Teaching Vocabulary

Teaching Vocabulary

By: Linda Diamond, Linda Gutlohn

Consider some excellent lesson models for teaching vocabulary, explaining idioms,

fostering word consciousness, instruction for English Language Learners, and

mnemonic strategies.

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Linking the Language: A Cross-Disciplinary Vocabulary Approach

Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings. As Steven Stahl (2005)

puts it, "Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only

implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world."

Vocabulary knowledge is not something that can ever be fully mastered; it is

something that expands and deepens over the course of a lifetime. Instruction in

vocabulary involves far more than looking up words in a dictionary and using the

words in a sentence. Vocabulary is acquired incidentally through indirect exposure

to words and intentionally through explicit instruction in specific words and word-

learning strategies. According to Michael Graves (2000), there are four

components of an effective vocabulary program:

1. wide or extensive independent reading to expand word knowledge

2. instruction in specific words to enhance comprehension of texts containing

those words

3. instruction in independent word-learning strategies, and

4. word consciousness and word-play activities to motivate and enhance

learning

Components of vocabulary instruction

The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that there is no single research-

based method for teaching vocabulary. From its analysis, the panel recommended

using a variety of direct and indirect methods of vocabulary instruction.

Intentional vocabulary teaching

Specific Word Instruction

Selecting Words to Teach

Rich and Robust Instruction

Word-Learning Strategies

Dictionary Use

Morphemic Analysis

Cognate Awareness (ELL)

Contextual Analysis

According to the National Reading Panel (2000), explicit instruction of vocabulary

is highly effective. To develop vocabulary intentionally, students should be

explicitly taught both specific words and word-learning strategies. To deepen

students' knowledge of word meanings, specific word instruction should be robust

(Beck et al., 2002). Seeing vocabulary in rich contexts provided by authentic texts,

rather than in isolated vocabulary drills, produces robust vocabulary learning

(National Reading Panel, 2000). Such instruction often does not begin with a

definition, for the ability to give a definition is often the result of knowing what the

word means. Rich and robust vocabulary instruction goes beyond definitional

knowledge; it gets students actively engaged in using and thinking about word

meanings and in creating relationships among words.

Research shows that there are more words to be learned than can be directly taught

in even the most ambitious program of vocabulary instruction. Explicit instruction

in word-learning strategies gives students tools for independently determining the

meanings of unfamiliar words that have not been explicitly introduced in class.

Since students encounter so many unfamiliar words in their reading, any help

provided by such strategies can be useful.

Word-learning strategies include dictionary use, morphemic analysis, and

contextual analysis. For ELLs whose language shares cognates with English,

cognate awareness is also an important strategy. Dictionary use teaches students

about multiple word meanings, as well as the importance of choosing the

appropriate definition to fit the particular context. Morphemic analysis is the

process of deriving a word's meaning by analyzing its meaningful parts, or

morphemes. Such word parts include root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Contextual

analysis involves inferring the meaning of an unfamiliar word by scrutinizing the

text surrounding it. Instruction in contextual analysis generally involves teaching

students to employ both generic and specific types of context clues.

Fostering word consciousness

A more general way to help students develop vocabulary is by fostering word

consciousness, an awareness of and interest in words. Word consciousness is not

an isolated component of vocabulary instruction; it needs to be taken into account

each and every day (Scott and Nagy, 2004). It can be developed at all times and in

several ways: through encouraging adept diction, through word play, and through

research on word origins or histories. According to Graves (2000), "If we can get

students interested in playing with words and language, then we are at least

halfway to the goal of creating the sort of word-conscious students who will make

words a lifetime interest."

Multiple exposures in multiple contexts

One principle of effective vocabulary learning is to provide multiple exposures to a

word's meaning. There is great improvement in vocabulary when students

encounter vocabulary words often (National Reading Panel, 2000). According to

Stahl (2005), students probably have to see a word more than once to place it

firmly in their long-term memories. "This does not mean mere repetition or drill of

the word," but seeing the word in different and multiple contexts. In other words, it

is important that vocabulary instruction provide students with opportunities to

encounter words repeatedly and in more than one context.

Restructuring of vocabulary tasks

Findings of the National Reading Panel

Intentional instruction of vocabulary items is required for specific texts.

Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important.

Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary learning. Vocabulary

tasks should be restructured as necessary.

Vocabulary learning should entail active engagement in learning tasks.

Computer technology can be used effectively to help teach vocabulary.

Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental learning. How vocabulary is

assessed and evaluated can have differential effects on instruction.

Dependence on a single vocabulary instructional method will not result in

optimal learning.

It is often assumed that when students do not learn new vocabulary words, they

simply need to practice the words some more. Research has shown, however, that

it is often the case that students simply do not understand the instructional task

involved (National Reading Panel, 2000). Rather than focus only on the words

themselves, teachers should be certain that students fully understand the

instructional tasks (Schwartz and Raphael, 1985). The restructuring of learning

materials or strategies in various ways often can lead to increased vocabulary

acquisition, especially for low-achieving or at-risk students (National Reading

Panel, 2000). According to Kamil (2004), "once students know what is expected of

them in a vocabulary task, they often learn rapidly."

