learning vocabulary (e...

g., Hulstijn 1992; Laufer & Girsai, 2008; Prince,
1996).
Testing both passive and active vocabulary knowledge, Walters and
Bozkurt (2009) found that ELLs who kept a vocabulary notebook
learned significantly more vocabulary than similar learners in a control
TEACHING ISSUES
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group that did not. Perhaps more important, ELLs who kept a
vocabulary notebook then demonstrated a greater tendency to use the
target words in freewriting compositions.
When my ELLs do freewriting, I require them to use and underline
two vocabulary items in their writing. Students must use one word that
we recently studied and one unknown word from their dictionary or
other source. I grade these short homework assignments based on the
inclusion of the two underlined words (100), only one underlined word
(50), or no underlined words (0). This activity challenges the status quo
in which our ELLs continue to make do with the limited vocabulary they
know and therefore never expand their lexical base. This simple
assignment requires ELLs to push their lexical limits. It also gets them
more accustomed to taking responsibility for their vocabulary growth.
SUMMARY
Second language vocabulary research has given us better information
on which words to teach as well as how to teach them. We also have more
information about how people learn vocabulary, and this information
can inform the design of classroom activities, books, and software for
vocabulary. Despite this growing information, many questions are still
unresolved, such as, Is there an ideal number of words to be learned in
one lesson? How can vocabulary best be presented in textbooks to
optimize learning? Should vocabulary be given more attention in
curricula than grammar? What connections are there between grammar
and vocabulary?
Vocabulary is perhaps the most crucial component in learning a
foreign language. Wilkins (1972) summarizes the situation best with
‘‘While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary
nothing can be conveyed’’ (p. 111). The field of TESOL has seen much
valuable lexical research in recent years, so practitioners are hopeful that
this line of classroom-based research will continue to inform teachers,
curriculum planners, and materials writers in order to improve second
language vocabulary acquisition and the learning of English.
THE AUTHOR
Keith Folse is Professor of TESOL at the University of Central Florida, in the United
States, where he trains undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in teaching
ESL. He is the author of many textbooks on language learning and is especially
interested in vocabulary.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
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