Interchange author Jack Richards is currently exploring the 5 biggest challenges faced by students moving from lower-intermediate to upper-intermediate. After looking at how we can bridge the gap between receptive and productive competence, and the relationship between fluency and complexity, today Jack begins exploring what we can do when learners have a limited vocabulary range. He starts by identifying what this situation actually involves.
What are the key characteristics of this situation?
- Learners’ vocabulary development is still at the 3,000-word level.
- Learners lack knowledge of collocational patterns.
Vocabulary development plays a vital role in making the transition from an intermediate to a more advanced level of language proficiency, but many learners appear to have reached a learning plateau in relation to vocabulary. This may be seen in the overuse of lower-level vocabulary and failure to acquire more advanced-level vocabulary, as well as limited awareness of collocational usage.
In terms of the quantitative dimension of vocabulary learning, vocabulary development can be thought of as involving acquisition of a core vocabulary that is common to many different domains, genres, and text types. In addition, learners build up more specialized vocabulary related to their own needs and fields of interests, whether these be academic, occupational, or social.
How big is this core vocabulary?
Researchers suggest that knowing a minimum vocabulary of 3,000 words is required to understand a high percentage of words on an average page of a text. This represents a target for the lower-intermediate learning level. Hu and Nation (1992) found that a vocabulary of 5,000 words was needed to read short, unsimplified novels for pleasure, while Hazenberg and Hulstijn (1996) found that twice as many words were needed to read first-year university materials.
In addition to this core vocabulary, there are another 1,000 or so words common to academic disciplines, sometimes referred to as the basis for an academic vocabulary. However, once learners reach the intermediate level, they often fail to make sufficient gains in their vocabulary knowledge. A study of college students’ vocabulary development in China found that during their first 2 years of university study, English majors’ vocabulary increased by 1,500 words on average each year; but in the later 2 years, their vocabulary increased on average by only 250 words each year (Fan Yi, 2007).
O’Keeffe et al. (2007) comment:
A receptive vocabulary of some 5,000 to 6,000 words would appear to be a good threshold at which to consider learners at the top of the intermediate level and ready to take on an advanced program.
Such a program would ideally have the following aims:
- To increase the receptive vocabulary size to enable comprehension targets above 90% (e.g., up to 95%) for typical texts to be reached.
- To expose the learner to a range of vocabulary at frequency levels beyond the first 5,000-6,000 word band, but which is not too rare or obscure to be of little practical use.
- To inculcate the kinds of knowledge required for using words at this level, given their often highly specific lexical meanings and connotations.
- To train awareness, skills, and strategies that will help the learner become an independent vocabulary-learner and user who can continue the task for as long as (s)he desires” (p. 48-9).
“Knowing a word” of course involves far more than simply recognizing its meaning. Gairns and Redman (1986; cited in Moras, 2007) include the following components of lexical competence:
- Boundaries between conceptual meaning: knowing not only what lexis refers to, but also where the boundaries are that separate it from words of related meaning (e.g., cup, mug, bowl).
- Polysemy: distinguishing between the various meanings of a single word form with several but closely related meanings (head: of a person, of a pin, of an organization).
- Homonymy: distinguishing between the various meanings of a single word form, which has several meanings that are NOT closely related (e.g., a file: used to put papers in or a tool).
- Homophyny: understanding words that have the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings (e.g., flour, flower).
- Synonymy: distinguishing between the different shades of meaning that synonymous words have (e.g., extend, increase, expand).
- Affective meaning: distinguishing between the attitudinal and emotional factors (denotation and connotation), which depend on the speakers’ attitudes or the situation. Socio-cultural associations of lexical items are another important factor.
- Style, register, dialect: Being able to distinguish between different levels of formality, the effect of different contexts and topics, as well as differences in geographical variation.
- Translation: awareness of certain differences and similarities between the native and the foreign language (e.g., false cognates).
- Chunks of language: multi-word verbs, idioms, collocations, and lexical phrases.
- Grammar of vocabulary: learning the rules that enable students to build up different forms of the word or even different words from that word (e.g., sleep, slept, sleeping; able, unable, disability).
- Pronunciation: ability to recognize and reproduce items in speech.
Continue this exploration with the second part of what we can do when learners have a limited vocabulary range.