tis important for learners to make cognitive judgements about words, it may also be important to make affective judgements, such as 120 I like the sound and look of the word? Da T like the thing that the word represents? Does the word evoke any pleasant or unpleasant associations? In this vein, Christopher Isherwood, continuing his discussion about aah: and Tisch {see page 19), makes the point that the difference between a table and ein Tisch was that a table wae the ing table in his mother’s house and cin Tisch was ein Tisch in the Cosy Corner (a low-life bar in Berlin Similarly, the reforming edacationalist Sylvia Ashton-Warner, who taught reading and writing skills to underprivileged children in New Zealand in the 1960s, used the affective value of words as the basis af whar she called her “key vocabulary’ approach. Her primary school children chose the words they wanted to learn. These often had a strong, emotional charge, such és Muramy, Daddy, kiss, frightened, ghost. Yn teaching, early literacy one of Achton-Warner’ basic principles was that “First words must be made of the stuff of the child hirnself, wharever and wherever the child’ (fiom Ashton-Warter 5, Teacher, Virago). Even with the best will in the workd, students forget words. As a tule, forgetting is rapid at fsst, but gradually slows down. This is erue in both the short term (eg from lesson to lesson} and in che long term (e.g. after a whole course). Ithas been estimated thac up to 80 per cent of material is lost within 24 hours of initial learning, but that then the rate of forgetting levels cout, And a study of learners’ retention of « foreign language (Spanish) over an extended period showed that — in the absence of opportunities to use the language ~ capid forgetting occurred in the first three or four years after instruction, but then levelled out, with very little further loss, even up t0 50 years Laver. Two factors seemed ta determine retention, First, those words that were easy to learn were betier retained. (Sce the following section fora discussion of what makes a word easy or difficult to learn.) Secondly, those words that were learned over spaced learning sessione were retained better than words that wore learned in concentrated bursts — consistent with the principle of distributed practice (see page 24) Forgetting may be caused both by interference from subsequent learning and by insufficient recycling. With regard co interference, most teachers will be familiar with the syraptoms of overload’, when the price for learning new language items is the forgetting of old oncs. This scems to be particularly acate if words are taught that are very similar to recently acquired words, The new words have the effect of ‘overwriting’ the previously learned material. This is an argument agains# teachiag words in lexical sets where words have very similar meanings (sce Chapter 3). More important, perhaps, as a reruedy against forgetting, is recycling. Research shows that spaced review of learned material cen dramatically reduce the rate of forgetting, But it's not cnough simply to repeat words, orWhat makes a word difficult? 2+ How words are learned to re-encounter them in their original contexts. Much herter is to recycle them in different ways, and, id successive levels of depth. Research that if learners see or use a word in a way different from the way they first met it, then better ‘earning is achieved. For example, study this sentence (in Maori), and its translatien: E Hohepa e tangi, Kati ea te cangit (Joseph, you are crying, but you have cried enough!) (feom The Penguin Book of Nero Zealand Verse) Even if you can make much sense of che grammat, the novel encounter with farigi, in its sense of eying’ is further reinforcement of éengi = funeral. Anyone who has learned a second language will know that some words seem easier to learn than others. Easiest of all ere those that are more or less identical, both in meaning and form, to their L1 equivalents, When this is due to the fact that they derive from a common origin, they ute called cognates, Tus Catalan wocabulari, French wocabulaire, Italian aocabolario and English vecadwary are all cognates and hence relatively easily transferable from one language ro the other. The global spread of English has alo meant chat many English words have been borcowed by other Tanguages. Examples of such Toan words in Japanese are shanpx (shampoo), shappingn (shopping), and sunakty (snack). Cognares and loan words provide a useful ‘way in’ to the vocabulary of English, and are worth exploiting (ete page 35). However, as we have