Vocabulary Learning Strategy
Vocabulary Learning Strategy
Journal of Foreign Language Education and Technology are a peer reviewed and open access journal publishes articles in the scientific society. The journal welcomes articles in the form of original articles, review articles, case reports, and short communications etc. relevant field. You can visit our journal page. Authors may submit manuscripts and track their progress through the system, hopefully to publication. Reviewers can download manuscripts and submit their opinions to the editor. Like many things in life, technology has changed the way we learn languages beyond all recognition. Long gone are the old days of poring over textbooks and bulky bilingual dictionaries to learn a foreign language.
Introduction:
We know that young children acquire vocabulary indirectly, first by listening when others speak or read to them, and then by using words to talk to others. As children begin to read and write, they acquire more words through understanding what they are reading and then incorporate those words into their speaking and writing.
Vocabulary knowledge varies greatly among learners. The word knowledge gap between groups of children begins before they enter school. Why do some students have a richer, fuller vocabulary than some of their classmates?
- Language rich home with lots of verbal stimulation
- Wide background experiences
- Read to at home and at school
- Read a lot independently
- Early development of word consciousness
Why do some students have a limited, inadequate vocabulary compared to most of their classmates?
- Speaking/vocabulary not encouraged at home
- Limited experiences outside of home
- Limited exposure to books
- Reluctant reader
- Second language—English language learners
Children who have been encouraged by their parents to ask questions and to learn about things and ideas come to school with oral vocabularies many times larger than children from disadvantaged homes. Without intervention this gap grows ever larger as students proceed through school (Hart and Risley, 1995).
How Vocabulary Affects Reading Development
From the research, we know that vocabulary supports reading development and increases comprehension. Students with low vocabulary scores tend to have low comprehension and students with satisfactory or high vocabulary scores tend to have satisfactory or high comprehension scores.
The report of the National Reading Panel states that the complex process of comprehension is critical to the development of children’s reading skills and cannot be understood without a clear understanding of the role that vocabulary development and instruction play in understanding what is read (NRP, 2000).
Chall’s classic 1990 study showed that students with low vocabulary development were able to maintain their overall reading test scores at expected levels through grade four, but their mean scores for word recognition and word meaning began to slip as words became more abstract, technical, and literary. Declines in word recognition and word meaning continued, and by grade seven, word meaning scores had fallen to almost three years below grade level, and mean reading comprehension was almost a year below. Jeanne Chall coined the term “the fourth-grade slump” to describe this pattern in developing readers (Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin, 1990).
Incidental and Intentional Vocabulary Learning:
How do we close the gap for students who have limited or inadequate vocabularies? The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that there is no single research-based method for developing vocabulary and closing the gap. From its analysis, the panel recommended using a variety of indirect (incidental) and direct (intentional) methods of vocabulary instruction.
Incidental Vocabulary Learning:
Most students acquire vocabulary incidentally through indirect exposure to words at home and at school—by listening and talking, by listening to books read aloud to them, and by reading widely on their own.
The amount of reading is important to long-term vocabulary development (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998). Extensive reading provides students with repeated or multiple exposures to words and is also one of the means by which students see vocabulary in rich contexts (Kamil and Hiebert, 2005).
Intentional Vocabulary Learning:
Students need to be explicitly taught methods for intentional vocabulary learning. According to Michael Graves (2000), effective intentional vocabulary instruction includes:
- Teaching specific words (rich, robust instruction) to support understanding of texts containing those words.
- Teaching word-learning strategies that students can use independently.
- Promoting the development of word consciousness and using word play activities to motivate and engage students in learning new words.
Thanks and regards
Chris Brown
Associate Managing Editor