Seminar with Paul Nation

On February 27 and 28 I attended a two day seminar with one of the world’s foremost experts on vocabulary acquisition theory and pedagogy. The seminar was held at an Onsen(hot spring) outside Sendai and coordinated by Sendai JALT. I had felt absolutely overwhelmed by work and completely burnt out but the seminar managed to reinvigorate me. At the beginning of the seminar Paul talked about 4 essential strands that should compose a foreign language class syllabus. Teachers should devote 25% of class time to each of the following strands:

Strand 1 - Meaning focused input: There is overwhelming evidence that comprehensible input with a few unknown items to the learner is essential for language acquisition. Paul recommends that the learners understand 95% - 98% of the words in the input with 98% being preferable. Meaning focused input can be accessed through extensive reading, communicative activities or listening to stories.
Strand 2 – Language Focused Learning: This denotes a focus on grammar and vocabulary as well as training in vocabulary strategies and intensive reading (reading involving translation).
Strand 3 – Meaning Focused Output: This is output in which the learner is trying to relay a message and is not worried about accuracy. Learners should use some unfamiliar items (at least 95% of their speech should consist of familiar items) to help them learn them.
Strand 4 – Fluency Development: Learners should read, write, listen, speak language that they already know (they should understand 99% of all items). The purpose of this strand is for learners to learn to use the language that they already know. Many Japanese, for example, know a lot of language but do now know how to use it.

For me, these 4 strands offer a good framework to use to plan English language courses. These days my mind is so jumbled that getting back to the basics and looking at the big picture of course planning was just what I needed.

Paul, of course, talked about the 4 strands in much more detail and offered many concrete examples for activities in each strand. If you are interested in learning more, please go to his website.

In the seminar, Paul also talked about learning words from cards, ways of giving quick attention to words, good and bad language learning tasks, teaching vocabulary, and word frequencies. I am writing this post on the bullet train on my way back home. I have another few deadlines coming up next week. When or if things settle down, I would like to write about using vocabulary notebooks versus using word cards and what Paul revealed about the vocabulary size necessary to read a novel in English.

Problems Encountered When Reviewing Vocabulary

Last Wednseday, I had my English class consisting of 40 agriculture and engineering unversity freshmen majors. The title of the course, "English A", peaks the students interest and curiosity (I am being sarcastic). The class meets once a week for an hour and a half. Last week, I had a class that did not go so well and I would like to write why:

First, for warm-up I displayed some questions using key vocabulary from previous classes using powerpoint (the file can be viewed on-line here). Students made pairs (every week, students are put into pairs randomly) and one student faced the screen and asked his partner the questions displayed. The partner was not allowede to see the questions. They then switched roles.

The previous week we had read about nigthmares so last week we reviewed the key words from the reading. Students' homework was to write the words in their vocabulary notebooks and do a vocabulary exercise.

To review the key words I wrote the base words and their derivations on the blackboard. For example, I wrote the word terror (the reading was about nightmares) on the blackboard. Students in the vocabulary section of their textbook had two sentences with blanks where they would have to write the correct derivation of terror (answers in parentheses):
Terror
1. Jemilia was _______ of being alone in her large house at night. (terrified)
2. The most __________ experience I've ever had was in an airplane. (terrifying)

Next to terror, I wrote terrified, terrifying.

The other base words were decribe, recur, fortune, analyze, neglect and imagine so the blackboard looked something like this:

Terror: terrifiying, terrified
Describe: descriptive, description
Recur: Recurrent, recurring
Fortune: Unfortunate, fortunately
etc...

After we finished the vocabulary review, to review the pronunication of the words, I would point to a base word and have the students repeat the derivation. After we practiced the derivations for the seven words, I erase the middle parts of each derivation (e.g. desrcibe: d____ve, de______ ion) and had the students repeat the derivations. Lastly, I erased all the derivations and had the students repeat the derviations for a base word after I reported it.

In the next activity, I used powerpoint again. Students were shown 5 slides for about 15 seconds each (Please see sheets 1 - 5 here). Each slide consisted of the day's base words/ derivations and base words/ derivations that they had studied previously. Also, the words were displayed in various styles. Students were asked to write down as many words as they could remember and then share their list with their partner. (The idea came from Morgan, J & Rinvolucri, M. (2004). Vocabulary. Oxford, p.93)

After making a new list with their partner, students were asked to write as many sentences for as many words as possible in 10 minutes. I told them they could not use a dictionary. I thought that this would be difficult but possible because students had
1) been exposed to the different ways of using words through the vocabulary exericises and reading
2) had studied the words before and should have understood what they mean.

Before this actitivity, I envisioned that the students would work together actively in pairs to write as many sentences as possible in 10 minutes. However, of the 34 students who came to the class that day, the majority of them struggled monumentally with this activity. Many students just stared blankly at their notebooks, other students wrote but completely ignored their partners. After students had written as many sentences as they could, I would say a word and asked if anyone had written a sentence for the word. I decided to pose the question to the entire class because I did not want to call on a pair and embarrass them if they had not written a sentence. None of the students volunteered to give a sentence. After about 3 minutes of uncomfortable silence which seemed like an eternity, a student volunteered to give a sentence. (In retrospect, I have taught in Japan in 8 years and know that most students will hesitate to volunteer answers, but I am stubborn and cantankerous.)