Incidental vocabulary learning

The scientific research on vocabulary instruction reveals that most vocabulary is

acquired incidentally through indirect exposure to words. Students can acquire

vocabulary incidentally by engaging in rich oral-language experiences at home and

at school, listening to books read aloud to them, and reading widely on their own.

Reading volume is very important in terms of long-term vocabulary development

(Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998). Kamil and Hiebert (2005) reason that

extensive reading gives students repeated or multiple exposures to words and is

also one of the means by which students see vocabulary in rich contexts.

Cunningham (2005) recommends providing structured read-aloud and discussion

sessions and extending independent reading experiences outside school hours to

encourage vocabulary growth in students.

Instruction for English language learners (ELLs)

An increasing number of students come from homes in which English is not the

primary language. From 1979 to 2003, the number of students who spoke English

with difficulty increased by 124 percent (National Center for Education Statistics,

2005). In 2003, students who spoke English with difficulty represented

approximately 5 percent of the school population—up from 3 percent in 1979.

Not surprisingly, vocabulary development is especially important for English-

language learners (ELLs). Poor vocabulary is a serious issue for these students

(Calderon et al., 2005). ELLs who have deficits in their vocabulary are less able to

comprehend text at grade level than their English-only (EO) peers (August et al.,

2005). Findings indicate that research-based strategies used with EO students are

also effective with ELLs, although the strategies must be adapted to strengths and

needs of ELLs (Calderon et al., 2005).

Diane August and her colleagues (2005) suggest several strategies that appear to be

especially valuable for building the vocabularies of ELLs. These strategies include

taking advantage of students' first language if the language shares cognates with

English, teaching the meaning of basic words, and providing sufficient review and

reinforcement. Because English and Spanish share a large number of cognate pairs,

the first instructional strategy is especially useful for Spanish-speaking ELLs.

These students can draw on their cognate knowledge as a means of figuring out

unfamiliar words in English. A second instructional strategy for ELLs is learning

the meanings of basic words—words that most EO students already know. Basic

words can be found on lists, such as the Dale-Chall List (Chall and Dale, 1995). A

third instructional strategy that ELLs particularly benefit from is review and

reinforcement. These methods include read-alouds, teacher-directed activities,

listening to audiotapes, activities to extend word use outside of the classroom, and

parent involvement.

Strategies for ELLs:

Take advantage of students' first language

Teach the meaning of basic words

Review and reinforcement

Lesson model for: Word consciousness

Benchmarks

ability to interpret literal and figurative meanings of idioms

ability to research origins of idioms

Grade level

Kindergarten and above

Grouping

whole class

small group or pairs

Materials

small plastic toy horses

drawing paper

crayons or markers

dictionaries

Animal idioms

An idiom is a phrase or expression in which the entire meaning is different from

the usual meanings of the individual words within it. Idioms are fun to work with

because they are part of everyday vocabulary. Students enjoy working with

figurative meanings, as well as imagining possible literal meanings for the

expressions. They also enjoy finding out about the origins of idiomatic

expressions, some of which are very old. Introducing idioms by topic can make

them easier for students to remember. This sample lesson model focuses on

introducing idioms that make use of animals or animal comparisons.

Explanation

Tell students that an idiom is an expression that cannot be fully understood by the

meanings of the individual words that are contained within it. The meaning of the

whole idiom has little, often nothing, to do with the meanings of the words taken

one by one. Point out to students that idioms are often used in writing or speech to

make expression more colorful and that some of the most colorful English idioms

make use of animals or animal comparisons. Explain that many idioms have

interesting origins that may not make literal sense to us today, but made perfectly

good sense during the times in which they were coined.

Tell students that the expression "to hold your horses" is an idiom. Demonstrate its

literal meaning by holding a bunch of small plastic toy horses in your hand. Tell

students that when someone tells you "to hold your horses" it would be silly to

think that they wanted you to hold a bunch of horses in your hand. The whole

expression "to hold your horses" actually means "to slow down, wait a minute, or

be more patient." For example, if you were impatiently waiting for your sister to

get off the phone, your sister might say to you, "Hold your horses. I'll be off the

phone in a minute!"

Tell students that "to be raining cats and dogs" is another idiom. Ask students

whether, if someone said it's "raining cats and dogs," they would expect to look up

and see animals falling from the sky. Then explain to them that "raining cats and

dogs" is used to describe when it's raining really heavily or really hard. Ask

volunteers to describe a time they remember when it was "raining cats and dogs."

Ask students to draw pictures of the literal meaning of either "to hold your horses"

or "to be raining cats and dogs." Then have them take turns showing their

illustration and using the idiom correctly in a context sentence.

