Extended version, dannae del campo gabriela quezada (1)

System of languages: teaching vocabulary


Dannae Del Campo Méndez

Gabriela Quezada Cabezas

Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC)


In the past teaching and learning a foreign language was primarily concentrate on

controlling grammar while vocabulary was viewed primarily as an auxiliary activity often

taught through the memorization of word lists. Nowadays, the vocabulary system is taken

as an essential matter at the moment of teaching a second language in a classroom which is

present in all the skills of the language (reading, writing, speaking and listening). One of

the reasons is that students need to develop their knowledge in the context of second

language learning. In the following paragraphs it will be discuss, according to Nation

(2001), Hedge (2000) and Sökmen (1997) some strategies, factors affecting vocabulary

acquisition and useful exercises among others.

According to Oxford dictionary (1995) vocabulary is defined as the body of words

used in a particular language and there are several characteristics to measure word

knowledge. Nation (2001) argued that on the process of knowing a word there are two main

aspects to distinct a specific word. The first main aspect is called receptive distinction

which receives language input from others through listening and reading and tries to

comprehend it. From the point of view of receptive, knowing a word involves to being able

to recognize the word when it is heard, being familiar with its written form so that it is

recognised when it is met in reading, knowing what the word means in the particular

context in which it has just occurred, knowing the concept behind the word which will

allow understanding in a variety of contexts, among others. The second main aspect it is

called productive distinction which involves wanting to express a meaning through

speaking or writing and retrieving and producing the appropriate spoken or written word

form. From the point of view of productive knowledge and use, knowing a word involves

to being able to say it with correct pronunciation including stress, to write it with correct


spelling, to construct it using the right word parts in their appropriate forms, to produce the

word to express the meaning, among others.

Moreover, Nation (2001) mentioned two ways which vocabulary can be learned.

The first way is to learn vocabulary through oral skills which involves listening and

speaking. In listening learners can pick up new vocabulary as teachers read to them and in

speaking learners are suggest to memorise as well as vocabulary knowledge a large number

of clauses and phrases. The second way is to learn vocabulary through written skills which

involves reading and writing. In reading students can learn new vocabulary by guessing

words from context and in writing teachers ask for words to be marked so it can be used to

encourage vocabulary development.

For these two ways of learning new vocabulary, Hedge (2000) mentioned some

strategies which can be apply at the moment of developing a class. These strategies are

divided into cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies are direct mental

operations which are concerned with working on new words in order to understand,

categorize and store them, some examples are making associations, learning words in

groups and exploring range of meaning. On the other hand, metacognitive strategies are not

mental operations and they facilitate learning by actively involving the learner in conscious

efforts to remember new words, some examples are consciously collecting words from

authentic context, making word cards, categorizing words into lists and reactivating

vocabulary in internal dialogue. Nevertheless, Hedge (2000) not only mentioned strategies

but also factors which can affect vocabulary acquisition, some factors are to do with input,

in other words, the way in which vocabulary presents itself to learners and other factors are

to do with storage which is how learners store vocabulary and they are able to retrieve it

when it is needed. Hedge (2000) mentioned three features of input, the first one is


frequency which means that the most frequent words in English will be those most useful to

learners. Consequently learners will only know the words which are repeated more than

seven times but they will not know half of the words that appear once or twice in their

course book. The second feature mentioned is pronunciation which means that learners

need to practice the stress and pronunciation of the words in all stages of the process of

learning and not only in the initial one, so the process is continued. The third and last

feature is called contextualization which means that the words presented to learners are

mostly isolated so there is no context for a cognitive hold and words are forgotten quickly.

According to Hedge (2000) the storage factors are two, storing and emotional response. In

storing there is growing evidence that teachers should use techniques for vocabulary

learning to encourage students to work on activities based on the sound and visual image of

a word so they can retain the word permanently. And in the second factor called emotional

response it is true that it affects learners’ retention, as it is demonstrated, for instance, in the

case of taboo words which are seem to stick easier to learners’ memory.

Moreover, Nation (2001) suggested useful activities according to meaning, form

and use. Meaning is the mental image and comprehension which is generated by grammar

or vocabulary. When vocabulary is the focus of the lesson, students connect the form of the

word with the meaning; some examples of activities are classifying words, finding

opposites, making word maps and finding substitutes. In the case of form which refers to

the mechanics of the language, students must understand the pronunciation of a word. If it

is in a written text then students have to know how to spell the word; some examples of

activities are pronounce the words, read aloud, finding spelling rules and filling word parts

tables. In the case of the use which it is how vocabulary is used in the real context; some

examples are matching sentences halves, finding collocates and classifying constraints.


Other important points mentioned by Nation (2001) are a set of principles at the

moment of teaching vocabulary. These principles should have a major influence on content

and sequencing (what vocabulary is focused on and how it is divided into stages) which is

using frequency and range of occurrence as ways of deciding what vocabulary to learn and

the order in which students are going to learn it, also is giving adequate training in essential

vocabulary learning strategies and attention to each vocabulary item according to the

learning burden of that item and at last providing opportunities to learn the various aspects

of what it is involved in knowing a word. It also should have influence on format and

presentation (how the vocabulary is taught and learned) which is making sure that high-

frequency target vocabulary occurs in all the four strands of meaning (focused input,

language-focused learning, meaning-focused output and fluency development), providing

opportunity for spaced, repeated, generative, retrieval of words to ensure cumulative

growth and using depth-of-processing activities. At last it is also important to focus on

monitoring and assessment (how learning is measured) which is testing learners to see what

vocabulary they need to focus on, using monitoring and assessment to keep learners

motivated and encouraging and help learners to reflect on their learning.

