adult learners approach to learning lexis in l2

Adult Learners' Approaches to Learning Vocabulary in Second LanguagesAuthor(s): Razika SanaouiSource: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 15-28Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers AssociationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/329390 .

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Adult Learners' Approaches to Learning Vocabulary in Second Languages RAZIKA SANAOUI York University, Faculty of Education, Ross S848 4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 Email: [email protected]

How do adult second language (L2) learners approach the task of vocabulary learning and what mnemonic procedures do they use to help themselves retain the lexical items that they are learning in their L2? These questions were first investigated in an exploratory study with 50 beginning and advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) learners then through four case studies of ESL learners and eight case studies of French as a Second Language learners. The research identified two distinct approaches to vocabulary learning in an L2, a structured and an unstructured approach that differed in five aspects: (a) the extent to which learners engaged in independent study, (b) the range of self-initiated learning activities in which learners engaged, (c) the extent to which learners recorded the lexical items they were learning, (d) the extent to which learners reviewed such records, and (e) the extent to which they practised using vocabulary items outside their L2 course.

HOW DO SECOND LANGUAGE (L2) LEARN- ers approach the task of vocabulary learning? What mnemonic procedures do they use to help themselves retain lexical items they are learning in their L2? These questions were posed in three consecutive research studies (Sanaoui, 1990, June; 1992; 1993, April). First, an exploratory inquiry examined approaches to vocabulary study used by 50 learners enrolled in an intensive English as a Second Lan- guage (ESL) program. Second, case studies of four ESL learners' approaches to vocabulary learning and mnemonic procedures were conducted in the context of the same language program. A third investigation consisted of case studies of approaches and mnemonic procedures used by eight adult students of French as a Second Language (FSL) for learning vocabulary while enrolled in a French conversation course.

This article reports on the three studies in the order in which they were conducted, de-

scribing their contexts, methodologies, and findings.' The present study is one of very few studies that adopt methodological principles of ethnographic interviewing (Erickson, 1986; Spradley, 1979) to contribute detailed, thor- ough descriptions of adult learners' behaviors for learning vocabulary (Meara, 1983, 1987, 1993). A final section of this article provides an overview of findings from all 12 case studies and summarizes characteristic features of two approaches to lexical learning that were identified. Implications for future research and L2 instruction are also suggested.

This research was undertaken with the view that detailed descriptions of learners' approaches to vocabulary study and their mnemonic procedures are necessary to advance current knowledge about what people do to learn the vocabulary of their target language. In the present research, a learner's approach to vocabulary learning or study is defined as a learner's study habits for learning new words or phrases. Mnemonic procedures refer to procedures that learners apply to a specific lexical item in order to facilitate its retention (for example, associat- ing a word with the situation in which it first appeared).

The Modern Language Journal, 79, i (1995) 0026-7902/95/15-28 $1.50/0 ?1995 The Modern Language Journal



16 The Modern Language Journal 79 (1995)

Studies by Cohen and Aphek (1980, 1981) have been informative about mnemonic procedures that L2 learners use. Their studies conducted with learners of Hebrew as an L2 indicated that these students reported using several kinds of associations as mnemonic procedures for retaining lexical items. For example, learners associated words in the first language (L1) to words with a similar sound in the L2; they associated part of an L2 word to an English (L1) word by sound and meaning and the other part to a Hebrew (L2) word by sound and meaning; they associated L2 words with other L2 words by sounds; they associated Hebrew words to proper names; and they made associations by making a mental picture of the word. The researchers also provided evidence that students who made associations retained words successfully over time, and they suggested that students probably use other kinds of mnemonic procedures. More recent studies by Brown and Perry (1991), Kelly (1986), and Crow and Quigley (1985) are informative about what occurs when learners are trained to use specific mnemonic procedures (for example, "the keyword technique"), but they reveal little about the procedures that the learners themselves would normally use in set- tings outside of the research contexts. One purpose of the present research was to obtain further descriptions of mnemonic procedures that learners might use.

In addition to Cohen and Aphek's studies (1980, 1981), which focused on mnemonic associations, other studies, based on data obtained from student interviews and self-reports, have revealed that learners engage in other beaviors in order to learn vocabulary in an L2 (Nai- man, Fr6lich, Stern & Todesco, 1975; O'Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990; Wenden & Rubin, 1987). For example, learners have reported using dictionaries, memorizing lists of words, making up word charts, practising words, learning words in context, repeating words, using mental imagery, and reviewing previously learned words. The documentation that is currently available is informative, but it may provide only a limited account of learners' approaches to vocabulary study, partly because much of this research has concerned itself with people's general behaviors in learning an L2, vocabulary being only one among many other aspects of language that have been examined. The present research concentrated solely on lexis, seeking to obtain comprehensive accounts of learners' approaches to vocabulary study.

EXPLORATORY STUDY

Participants

This exploratory study was conducted in the context of a 6-week vocabulary course in an intensive ESL program at a university located in a predominantly Anglophone city in eastern Canada. The vocabulary course was featured as one of several elective courses; it supplemented instruction in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. A total of 50 students enrolled in the vocabulary course participated in the study. This population was made up of two classes of adult ESL learners, one class combining students judged by institutional tests and teacher perceptions to have beginning and low-intermediate proficiency in English, and one class judged similarly to have high-intermediate and advanced proficiency in English. Students were from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, including native speakers of French, Spanish, Japanese, Chi- nese, and Arabic.

Methodology and Data Collection

Over a 6-week period, all participants were asked to (a) monitor and document daily the approaches they took to the task of vocabulary learning and (b) report on and discuss features of their individual approaches with other participants in the course. Monitoring and daily documentation of the students' personal expe- riences and activities related to vocabulary learning were an integral component of this noncredit vocabulary course. The reporting of this information took place partially in the context of the course and partially during meetings scheduled outside class because of the con- straints of time, number of students, and course curriculum. From a pedagogic perspective, the rationale for including such activities in the course was that learners may benefit from (a) developing a better awareness of what they do in order to learn vocabulary and (b) obtain- ing descriptions of what other learners do in order to cope with the task of vocabulary learning.