Collaborative practice

Tell students that they are going to work together in groups to make a drawing of

an animal idiom's literal meaning and then act out its real, or figurative, meaning.

They will see if the drawings and skits they make provide enough information for

their classmates to figure out what the idiom really means. To begin, select a group

of three students to demonstrate the activity. Tell this group that their idiom is "to

let the cat out of the bag" and that this idiom means "to give away a secret."

Divide the group tasks as follows: One student will draw the idiom the way it

would look if it meant literally what it said: by drawing a sketch of a cat leaping

out of a paper bag. This student labels the drawing with the idiom, "to let the cat

out of the bag." The other two students develop a brief skit about the figurative

meaning of the idiom: "to give away a secret." For example, they could develop a

simple scene where someone finds out about a surprise birthday party, because a

brother or sister gives it away beforehand. The last line could be: "You let the cat

out of the bag."

When the group is finished, have them show the idiom's literal meaning in the

drawing, and then act out its figurative meaning in the skit. Have the group

challenge their classmates to guess the idiom's figurative, or intended, meaning and

then correctly use the idiom in a sentence: Nancy let the cat out of the bag when

she told Nick about the surprise birthday party. When the whole class has

understood how this activity works, assign a different animal idiom, with its

figurative meaning, to other groups of students. Each group then works out its plan

for making the drawing and acting out the skit. Have the groups take turns

demonstrating their idioms to the class, so the class can guess the idiom's figurative

meaning and use it in a sentence.

Animal idioms

to have ants in your pants

to take the bull by the horns

to let the cat out of the bag

to have the cat get your tongue

to be raining cats and dogs

the straw that broke the camel's

back

to have a cow

to wait until the cows come home

to be in the doghouse

to let sleeping dogs lie

to be in a fine kettle of fish

to seem a little fishy

to live high on the hog

to look a gift horse in the mouth

to eat like a horse

to hear it straight from the horse's

mouth

to hold your horses

to put the cart before the horse

to change horses in midstream

English-language learner: Learning about idioms can be particularly helpful for

ELLs because the gap between the literal meaning of individual words and the

intended meaning of the expression often causes trouble in translation.

Lesson model for: Word-meaning recall

Benchmark

ability to remember word meanings

Grade level

Grade 3 and above

Grouping

whole class


individual

Sample texts

"Alaska Adventure" (Resources)

"Studying the Sky" (Resources)

Keyword method

Mnemonic strategies are systematic procedures for enhancing memory. The word

mnemonic comes from Mnemosyne, the name of Greek goddess of memory. The

keyword method, a mnemonic strategy, has been shown to be effective with

students who have learning difficulties and those who are at risk for educational

failure. According to the National Reading Panel, the keyword method may lead to

significant improvement in students' recall of new vocabulary words. This sample

lesson model targets two contextualized vocabulary words. The same model can be

adapted and used to enhance recall of vocabulary words in any commercial reading

program.

Direct Explanation

Explain to students that you are going to show them how to use the keyword

method, a useful strategy for remembering the meanings of vocabulary words. Tell

them you are going to model the strategy twice, using the words archipelago and

lunar.

Teach/Model

Define the target word

Read aloud the following sentence from "Alaska Adventure."

The Aleutian archipelago stretches for more than a thousand miles.

Then tell students that an archipelago is "a group of islands."

Think of a keyword for the target word

Say: To help me remember the meaning of the word archipelago, a group of

islands, I am going to think of another word, called a "keyword." The

keyword is a word that sounds like archipelagoand also is a word that can be

easily pictured. My keyword for archipelago is pelican. Pelican sounds like

archipelago and is the name of a water bird with a very large bill.

Link the keyword with the meaning of the target word

Explain to students that the next step is to create an image of the keyword

pelican and the meaning of the target word archipelago interacting in some

way. Tell them it is important that the keyword and the meaning actually

interact and are not simply presented in the same picture. On the board,

sketch a picture of a pelican flying over a group of small islands.

Say: Look at the picture of the pelican flying over the group of islands.

Ask: Pelican is the keyword for what word? (archipelago)

Say: Yes, archipelago. To recall the meaning of the word archipelago,

imagine a pelican flying over a group of small islands.

Recall the meaning of the target word

Tell students that when they see or hear the word archipelago, they should

first think of its keyword and then try to remember the picture of the

keyword and the meaning interacting.

Ask: What is the keyword for archipelago? (pelican) In the sketch, where

was the pelican flying? (over a group of islands)

Say: Right, over a group of islands.

Ask: So what does archipelago mean? (a group of islands)

English Language-Learners: Point out to Spanish-speaking ELLs that

archipelago and archipélago are cognates.