According to Nation (2001) and as it was mentioned before if a well-designed

course is wanted it is necessary to have present the four strands of meaning. The first strand

is called meaning-focused input which means that learners should have the opportunity to

learn new language items though listening and reading activities where the main focus is

the information of what they are listening or reading, this cannot occur if there are lots of

unknown words. It also has as a requirement to have skills at guessing from context, some

examples of activities and techniques of this strand are listening to stories, communication


activities and reading graded readings. The second strand is called language-focused

learning or sometimes called form-focused instruction which means that a course should

involved a direct teaching of vocabulary and at the same time a direct learning and study of

vocabulary. This strand is focus on language items and some requirements to develop this

strand is to have skills in vocabulary learning strategies, to have appropriate teacher focus

on high-frequency words and strategies for low-frequency words, some examples of

activities and techniques of this strand are the direct teaching of vocabulary, direct learning,

intensive reading and training in vocabulary strategies. The third strand is called meaning-

focused output in which learners should have the opportunity to develop their knowledge of

the language through speaking and writing activities where the main attention is focused on

the message or the information they are trying to convey, as the first strand, this cannot

occur if there are lots of unknown words. Another requirement is the encouragement to use

unfamiliar items and supportive input, some examples of activities and techniques are

communication activities with written input and prepared writing. The last strand is called

fluency development which is where learners do not work with new language; instead, they

develop their fluency with items they already know. The requirements for this strand are to

know the items and to repeat, some examples of activities and techniques are reading easy

graded readers, repeated reading, speed reading, listening to easy input, rehearsed tasks and

10 minute writing. Moreover, Nation (2001) explained that in a language course it is

important to spend the same amount of time in each strand.

In addition to this, Laufer, Meara & Nation (2005) explained ten ideas for teaching

vocabulary. The first is to do not rely too much on uninstructed acquisition which is picking

up words from context, the second is to create your own lexical syllabus which means to

create your own summary on your teaching materials, frequency lists and learner specific


needs. The third idea is to do not count on guessing strategies to replace vocabulary

knowledge which is to understand the surrounding words of the unknown item that include

the clues. The fourth is to increase learners’ vocabulary, when class is limited a good idea is

to encourage students to create their own notebooks or computer files as a strategy for

increasing their vocabulary. The fifth idea is to recycle words that have been introduced

earlier in the course so students do not forget the words that are not repeatedly used by

destine several minutes per class to review “vocabulary oldies”, the sixth is to give frequent

vocabulary tests so students have an intentional process of memorisation using, for

instance, cards with the meaning in one side and the word on the other side. The seventh is

to draw learners’ attention to “synforms” (word pairs or group of words with similar sound,

script or morphology which learners tend to confuse), a useful advice is to not teach several

new synforms together; instead, teachers have to help students to practice them. The eighth

idea is to pay attention to interlingual semantic differences because an L1 word may have

many alternatives in English and an English word may have many translations in the L1

which can lead to lexical errors. The ninth is to do not ban the L1 translation of words, on

the contrary, use translation with words that have an exact or close equivalent word in L1.

At last the tenth idea is to practice the use of collocations that differ from the learners’ L1

because even advanced learners make mistakes in the use of collocations that differ from

L1.

At last and according to Sökmen (1997), there are three main current trends in teaching

second language vocabulary. The first current trend is inferring from context and Sökmen

(1997) argued that acquiring vocabulary through guessing words in context is likely to be a

very slow process; moreover students that have a low-level of proficiency in the target

language are often frustrated with this approach. The second trend is explicit teaching and


there are several strategies that can be used in the classroom, one of them is called build a

large sight vocabulary and it consist on teaching the 2000 most frequent words in English.

The other one is called integration of the new words with the old and it occurs when

students are asked to draw on their background knowledge, their schema, they connect the

new word, with already knew words, the link is created and they learn the word. And the

last one is called promote a deep level of processing so better learning will take place when

a deeper level of semantic processing is required because the words are encoded with

elaboration. Finally, the last current trend is an encouraging independent strategy which is

to help students to find a way of learning by themselves how to continue to acquire new

vocabulary.

To sum up, in terms of teaching vocabulary one of the pioneers of the topic is

Nation (2001) which explained distinctions which help students to know a word, how

vocabulary can be learn, strategies for vocabulary learning, factors which affect the

learning of a new vocabulary, among others. Moreover, Hedge (2000) also explained some

strategies to develop vocabulary teaching and also factors which affect the process of

vocabulary acquisition. At last Sökmen (1997) argued that are three current trends that are

used by teachers at the moment of teaching vocabulary. It is important for future teachers to

have the knowledge of how developing a complete vocabulary class which involves all the

topics mentioned in this paper.


References

Laufer., Meara & Nation (2005) Ten best ideas for teaching vocabulary, The

language teacher, 29, 3-4.

Hedge, T. (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. China:

Oxford University Press.

Nation, P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. United Kingdom:

Cambridge University Press.

Sökmen, A. (1997) Vocabulary Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. United

Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Extended version, dannae del campo gabriela quezada (1)

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