So, the activity did not go well. After the activity ended, I commended the students on their fantastic listening ability and also how impressed I was with their reading ability. I then told them that to learn how to use words, you actually have to try to use them. Making mistakes is important and part of the learning process. That is why I has tried to do the activitiy. I asked students before they left the class to write me some advice on how this activity could be done better. These are the answers I got (They have not been edited but some have been translated into English). I have categorized the answers into Advice, I don't Know, Overall Reflection of the Activity, and Postive Responses:

Advice (20 students)
practice reading, writing and talking
Make sentences in homework. And next time, speak sentences. The time to make sentences need.
To write sentences is difficult. Call on one person. Don't call on all of person.
Take more time memorize words.
I think we me talk more naturally. I think you should increase talking in groups.
Everyone read aloud textbook and homework
It's difficult for me to write sentence. I think better that teacher show us example sentence.
I think that we feel nervous still now. So, it is important to be friendly with each other.
You should call on people once at a time.
I think for one word, I want to know more about derivative and how to use. I enjoyed this class.
Choice and ask to a person. I can't understand how to use a word.
Difficult to remember the mean of words. I want to use dictionary.
How about make group? Not pair.
I think something like game contain in class.
I think more understanding lots of words meaning a person.
I think if we see some example. We can make some sentence. Ex) prevent + O + from doing = I prevented hom from going to school.
Because Japanese people are shy, we give paper that we write sentence.
Almost pair partner have never met before. So we don't get along well with each other.
I think we should understand the used of the words well.
Nominate (= call on somebody)

I don't know (5 students)
I'm sorry I don't know
I don't know good idea.
I'm very difficult problem.
I'm sorry, I don't know.
I can't think of good way.

Overall Reflection of the Activity (4 students)
Today's lecture is difficult for me. But I want to study fun English .
I don't good thinking sentence in short time. So today's class is hard.
It's difficult to make sentence.
Word review is difficult for me.


Positive Responses (5 students)
I think we should write English sentence more. And we will understand English more.
Today's class was good.
I want to do this type of activitiy again.
Today's word review was not difficult for me. Because I understood words.
English game or CD listening or use PC? The class is fine like it is.

What I learned:

• I thought I had given the students plenty of exposure to the use of the words, but many disagreed with me. Perhaps when we do vocabulary exericises I should tell them don't just fill in the blanks but pay attention to how the word is used and write your observations in your vocabulary notebooks.
• Students think that they have to write a perfect sentence. I just want them to write something. I have a 2 year old son who knows a lot of English and Japanese. He uses a lot of words incorrectly, but the more he uses certain words and phrases, his usage evolves and becomes more and more standard (meaning grammatically and pragmatically accurate). When students tell me their sentence, I want the sentence to be incorrect because the feedback will help them realize how the word is used and their classmates will benefit from the feedback. Nevertheless, this is a source of great anxiety for students and I have to be more considerate to this.
• Here is an idea on how I could do the activity without causing so much anxiety. A lot of students wanted to work in groups. Maybe is I had the students work in groups and gave each group a more concrete goal it would have worked better. For example, "Each group has 10 minutes to write the most sentences they can. The group that writes the most correct sentences will have to be sung to by the rest of the class next week." Then, I would collect the sentences, read them and announce the winner the next week. The next week, I could also highlight some gramattically incorrect or semantically/ pragmatically awkward sentences and ask students how they would correct them. I could also highlight some well-written sentences and congratulate the group.
• Questions directed to the whole class do not work. Learners prefer being put on the spot (being called on) to volunteering an answer. The problem is I prefer the latter and not the former.

My Lecture about Vocabulary Learning in Xinjiang

I spent the past week in Xinjiang, China visiting two universities with which my university hopes to have exchange.

In one university I was fortunate enough to be able to observe a freshman extensive reading English class. The day I observed the class, I also gave a lecture to 200 English majors about learning vocabulary, it was a very exciting experience.

One of the things I talked about in my lecture was the different information we need to know about a word to be able to use it and understand it completely. In a nutshell, the different kinds of knowledge are
Form: Know the pronunciation and spelling of a word as well as be able to pronounce and spell it.
Meaning: Know the meaning of a word instananeously after reading or hearing it. Have a concept of a word: For example if the word is bicycle you might have such concepts as "healthy" "good for the earth", "better than cars in rush hour". Understand how a word is composed: For example bicycle = bi + cycle, tricycle = tri + cycle. Understand other words associated with the word. For example bicycle: handle bars, seat, wheels, etc. Know other ways of expressing the word: For example, bicycle = bike.
Usage: Know which words are commonly used together with the word you know: For example, "ride a bicycle", "a bicycle ride", "get off a bicycle" etc.. Know how the word is used grammatically: Bicycle as a noun it can be used as the subject of a sentence: My bicycle is pink. As a direct object: I crashed my bicycle. After a preposition: I go to work by bicycle. Lastly, one should know any social restrictions of use on the word: For example, usually people do not use such language as "wanna" and "gonna" in a job application.

There is so much information about a word we eventually will have to know to master it that a lot of teachers (including myself) sometimes lecture too much about the words they want their students to learn. So introducing ten words to students can take up to 20 minutes. Although teachers are just trying to be helpful, I think that this is too much information for students and frankly quite boring for them. We need to help students learn this information by themselves rather than try to spoonfeed them it. I wish I had mentioned this point to the English majors, many of whom are aspiring English teachers.