Lesson model for: Contextual analysis

Benchmarks

ability to recognize types of semantic context clues

ability to use context clues to infer word meanings

Grade level

Grade 4 and above

Prerequisite

Context Clues

Grouping

whole class


individual

Teaching chart

Types of Helpful Context Clues (Resources)

Materials

copies of Types of Helpful

Context clues chart

transparencies

blue, red, and green overhead transparency markers

Introducing types of context clues

Instruction in specific types of context clues is an effective approach for teaching

students to use context to infer word meanings. Baumann and his colleagues

recommend teaching five types of context clues: definition, synonym, antonym,

example, and general. This sample lesson model can be adapted and used to

enhance contextual analysis instruction in any commercial reading program.

Direct explanation

Tell students that they can sometimes use context clues to figure out the meaning

of an unfamiliar word they come across in their reading. Remind them that context

clues are the words, phrases, and sentences surrounding an unfamiliar word that

can give hints or clues to its meaning. Caution students that although these clues

can prove to be helpful, they can sometimes be misleading.

Teach/Model

Definition context clues

Give students copies of the Types of Helpful Context Clues chart. Briefly go over

the chart, identifying the types of context clues and discussing the example for

each one. Tell students that they should refer to the chart as they learn more about

the five different types of context clues.

Explain to students that in a definition clue the author provides the reader with the

specific definition, or meaning, of a word right in the sentence. Point out that

words such as are, is, means, and refers to can signal that a definition clue may

follow. Then print the following sentences on a transparency:

A conga is a barrel-shaped drum.

At night your can see constellations, or groups of stars, in the sky.

Read aloud the first sentence.

Say: I'm going to look for a context clue to help me understand the meaning of the

word conga.

Underline conga in blue.

Say: In the sentence, I see the word is. The word is can signal a definition context

clue.

Underline is in red.

Say: The phrase a barrel-shaped drum follows the word is.

Underline the context clue in green.

Say: A conga is a barrel-shaped drum. The author has given a definition context

clue.

For more vocabulary lesson plans, purchase CORE's Vocabulary Handbook

For more information about vocabulary, browse the articles, multimedia, and other

resources in this special section: Topics A-Z: Vocabulary.

References

Diamond, L. & Gutlohn, L. (2006). Vocabulary Handbook.Consortium on Reading

Excellence, Inc. Reproduction of this material is prohibited without permission

from the publisher.

Reprints

For any reprint requests, please contact the author or publisher listed.

Tags: Curriculum and Instruction | Vocabulary

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Table

of

Contents

1

Lessons from the Corpus

How many words are there and how many do we

need to teach?

1

What can a corpus tell us about vocabulary?

2

Frequency

4

Differences in speaking and writing

4

Contexts of use

5

Collocation

5

Grammatical patterns

6

Strategic vocabulary

8

Teaching strategic vocabulary: Fundamentals for

a syllabus

14

2

Lessons for the Classroom

What do we need to teach about vocabulary?

18

How can we help learners learn vocabulary?

19

3

Concluding Remarks

26

4

Appendices

Top 200 spoken words

27

Further reading

28

References

1


How

many

words

are

there

and

how

many

do

we

need

to

teach?

It’s almost impossible to say exactly how many words there are in English.

The Global Language Monitor, which tracks language trends, especially in the

media, has counted up to almost a million at 988,968.

Webster’s Third New

International Dictionary, Unabridged,

together with its 1993 Addenda Section,

includes around 470,000 entries.

Counting words is a complicated business. For a start, what do we

mean by a word? Look at these members of the word family RUN:

run, runs,

running, ran, runner,

and

runners.

Should we count these as one “word” or

six? How do we count different uses of the same word? For example, is the verb

run

the same in

run a marathon

as in

run a company

? Is it the same as the noun

a run

? How do we deal with idiomatic uses like

run out of gas, feel run down,

or

a run of bad luck

? And, of course, new words are being added to the language

all the time; the Internet especially has given us lots of new words like

podcast,

netizen,

and

blog,

as well as new meanings such as

surf

as in

surf the web.

Despite such difficulties, researchers have tried to estimate how many

words native speakers know in order to assess the number of words learners

need to learn. Estimates for native speakers vary between 12,000 and 20,000

depending on their level of education. One estimate is that a native speaker

university graduate knows about 20,000 word families (Goulden, Nation, and

Read, 1990), not including phrases and expressions. Current learners’ diction

-

aries such as the

Cambridge Dictionary of American English

include “more than

40,000 frequently used words and phrases

.

.

.” This huge number of items

presents a challenge that would be impossible for most English language learn

-

ers, and even for many native speakers.

Fortunately, it is possible to get along in English with fewer than

20,000 words. Another way of deciding the number of words learners need is

to count how many different words are used in an average spoken or written

text. Because some high-frequency words are repeated, it is said that learners

can understand a large proportion of texts with a relatively small vocabulary. So,

for example, learners who know the most frequent 2,000 words should be able

to understand almost 80 percent of the words in an average text, and a knowl

-

edge of 5,000 words increases learners’ understanding to 88.7 percent (Francis

and Kucera 1982). For spoken language, the news is even better since about

1,800 words make up over 80 percent of the spoken corpus (McCarthy 2004;

2

Teaching Vocabulary

O’Keeffe, McCarthy, and Carter 2007). While learning up to 5,000 words is

still a challenge, it represents a much more achievable learning goal for most

learners than 20,000 words.