"Sharing sessions" were held for 60 minutes once weekly for 6 weeks, during which small groups of learners reported on notes they had made. Students described and discussed what they had done and how they had proceeded throughout the week in order to learn vocabulary. The researcher observed and made written records of the behaviors, practices, and habits



Razika Sanaoui 17

related to vocabulary learning that individual students reported, as well as records of the materials they used and generated.

By the end of this 6-week inquiry the researcher observed that learners seemingly fell into two groups: those who organized the task of vocabulary learning and those who did not appear to approach vocabulary in any obviously organized ways. Learners in the first group had developed a routine for tackling vocabulary study, set particular goals for themselves, kept systematic records of new words as they appeared in pedagogical materials, and reviewed these records (word lists, notebooks, or self- made dictionaries) regularly. Learners in the second group appeared not to take any of these steps or did so to a minimal extent; they seemed to approach words "as they came," with no clear routines or intentions.

The exploratory nature of this inquiry suggested that learners' approaches to vocabulary learning were worth investigating further. Case studies of ESL learners' approaches to vocabulary learning were undertaken in the next step of the research in order to find out if observations made in the initial study or other similar observations would emerge from data gathered in a more systematic fashion.

CASE STUDIES OF ESL LEARNERS' APPROACHES

Participants

Case studies of four ESL learners' approaches to vocabulary learning were conducted. These volunteer participants, who did not take part in the previous inquiry, were enrolled in a subsequent session of the intensive ESL program described earlier. Like the previous participants, these students had been placed in classes according to proficiency tests administered by the program; they received daily instruction in general aspects of the language and were enrolled in additional elective courses. All participants, referred to by pseudonyms below, had come to Canada temporarily for ESL studies. They all reported that improving their L2 would assist them in their future careers in their home countries. The sample consisted of two students at an advanced level of proficiency in English: Cyndy, a 21 year-old Indonesian student who was planning to pursue studies in fashion design; and Rogerio, 22, who was inter- rupting an undergraduate law degree in Bra-

zil. Two participants were at a beginning level of proficiency: Evelyn, a 19 year-old student from Hong Kong with no definite career plans; and Kiyoko, a 24 year-old elementary teacher from Japan who had had brief experi- ences teaching English as a Foreign language (EFL) and who wished to specialize in EFL teaching.


All participants were asked to keep a daily written record of what they did over 4 weeks in order to learn vocabulary. In the following 2 weeks they were asked to keep records of vocabulary items that they were learning and to describe specific mnemonic procedures that they used for retaining those words.

Daily notes were collected from each individual at the end of each week and served as a starting point for individual interviews during which the participants were asked to elaborate on the notes they had made. Interviews were documented by the researcher in written notes as they proceeded. The researcher also examined and made records of materials that the participant had referred to or made use of during the week (e.g., class notes, exercises in self-study guides, word lists, course materials, vocabulary notebook, and dictionaries). All information concerning each participant-the students' written reports documenting daily activities related to vocabulary learning, their oral reports providing further details about such activities, as well as the researcher's written descriptions of materials the participants had used-was summarized for documentary purposes by the researcher at the end of each weekly interview.

After 6 weeks, all summaries were compiled in the form of a profile that outlined each participant's approach to the task of vocabulary learning. This profile included details about: the nature and purposes of the activities in which the learner engaged, number and frequency of activities, amount of time spent on vocabulary study each week, sources of new lexical items, nature and purpose of notes the student had made, kinds of lexical items each student reported learning, mnemonic procedures used, type of dictionary used, and patterns of dictionary use. Each profile was then compared impressionistically to profiles of all other participants' approaches to the task of vocabulary learning.




Approaches to Vocabulary Study

Behaviours for vocabulary study reported over 4 weeks by 3 of the participants were quite similar. They set criteria for selecting lexical items to be learned from all vocabulary items encountered in any given lesson or day. For example, Cyndy repeatedly reported concentrating on learning words used in conversational dis- course, making remarks on separate occasions such as: "Today I got some new vocabulary from my TOEFL class but some words are not usually to be use [used] in conversation so I don't try to memorize all of them"; "I just wrote in my book the words that are useful to me for conversation with my friends"; "I underlined these words and also these idioms [on a hand-out given by the teacher] because the teacher used them in class in conversation with the students. These words I can use in talking with friends."

Rogerio, on the other hand, wrote in his daily notes: "The reading class' texts is my main source of new words. Today I got another bunch of words to look up." On another occasion, he showed the researcher a list of words he had made on a particular day and explained: "This is the new words that appeared during the day in texts, like the storybook I read for my cousin's child or from the reading class." In a later interview he also stated: "I didn't write down new words that were used in the talking class because it's more difficult for me when I just hear them. It's speedy in conversation. I concentrate on words that come in readings. It is easier for me."

Similarly, Evelyn concentrated primarily on learning new words that appeared in her reading class. She noted that in other classes teachers explained the meanings of new vocabulary items, but she just listened and gave little effort to learning them; on these occasions she made notes only about "some special words," words encountered in classes other than the reading class and words that she had problems pronouncing.

These 3 participants devoted time to independent study and reported engaging in self- initiated learning tasks, such as writing a letter in English to a friend while making efforts to use several new words learned during the week, looking up words in the dictionary that had been encountered during the day, and under- lining new words and finding out their meaning from a dictionary while reading a short story or novel.

All 3 students kept written records of lexical

items that they were learning and that had appeared in various course activities or independent study, although procedures for making or organizing records varied among students. Cyndy and Evelyn listed lexical items with their translations or synonyms in a "special vocabulary notebook," best described as a running di- ary. Rogerio recorded words on sheets of paper and then regularly transferred them to an address book that he had converted into a sophis- ticated, color-coded, self-made dictionary.

