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ESL Article: Myths about vocab learning | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 1 of 17 12 August 2012 at 1:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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What do you think? I think they're selfish hehe. They only care about ESL really, and they wonder how to teach the vocabulary, not how to learn it. Even if they care only about English, why not include fluent speakers of various backgrounds, not just those that are taking ESL classes and, quite likely, struggling? Some of the most WTF-bits: Ironically, a learner must have a large vocabulary to be able to guess the meaning of unknown words from surrounding context clues successfully. This puts lower proficiency students or students with less vocabulary at a distinct disadvantage. - and then a metaphore about the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer. This is only true if students of various levels are trying to learn from the same text. Divide the groups by the level or admit that independent learning is the best. And even those who don't know much won't lose the words they know! In fact, they'll know them better from seeing them in context again, even if the context wasn't very comprehensible. Consolidation-wise, they might even benefit more than the rich, because when you don't know enough words, and don't know them well enough, you'll try very hard to remember the little you know. Finally, Prince (1995) found that less proficient students were able to recall more items when they had learned the words in the translation condition rather than in the context condition. Thus, this research showed that some students perform better when they were given only a list of L2 words and their translations. They do better when their knowledge of individual words&translations (or *gasp* even their ability to translate!) is tested, but what about the real world????? This conclusion is really lame, imo. The research cited clearly says that it's about less proficient students, not those with a different learning style. Also, the PDF is called Myths about Teaching and Learning Second Language Vocabulary: What Recent Research Says... but seriously, anything in ESL teaching that doesn't take into account the wide availability of English media can't be called recent. Oops, didn't mean to write such a negative post. My attitude is more like "yeah, whatever". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 2 of 17 12 August 2012 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you really feel the need to discuss something you mostly disagree with, your saying is bound to be mostly negative. I can't see anything wrong with that.
OK, I'm not reading the whole article because if it is faithful to this paragraph:
those things have been debunked a gazillion times already and your regular ESL BS sellers (aka "researchers" for whom reality is the least important thing) will still dwell on them, so there's really no use for it... A few comments, though, in the hope that discussion at HTLAL might be useful for those who want to listen: -ESL is just SLA focused on English, so what did you expect, really? seriousness? OTOH in the remotely probable case that they come up with something useful to teach languages, you can always use it to teach yourself -- selfishness or laziness? :) -While it should be obvious that students must be grouped by proficiency level to make classes any good (something possible only to an extent and often neglected altogether anyway), you can only check variable dependency (as in serious research) keeping as many variables as possible at fixed values, i.e. same texts, several proficiency levels, etc. Since people are not equally proficient in real life either, it is also quite interesting to know how effective/useful something is depending on that. -I find it necessary to point out that repetition adds nothing to learning if it's based on nothingness. Only things that are partially understood can (and, even then, not necessarily will) benefit from repetition. Other than that, n*0 = 0 for any given n. Lower proficiency students benefit less from context regardless of endless repetition because context offers very little to them in the first place. Any rich/poor metaphors (or whatever) are out of place in a 'serious' article, though. -Precisely because of the above, higher proficiency students can do (nearly) equally good without ranslations, etc., -- they simply can extract more and more meaningful information from context. The lower the proficiency, the more context-blind students are, so the more crippling it is to ban translations on them -- or any other things that might use as crutches (which in turn higher-level students shouldn't need). -Anything that's not old can be called recent. -Last but not least, independent learning is the best... only for some of those who actually do it in the end. Perhaps not that many judging even from the people here... No matter how bad a teacher you are, exceptional students may learn in spite of your teaching. No matter how good a teacher you are, boneheads won't learn. For everyone in the middle, a good teacher can make a difference, and often will. Edited by mrwarper on 12 August 2012 at 5:17pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 17 13 August 2012 at 11:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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For me the simple formula regarding translation is: use translations freely during intensive studies, restrict them to a minimum of dictionary look-ups during your extensive activites. And I didn't need ESL to get that idea.
