lexical notebooks and collocations
DESCRIPTION
This presentation is about Lexical Notebooks and was made at the 2012 IATEFL conference in Glasgow, Scotland.TRANSCRIPT
Beyond the IntermediatePlateau
CollocationLexical Notebooks
www.supershaun.com
www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/lexical-notebooks
Alternative Talk Titles
Changing the Learners’ Vocabulary behavior
The Systematic Noticing of Collocations
The Central Learning Strategy from the Lexical Approach
Making Lexical Autonomy your Aim
SLA using Lexical Notebooks
Helping Learners Study Lexis Holistically
Noticing Language Patterns
“Once the learner has arrived at an intermediate level of language learning however, progress does not always appear to be so marked, and making the transition from intermediate to the upper-intermediate or advanced level sometimes proves frustrating for many learners.”
“For some they may feel they have arrived at a plateau and making further progress seems elusive, despite the amount of time and effort the learner devotes to it.” (Moving Beyond the Plateau, J.C.Richards)
a) There is a gap between receptive and productive competence. b) There are persistent fossilized language errors.
c) Fluency may have progressed at the expense of complexity
d) The learner has a limited vocabulary range.
e) Language production may be adequate but often lacks the characteristics of natural speech.
Another dimension of vocabulary development which is essential if students are to make a successful transition to the advanced level is to expand what has been called their collocational competence.
One of the key problems in helping learners improve their vocabulary is finding effective ways for them to help remember words they have encountered. How can we help learners move words from short-term to long-term memory? One clue is from research on memory. ……… our mental lexicon is highly organised and efficient, and that items that are related semantically are stored together. This is why it is much easier to recall a list of words that are grouped or organized in a meaningful way, as compared with trying to recall a set of words that are simply organized alphabetically.
Now is the time to Take Notes
1. Language and building up a volume of lexis2. Introduction of the Lexical Notebook3. Maintenance of Lexical Notebooks
Recognition - Build up the system - Exploration
Outcomes and Results of this Research
Stage 1: Language and Change
Course book (resources) needs to be lexically rich
Activities that train learners to notice collocations
Regular activities for student to remember lexis
Give class time and making learners note down lexis
Stage 2: Introduction
Material
1.A Notebook
2.Helpful Inserts (Dowling 2004)
3.List of lexis/collocations
4.Example/Model of a Lexical Notebook (if possible)
5.INSTRUCTION - Categorising
Teacher continues to teach lexis and remind students to take notes
Students complete notebooks outside class
LN are brought into class and collected for checking and feedback.
Stage 3: Maintenance
What were the results of the students’
work?
Were learners able to complete Lexical
Notebooks?
Lexical Notebook Organisation
Themed and Syntactic categories
Theme/Topic
Verb + NounsThis student used different colours
Collocation/Lexis + Meaning+ Phrase using the collocation
1. Main Entries
Like Take
GetNo definitionsTranslation Key Word Organization
2. Main Entries
ResultsControl v Treatment group
•The Treatment LN group improved their lexical test scores - the control group’s level was maintained (Lexical Profile Test)
Lexical Notebook (Treatment Group)
•15 adults - 6 completed the notebook over the period.9 students stopped due to time commitments
•The records of the 6 students varied considerably.
•LN rating of difficulty 2.67 Average (1 to 5) for difficulty (not easy or difficult)
Entry Results
Learners could notice the most frequent syntactic collocation combinations
Formulaic LanguageWord Sequences
Between 90% and 95% of the sequences found in all the sample contained 2 to 5 words
The student who made the most effort wrote more longer word sequences
High Frequency words (Top 2000 lexemes)
Learners repeatedly noted down a high frequency words
Smallest sample 40% - Largest sample 64%
Lexical Notebook Issues
Consider the Cost-Benefits of the strategy
•A heavy onus/weight is placed on the teacher.
•Class conditions may have to be modified
•Materials need to be improved/adapted to attend to a higher volume of lexical phrases
•Students become familiar with something new, ‘collocations’ and they improve.
Alternative Talk Titles Changing the Learners’ Vocabulary behaviour
The Systematic Noticing of Collocations
The Central Learning Strategy from the Lexical Approach
Making Lexical Autonomy your Aim
SLA using Lexical Notebooks
Helping Learners Study Lexis Holistically
Noticing Language Patterns
References
Dowling, S. 2004. ‘Lexical Notebooks’. Teaching English, BBC and British Council: Submitted 11 October. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/lexical- notebooks
Ellis, N. C. 2002. Frequency Affects in Language Processing. A Review with Implications to Implicit and Explicit Language Acquisition’ Studies in Second Language Acquisition (63-103) 24/2: 143-88
Fowle, C. 2002. ‘Vocabulary Notebooks: implementations and outcomes’. ELT Journal Vol 56/4.
Kim, D. 2007. ‘Implementing a lexical approach through a lexis notebook: A pilot study’. Fall Issues in EFL Vol.7 No.2.
Lewis, M. 1997. ‘Implementing the Lexical Approach, putting theory into practice’. Hove, UK: Language Teaching Publications.
Martinez, R. and Murphy, V.A. 2011. Effect of Frequency and Idiomaticity on Second Language Reading Comprehension, TESOL Quarterly, Volume 45, Number 2, June 2011, pp. 267-290(24)
McCrostie, J. 2007. ‘Examining learner vocabulary notebooks’. ELT Journal Vol 61/3,
Schmitt, N. Schmitt, D. and Clapham, C. 2001. ‘Developing and exploring the behavior of two new versions of the Vocabulary Levels Test’. Language Testing 2001 18: 55
Walters, J. and Bozkurt, N. 2009. ‘The effect of keeping vocabulary notebooks on vocabulary acquisition’.LanguageTeachingResearch 2009; 13; 403.
Wray, A. 2000. ‘Formulaic sequences in second language teaching; principles and practice’. Applied Linguistic, 21(4):463-489.