So far there are two lessons to be learned from all of this. First, it

seems important to identify what the most frequent 2,000 to 5,000 vocabu

-

lary items are and to give them priority in teaching. Second, students need to

become self sufficient learners. It is unlikely that teachers can cover in class the

huge number of vocabulary items that students will need to use or understand,

so it is equally important to help students with

how

to learn vocabulary as well

as with

what

to learn.

What

can

a

corpus

tell

us

about

vocabulary?

What

is

a

corpus?

A corpus is basically a collection of texts which is stored in a computer. The

texts can be written or spoken language. Written texts like newspapers and

magazines can be entered into the computer from a scanner, a CD, or the

Internet. Spoken texts, like conversations, are recorded and then the recordings

are transcribed; that is, they are written down word for word, so that the texts

of these conversations can be fed into the computer database. It is then possible

to analyze the language in the corpus with corpus software tools to see how

people really speak or write. [For more information, see Michael McCarthy’s

booklet

Touchstone: from Corpus to Course Book

(2004) in this series.]

What

kind

of

corpus

do

we

need

to

use?

A large corpus is often divided into sections, or subcorpora, which contain dif

-

ferent types of English. For example, there are subcorpora of different varieties

such as North American English and British English, or different types of lan

-

guage like conversation, newspapers, business English, and academic English.

To use a corpus in designing a syllabus, the first thing to decide is what kind

of English we want to base our material on, because different corpora will give

us different words and often different uses of words to teach. For example, the

speaker feels is new information for the listener, as in Example


Example 1

Someone describes his relationship with his neighbors to

a

stranger:

You

see

I have neighbors that I’m good friends with, as far as

neighbor-wise.

So our choice of corpus may affect which words we will include in our

materials and which meanings of those words we will teach. For most students

in general English courses, the priority is speaking, so for these students it

makes sense to base much of the syllabus on a spoken corpus. Many students

also have to write in English, especially for examinations, so again it makes sense

to look at a corpus that includes the kinds of texts students will have to write.

Most of the examples in this booklet are taken from conversations found in the

North American spoken corpus, which is part of the

Cambridge International

Corpus

(referred to as “the Corpus” hereafter).

So what can we learn from the Corpus about vocabulary? Essentially

it can tell us about:

J

Frequency:Which words and expressions are most frequent and which are rareJDifferencesinspeakingandwriting:Which vocabulary is more often spoken and which is more often writtenJContextsofuse:The situations in which people use certain vocabularyJCollocation:Which words are often used togetherJGrammaticalpatterns:How words and grammar combine to form patternsJStrategicuseofvocabulary:Which words and expressions are used to organize and manage discourse

Corpus tools help us analyze the huge amount of data in the Corpus,

which can consist of millions of words. But in addition to providing the more

statistical kinds of information (a

quantitative

analysis), the Corpus also gives

us access to hundreds of texts which we can read in order to observe how

people use vocabulary in context – a

qualitative

analysis. For example, it is pos

-

sible to see what kinds of vocabulary people use to talk about a topic like music

or celebrities, or how they repeat words, or avoid repeating words by using

synonyms. The Corpus, however, cannot tell us exactly what to teach or how to

teach, and it has nothing to tell us with respect to how students learn best. It

cannot replace the expertise of teachers, or of students themselves, on how best

to teach and learn vocabulary. It is

a

tool. It is not the

only

too

Teaching Vocabulary

Less

ons from the Corpus

Lesso

ns for the Classroom

Jeanne McCarten

cambridge

university

press

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

32 Avenue of the Americas, New York,

NY

10013-2473, USA

www.cambridge.org

© Cambridge University Press 2007

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place without

the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

Printed in the United States of America

isbn

-1

3

978-

0-521-94325-3

paperback

Book layout services:

Page Designs International

Table

of

Contents

1


How many words are there and how many do we

need to teach?

1

What can a corpus tell us about vocabulary?

2

Frequency

4

Differences in speaking and writing

4

Contexts of use

5

Collocation

5

Grammatical patterns

6

Strategic vocabulary

8

Teaching strategic vocabulary: Fundamentals for

a syllabus

14

2

Lessons for the ClassroomWhat do we need to teach about vocabulary?18How can we help learners learn vocabulary?193Concluding Remarks264AppendicesTop 200 spoken words27Further reading28References28Lessons from the Corpus111LessonsfromtheCorpusHowmanywordsarethereandhowmanydoweneedto

teach?

It’s almost impossible to say exactly how many words there are in English.

