Today I'm on holiday, so I had time to read some good articles. Teaching Vocabulary to Advanced Level Students is a very interesting and useful article that focuses on the vocabulary needs of high-level ESL learners. I received it as a newsletter sent by free-english.com, in collaboration with ESL-Pro.
"Advanced ESL learners can generally communicate well, having learned all the basic structures of the language. However, they need to expand their vocabulary to express themselves more clearly and appropriately in a wide range of situations. Students might even have a receptive knowledge of a wider range of vocabulary, which means they can recognize the item and recognize its meaning. Nevertheless, their productive use of a wide range of vocabulary is normally limited, and this is one of the areas that need greater attention. Traditionally, the teaching of vocabulary above elementary levels was mostly incidental, limited to presenting new items as they appeared in reading or sometimes listening texts. This indirect teaching of vocabulary assumes that vocabulary expansion will happen through the practice of other language skills, which has been proved not enough to ensure vocabulary expansion. Nowadays it is widely accepted that vocabulary teaching should be part of the syllabus, and taught in a well-planned and regular basis. Some linguists even argue that vocabulary should be at the center of language teaching.
Thus, the goals of vocabulary teaching must be more than simply covering a certain number of words on a word list. We must use teaching techniques that can help realise this global concept of what it means to really know a lexical item. Teachers and teaching materials must also go beyond that, giving learner opportunities to use the items learned and also helping them to use effective written storage systems. Let us now go into more detail about this.
Understanding how our memory works might help us create more effective ways to teach vocabulary. Why? Well, it seems that learning new items involve storing them first in our short-term memory, and afterwards in long-term memory. We do not control this process consciously but there seems to be some important clues to consider. First, retention in short-term memory is not effective if the number of chunks of information exceeds seven. Therefore, this suggests that in a given lesson we should not aim at teaching more than this number. However, our long-term memory can hold any amount of information.
Research also suggests that our ‘mental lexicon’ is highly organised and efficient, and that semantic related items are stored together. Word frequency is another factor that affects storage, as the most frequently used items are easier to retrieve. We can use this information to attempt to facilitate the learning process, by grouping items of vocabulary in semantic fields, such as topics (e.g. types of vegetables). The way students store the items learned can also contribute to their success or failure in retrieving them when needed. Most learners simply list the items learned in chronological order, indicating meaning with translation. This system is far from helpful, as items are de-contextualised, encouraging students to over generalize usage of them. It does not allow for additions and refinements, nor indicates pronunciation.
Teachers can encourage learners to use other methods, using topics and categories to organise a notebook, binder, or index cards. Meaning should be stored using English as much as possible, and also giving indication for pronunciation. Diagrams and word trees can also be used within this topic/categories organisation. The class as a whole can keep a vocabulary box with cards, which can be used for revision/recycling regularly. Organising this kind of storage system is time-consuming and might not appeal to every learner. Therefore, adapting their chronological lists to include headings for topics and a more complete definition of meaning would already be a step forward.
Perhaps the most important aspect of vocabulary teaching for advanced learners is to foster learner independence so that learners will be able to deal with new lexis and expand their vocabulary beyond the end of the course. Therefore, guided discovery, contextual guesswork, and using dictionaries should be the main ways to deal with discovering meaning.
Guided discovery involves asking questions or offering examples that guide students to guess meanings correctly. In this way learners get involved in a process of semantic processing that helps learning and retention. Contextual guesswork means making use of the context in which the word appears to derive an idea of its meaning, or in some cases, guess from the word itself, as in words of Latin origin. Knowledge of word formation (e.g. prefixes and suffixes) can also help guide students to discover meaning. Teachers can help students with specific techniques and practice in contextual guesswork, for example, the understanding of discourse markers and identifying the function of the word in the sentence (e.g. verb, adjective, noun). The latter is also very useful when using dictionaries. In fact, students should start using ESL dictionaries as early as possible, from the intermediate upwards. With adequate training, dictionaries are invaluable tools for learners, giving them independence from the teacher. As well as understanding meaning, students are able to check pronunciation, the grammar of the word (e.g. verb patterns, verb forms, plurality, comparatives, etc.), different spelling (American versus British), style and register, as well as examples that illustrate usage."
Next time when you teach vocab, try to implement some of the above suggested techniques. I'll do the same and brief you late how it worked out!
- Thai Students podcasts http://thaistudents.mypodcast.com
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