Similarly I didn't need ESL to remind me that people (the advanced ones) who actually can understand a context are better at learning from it than those who still balk at even the simplest texts (the beginners). But at the end of the day the conclusion is that at least the author of the article has ended up in my corner ... apart from the fact that I can live and study happily without ESL. I already believed that .. (1) Vocabulary is as important in learning a foreign language as grammar or other areas. (2) It is very good to use lists of words when learning vocabulary. (3) Vocabulary should generally not be presented in semantic sets. (4) The use of translations is the best possible way to learn new vocabulary. (5) Guessing words from context is not really productive for any language learners, but first language learners haven't got any alternative. (6) The best vocabulary learners try out and use several different vocabulary learning strategies. (7) Foreign language learners should mainly use bilingual dictionaries. (8) The aquisition of vocabulary is far from being adequately covered in curricula and courses (well, not that I use those sources much...) PS: A certain Mondria published an summary article which for some time could be found at www.babylonia-ti.ch, but it has apparently gone from there - it can however still be found at another location: www.scribd.com. It came to more or less the same conclusion as the present article. Edited by Iversen on 13 August 2012 at 2:10pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 17 13 August 2012 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
quoth Mr Warper:
A sobering thought. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 5 of 17 13 August 2012 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not sure what you mean exactly with the corner bit (looked it up in a bilingual dictionary with no luck ;), but SLA/ESL is notorious as a field with abnormally high levels of BS / lack of common sense (and for those who don't know me, I say this as an ESLer). The main problem with all of this is the resilience of many people (including many ESL students who beg for such BS) to make reality checks. Unfortunately, this is not limited to SLA but rather seems to be the norm. Not long ago I was almost forced to demonstrate* to an audience of supposedly educated people how water level is unaffected when floating ice melts. It was all "oooh!"s and "aaah!"s and I still got asked how we can be sure it works that way 'at a larger scale'. *Demonstrated: spent 5 minutes doing super-simple maths (Newton's first law for equilibrium + Archimedes' Principle, nothing beyond subtraction and division), then proceeded to fill up with warm water a glass where I had put a big ice cube and waited a few more minutes until it melted without spilling any water. I don't think it can be demonstrated any further, and if one ever felt the curiosity, it certainly doesn't require to set up a cyclotron at home to check. Still... Our friend Mondria's article is here now. For those interested, the 'myths' debunked are: Myth 1: “Knowing a relatively small number of words takes you far.” Myth 2: “Word lists are of limited value.” Myth 3: “Presenting words in semantic sets facilitates learning.” Myth 4: “Words should always be learned in context.” Myth 5: “Words whose meanings have been inferred from context are retained better.” Myth 6: “Words learned productively are retained better.” Myth 7: “Vocabulary knowledge should not be tested separately.” Edit: Iversen beat me to an alternative location. While I'm here I'll add that I don't agree vocabulary is as important as grammar to language learning. It is MORE important ;) @montmorecy: and yet a friend of mine used it to justify why teaching quality shouldn't be so big a concern. Some people learn anyway, so why bother with/ worry about the others?. So sad... Edited by mrwarper on 13 August 2012 at 5:01pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 17 13 August 2012 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
It wasn't the ESL people who agreed with me and Mondria about the role of vocabulary learning etc etc., but the author of the article under scrutiny here. I have corrected the passage in question. I'm slightly worried that my reference to a corner for people who don't believe in the 8 myths wasn't immediately clear, but I know that there are a few expressions and more or less famous quotes with the word in English, including REM's "That's me in the corner". And boxing also has corners. Edited by Iversen on 13 August 2012 at 4:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 17 13 August 2012 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Why be 'worried'? It was my fault if I didn't immediately understand the corner thing. Of course I know what a corner or 'to corner' is, or about boxing corners (although if it's a reference to something else rather than a expression, it was lost on me), it simply didn't 'click' into place. It happens sometimes.
Anyway, the article author, Mondria and myself are SLA/ESLers, the main difference with your usual ones being that we try to stay real -- you know, have a look at how things work in real life from time to time, and all that ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 17 13 August 2012 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I quite liked the article. Sure, the author cares only about class teaching and only
about English but that's nothing surprising. That is his area and he had no need to extend the reach for writing this. Two questions remain: If that all is known even among ESL teachers, than why the hell are most of the textbooks (and classes following them) so stupid (not only) when it comes to vocabulary? Having a clear list of the new words in the lesson doesn't hurt people. Whether it is semantic or not is not so important, my main concern with the vocab in many courses is that there is too little of it. I progress fast in the other areas and quite always need to find other vocab sources because the textbook vocab usually doesn't suffice not only in real life, but as well a few lessons later. The other question is: don't most the ESL teachers, textbook authors and publishers learn foreign languages themselves? I guess they don't since they need authors like K.S. Folse to reinvent the wheel. Or I have another explanation. It is a damn good business when most students, desperate about their useless textbook full of photos, buy as well a vocabulary book, a grammar book and a book of drills or translation exercises. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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