The Global Language Monitor, which tracks language trends, especially in the

media, has counted up to almost a million at 988,968.

Webster’s Third New

International Dictionary, Unabridged,

together with its 1993 Addenda Section,

includes around 470,000 entries.

Counting words is a complicated business. For a start, what do we

mean by a word? Look at these members of the word family RUN:

run, runs,

running, ran, runner,

and

runners.

Should we count these as one “word” or

six? How do we count different uses of the same word? For example, is the verb

run

the same in

run a marathon

as in

run a company

? Is it the same as the noun

a run

? How do we deal with idiomatic uses like

run out of gas, feel run down,

or

a run of bad luck

? And, of course, new words are being added to the language

all the time; the Internet especially has given us lots of new words like

podcast,

netizen,

and

blog,

as well as new meanings such as

surf

as in

surf the web.

Despite such difficulties, researchers have tried to estimate how many

words native speakers know in order to assess the number of words learners

need to learn. Estimates for native speakers vary between 12,000 and 20,000

depending on their level of education. One estimate is that a native speaker

university graduate knows about 20,000 word families (Goulden, Nation, and

Read, 1990), not including phrases and expressions. Current learners’ diction

-

aries such as the

Cambridge Dictionary of American English

include “more than

40,000 frequently used words and phrases

.

.

.” This huge number of items

presents a challenge that would be impossible for most English language learn

ers, and even for many native speakers.

Fortunately, it is possible to get along in English with fewer than

20,000 words. Another way of deciding the number of words learners need is

to count how many different words are used in an average spoken or written

text. Because some high-frequency words are repeated, it is said that learners

can understand a large proportion of texts with a relatively small vocabulary. So,

for example, learners who know the most frequent 2,000 words should be able

to understand almost 80 percent of the words in an average text, and a knowl

-

edge of 5,000 words increases learners’ understanding to 88.7 percent (Francis

and Kucera 1982). For spoken language, the news is even better since about

1,800 words make up over 80 percent of the spoken corpus (McCarthy 2004;

2

Teaching Vocabulary

O’Keeffe, McCarthy, and Carter 2007). While learning up to 5,000 words is

still a challenge, it represents a much more achievable learning goal for most

learners than 20,000 words.

So far there are two lessons to be learned from all of this. First, it

seems important to identify what the most frequent 2,000 to 5,000 vocabu

-

lary items are and to give them priority in teaching. Second, students need to

become self sufficient learners. It is unlikely that teachers can cover in class the

huge number of vocabulary items that students will need to use or understand,

so it is equally important to help students with

how

to learn vocabulary as well

as with

what

to learn.

What

can

a

corpus

tell

us

about

vocabulary?

What

is

a

corpus?

A corpus is basically a collection of texts which is stored in a computer. The

texts can be written or spoken language. Written texts like newspapers and

magazines can be entered into the computer from a scanner, a CD, or the

Internet. Spoken texts, like conversations, are recorded and then the recordings

are transcribed; that is, they are written down word for word, so that the texts

of these conversations can be fed into the computer database. It is then possible

to analyze the language in the corpus with corpus software tools to see how

people really speak or write. [For more information, see Michael McCarthy’s

booklet

Touchstone: from Corpus to Course Book

(2004) in this series.]

What

kind

of

corpus

do

we

need

to

use?

A large corpus is often divided into sections, or subcorpora, which contain dif

-

ferent types of English. For example, there are subcorpora of different varieties

such as North American English and British English, or different types of lan

-

guage like conversation, newspapers, business English, and academic English.

To use a corpus in designing a syllabus, the first thing to decide is what kind

of English we want to base our material on, because different corpora will give

us different words and often different uses of words to teach. For example, the

word

nice

is in the top fifteen words in conversation, but it is rare in written

academic English, occurring mainly in quotations of speech from literature

or interviews. Another example is the word

see,

which has the same frequency

in conversation and written academic English, but different uses. In academic

English,

see

is mostly used to refer the reader to other books and articles, as

in

see McCarthy, 2004

– the way it was used at the end of the last paragraph.

In conversation,

see

has a greater variety of uses including the expression

I see,

which means “I understand,” and

See

and

You see,

which introduce what the

speaker feels is new information for the listener, as in Example 1.


Example 1

Someone describes his relationship with his neighbors to

A stranger:

You see

I have neighbors that I’m good friends with, as far as

neighbor-wise.

So our choice of corpus may affect which words we will include in our

materials and which meanings of those words we will teach. For most students

in general English courses, the priority is speaking, so for these students it

makes sense to base much of the syllabus on a spoken corpus. Many students

also have to write in English, especially for examinations, so again it makes sense

to look at a corpus that includes the kinds of texts students will have to write.

Most of the examples in this booklet are taken from conversations found in the

North American spoken corpus, which is part of the

Cambridge International

Corpus

(referred to as “the Corpus” hereafter).

