VocabularyBy Husain Abdolhay

April 2009

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2004) 24, 146B161. Printed in the USA.Copyright 8 2004 Cambridge University Press 0267-1905/04 $12.00 DOI: 10.1017/S0267190504000078

CONTENTS Approaches to vocabulary instruction and learning

Vocabulary selection and coverage The vocabulary of speech

Specific purpose vocabulary Learner dictionaries

Vocabulary in the classroom Computer application

Assessing vocabulary knowledge

Approaches to vocabulary instruction & learning

Incidental (implicit):

Learning vocabulary via another learning activity

Intentional (explicit) :

Focusing on words and consciously trying to

learn them

Incidental learning Written input:

Swanborn & de Glopper(2002):

readers’ purpose and level of reading ability Pulido(2003):

reader ability, topic familiarity and passive sight vocabulary

Spoken input :

Vidal(2003)

Longer-term retention of words

Hulstijn(2001)

Quality and frequency of the information

processing activities (i.e., elaboration on aspects of a word’s form and meaning, plus rehearsal)

Incidental and Intentional as Complementary

)Hulstijn, 2001(rehearsal of words, rote learning, and training in automatic word recognition as one component of vocabulary learning, particularly for beginning and intermediate-level learners

Any gains from incidental learning will be modest for them, when compared with what can be achieved with more “intentional” or direct forms of vocabulary study

task-induced involvement

The learners’ need to achieve

A need to search for information on the meaning or form of the word

Evaluation of how the information obtained applied to the particular use of the word in question

) Hulstijn & Laufer, 2001 (

Relationship between Task Variables & Retention

Do vocabulary learning activities which require pushed output help students retain more new words

than input-based tasks?

)Hulstijn & Laufer, 2001(

High-frequency Words

West’s General Service List (1953)

Pedagogical value of the General Service List:

semantic basis of its selection and presentation

word families

Word frequency lists derived from the British National Corpus (BNC)

The Vocabulary of Speech

Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English (CANCODE)

Adolphs and Schmitt(2003):

3000-word vocabulary a more realistic goal for the lexical demands of everyday conversation

What percentage of knowledge of words of a text is needed to fully understand a written or spoken

text?

80% for an adequate understanding

95% must be known to infer meaning

98% to read independently

Bonk (2000)

Hu and Nation (2000)

95 % as a minimum threshold for incidental learning to take place

Specific Purpose Vocabulary

Coxhead’s Academic Word List:

Subtechnical terms

Ward’s corpus of discipline-specific texts:

Technical terms

word frequency and the meanings and uses of particular lexical items in the field of study

Learner Dictionaries

Access manually

Consult electronically

Tribble’s (2003) comparison of the CD-ROM versions of the five leading advanced learners’ dictionaries

Research on learners’ preferences and their actual use of the dictionaries:

Nesi (2000)

Research on performing dictionary-free tasks :

Nesi (2000)

Effect of dictionary features on task performance

Nesi (2000)

Neither the particular defining style used by a dictionary nor the inclusion of examples in a dictionary entry had a measurable effect on learners’ ability to produce acceptable sentences incorporating the target word

Research on Learner’s variables and Dictionary use:

1.Nationality:

) English as a foreign language(

) English as a second language(

2.Linguistic distance

Strategic use of dictionary

Nesi and Haill (2002):

Definite limits on the ability of learners to make full use of the information about words in dictionary if they consult it independently, without the guidance of a teacher

Vocabulary in the Classroom

Teacher talk and vocabulary growth:

Lightbown, Meara, and Halter (1998)

Teaching methods and vocabulary acquisition:

Tang and Nesi (2003)

Computer Applications

Groot (2000)CAVOCA (Computer Assisted Vocabulary Acquisition)

Access to electronic dictionary or to hyperlinks providing glosses and other useful information about particular words

How best to present the glosses

Marking glossed words (underlining or color font)

De Ridder (2002)

Multimedia glossing:

pictorial and written annotations of words

Visual glossing still pictures and video clips with sound(

Effect of multimedia glossing on retention:

)Plass, Chun, Mayer, & Leutner, 1998(

Research on Visual glossing:

Al-Seghayer (2001)

Chun and Plass (1996)

relationship between L2 & L1 equivalences and retention of the words

Laufer and Hill (2000)

Text Ladder by Ghadirian (2002)

Assessing Vocabulary Knowledge

Vocabulary size (breadth):

How many words the learner knows

Depth of vocabulary knowledge:

How well different word knowledge components are known

Assessing Vocabulary Size

Nation’s Vocabulary Levels Test

Assessing depth of Vocabulary Knowledge

Read’s word associates test