seen, there are a number of traps for new phiycrs, in the form of false friends. Knowing that aetwatfy and akivatnie are false Elends may make the learning of actually difficult for a Palish speaker (or a French ox Spanish speaker, for that matter), since they: any tend to avoid using it altogether. ther factors that make some words more difficult than othecs are: + Pronunciation: Research shows that words that are difficult to pronounce are more difficult to lesen. Potentially difficult words will typically be those that contain sounds that are unfamiliar to some groups of learners ~ such as regu/ar and Jerry for Japanese speakers. Many learners find that words with clusters of consonants, such as strengih or crisps or deealjae, are also problematic. * Spelling: Sound-spelling mismatches are likely to be the eause of errors, either oF pronunciation or of spelling, and can contribute to a word's diffealty While most English spelling is fairly law-abiding, there are also some glaring imegularities, Words that contain silent letters are particularly problematic: farrign, listen, beadachs, climbing, bored, honest, cuphoard, mente, etc. + Length and complexity: Long words seem to be ao more difficult to learn than shore ones. But, as a rule of thumb, high frequency words cend co be short in English, and therefore the learnet is Likely to meet them mote often, a fietor favouring their ‘learnability’. Also, variable stress in 27How to Teach Yocabulary What kind of mistakes do learners make? 28 polysyllabic words ~ such as in word famities like necessary, necessity and necessarily — can add to theit difficulty. * Grammar: Also problematic is the grammar associated with the word, especially if this differs from that of its L1 equivalent. Spanish learners of English, for example, tend to assume that explain follows the same pattern as both Spanish explicar aad English til and say fe explained me the fesvon, Remembering wheres a verb like eajoy, fave, or hope is followed by an infinitive (¢o swia) or an ing form (steimming) can add «© its difficulty. And the grammar of phrasal verbs is particularly troublesome: some phrzedl verbs ae separable (ibs looked the word up) but others are not (she looked after the children). + Meaning: When two words overlap in meaning, learners are likely to confuse them. ake and de are a case in point: you make breakfast and make wn appoiniment, but you do the housework and do a questionnaire. Words with multiple meanings, such as since and still can also be troublesome for learner. Having learned one meaning of the word, they may be reluctant to accept 3 second, totally different, meaning, Unfamitiar concepts may make a word difficult to learn. Thus, culture- specific items such as words and expressions arsoctated with the game cricket (a sticky wicket, u Bat trick, a good innings} will seem faicly opaque to mest learners end are uatikely to be easily learned. + Range, connotation and idiomaticity: Words that can be uscd in a wide range of conceets will generally be perceived as easier then their syncnyms with a narrower range. Thus put is a very wide-ranging verb, compared ta impose, place, position, etc. Likewise, thin is a safer bet than shinny, stim, slender. Words that have style constraints, such 2s very informal words (cbuck for tarow, stag for exchange), may cause problems. Uncertainty as 0 the connotations of some words may cause problems too. Thus, propaganda his negative connotations in English, but iss equivalent may simply mean pubiicity. On the other hand, ectentric dees not have negative connotations in English, but its nearest equivalent in other languages may mean deviant. Finally, words or expressions that-are idiomatic (like make up your mind, keep an eye on ...} will generally be more difficult than words whose meaning is transparent (decide, watch) .It is cheir idiomaticity, as well 2s their syntactic complexiny, that makes phrasal verbs so difficult Given the kinds of difficulty oudlined above, it is nor surprising that learners make mistakes with words. In fact, the researcher Paul Meara estimates that lexieal errors outnumber other types of exror by more than three to one. Here is a sarnple of lexical errors (underlined): 1 1 hope after biagoning Engleh studing 1 shel not have a Free time at all. 2 Lid he ie spond a couple of week somauhere on a pocpiciess sland. 