So what can we learn from the Corpus about vocabulary? Essentially

it can tell us about:

J

Frequency:

Which words and expressions are most frequent and

which are rare

J

Differences

in

speaking

and

writing:

Which vocabulary is more

often spoken and which is more often written

J

Contexts

of

use:

The situations in which people use certain

vocabulary

J

Collocation:

Which words are often used together

J

Grammatical

patterns:

How words and grammar combine to

form patterns

J

Strategic

use

of

vocabulary:

Which words and expressions are

used to organize and manage discourse

Corpus tools help us analyze the huge amount of data in the Corpus,

which can consist of millions of words. But in addition to providing the more

statistical kinds of information (a

quantitative

analysis), the Corpus also gives

us access to hundreds of texts which we can read in order to observe how

people use vocabulary in context – a

qualitative

analysis. For example, it is pos

-

sible to see what kinds of vocabulary people use to talk about a topic like music

or celebrities, or how they repeat words, or avoid repeating words by using

synonyms. The Corpus, however, cannot tell us exactly what to teach or how to

teach, and it has nothing to tell us with respect to how students learn best. It

cannot replace the expertise of teachers, or of students themselves, on how best

to teach and learn vocabulary. It is

a

tool. It is not the

only

tool.

4

Teaching Vocabulary

times more frequent in academic texts than in conversation. Looking at such

differences, we can see whether to present vocabulary items like these in a writ

-

ten or spoken context.

Contexts

of

use

The Corpus includes information about speakers and situations in which con

-

versations take place. It is possible to see, for example, whether an item of

vocabulary is used by everyone in all kinds of situations, or mostly by people

who know each other very well, or mostly in more polite situations with strang

-

ers or work colleagues, etc. Information like this from the Corpus enables us to

present vocabulary appropriately and to point out to students examples of more

formal usage such as

Goodbye

vs.

Bye

and, perhaps more importantly, very infor

-

mal usage such as using the word

like

for reporting speech (

I was like “Hey!”

) or

the expression

and stuff

(

We have a lot of parties and stuff

).

Collocation

The term

collocation

generally refers to the way in which two or more words

are typically used together. For example, we talk about

heavy rain

but not

heavy

sun,

or we say that we

make

or

come to a decision,

but we don’t

do a decision.

So,

heavy rain

and

make a decision

are often referred to as

collocations

and we say

that

heavy

collocates

with

rain,

or that

heavy

and

rain

are

collocates

of each

other. With collocation software we can search for all the collocates of a particu

-

lar word, that is, all the words that are used most frequently with that word and

especially those with a higher than anticipated frequency.

This is particularly useful for finding the collocates of verbs like

have,

get, make,

and

do,

which are often referred to as

delexical verbs.

These are verbs

which don’t have a (lexical) meaning of their own, but take their meaning from

the words that they collocate or are used with. For example, the verb

make

has

a different meaning in each of the expressions

make a cake, make a decision,

and

make fun of,

so it is sensible to teach verbs like these in expressions, as col

-

locations, instead of trying to identify and distinguish basic meanings, which is

difficult and, in many cases, almost impossible.

Figure 1 shows some of the most frequent collocates of the words

make

and

do.

They include words that come immediately after the word (

make

sure

) and words that come two or more words after it (

make

a

difference

,

make

a huge

mistake

).

MAKE:

sure, difference, sense, decision, mistakes, decisions,

money, judgments, mistake, reservations, copies, effort

DO:

anything, something, things, job, well, nothing, work,

whatever, aerobics, gardening, stuff, homework, laundry

Figure

1:

Collocates of the words

make

and

do.


However, when we look at the phrases

Would you mind

and

Do you

mind

in the Corpus, we find that two of these patterns stand out as being

more frequent. Figure 3 includes a representative selection of examples of these

phrases from the Corpus. Each phrase is shown in a

concordance

. A concor

-

dance is a screen display of a word or phrase as it is used by many different

speakers in the Corpus. The word or phrase we are interested in is shown in

the middle of the screen, highlighted in some way, with the rest of the text – if

any

– before and after it. So, in Figure 3, each line is someone speaking and

using the phrase

Would you mind

or

Do you mind.

Would

you

mind

taking

that

day?

Would

you

mind?

bus

driver

said

“

Would

you

mind

takingtheseatbythewindowbecauseheWouldyoumindseeingifNickwantscakeJoel?Wouldyoumind...Wouldyoumindtalkingtousjustforaminute?Wouldyoumind?Would

youmind?thepersonsays“Wouldyoumindsigningthisform?”AndIwaslike“WouldyouminddrivingustoNorris?”Wouldyoumindmeaskingwhatkindofdogisthis?WouldyoumindansweringacoupleofquestionsrealquiDoyoumindif

Igrabthis?DoyoumindifIgogetadrinkfirst?She’slike“Doyoumind?”DoyoumindifIputsomemakeuponrealquick?Doyoumind?DoyoumindifIuhtaketheumapplejuiceinthecar?Do

youmindifItakethesepretzels?Doyoumind?DoyoumindifItakeapictureofyourchocolates?Doyoumindustapingit?”Doyoumindif

there’s

like

white?

