Teaching vocabulary through a system of languages

System of languages: teaching vocabulary
Dannae Del Campo Méndez
Gabriela Quezada Cabezas
Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC)

In the past teaching and learning a foreign language was primarily concentrate on
controlling grammar while vocabulary was viewed primarily as an auxiliary activity often
taught through the memorization of word lists. Nowadays, the vocabulary system is taken
as an essential matter at the moment of teaching a second language in a classroom which is
present in all the skills of the language (reading, writing, speaking and listening). One of
the reasons is that students need to develop their knowledge in the context of second
language learning. In the following paragraphs it will be discuss, according to Nation
(2001), Hedge (2000) and Sökmen (1997) some strategies, factors affecting vocabulary
acquisition and useful exercises among others.
According to Oxford dictionary (1995) vocabulary is defined as the body of words
used in a particular language and there are several characteristics to measure word
knowledge. Nation (2001) argued that on the process of knowing a word there are two main
aspects to distinct a specific word. The first main aspect is called receptive distinction
which receives language input from others through listening and reading and tries to
comprehend it. From the point of view of receptive, knowing a word involves to being able
to recognize the word when it is heard, being familiar with its written form so that it is
recognised when it is met in reading, knowing what the word means in the particular
context in which it has just occurred, knowing the concept behind the word which will
allow understanding in a variety of contexts, among others. The second main aspect it is
called productive distinction which involves wanting to express a meaning through
speaking or writing and retrieving and producing the appropriate spoken or written word
form. From the point of view of productive knowledge and use, knowing a word involves
to being able to say it with correct pronunciation including stress, to write it with correct

spelling, to construct it using the right word parts in their appropriate forms, to produce the
word to express the meaning, among others.
Moreover, Nation (2001) mentioned two ways which vocabulary can be learned.
The first way is to learn vocabulary through oral skills which involves listening and
speaking. In listening learners can pick up new vocabulary as teachers read to them and in
speaking learners are suggest to memorise as well as vocabulary knowledge a large number
of clauses and phrases. The second way is to learn vocabulary through written skills which
involves reading and writing. In reading students can learn new vocabulary by guessing
words from context and in writing teachers ask for words to be marked so it can be used to
encourage vocabulary development.
For these two ways of learning new vocabulary, Hedge (2000) mentioned some
strategies which can be apply at the moment of developing a class. These strategies are
divided into cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies are direct mental
operations which are concerned with working on new words in order to understand,
categorize and store them, some examples are making associations, learning words in
groups and exploring range of meaning. On the other hand, metacognitive strategies are not
mental operations and they facilitate learning by actively involving the learner in conscious
efforts to remember new words, some examples are consciously collecting words from
authentic context, making word cards, categorizing words into lists and reactivating
vocabulary in internal dialogue. Nevertheless, Hedge (2000) not only mentioned strategies
but also factors which can affect vocabulary acquisition, some factors are to do with input,
in other words, the way in which vocabulary presents itself to learners and other factors are
to do with storage which is how learners store vocabulary and they are able to retrieve it
when it is needed. Hedge (2000) mentioned three features of input, the first one is

frequency which means that the most frequent words in English will be those most useful to
learners. Consequently learners will only know the words which are repeated more than
seven times but they will not know half of the words that appear once or twice in their
course book. The second feature mentioned is pronunciation which means that learners
need to practice the stress and pronunciation of the words in all stages of the process of
learning and not only in the initial one, so the process is continued. The third and last
feature is called contextualization which means that the words presented to learners are
mostly isolated so there is no context for a cognitive hold and words are forgotten quickly.
According to Hedge (2000) the storage factors are two, storing and emotional response. In
storing there is growing evidence that teachers should use techniques for vocabulary
learning to encourage students to work on activities based on the sound and visual image of
a word so they can retain the word permanently. And in the second factor called emotional
response it is true that it affects learners’ retention, as it is demonstrated, for instance, in the
case of taboo words which are seem to stick easier to learners’ memory.
Moreover, Nation (2001) suggested useful activities according to meaning, form
and use. Meaning is the mental image and comprehension which is generated by grammar
or vocabulary. When vocabulary is the focus of the lesson, students connect the form of the
word with the meaning; some examples of activities are classifying words, finding
opposites, making word maps and finding substitutes. In the case of form which refers to
the mechanics of the language, students must understand the pronunciation of a word. If it
is in a written text then students have to know how to spell the word; some examples of
activities are pronounce the words, read aloud, finding spelling rules and filling word parts
tables. In the case of the use which it is how vocabulary is used in the real context; some
examples are matching sentences halves, finding collocates and classifying constraints.