3-1 the wastdhurg Rowers and rhating thar lovely smell2 + Vow words are learned AU lexical errors are instances of a wrong choice of form - whether a spelling error (e.g, diggening, shell), or « suffix error (peopeless) or the wrong word altogether (hope, watching, inking). However, for convenience we can categorise errars into nwa major types: > form-ielated + meaning-reluted Form-related creors include mis-selections, misformations, and spelling, aad pronunciation errors, A mis-selection is when an existing word form is selected that is similar in sound or spelling to the correct form ~ the equivalent 10 a native speaker's malapropism (see page 16). For example: My girlfiiend wes very bungey with mz (for aagry). Or, He persuaded me ta have w vise operation (for no%e). ‘Mistormations often result fiom misapplying word formation rules (see page 5), producing non-existent words, as in a peopleless island, or dis hopeness eee Sometimes these mnisformations will show a clear influence from the learner's mother tongue, as in the people looked emocionated — from che Spanish emecionado (excited). Whole words may be combined weangly to form non-existent combinations: Most of fine [just watch shops’ window (for go windew-shopping). Idioms and fixed expressions are vulnerable 10 this kind of mix up: f sivite vould kill the gold egys goose aud cause the ruin of a country, Spelling mistakes result from the wrong choice of lester (shel for shall), the omission of letters (studing for studying), or the weong order of letcers (Gitte for fit). Promunciadon errors may cesult from the weong choice of sound (have For lite), addition of sounds (exchaol for schaol), omission of sounds (podik for product) of misplaced word stress (comPORTable for caanfartable) Meaning-related errors typically occur whea words that have similar or related meanings are confused and the wrong choice is made. Thus: Tope T shell not have a fice time (unstend of 1 expect ..). And F like watching flowers and inbaling their lovely smell. While watching balongs to the set of verbs related to seeing it is mappropriate far relatively static objects like flowers. Similarly, indaling tends to be used for smoke or gas, and not sme!l. That is to say, indaling duesnt collocate with sme? Many ‘wrong word’ mistakes fact wrong collocates. For example: I dave fifiee years expericnee 4s a particular professor (rather than « private teacher). Meaning: related wrong-choice errors may derive from the leares’s Li, where the meaning cfan tt word may not exactly match its L2 equivalent. A common example made by Spanish speakers is: Fn: dite with my fathers in ‘Mexico city. In Spanish, the plural of padre (father) means parents. Learners may also be unaware of the differeat connotations of relnted words, causing wrong-choice errors such as: J Aarur chosen ca descrite Stephen Hawking, a uotorious scientific of our century. Wrong choice may sesh in clashing sty‘es, as in this letter by a Japanese student to the accommodation bureaw at my place of work: 29Hows to Teach Vocabulary What are the implications for teaching? Conclusions 30 Dear Sirs/Madams, I'm s¢ batty because 1 may leave Japan at the ond of January. I'm gonna stop by NY and go to Espana. Mease get busy! Indiseriminate dictionary ase may be the cause of this stylistic error by a Russian learner: May be Til stay bere and keep on my bodiernal work (where bodiernal is an archaic synonyin far day-to-day) Sometimes ervors can be both form- and meaning-induced. Thar is, a similar-sounding form is sefected because it has a similar meaning to the target one, For example: J went to a party for see my friends. Tt was very funny. Anstead of Le was a lot of fun.) Ox, J have friend swho speak English as their nature language (For native language). ‘The occurrence of this kind of error is, not surprising, piven the way words are stored and accessed in the mind, with form and meaning modules overlapping and interconnected. In this chapter we have looked at how the mental lexicon is structured andl the way it develops, in both first and second fanguages. What chen arc the ienplications of these findings for the teaching of vocabulary? + Learners need tasks and strategies to help them organise their mental leeison by building networks of sseciations ~ the more the better + Teachers need to accept that the learning of naw words involves a period of “initial Fuzziness’ * Learners need w wean themselves off 2 reliance oa direct translation from their mother tongue. + Words aced to be presented in their typical conteats, so that learners can get a feel for their meaning, their register, their collecations, and their syntactic environments. + ‘Teaching should direct attention to the sound of new words, particularly the way they are stressed * Learners should aim to build a threshold vocabulary