These 3 learners regularly reviewed their records of vocabulary items (for example, they read and re-read their records to themselves on the bus, asked a friend to quiz them about specific pages of their vocabulary notebook, or posted word lists on walls in their apartments for review). They practised using the words they were learning, for example, in discussions with fellow students in a cafeteria, in interactions with Anglophone friends, or in assignments they prepared for their various courses. These participants also referred to vocabulary-related materials (such as word lists handed out by their teachers during classroom activities), though they reviewed such materials less than their self-made records.

Behaviours reported by these three learners contrasted with behaviours reported by the fourth participant. Kiyoko's written and oral reports revealed that she spent little time on independent study, she kept many fewer records of lexical items than did other participants, and she rarely reviewed or practised using the few items she recorded. She made little reference to vocabulary-related course materials unless one of her teachers explicitly asked all the students in her class to prepare for a specific vocabulary test. She often discarded or misplaced vocabulary-related materials that she received in courses she was attending.

Kiyoko's goals for vocabulary learning were not as clearly defined as those of the other 3 participants. She repeatedly defined her goals in general terms such as "I want to improve my vocabulary" or "I want to learn more words." She did not select vocabulary items to be learned according to specific criteria as the' other students did. Rather, she often indicated that she was uncertain about why she focused on specific lexical items (i.e., items she did record), or she indicated that she paid attention to a particular word because the teacher wrote it on the board or because she saw other students in her class write the word in their notebooks.



Razika Sanaoui 19

Mnemonic Procedures

The participants reported using the following mnemonic procedures for retaining vocabulary items they were learning: repetition, imagery, association of the word to be learned with another word in the first or second language, using the new word in a sentence, drawing, talking about the word with someone, and acting out the word. Participants in the next set of case studies also reported using these mnemonic procedures, which will be described in further detail in the next section of this article.

CASE STUDIES OF FSL LEARNERS' APPROACHES

Case studies of FSL learners' approaches to vocabulary learning were conducted, using a methodology similar to the methodology used in the previous studies of ESL learners. These case studies aimed, in a very different context, to verify that there are two (and perhaps more) distinct approaches-a structured one and an unstructured one-to L2 vocabulary study, to further describe the characteristics of these two (or more) approaches, and to document additional mnemonic procedures used by L2 learners in order to retain lexical items.

Participants

Eight adult learners enrolled in an FSL course in a continuing education program at a university volunteered to participate in the study. All students lived in a predominantly An- glophone city in western Canada that provided them minimal opportunities for exposure to French outside the French course; thus they were in a context for learning French similar to those in which French is learned as a foreign language.

All students were enrolled in one of two sec- tions of a French conversation course focusing on oral-aural skills with minimal reading and writing. According to the assessment of students' proficiency in French carried out by the FSL program, the sample population consisted of 4 students in the beginning level section of the course taught by one instructor and 4 students in the advanced level section taught by another instructor. All students received instruction 2 evenings a week for a total of 4 hours weekly.

All participants (referred to by pseudonyms) were native speakers of English. Two were male and 6 were female, aged from 22 to 41. The

group included two engineers, a secretary, a small business owner who designed costumes, a high school teacher, an administrator, and a pa- thologist, all of whom worked full-time during the day. Another participant, a secretary, was enrolled in a full-time professional development course. Three of the participants held a graduate university degree; three held an undergraduate university degree; one participant had graduated from a technical school; and one held a high school diploma. Three participants reported learning French because they thought it would help them improve their job possi- bilities. Five participants said they were learning French because they thought it was interest- ing to know more than one language, because they derived personal satisfaction from learning French, or both.


The researcher met with individual participants during an initial session in which students were given details of their involvement in the research and received charts and instruc- tions for weekly documentation of their approaches to vocabulary learning. Students had a practice session for documenting their vocabulary learning activities: the researcher prompted students to describe some vocabulary learning events or activities that they had experienced on previous days.

The students were then asked to monitor and document in writing, on a daily basis, what they did in order to learn vocabulary over a 3-week period. For an additional period of 2 weeks, the students were asked to monitor and document mnemonic procedures they used to help themselves retain vocabulary items. In the same format as the case studies conducted with the ESL students, students' written records were collected at the end of each week, and follow-up, tape-recorded interviews were held in English, French, or both according to each student's choice. During the interviews, learners were asked to read the notes they had made for the first day of the week and then to respond to two kinds of questions. One set of questions elicited as many details as possible about whatever activity or experience the participants had reported on their charts (e.g., "What steps did you follow when you did this?"; "What was your purpose for doing this?"; "Did someone ask you to do this?"). Another set of questions asked the participants to place whatever they had reported doing on a particular day in the context of what




they normally do. For example, they were asked questions such as "Is this something you have done before?"; "When have you done this before?"; "How often have you done this?"; "Did you do this in the same way you did before?" The same process was repeated for all vocabulary learning activities in which participants had engaged during the week. Sessions lasted from 60 to 90 minutes, depending on how many notes the participants had made on their charts.

As in the previous case studies, during each interview the researcher also examined and made notes describing any materials to which the student had referred during weekly activities and had brought to show the researcher (e.g., dictionary, textbook, magazine article, or novel used for a particular self-initiated activity, class notes, notebooks, and teachers' handouts). An additional interview was held with individual participants after all data had been collected from them. One purpose of this final session was to pose direct questions asking the participants themselves to describe various aspects of their approaches to vocabulary study (e.g., their records of lexical items, their use of dictionaries). Another purpose was to provide each participant with opportunities to confirm or reject the researcher's conceptions of the participant's approach, which were based on the information the participant had provided over several weeks.

