Chapter 1

Theoretical Underpinnings of Vocabulary Learning and Teaching

 

2. The New Importance Attached to Vocabulary

 

For many years, it was believed that vocabulary would be ‘picked up’ by learners without their teachers having to devote much classroom time to it. It is no coincidence that language curricula have traditionally been determined by a progression of grammatical structures or, more recently, functions. The place of lexis has tended to be peripheral rather than central. A factor which has encouraged teachers to accept the importance of vocabulary in language teaching is the recognition by linguists that vocabulary occupies a central place in our notion of language. Older, simplistic distinctions between what counts as grammar and what counts as vocabulary have been replaced by a more sophisticated view of lexis in language. As Singleton (2000) argues, we may soon ‘reach the point where the notions of lexicon and of language will become interchangeable’. In keeping with the recognition that lexis occupies a central position within language, the teaching of vocabulary has become a high priority concern of language education.

 

The way English has been taught in schools during the past fifty years has been influenced by the ideologies of approaches such as grammar translation, audio-lingual and communicative language teaching. It is tempting to ask whether any one of these approaches has been more effective than any other in teaching vocabulary. In his evaluation of the three approaches, Singleton (2000) concludes that each has led to vocabulary acquisition: ‘whatever the teaching approach used, lexical learning in the classroom has both an incidental and an atomistic dimension, and (that) both dimensions can be shown to have a valuable contribution to the process’. Nobody would accuse any of the mainstream approaches to language teaching of ignoring vocabulary. However, as Singleton points out, most approaches make a distinction between direct (‘atomistic’) and indirect (‘incidental’) vocabulary learning. Students learn some of their vocabulary when their teacher ‘teaches’ new words directly in the classroom, for example, using explanation, demonstration and even translation. It is also known that students learn some of their vocabulary indirectly through incidental encounters with words, for example, by inferring the meaning of a new word from the context. Unfortunately, little empirical evidence exists about the relative contributions of direct and indirect vocabulary learning. Earlier claims that as much as 80% of a learner’s vocabulary is learned indirectly (e.g. Saragi, Nation & Meister 1978) probably need to be revised.

 

Studies of the vocabulary size of Hong Kong students (e.g. Fan 2000; Chiu 2005) suggest that most first-year university students know fewer than 3,000 English words, which is a disappointing outcome following twelve years of English teaching at primary and secondary school. According to Laufer (1989, 1992) students need a vocabulary of at least 5,000 words to cope with the demands of an English medium university degree. In order to make a stronger impact upon students’ vocabulary learning, a more ‘interventionist’ approach is required on the part of language teachers. This means, quite simply, that greater emphasis should be put on vocabulary learning and teaching. Teachers need to focus students’ attention on different aspects of words and how they are used. They also need to make sure that students are exposed to a wide range of vocabulary, including creating lexically-rich classroom environments.

 

 

 

 

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