10.1
Trends in the teaching of vocabulary
10.1.1
Historical overview
The history of vocabulary teaching mirrors other aspects of language teaching, in that there has been a gradual shift from a focus on the teacher and techniques for teaching vocabulary to a focus on learners themselves and their strategies for learning vocabulary.
Vocabulary teaching and learning has a long history. Howatt (1984) reports that in the late 17th century, John Locke noted that concrete words were best described by pictures rather than by paraphrase or definition, and, in the 19th century, Francois Gouin linked his teaching of new words to sequences of actions. We are still using these techniques today, especially when teaching lower level learners. Howatt reports that the main tools for language learning by self-study were the grammar and the dictionary. A later significant development was the Vocabulary Control Movement, which gave rise to Ogden (1930) and Richards' (1943) Basic English, a project designed to provide a basic minimum vocabulary of 850 words for the learning of English. Another approach within this movement used a list of seven criteria to select 2,000 of the most useful words for language learning, published as the General Service List of English Words (West, 1953). The principle of simplification as systematically graded language was thus established and is still with us, being especially useful today in grading material for extensive reading. (See Module 8, section 8.2.4.)
If we look at vocabulary from the point of view of the adult learner, we realize the importance of vocabulary acquisition, because we continue to learn new words all our lives. University graduates reportedly have a vocabulary size of some 20,000 word families (Schmitt, 2000: 3), though they use far fewer for most everyday communicative purposes.
Activity 1
| Consider a textbook you currently use in your teaching. What do you notice about the way vocabulary is introduced? What principles does the book employ to ration the amount of new vocabulary introduced? |
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In terms of teaching resources and materials, most coursebooks for language learners now present new vocabulary in a systematic way, taking into account what is known about the relative frequency of the vocabulary items in the target language.
Activity 2
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Think back for a moment to your own language learning. What sort of materials were used to help you learn vocabulary? How did you personally set about learning vocabulary? What type of vocabulary (topics, areas) did you focus on? |
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