www.swansea.ac.uk

www.swansea.ac.uk

The AWL and Lower Levels

Fit for Purpose or Fit for Change? Neil Harris

English Language Training Services

www.swansea.ac.uk

Workshop Overview

•Part One – 20 mins

•Where are we all at?

•The Academic Word List (AWL)

•The Challenge: The AWL and

“Lower Level Learners”

•Key Concepts in Vocabulary

Learning

•A Possible Solution

Part Two – 20 mins

•Discussion

•Exchange of Thoughts and

Ideas

•Conclusions?

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Where are we all at?

I teach students whose level is lower than IELTS 6.0

I teach the AWL explicitly at lower levels (IELTS 5.0 and lower)

I don’t teach the AWL at all at lower levels.

I use Skills in English in my teaching (levels?)

I use Language Leader in my teaching (levels?)

I use my own materials to teach the AWL

I am generally happy with the way I teach the AWL

I am generally happy with the way my students learn the AWL

I want to be able to deal better with the AWL at lower levels

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The Academic Word List

Averil Coxhead 1998

Based on a corpus of 3,513,300 tokens(running words ) / 70,377 types

28 subject areas, 4 subcorpora (Arts, Commerce, Law & Science)

Excludes West’s GSL (1953)

570 word families

Each word family: min 15/28 subject areas, 10 occurrences in each subcorpus

Divided into 10 sublists (Sublists 1-9, 60 items: Sublist 10, 30 items)

Based around word families, not lemmas

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The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners

1. Entry level of our students

2. Availability of materials at lower levels

3. Students’ Profile: L1 / Typical Learning Styles

4. The AWL itself?

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The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners

Entry Levels

Do lower level “EAP” students in the UK have

sufficient mastery of the GSL to move onto

the AWL?

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Answering the Nation et al VLT

 

l business

2 clock part of a house

3 horse animal with four

legs

4 pencil something used

for writing

5 shoe

6 wall

l business

2 clock 6 part of a house

3 horse 3 animal with four

legs

4 pencil 4 something used

for writing

5 shoe

6 wall

 

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VLT Results, Swansea University EUS2 Jan 2011

70 students:

48 Chinese

19 Arabs

1 Vietnamese

2 Italians

9 Adv, 28 UI, 23 Int, 13 Pre-Int

2K 3K AWL 5K Total

Adv 893 629 817 346 3057

UI 698 469 478 249 2141

Int 726 483 532 311 2319

Pre-Int

702 565 476 298 2306

CEFR A2 – B1 2500

CEFR B2 – C1 3750Milton, J. (2009), Measuring Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, p.187

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The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners

Materials

Most published materials are for learners who

are Upper Intermediate and above

Concern: How much does textual processing

load interfere with AWL study?

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The AWL and Published Materials I

Campbell, C. (2009), EAS Vocabulary Study Book (Reading: Garnet Education)

(Back cover: Upper Intermediate to Proficiency, IELTS 5.0-7.5+, CEF B2-C2GSL plus AWL Sublists 1-5)

Huntley, H. (2006), Essential Academic Vocabulary: Mastering the Complete Academic Word List (Boston: Heinle)

(Website: CEF Higher Intermediate-Advanced) http://elt.heinle.com/cgi-telt/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M2b&product_isbn_issn=0618445420&discipline_number=301

Schmitt, D. & Schmitt, N. (2005), Focus on Vocabulary: Mastering the Academic Word List (White Plains NY: Pearson Education, Inc)

(Website: Higher Intermediate - Advanced)http://eltcatalogue.pearsoned-ema.com/Course.asp?Callingpage=Catalogue&CourseID=RX

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The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners

Students’ profile

Not just a question of low entry levels:

• L1 issues (Chinese and Arabic)

• Typical learning styles (rote learning of

the AWL item by item as a list)

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The AWL itself?

• Based on word families (not lemmas)

• Identifies the most frequent family member but

no other clues (polysemy, part of speech,

frequency, changes in meaning)

• Design appeals to rote learners

The Challenge: The AWL and Lower Level Learners

www.swansea.ac.uk

Rethinking the AWL and materials design for lower levels

Development of in-house materials2009: Weekly spelling tests

2010: Towards a more student-centered approach:

• students worked in groups to research and present their choice of

words

• students devised their own revision test items

More engaging but quality of work uneven!

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Rethinking the AWL and materials design for lower levels

What if...

...materials took best practice into account and...

... took into account the challenges previously identified

... recycled texts which the students had already processed for meaning (typically for reading skills) for explicit AWL instruction

... did not overload the students but tried to encourage deep learning,

but what about…lexical activation and personalisation at lower levels?

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Key Concepts in Vocabulary Learning

• Words must be encountered numerous times in order to be

learned.

• Different contexts provide different kinds of information about a

word.

• Students learn best when their attention is focused on the materials

to be learned.

• Learning a word entails more than knowing its meaning, spelling,

and pronunciation.

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• Learners typically do not know all the family members of a word

family, even if they know some of these word forms.

• An understanding of collocations is equally important for the

natural use of words.

• Collocations should be presented in authentic contexts.Schmitt, D. & Schmitt, N. (2005), Focus on Vocabulary: Mastering the Academic Word List (White Plains NY: Pearson

Education, Inc)

Key Concepts in Vocabulary Learning

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• Confusing words should not be taught together (risk of learners rote learning

from the list)

• Good learning techniques inform classroom activities(eg flashcards created

in class)

• Learning takes into account the likely uptake of vocabulary by word class

(nouns verbs adjectives adverbs)

• Use of lemmatisation to overcome the assumption that AWL list users (Milton

2009:12) “have the kind of knowledge of word formation to make them

comparable with native speakers” (eg learner populated lemmatised lists)

Extending the key concepts

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A Possible Solution – latest SU in-house materials

• Use reading passages already encountered for

skills work (course books)

• Revisit these texts for explicit AWL instruction

• Audit texts using Tom Cobb’s compleat lexical

tutor

• Devise activities which focus on most frequent

AWL item in the family plus nouns and verbs

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In-house AWL Materials – some benefits

• Decreases processing load for students

• Saves time sourcing suitable texts for

exploitation

• CB sourced texts often already trialled /

suitably graded for level

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In-house AWL materials – some disadvantages

• Copyright

• Data entry potentially very time-consuming

• Risk of students becoming bored

• Is the source material “academic enough”. Does it

matter at this level?

• Reduced control over AWL items (cannot choose

which items to include)

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Can lemmatisation help?

Word families are the standard

• Base word and all inflections and derivations

Lemmas may be better?

• Base word and regular inflections and most frequent

derivations which do not change the part of speech

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What might it look like?

analyse

analysed

analyser

analysers

analyses

analysing

analysis

analyst

analysts

analytic

analytical

analytically

analyze

analyzed

analyzes

analyzing

analyse

(vb)

(n1)

(n2)

(n3)

(adj)

(adv)

analyse analyses analysed analysing

analyze analyzes analyzed analyzing

analysis analyses

analyst analysts

analyser analysers

analytic analytical

analytically

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Over to you

• What could you borrow from these ideas for your

students?

• What would you keep?

• What would you change?

• What would you reject?

• What questions would you like to raise?