Data Analysis

All interviews with each participant were transcribed fully. Interview transcripts were compiled with all notes made by the researcher who described all materials the learner had used and generated. All information was summarized in the form of a profile of the individual's approach to vocabulary study. Here again, profiles included details about the nature and purposes of the activities in which the learners engaged, the number and frequency of activities, the amount of time spent on vocabulary study each week, the sources of new vocabulary items, the nature and purpose of notes students had made, the kinds of lexical items they reported learning, the type of dictionary used, and their patterns of dictionary use. This profile was then checked by the participant, each participant verifying that his or her profile ac- curately summarized information he or she had provided.2 Each learner's profile was compared impressionistically to profiles of all other participants. Findings from these comparisons

are presented in the next section. Data on mnemonic procedures collected over 2 weeks were compiled in the form of a list of the mnemonic procedures that were used by the participants. This list is presented with descriptions of procedures and examples in the section on mnemonic procedures below.

Approaches to Vocabulary Learning

Comparisons of profiles of learners' approaches to vocabulary learning indicated that the participants could be divided into two groups, according to similarities and differ- ences in the ways they approached vocabulary study. These two groups, which will be referred to as Group A and Group B, are described below. Behaviours of one participant who was not classified in these groups will be discussed separately.

Group A included 3 participants: Joan, Rich- ard, and Mary (two advanced-level students and one beginning student). Their approaches to vocabulary study were similar to one another and similar to behaviors reported by Cyndy, Rogerio, and Evelyn from the ESL case studies. Joan, Richard, and Mary largely supplemented their in-class opportunities for vocabulary learning by self-created learning activities. Joan engaged in independent learning activities for an average of 7 hours a week; both Mary and Richard spent an average of 3.5 hours each week studying independently.

The range of self-initiated learning activities in which these 3 learners engaged tended to be extensive. Joan reported learning vocabulary by performing such activities as: listening to the daily news on the radio; listening to audiotapes of children's stories, songs, mysteries, documen- taries, interviews, and lessons from self-study French language courses; playing French language computer games; viewing videotapes of a French language course offered on the French television channel, as well as entertainment programs; participating in a "French only evening" during which she and a friend conversed in French; and engaging in monologues in French while jogging. Among the 3 participants in

Group A, Joan had the most extensive range of learning activities.

Mary also reported learning vocabulary from viewing videotapes of a French course on the French language television channel. She listened to many tapes from self-study textbooks and concentrated on vocabulary learning while



Razika Sanaoui 21

she performed listening, speaking, and reading exercises that figured in those lessons. In addition, she often asked French-speaking friends to tape lists of vocabulary items she had obtained in class and had difficulty pronouncing. Richard's favorite vocabulary learning activities included performing translation, cloze, drill, as well as other exercises in a French self-study book that had been recommended to him by a friend; engaging in "mental practice" of vocabulary items throughout the week; and learning new vocabulary items from listening daily to the French radio station.

The self-initiated learning activities described above included compiling new vocabulary items and finding ways to use them, as well as reviewing familiar vocabulary items. For instance, when listening to tapes, Joan often wrote down words that she did not know. She wrote them "the way they sounded like to [her] when [she] heard them" and then later searched for them in her dictionary and studied them. She then practised using these words, for example, when she talked to fellow students, to herself, or to the friend she invited for a "French only evening." On other occasions, her focus was primarily on using words she had already learned in previous course activities or in her independent studies. For example, when jogging several times a week, she went over events she had experienced during the day and mentally described them to herself in French, using words with which she was familiar; she described houses and the neighborhood to herself or mentally discussed the traffic while she ran.

All 3 students kept extensive records of vocabulary items they were learning. Joan kept more extensive and systematic records than the other 2 participants. She had accumulated a thick binder of sheets listing words she had encountered throughout the French courses she had taken previously and the course she was presently taking, as well as words she had learned and was learning in her independent studies. Her binder was essentially a very long list of those lexical items. Each word was recorded on a separate line, with a translation in English next to it. Mary and Richard recorded lists of words they learned in their French notebook and also wrote English translations for those items. Mary, who was especially concerned with pronunciation, liked to have records of such vocabulary items on audiotapes as well. All 3 learners made such records for the purpose of reviewing them.

All 3 learners reviewed their records of vocabu-

lary items several times a week. They often took their records with them to their work places or kept them in their cars and reviewed them whenever they had the opportunity. Mary found that it was an advantage to have some of her records on audiotapes. She reported: "I find that I am a very busy person and I don't have a lot of time, so I try to make use of wait ng time and driving time. Driving the car, I use my tape and when waiting for something, I use my little head phones and Walkman; and I find that it's really helpful. In fact, I can get a lot of studying in each day without really exerting a lot of effort to find the time."

Group B included 4 participants: Connie, Greg, Margaret, and Linda (two advanced-level students and two beginning students). Their behaviours contrasted with those of learners in Group A and were quite similar to those of Kiyoko from the ESL case study. These participants reported engaging in a minimal amount of independent study and relied primarily on classroom instruction to provide opportunities for vocabulary learning and practice. When they did engage in self-initiated activities, the range of these activities was markedly restricted.

Connie spent a total of 30 minutes studying French over a 3-week period. Activities that she reported performing outside class were the following: (a) "When walking home from work, I passed by a bookstore with a few French books on display. I stopped and read all the titles and tried to figure out what some words meant for 5 minutes"; (b) "I did the assigned homework which dealt with passe compos and didn't involve learning any new vocabulary. That took about 10 minutes"; (c) "My roommate wanted to learn some [French] words so I told her some greet- ing phrases. That was 5 minutes"; (d) "On my walkman I listened to the French station while I ran. It was for 10 minutes only that I listened and I don't usually listen to the radio in French. I just happened to do it."

