David English House - Rob Waring
Dealing with vocabulary in the
Japanese classroom
Rob Waring
Notre Dame Seishin University
waring_robert@
Some opening questions
1. How do you teach vocabulary?
2. What kinds of words do Japanese students
need?
3. What is the best way to deal with vocabulary for Japanese learners?
Typical vocabulary teaching
❖ Most vocab teaching is from context
❖ Haphazard selection of materials
❖ Too many words at once
❖ Rare words are favoured over common words
❖ Learning is focused on single words
❖ All students learn the same words
❖ Word teaching = definition and spelling
❖ Teachers give meanings
❖ Low recycling of vocab in coursebooks
❖ Low recycling of vocab by teachers
❖ Teachers leave vocab learning to learners
❖ Vocab learning strategies are rarely taught
❖ Vocab learning techniques are rarely taught
❖ Vocabulary learning goals are rarely set
❖ Dictionary skills are rarely taught
❖ Vocab notebooks not encouraged
❖ Words are kept in lists
❖ Vocab exercises test not teach
Teachers trust the coursebook to deal with vocab
Common sense stuff we know about
vocabulary learning
❖ Because we teach a word does not mean they learned it (teaching does not cause learning)
❖ Because they finished the textbook does not mean they know all the words in the book
❖ There are many things to learn about a word
*spelling *pronunciation *meaning *affixes
*register *collocation *frequency *topic area etc.
❖ There are 2 stages in word learning
1. the initial ‘form – meaning’ relationship (spelling and sound)
2. deepening the knowledge of the word (collocations, register, multiple meanings etc)
❖ Initial word knowledge is very fragile as memories of new words that are not met again soon, are lost
❖ 8-50 meetings (or more) to ‘learn’ a word
❖ They cannot guess new meaning from context if the surrounding text is too difficult
❖ Not all words are equally frequent, or useful
❖ Students only need to learn the most frequent and useful words first, later they can specialize
❖ Some words are more difficult to learn than others
❖ Words live with other words, not in isolation (collocations)
❖ Written and spoken vocabulary are different
❖ Fewer words are needed for speaking than writing
Stages in word learning and how
to develop word knowledge
|Initial stage | |Deepening stage |
|To develop a ‘sight’ vocabulary |Aim? |To get a sense of how the word lives with other words and |
| | |grammar |
| | | |
|Spelling |What? |Collocation, colligation, register, usefulness, topic area |
|meaning | | |
|pronunciation | | |
| | | |
|Word cards / memorization |How? |Lots of extensive reading and listening to develop |
| | |automaticity and fluency |
| | | |
What does this mean for vocabulary
learning and teaching?
❖ We should teach words the students need (the 2000 most useful words come first)
❖ We don’t need to teach every word in the book
❖ There is not enough class time to teach everything
about a word
❖ Because time is limited, we have to teach students
how to deal with new words (independent learning)
❖ They need extensive practice with words
← so they can meet them often
← to work out word relationships
← to build recognition automaticity
❖ Students need to learn word relationships
❖ They need chances
← to observe new things about words
← to hypothesize about their knowledge
← to experiment with their vocabulary
How should we teach vocabulary?
❖ Focus on units larger than a single word
awful day high season clear conscience traffic jam blonde hair beautiful woman
❖ Focus on basic concepts
fork branch
❖ Demonstrate collocational differences
light vs. light suitcase vs. heavy suitcase
light green vs. dark green
light rain vs. heavy rain
rough rough / calm sea rough / smooth sandpaper
big surprise large area great success
big smile large family great importance
big problem large population great pleasure
big difference large volume great artist
❖ Concentrate on word grammar
give vs. give someone something
give something
give something to someone
borrow vs. borrow s/thg from s/one
What do they need?
❖ Direct word learning activities focused on word grammar (e.g. word cards) to get an initial ‘form – meaning’ relationship
❖ Teach vocab learning strategies and memory techniques
❖ Learners try many methods to find ones they like
❖ Direct vocab exercises to broaden the collocational knowledge / depth
❖ Recycle, recycle, recycle
❖ Extensive reading / extensive listening to build recognition speed, fluency in understanding / depth
❖ Active use in speech and writing for experimenting / testing hypotheses / confirming and rejecting their own use
Main principles
❖ Work against the forgetting curve
❖ Let them do the work
❖ Give them only what they can take in
❖ Expect a lot of them
❖ Set goals
❖ Select words wisely
❖ Teach dictionary skills
❖ Work above the single word level
❖ Perform a needs analysis
❖ Teach something they are going to meet again soon
❖ Words found in a wide range of texts (range) before
specialized vocab
❖ Words with a wide meaning before sub-meanings
(e.g. teach go before travel)
❖ Words that will be easy to learn (e.g. loanwords) to
build the start-up vocab and empower the learner
❖ Teach culture-specific vocabulary
❖ Teach the classroom vocabulary
❖ Teach ‘instructions’ vocabulary
❖ Teach the base meaning first
❖ Work hard on common words with many meanings
When looking at vocabulary activities
❖ Look for what the activity is trying to do
❖ Single words or phrases?
❖ Working with collocation?
❖ Natural context?
❖ Is the meaning given with the correct part of speech?
❖ Is the meaning clear and unambiguous?
❖ Do the opposites interfere with learning?
❖ Are the words too similar? (Interference)
❖ Are pictures clear and unambiguous?
❖ Is the vocabulary relevant for the learners?
❖ Is the exercise just a test?
❖ What new connections can learners make?
❖ Do definitions fit smoothly into the context?
If in doubt, try it out
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