Other important points mentioned by Nation (2001) are a set of principles at the
moment of teaching vocabulary. These principles should have a major influence on content
and sequencing (what vocabulary is focused on and how it is divided into stages) which is
using frequency and range of occurrence as ways of deciding what vocabulary to learn and
the order in which students are going to learn it, also is giving adequate training in essential
vocabulary learning strategies and attention to each vocabulary item according to the
learning burden of that item and at last providing opportunities to learn the various aspects
of what it is involved in knowing a word. It also should have influence on format and
presentation (how the vocabulary is taught and learned) which is making sure that high-
frequency target vocabulary occurs in all the four strands of meaning (focused input,
language-focused learning, meaning-focused output and fluency development), providing
opportunity for spaced, repeated, generative, retrieval of words to ensure cumulative
growth and using depth-of-processing activities. At last it is also important to focus on
monitoring and assessment (how learning is measured) which is testing learners to see what
vocabulary they need to focus on, using monitoring and assessment to keep learners
motivated and encouraging and help learners to reflect on their learning.
According to Nation (2001) and as it was mentioned before if a well-designed
course is wanted it is necessary to have present the four strands of meaning. The first strand
is called meaning-focused input which means that learners should have the opportunity to
learn new language items though listening and reading activities where the main focus is
the information of what they are listening or reading, this cannot occur if there are lots of
unknown words. It also has as a requirement to have skills at guessing from context, some
examples of activities and techniques of this strand are listening to stories, communication

activities and reading graded readings. The second strand is called language-focused
learning or sometimes called form-focused instruction which means that a course should
involved a direct teaching of vocabulary and at the same time a direct learning and study of
vocabulary. This strand is focus on language items and some requirements to develop this
strand is to have skills in vocabulary learning strategies, to have appropriate teacher focus
on high-frequency words and strategies for low-frequency words, some examples of
activities and techniques of this strand are the direct teaching of vocabulary, direct learning,
intensive reading and training in vocabulary strategies. The third strand is called meaning-
focused output in which learners should have the opportunity to develop their knowledge of
the language through speaking and writing activities where the main attention is focused on
the message or the information they are trying to convey, as the first strand, this cannot
occur if there are lots of unknown words. Another requirement is the encouragement to use
unfamiliar items and supportive input, some examples of activities and techniques are
communication activities with written input and prepared writing. The last strand is called
fluency development which is where learners do not work with new language; instead, they
develop their fluency with items they already know. The requirements for this strand are to
know the items and to repeat, some examples of activities and techniques are reading easy
graded readers, repeated reading, speed reading, listening to easy input, rehearsed tasks and
10 minute writing. Moreover, Nation (2001) explained that in a language course it is
important to spend the same amount of time in each strand.
In addition to this, Laufer, Meara & Nation (2005) explained ten ideas for teaching
vocabulary. The first is to do not rely too much on uninstructed acquisition which is picking
up words from context, the second is to create your own lexical syllabus which means to
create your own summary on your teaching materials, frequency lists and learner specific

needs. The third idea is to do not count on guessing strategies to replace vocabulary
knowledge which is to understand the surrounding words of the unknown item that include
the clues. The fourth is to increase learners’ vocabulary, when class is limited a good idea is
to encourage students to create their own notebooks or computer files as a strategy for
increasing their vocabulary. The fifth idea is to recycle words that have been introduced
earlier in the course so students do not forget the words that are not repeatedly used by
destine several minutes per class to review “vocabulary oldies”, the sixth is to give frequent
vocabulary tests so students have an intentional process of memorisation using, for
instance, cards with the meaning in one side and the word on the other side. The seventh is
to draw learners’ attention to “synforms” (word pairs or group of words with similar sound,
script or morphology which learners tend to confuse), a useful advice is to not teach several
new synforms together; instead, teachers have to help students to practice them. The eighth
idea is to pay attention to interlingual semantic differences because an L1 word may have
many alternatives in English and an English word may have many translations in the L1
which can lead to lexical errors. The ninth is to do not ban the L1 translation of words, on
the contrary, use translation with words that have an exact or close equivalent word in L1.
At last the tenth idea is to practice the use of collocations that differ from the learners’ L1
because even advanced learners make mistakes in the use of collocations that differ from
L1.
At last and according to Sökmen (1997), there are three main current trends in teaching
second language vocabulary. The first current trend is inferring from context and Sökmen
(1997) argued that acquiring vocabulary through guessing words in context is likely to be a
very slow process; moreover students that have a low-level of proficiency in the target
language are often frustrated with this approach. The second trend is explicit teaching and

there are several strategies that can be used in the classroom, one of them is called build a
large sight vocabulary and it consist on teaching the 2000 most frequent words in English.
The other one is called integration of the new words with the old and it occurs when
students are asked to draw on their background knowledge, their schema, they connect the
new word, with already knew words, the link is created and they learn the word. And the
last one is called promote a deep level of processing so better learning will take place when
a deeper level of semantic processing is required because the words are encoded with
elaboration. Finally, the last current trend is an encouraging independent strategy which is
to help students to find a way of learning by themselves how to continue to acquire new
vocabulary.
To sum up, in terms of teaching vocabulary one of the pioneers of the topic is
Nation (2001) which explained distinctions which help students to know a word, how
vocabulary can be learn, strategies for vocabulary learning, factors which affect the
learning of a new vocabulary, among others. Moreover, Hedge (2000) also explained some
strategies to develop vocabulary teaching and also factors which affect the process of
vocabulary acquisition. At last Sökmen (1997) argued that are three current trends that are
used by teachers at the moment of teaching vocabulary. It is important for future teachers to
have the knowledge of how developing a complete vocabulary class which involves all the
topics mentioned in this paper.

References
Laufer., Meara & Nation (2005) Ten best ideas for teaching vocabulary, The
language teacher, 29, 3-4.
Hedge, T. (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. China:
Oxford University Press.
Nation, P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. United Kingdom:
Cambridge University Press.
Sökmen, A. (1997) Vocabulary Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. United
Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Teaching vocabulary through a system of languages

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