During the 3-week period, Greg listened to a French radio news broadcast daily while he prepared dinner or engaged in another activity. He repeatedly described this as "passive listening" or "general exposure to the language" with little attention to vocabulary. On one occasion, he spent 30 minutes looking up in his dictionary unfamiliar words appearing in a French magazine article. Margaret spent "30 minutes reading an article in a French magazine which [she] found lying around in her school and looked up some words in the dictionary." For a few minutes while shopping, she recalled French words




for food items. She discussed the meaning of a word with her sister on another day and discussed the meaning of another word with a friend on another occasion. Linda watched television programs on the French channel for an average of 2 hours a week, an activity that she most often described as an "exposure activity so that [she] does not forget the sound of French." She rarely remembered or searched in her dictionary for unfamiliar words that she encountered during these programs. On one occasion she helped a friend's child practise for a French vocabulary test for 30 minutes and noted four unfamiliar words (le gendre, la bru, l~cran, entrain).

All 4 students kept minimal records of vocabulary items they had learned or were learning. Also, their records tended to be ad hoc. Some lexical items were scribbled on the back of handouts received in class, others on various pieces of paper, others in notebooks, and others could not be retrieved to show the researcher. All 4 participants reported that writing vocabulary items was a mnemonic procedure they used, on occasion, because the act of writing a word when they encountered it helped them commit it to memory; they did not necessarily write words so that they could review them. These 4 participants engaged in little or no review of their records and made little or no reference to course materials, relying largely on classroom activities for vocabulary practice and review. Also, like Kiyoko from the ESL case study, 2 of these participants were found to have misplaced or discarded some materials that they had recently received from their teachers.

Kathryn, a beginning student, did not fall into any of the two groups described above because she reported some vocabulary study behaviours that were similar to those of participants in Group A and behaviours that were similar to those of participants in Group B. Like students in Group A, Kathryn actively created opportunities to encounter vocabulary items outside class. For example, she sewed a cos- tume, choosing to use only the French instruc- tions on the sewing pattern. She made persis- tent efforts to find out meanings of unfamiliar words that she encountered on those occasions. For example, she made notes to herself to look them up in her dictionary, looked them up as soon as she had a chance, or asked for the teacher's assistance in her next class if she experienced difficulty finding their meanings. How- ever, unlike students in Group A and similarly to students in Group B, she did little with the words she encountered in or outside the class-

room, beyond trying to understand their meanings. She made very few records of new words and did not review these records or review course materials.

Mnemonic Procedures

The eight case studies of FSL learners did not reveal any instances of mnemonic procedures that had not been documented in the previous case studies of ESL learners. However, they al- lowed the researcher to document additional instances of these procedures, which helped to further define them (e.g., immediate vs. spaced repetition, contextual vs. linguistic associations). The following list compiles all mnemonic procedures that the participants reported using to retain lexical items. Statements taken from transcripts of interviews with the participants illustrate the use of each mnemonic procedure.

List of Mnemonic Procedures

Writing. When students encounter the lexical item they wish to remember, they write this word, with or without a translation in the L2. "I wrote the word histoire down. And by visualizing it in writing I can imprint it in my memory" (Mary); "I wrote these words down la banlieue, trancher, parfois. Writing a word down for me, as opposed to just reading it, is really helpful. Just the act of writing the word helps me remember the word. It has proved to be helpful to me" (Greg); "Little words like something, nothing, almost, those funny commonly used words, I seem to be forgetting them. I can't pick them up and there was one of them right there rien so I thought I probably won't remember and so I wrote it down because writing it down right there and then helps me to remember it" (Kathryn).

Immediate repetition. The learners repeat the word mentally or aloud several times when they encounter it. "For the word autour, I kind of played with it a bit in my head. I went 'around/ autour, around/autour,' I repeated like that several times and so I will remember it more easily than some of the other words here, for which I just found out what they meant and that's all" (Connie); "J'ai entendu le mot en classe. Mon pro- fesseur a dit le sens de ce mot exactement.J'ai &crit ce mot 'la veille' dans mon cahier et id j'ai ripiti d haute voix quelquesfois"3 (Richard); "I really wanted to remember the meaning of attraperfroid/catch cold. I listened to it in English and French on the



Razika Sanaoui 23

tape and I repeated several times out loud" (Mary).

Spaced repetition. The learners return to a lexical item sometime after they have encountered it and repeat it several times mentally or aloud. This process is repeated at different points in time. "I played again the tape of this list of words and then again later I just read the words and phrases in the booklet to myself, repeating the words and trying to do a memory game where I put my hand on the French side and try to come up with the English translation" (Mary); "J'cris les mots pour se souvenir les mots et pour lire; sije les lis tous tout le temps, over and over, lire et relire, fa marche bien pour se souvenir pour moi. ... Parce que maintenant ces deux mots sont dans mes feuilles et chaquefois quej'ai lu lafeuille, j'ai lu les deux mots. Jefais fa pour tous les mots. Jefais fa tout le temps pour les mots que j'ai appris . .. Je relis tout le temps pour souvenir Ca c'est la troisiedme technique. D'habi- tude, j'crit le mot, je utilise dans mon conversation etje lis et relis. Ca c'est trois choses quejefais"4 (Joan); "I feel I have mastered those words because I've been able to come back to them and to repeat them over and over again various times" (Mary).

Using the lexical item. The learners use the lexical item in a sentence that they say mentally or aloud to themselves or use the word in a conversation with someone. "I mentally tried and used this word. I tried to use it in a sentence. I made up the sentence in English and then I figured out the translation. For example, I said 'the day before my birthday I went to the market, etc.,' and then I go 'la veille de mon anniversaire, etc.' and then I repeated the sentence a few times to myself" (Richard); "J'ai cmrit favori' une fois et ad c6tW dans mafeuille le sens en anglais side whiskers/ sideburns. Et apres je l'ai utilis' dans des phrases beaucoup de temps dans ma tite et aussi j'ai utilise avec le chat et mon mari aussi; il a les favoris" (Joan); "Pour le mot 'bouger,'j'ai parM avec mon ami et il tait devant ordinateur et il bouge etj'ai dit 'ne bouge pas'... Et pour 'diplacer, 'j'ai parlM avec mon ami etj'ai dit a' lui 'dWilace fa Id-bas,' dans une command, un order Une phrase courte et un sens direct ... et apris j'essaye de l'utiliser ce mot dans des phrases plus longs, mais d'abord pour se souvenir, les phrases courtes"'5 (Joan).