as quickly as possible. + Learners need to be actively involved in the learning of words. + Learners need multiple exposures to words and they need to retrieve words from memory repeatedly. + Learners need to make multiple decisions about words > Memory of new wards can be reinforced if they are used to express personally relevant meaning. + Not all che vocabutary that the learners need can be ‘taught’: tearners will need plentiful exposure to talk and text as well as training for self directed learning, In this chapter we have surveyed the principles underlying the acqui tion of vocabulary in 2 second language, and sketched some possibie implications for teaching. Perhaps the most important points to be amphasised are these: * learners need a critical mass of vocabulary tc get them over the threshold of the second languagetocking ahead 2 + How wards are learned + achieving this critical mass requires both intentional and incidental learning + the first language is a support but can also be a potential block to the development of a second language lexicon + vocabulary fearning is item learning, and itis also network building + vocabulary learning is a memory task, but it also involves creative and personalised use, ie. leaming and using * learners have to take responsibility themselves for vocabulary expansion Having sketched out some implications for teaching, the rest of the book will explore these implications in more detail. One key issue is the relation between teaching and learning. What is the teacher's role in vocabuiary development? And how useful are ather possible sources of vocabulary input? In the next two chapters we will review and evaluate some of the main potential sources of vocabulary input, ingiuding the teacher. 3432 Lists jassroom sources f words Lists Coursebooks © Vocabulary books © The teacher ® Other students In order to achieve the kinds of leaming targets mentioned in the late chapter (12. a threshald of 2,000 to 3,000 words), vacabutary learning requires a rich and nourishing diet. Some of these words will he learned actively, Others will be picked up incidentally. So rhis diet will need ta consist of words that have been selected thr active study (i.e. for intentional learning) and it wil also nced tobe VOCABULARY A source for glass tio ta dress vestir, vestirse incidental learning |G atadent xo estadinnte | daify——_carlamente, through exposure, | Ginter ue ‘diate Where arelearners | *aiy — taludatle 1) Appodd = amnatto going to fiandtiese | oda wamatece | Abert Alben words ~ anal ia | de une | tot sufficient quantity | S¥eyfa20r una méauing | igoking- un esptjo ged with stdiciene | 9 cory eon? atekar glass ft > spout — wn bosawe | fing se) frequency? atone propeblenes- Traditionally, | Mess, ores, aque epee yO words targeted for | yaa con jn camne active study were | (ei) the pptice la pote supplied wo learn- | Storge Jorge | ets R ers in the form of | arthur astro the bath-rooea cl cussio de fists. On the right, J far” wate bal M0 | jaa tia e menter an rnerbro, for example, 8 2 | thin (rene) Un indlwdu list of words fom | toeopy copier ‘hr soap el jabn eon es ineststerta- Ineuneds — | yerhest eh araierzo jaw (oneniast) (trai) “ va coma ristave tee aitacse | dager te comin Grom Girsu LT. | igipach evar, inewee | supper la come Métede de ugh’, ‘seh ep) Coleccigin Magister)3 © Classroom sources of words the thicreenth lesson of an English course published in 1925 for Spanish- speaking students. Note that there seems to be aa apoarent rationale behind the choice and ordering of these words. Criteria of usefulness, frequency or lexical field membership don't seem to apply. Lists like this one have given list learning abad same. As the character played by Hugh Grant in Woody Allen's Smad! Time Crooks says: ‘'m got a hundred per cent convinced that memorising the dictionary is the best way of improving your vocabulary. However, the value of list learning may heve been underestimated. Many students quite like learning words from lists - even such oddly assembled lists as the one above. One reason is that it is very economical: large numbers of words can be learned in a relatively short time (where learning is taken <0 mean the ability to recall items in subsequent tests). Some researchers estimate that up to thirty words an hour can be learned this way, Having the mother tongue translation alongside not only deals with the meaning conveniently, but allows learners to zest themselves (from Li to English, and from English to L1} as well as to test one another. Even the fact that the words sre not related nor in