Do

you

mind

if

I

put

the

thing

on

there?

Figure

:

Concordances of

Would you mind

and

Do you

mind

from the Cambridge International Corpus, North

American Conversation.

In some cases these phrases are used on their own as questions with no

text following. Where the speaker continues, notice that

Do you mind

is mostly

used in the expression

Do you mind if I

to ask permission to do something.

However,

Would you mind

is mostly used as

Would you mind + .

ing

to ask

other people to do something. Notice also the more complex patterns with an

8

Teaching Vocabulary

object (

Would you mind

me

asking

.

.

.

and

Do you mind

us

taping

) are also

much less frequent. So we can make students’ lives a little easier and teach the

frequent patterns first, leaving the complex structures until a later level.

The

vocabulary

of

grammar

In addition to seeing the grammar of individual words – the grammar of vocab

-

ulary – we can also learn about the vocabulary used with certain grammar

structures – the

vocabulary

of

grammar

. For example, the Corpus can tell us

the most frequent verbs used in the past continuous structure

was .

.

.

ing.

The

top ten are

going, thinking, talking, doing, saying, trying, telling, wondering,

looking, working.

Notice that five of these verbs describe “saying” and “thinking.” In

addition, 12 percent of the uses of

was going to

are in the phrases

was going to

say

or

was going to ask,

and 28 percent of the uses of

was trying

are with similar

verbs of saying and thinking. So it seems that these verbs are an important part

of the vocabulary of this structure. [See Carter and McCarthy (1995), which

describes this as one aspect of the grammar of speech.] Shouldn’t we then teach

this vocabulary with this structure if we want students to learn the kind of usage

they will hear from expert users and native speakers?

Strategic

vocabulary

Teachers are familiar with the kinds of words and expressions that writers use

strategically to organize written texts, from simple conjunctions like

and

and

however,

which organize ideas within and across sentences, and adverbs such

as

first, secondly,

etc., which list ideas within a paragraph or text, to expressions

such as

in conclusion,

which signal that the text is about to end. Written texts are

easy to find in newspapers, books, on the Internet, etc., as models for teaching

or our own writing. But what is the strategic vocabulary that speakers use to

organize and manage conversations, and how can we find it? To help us answer

these questions, we need a corpus so we can analyze many different conversa

-

tions. We can start by looking again at frequency lists to identify and analyze the

kind of strategic vocabulary speakers use.

In addition to looking at single words, we can ask the Corpus to give us

frequency lists of phrases – vocabulary items that contain more than one word,

sometimes called “chunks,” “lexical bundles,” or “clusters” [see McCarthy and

Carter (2002); O’Keeffe, McCarthy, and Carter (2007)]. These lists contain

“fragments,” or bits of language that don’t have a meaning as expressions in

their own right, such as

in the, and I,

and

of the.

However, we can remove these

to find expressions that do have their own meaning, as in Figure 4.


9

No.

of

words

in

phrase

Examples

two

you know, I mean, I guess, or something

three

a little bit, and all that

four

or something like that, and things like that

five

you know what I mean, as a matter of fact

six

it was nice talking to you; and all that

kind of stuff

seven+ words

a lot of it has to do (with)

Figure

4:

Expressions from frequency lists in the

Cambridge International Corpus, North American

Conversation.

Some of these expressions are much more frequent than the every

-

day, basic, single words that we would expect to teach at an elementary level.

Chunks such as

I mean, I don’t know,

and

or something

are more frequent than

words like

woman, six,

and

black.

This suggests we need to take chunks seriously

as vocabulary items to teach in a basic course.

Finding

a

vocabulary

of

conversation

When we look at the most frequent words and phrases in conversation, we find

many items that conversation shares with the written language, such as gram

-

matical words (articles, pronouns, prepositions, etc.), common everyday nouns,

verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (

people, money;

go, see;

different, interesting ;

still,

usually

), and modal items (

can, should, maybe, probably

). As we saw earlier, some

of these may be far more frequent in conversation than in writing (e.g.,

prob

-

ably

) or have different uses (e.g.,

see

).

In addition to these grammatical and common everyday words and

phrases, we also find items that distinguish the spoken language from the

written, items that reflect the interactive nature of conversation and that give

conversation its distinctive character. We can perhaps best describe these as a

vocabulary

of

conversation

rather than merely as vocabulary

in

conversa

-

tion. Below are examples of the types of this vocabulary with extracts from the

Corpus to show how people have actually used them. Note that some of the

frequent expressions have several uses and fall into more than one category.

Discourse markers

A

discourse

marker

is a word or phrase that organizes or manages the dis

course in some way. In this case the type of discourse is conversation. Some of

Teaching Vocabulary

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