Contextual Associations. The learners connect the word with a particular event they have experienced in the past or with the situation in which it first appeared. "For the word les ichecs, I made an association. I saw a movie on TV in French once. It was all about the game, les ichecs,

the whole movie was made around a chess game. But I never caught the word les ichecs. I thought about that and I thought that's terrible! But now I will remember the word les ichecs because I connected it with that. And also one of my favorite French actors, Michel Piccoli, was in the movie. That's part of the association and that's why I will remember this word" (Linda); "This expression de garde came up in class, and I won't forget it. There is a doctor in the class, and she wanted to say 'I was on call' and she said to the teacher 'is that en garde?' and the teacher said 'non, non. Ca, c'est "en garde"' and imitated the action like this with a big gesture and said 'tu veux dire "de garde"'? It was kind of funny and I wanted to keep the visual picture of the teacher's action with the word. I will remember de garde is 'on call' " (Greg); "I kept reading rivage and thinking that 'curb' is rivage but it just didn't make any sense at all. It was an article reporting on a study showing that women are actually better drivers than men and describing why and rivage being 'curb' didn't make any sense because, somehow, I knew that rivage doesn't mean 'curb.' And I kept reading and there it was again and again and finally I looked up in the dictionary and it's virage not rivage! So I connected the word virage with what had just happened to me and with this article and the association helps me remember the word virage. (Linda); "La banlieue, I learned that day it means 'suburb' and that's a word I definitely won't forget because when I found out the meaning I remembered seeing it in Montreal on maps of city buses when I was there. So what I did was I connected it up with a map of city buses in my mind and that's how I remember and will remember it" (Greg).

Linguistic associations. The learners connect the lexical item with another item or items in the Li; or they connect the word with a familiar item-or part of the item-in the L2. In the first case, for example, Mary connected presse with "pressed for time"; Linda connected un assassin with the English word "assassin"; and Connie connected envie with the word "envy". In the second case, for example, Linda reported: "When I saw the word piitiner I saw it comes from pied, 'foot,' so I connected piitiner with pied and that helps me remember. The same thing with the word amant. I connected it with the words ami and amoureux" (Linda).

Imagery. The learners connect the lexical item with a visual image that they create in their mind. "When the teacher said tpaisse for 'a full




mouth,' I tried and conjured up a funny image, a person with real big, real fat lips so that I could remember the word" (Margaret); "La chevre et le chou, I will remember these two words together because they were together in the sentence and also I tried to form an image; I have an image of a goat who sneaks into somebody's cabbage patch" (Greg); "For a carreaux I formed a picture in my mind of lots and lots of squares. I can see it in my mind. And also it makes sense to me, I can see where the word came from" (Richard).

Talking about the lexical item with someone. The learners discuss the word with someone. "For the word gamin, I already knew what it meant because I had looked it up in the dictionary, but I thought I would also talk about it with my friend who knows French so that I can remember it. I didn't ask for the meaning or anything, I just talked about why I liked that word. The same with flirter. I knew the meaning, but I just talked about it. We said it's kind of a cute word and things like that" (Richard).

Two procedures noted in previous case studies of ESL learners-drawing a pictorial representation of the word and acting out the word-were not reported by the participants in this study.

SUMMARY

Findings from the eight case studies of FSL learners' approaches to vocabulary learning corroborated findings from the four case studies of ESL learners' approaches to lexical study. All 12 case studies were consistent with findings suggested by the initial, exploratory case study of 50 L2 learners. All 12 FSL and ESL learners conformed to one of two tendencies in their approaches to learning vocabulary. Six participants (3 FSL and 3 ESL learners) shared a common, organized approach to vocabulary study that differed from the approach taken by 5 other participants (4 FSL learners and 1 ESL learner) who were conspicuously less systematic in their practices for studying vocabulary. One FSL participant's approach shared common features with both approaches but conformed to neither approach precisely.

The two identified approaches to vocabulary learning by L2 learners differed in five aspects: (a) the extent to which learners engaged in independent study, (b) the range of self-initiated learning activities in which learners engaged. (c) the extent to which learners recorded vocabulary items they were learning, (d) the ex-

tent to which learners reviewed such records, and (e) the extent to which they practised using the words they were learning outside their course.6 These two approaches can be concep- tualized as two extremes of a continuum on how much vocabulary learning is "organized" or structured by individual learners. All learners within the groups identified in the case studies did not behave in identical ways, although in terms of the behaviors they reported along the five aspects described, individual learners in each group clearly demonstrated strong tendencies towards a "structured" approach at one end of the continuum or strong tendencies towards an "unstructured" approach at the other end of the continuum. Figure 1 represents the two approaches on a continuum and summarizes their characteristic features.