alphabetical order may be a bonus beciuise, as we will see below, chis reduces the chance of getting words confused wich cach other, Better than lists, though, are word cards (sce page 145). Having cach word on an individual card means the sequence can be varied, as & precaution against what is culled the ‘serial effect’, This occurs when one word on a list triggers recall of the next word, and so on. This is not of much, use for reat life vocabulary use, when words must be recalled independently of the context in which they were learned. Here are some ways of exploiting word lists in class: Bi The teacher reads wards from the list in a random order. Learners show © they can match the sound with the written form by ticking the cnes they hear. They can then do this with each other in pairs. 2 Learners cover the Li translstion Gf chey have a bilingual list); the teacher gives transladons and learners tick the English equivatents. Both the preceding activities can he turned into a form of Bingo! Ask learners exch to write dewen, say, twelve words (from a list of sventy). Read out twelve words from the master list in randam order, or read out their L1 translations. Alternatively, if the words can be illustrated, show pictures of the words. Learners tick off each word as it occurs ~ the first earner to have ticked all twelve of their words shouts out Bingo! From a candor list of words, ask leamecs to make connections between words and explain them to theif classmates: the more connections the better, no matter how far-fetched. For example, using the list on page 32 where the words /a capy and to shave appear, a student right produce: f kearned to shave by wopying my father, a WB Students construct a story from the list: they can do this by choosing twelve words from a let of rwenty, and working them into a narrative Or they take turns to make a sentence that includes the next word in the list so as to continue the stary. 33How to Teach Vocatulary Coursebooks: 34 B Ask learners to make their own fist from the words that come up in the lesson (see below under Osher seuderis) and te bring their lists to class for the next lesson. At the beginning of the following lesson, pair students ap to test each other on theis word lists JB_Learners can also make lists of words that have appeared in previous How do you say ... in English? os Whue’ che English for could prepare gapped sentences to be completed by wards from their lists Coursebook treatment of vocabulary varies considerably. For example, one study of nine beginners’ courses thowed that the number of words introduced ranged from just over 2 thousand to nearly four thousand. Nowadays, it is eustomery to make explicit reference to the lexical content of 2 course in the syllabus deseription. Flere, for example, is an extract from the syllabus of Look Ahead UNIT TITLE PAGE VOCABULARY AREAS GRAMMAR Hg topis tetretard Finaie arenes esshn How alten? hacer Bacon tequeney Moalvbeeecstnte t0 ater one “Gong to stimu 5) aegis thin fone Caateat couacouta Deore es Adult cela sTionctissey Agveibs very wet inte, uot ata ia anes ysountis ef Newer Winton Res ti sivewith in aon Harte EA Fitining Hip earn sian Sonpensguc eect (seamen sey Enns septeet egr 0P) poten eda, tee acstors Fishnets efscioive (from Hopkins A and Ponter J, Loat Aécad, Longman) What factors determine the choice of words for inclusion in the lexical strand of a coarschook syllabus? Briefly, they arc: usefulness, Eequency, learnability and reachability. ‘Words are useful if they can be put to immediate use ~a case for teaching classroom vocabulary (pen, beard, door, notebook, etc.) very early in an elementary course. However, for learners studying the language but with few opportunities to put it to use, ir becomes harder to predict what words they are likely to need. Accordingly, the notion of a core vocabulary was devised. Core words are those that — all things being equal — are likely to be more uceful ehas non-core words. Core words are eypically those words used when defining other words. For example, the definition of both giggle 2nd guffarw iovolves using the word laugh A giggle is « kind of laugh, etc. But the3 Classcoom sources of words opposite is not crus: we don't use giggle o gujfaw to define lay. Laugh, theretore, is more of a core word thin giggle Another test of ‘core-ness’ is whether the word collocates widely. Thus, bright collocates with sun, light, idea, smite and child, whereas its synonym radiant has a much narrower range of collocates. 4 radiant idea and a radiant

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