FIGURE 1 Features of a Structured and an Unstructured Approach to Vocabulary Study

Structured Unstructured Approach ' Approach

Opportunities for learning vocabulary self-created reliance on course independent study minimal independent

study

Range of self-initiated activities extensive restricted

Records of lexical items extensive minimal (tend to be systematic) (tend to be ad hoc)

Review of lexical items extensive little or no review

Practice of lexical items self-created reliance on course

opportunities in and outside

classroom

IMPLICATIONS

The research generally corroborates the increasing concern with vocabulary learning and teaching evident in the literature on L2 education (Carter, 1987; Gass, 1987; Laufer, 1986; Lev- enston, 1979; Maiguashca, 1993; McCarthy, 1990; Meara, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1989, 1993; Na- tion, 1982, 1990; Nation & Carter, 1989). As Car- ter and McCarthy (1988) explained, develop-


barbudo

Highlight


Razika Sanaoui 25

ments in the conceptualization of lexical instruction have been marked by several trends of thought. Early statements in research on vocabulary learning in L2 voiced concerns for making the task of vocabulary learning more man- ageable for learners through efforts to limit the vocabulary taught in L2 courses. Then it was recognised that learners must develop large vocabularies in order to become proficient in the L2, which led to the belief that classroom instruction ought to focus on increasing learners' vocabularies. Furthermore, it was suggested that efforts should also be directed towards helping students become autonomous learners who are able to build, expand, and refine their vocabularies on their own, both in and outside classrooms (see, for example, Rivers, 1983). The emphasis on learners' responsibility and engagement in the learning process (Holec, 1980; Willing, 1988) may be especially important with respect to vocabulary learning. As Swain and Carroll (1987) pointed out, some characteristics that are known about lexical learning distinguish it from other kinds of language learning: it "is incremental, potentially limitless, and heavily constrained by the individual's experience" (p. 193).

Advancing current knowledge in several ways, the present research corroborates the emphasis on learners' management of their own learning of lexis. The present study shows that some adult students are clearly capable of actively engaging in the management of their own vocabulary learning. It also provides detailed em- pirical accounts of specific study practices that these adults at beginning and advanced levels of L2 proficiency used to organize their vocabulary learning. In addition, the research findings show that other learners exercise much less control over their learning of vocabulary, relying heavily on L2 instruction to develop their lexical knowledge. It is likely this latter type of student who would benefit most from instructors' guidance in developing effective approaches to vocabulary study.

Encouraging learners to reflect on and document their personal practices for vocabulary study may increase learners' awareness of what they do or do not do, providing them a starting point to assess the effectiveness of their practices in relation to their progress in learning vocabulary over time and offering students and teachers the possibility of discovering many practices that individual learners find effective. Such an instructional approach could also provide important information about how a teacher

can plan pedagogical activities to develop further students' personal approaches to vocabulary learning.

Some recent publications that offer pedagogical suggestions and materials for developing learners' approaches to vocabulary study have focused on individual responsibility, personal engagement, and active participation in the management of vocabulary learning (cf., Gairns & Redman, 1986; Kramsch, 1979; Redman & Ellis, 1989, 1990; Cohen, 1990; Ellis & Sinclair, 1989). For instance, Kramsch (1979) described instructional techniques for giving learners responsibility to watch for and collect new words of their choice and report on them on a regular basis. Redman and Ellis (1989) suggested that students should be explicitly encouraged to adopt notetaking habits and become familiar with different recording procedures. Ellis and Sinclair (1989) encouraged learners to keep a record of their lexical performance in actual situ- ations, gave practical examples of how this can be done, and suggested that this information be used as a basis for further development. Cohen (1990) offered exercises showing learners how to use various mnemonic procedures as well as techniques for practising words. Cohen (1989) and Gairns and Redman (1986) sensitized learners to the different kinds of lexical information on which they can focus.

Moreover, there is a need to develop instructional procedures and materials that foster approaches to vocabulary study and that teachers could use in classrooms with students studying in various educational contexts. The challenge for L2 instruction is perhaps not so much to create practical procedures for developing learners' approaches to lexical study as it is to increase awareness that this is an important pedagogical focus to be incorporated into the curriculum. As Oxford and Crookall (1990) pointed out, "courses on reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar, and culture are common in L2 programs, but very few vocabulary courses exist" (p. 9). An implication of the present findings for research on L2 lexical development is that learners' practices for vocabulary study are an important aspect of lexical learning that merits further attention. Al- though documentation of what students do in their daily lives to study vocabulary does not necessarily provide insight into their mental processes for lexical acquisition, understanding learners' study habits contributes to a better understanding of how they come to learn the lexis of the target language.




Several foci for further research become ap- parent. One direction for follow-up studies is to verify the qualities of the two learning approaches documented in the present research. Descriptions of the learning approaches could also be refined, and other approaches to vocabulary study may be identifiable in further case studies of students learning second languages in other contexts.

Why some learners adopted a structured approach to vocabulary study and others adopted an unstructured approach remains to be ad- dressed. Data concerning students' backgrounds, which were collected to describe the student sample, provide a basis for an initial investigation of relations between the two types of learning approaches and students' background. This issue could be further examined in studies con- trolling for specific background variables such as motivation for language learning.

Another important issue arising from the reported findings concerns the potential effects that a structured and unstructured approach to vocabulary study have on students' actual learning of vocabulary items taught to them in their L2 classrooms. This question was one of several research questions investigated with a sample of 74 adult learners enrolled in FSL continuing education courses and 10 instructors who taught those courses (Sanaoui, 1992; 1993, April; 1993, May). The research assessed the extent to which vocabulary learning by these L2 learners varied with: (a) a beginning and advanced level of proficiency in French, (b) a structured and unstructured approach to vocabulary learning, and (c) an analytic and experiential approach to classroom instruction. Students' scores on a French vocabulary achievement test (derived from documented classroom lessons) served as criterion measures. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) assessed effects on principal factors on vocabulary learning.

Results of statistical analyses indicated that learners' approaches to vocabulary learning contributed significantly to lexical learning as measured by the vocabulary test. Learners who had a structured learning approach were more successful in retaining vocabulary taught in their classes than learners who had an unstructured learning approach. Furthermore, a structured approach was found to be more effective than an unstructured approach for both beginning and advanced learners. The learners' level of proficiency and the type of instruction they received did not affect their learning of vocabulary. The research suggests that helping

learners gain control over processes for managing their own learning of lexis is an important step in vocabulary learning and teaching in L2 classrooms. Further studies need to focus on the vari- able of approach to vocabulary learning, attempt- ing to separate the effect of time that learners spend on vocabulary study from the effects of the learning activities in which they engage.

NOTES

1 I would like to thank members of the committee who supervised my doctoral thesis: Merrill Swain, Sharon Lapkin, and Les McLean. Alister Cumming also provided useful feedback on a previous draft of this paper. I am grateful for support received, while conducting this research, from the Ontario Ministry of College and Universities, the Ontario Modern Lan- guage Teachers Association, and the Modern Lan- guage Centre of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). I also thank anonymous MLJ re- viewers for their helpful comments.

2 The participants indicated that they had not experienced any difficulties in documenting their approaches to vocabulary study and mnemonic procedures; they reported throughout the study that the process of documenting what they did was not interfer- ing with their usual practices. At the end of the study most students remarked that they had become better aware of what they do in order to learn vocabulary.

3 "I heard the word in class. My teacher explained the meaning of this word exactly. I wrote this word la veille (evening before) in my notebook and I repeated it out loud a few times."

4 "I write the words in order to remember the words and to read them; if I read them all the time, over and over, read and reread, that works well to help me remember ... Because now these two words are in my notebook and each time I read the notebook, I read the two words. I do that for all the words. I did that all the time for all the words I learned ... I reread all the time in order to remember. That's the third technique. Usually, I write the word, I use it in conversation and I read and reread. These are three things that I do."

5 "I wrote favori one time and next to it in my notebook the English meaning 'side whiskers/sideburns.' And then I used it many times in sentences in my mind and also I used it with the cat and with my husband too; he also has lesfavoris" (Joan). "For the word bouger (to move) I spoke with my friend, and he was in front of the computer and he moved and I said ne bouge pas (don't move)... And for dE/placer (to move to), I spoke with my friend and said to him dplace wa ia-bas (move that over there), in a command, an order. A short sentence and a direct meaning ... and after that I tried to use the word in longer sentences, but first in order to remember, in short sentences" (Joan).



Razika Sanaoui 27

6 The extent to which learners defined goals for vocabulary learning and criteria for selecting lexical items to be learned, two features that distinguished the two approaches in the ESL case studies, did not appear clearly in the FSL case studies. However, these features appear to be worth examining further in similar case studies of other L2 learners.

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Ellis, G., & Sinclair, B. (1989). Learning to learn English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Gairns, R., & Redman, S. (1986). Working with words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gass, S. (Ed.). (1987). Introduction: The use and acquisition of the second language lexicon. [Special issue]. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 9,129- 132.

Holec, H. (1980). Learner training: Meeting needs in self-directed learning. In. H. Altman & C.V. Fames (Eds.), Foreign language teaching: Meeting individual needs (pp. 30-45). Oxford: Pergamon.

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Kramsch, C. (1979). Word watching: Learning vocabulary becomes a hobby. Foreign Language Annals, 12, 153-158.

Laufer, B. (1986). Possible changes in attitude toward vocabulary acquisition research. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 14, 69-75.

Levenston, E. (1979). Second language vocabulary acquisition: issues and problems. Interlanguage Studies Bulletin, 4, 147-160.

Maiguashca, R. (1993). Teaching and learning vocabulary in a second language: Past, present, and future directions. Canadian Modern Language Re- view, 50, 83-100.

McCarthy, M. (1990). Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press.

Meara, P. (1981). Vocabulary acquisition: A neglected aspect of language learning. Language Teaching and Linguistics Abstracts, 13, 221-246.

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Meara, P. (Ed.). (1989). Beyond words. London: Centre for Information on Language Teaching.

Meara, P. (1993). Vocabulary in a Second Language, Volume N17. [Special issue]. Reading in a Foreign Language, 9.

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Nation, P. (1982). Beginning to learn foreign vocabulary: A review of the research. RELCJournal, 13, 14-36.

Nation, P. (1990). Teaching and learning vocabulary. New York: Newbury House.

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Redman, S., & Ellis, R. (1989). A way with words: Book 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Redman, S., & Ellis, R. (1990). A Way with words: Book 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rivers, W. (1983). Speaking in many tongues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sanaoui, R. (1990, June). Second language learners' approaches to vocabulary learning. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Cana- dian Society for the Study of Education, Victo- ria, British Columbia.

Sanaoui, R. (1992). Vocabulary learning and teaching in French as a second language classrooms. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto.

Sanaoui, R. (1993, April). Vocabulary learning and instruction in French as a second language classrooms. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Re- search Association, Atlanta, GA.

Sanaoui, R. (1993, May). Structured and unstructured Approaches to vocabulary learning and FSL instruction. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Ap- plied Linguistics, Ottawa.




Spradley, J. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart.

Swain, M., & Carroll, S. (1987). Vocabulary instruction in immersion classes. In B. Harley, P. Allen, J. Cummins & M. Swain. (Eds.). The development of bilingual proficiency: Final report. Volume II: Class- room treatment. (pp. 192-222). Toronto: Modern Language Centre, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

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Forthcoming in The Modern Language Journal

Carolyn A. Durham. "At the Crossroads of Gender and Culture: Where Feminism and Sexism Intersect"

Elaine Tarone and Merrill Swain. "A Sociolinguistic Perspective on Second Language Use in Immer- sion Classrooms"

Teresa Cadierno. "Formal Instruction from a Processing Perspective: An Investigation into the Spanish Past Tense"

Klaus Brandl. "Strategic Response to Errors in CALL: Assessing the Use of Feedback Options by Strong and Weak Students to Solve Grammatical Problems"

Deborah L. Arteaga and Julia Herchensohn. "Diachronic French in the Language Classroom"

Gene B. Halleck. "Assessing Oral Proficiency: A Comparison of Holistic and Objective Measures"

Richard L. Sparks and Leonore Ganschow. "A Strong Inference Approach to Causal Factors in Foreign Language Learning: A Response to MacIntyre" (response article)

Peter D. MacIntyre. "On Seeing the Forest and the Trees: A Rejoinder to Sparks and Ganschow" (response article)

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