vocab@vic handbook

8/16/2019 Vocab@Vic Handbook

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Vocab@VicConference Handbook

Wednesday 18 – Friday 20 December 2013

Rutherord House,Victoria University o Wellington,

New Zealand

www.vocab.org.nz

Current trends in vocabulary studies


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Vocab@Vic 3.2.

Vocab@Vic 2013 Conerence Planning Committee

Welcome

Kia ora, gidday, and a very warm welcome to Vocab@Vic!

We are very glad you could join us or this special pre-Christmas conerence here at Victoria University o Wellington.We’re looking orward to three ull days o time together to talk about all kinds o vocabulary research and pedagogy,amongst other things.

you are a visitor to our capital city, we hope you take some time to look around Wellington. Ask us i you’d like somesuggestions on things to do and see here that you might not be able to do anywhere else. It wouldn’t be an Aotearoa/New Zealand experience without a walk by the water, an ice cream or two, fish and chips, some good wine and beer,and other local delights. A little tip rom us about Wellington – leave your umbrella at home.

We’re grateul or the support o our sponsors. We couldn’t have had the conerence withou t Paardekooper andAssociates.

Thanks again or making this first Vocab@Vic conerence come to lie.

The Vocab@Vic Conerence Planning Committee

Back row: Averil Coxhead, Anna Siyanova, Stuart Webb, Peter Gu, Irina ElgortFront row: Paul Nation, Frank Boers

Thank you to our SponsorsMany thanks to the ollowing organisations or their generous support o our conerence. We encourage all delegates tosupport them, now and in the uture.

Conerence Partner

Major Sponsors

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Te Wāhanga Aronui


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Vocab@Vic 5.4.

Conerence Venue

Rutherord House, Pipitea Campus, Victoria Universityo Wellington, Cnr Bunny Street and Lambton Quay,Wellington, New Zealand.

Conerence Rooms

Conerence sessions will be held in Lecture TheatresRHLT2 and RHLT3, located on the ground floor oRutherord House.

Registration Desk

The registration desk will be located on the mezzaninefloor o Rutherord House, and will remain openthroughout the conerence. Feel ree to ask us anyquestions about the programme, social events, venue orother inormation.

Conerence Organiser

www.paardekooper.co.nz

Name badgesName badges should be worn at all times or entry intoconerence sessions, the trade exhibition and socialevents.

StorageBags and coats can be stored at the registration deskduring the conerence. Although this area is staffed at alltimes, items are lef at your own risk.

CateringAll morning teas, lunches and afernoon teas will be heldn the mezzanine floor, amongst the trade exhibition. I

you indicated on your registration orm that you havea special dietary requirement, please liaise with theregistration desk regarding the collection o meals.

MessagesA message board will be located by the registration desk.Check this board regularly or messages, as there is nopaging system at the conerence.

Mobile phonesPlease be considerate to other conerence delegates andspeakers by turning mobile phones off during sessions.

Parking at the venueThere is limited street car parking on the streetssurrounding the conerence venue. These have a 2 hour

time-limit at a rate o $4 per hour. All day car parkingbuildings closest to the venue are provided by WilsonParking.

Taxis & Shuttles

Wellington Combined Taxis

+64 4 384 4444www.taxis.co.nz

Co-op shuttles

+64 4 387 8787www.co-opshuttles.co.nz

WiFiComplimentary WiFi tokens are available at theregistration desk.

Poster SessionsPosters will be on display throughout the conerence inthe trade area on the mezzanine floor. Present ers will beavailable to discuss their posters during lunch break onThursday 19 December.

General Conference Information

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Te Wāhanga Aronui

Conference Events

Mihi Whakatau and WelcomeProessor Piri Sciascia, Pro Vice Chancellor (Maori),Victoria University o Wellington, will give a mihiwhakatau (an inormal speech in Te Reo Maori),welcoming guests on the morning o the first day andwishing the conerence well, ollowed by an openingspeech rom Proessor Neil Quigley, Deputy ViceChancellor (Research), Victoria University o Wellington.

Opening and welcome reception

Wednesday 18 December, 5:40pm – 7:00pm

Join us to celebrate the opening o Vocab@Vic 2013.Afer a short overview o the conerence rom theplanning committee, we’ll move on to the nibbles andrereshments in the Trade Exhibition area.

Sponsored by

AccommodationBelow are the contact details or the official conerenceaccommodation providers.

Rydges Wellington 75 Featherston Street

T: +64 4 499 8686 Ibis Wellington 153 Featherston StreetT: +64 4 496 1880

Intercontinental Hotel 2 Grey StreetT: +64 4 472 2722

Downtown Backpackers

1 Bunny StreetT: +64 4 473 8482

Conerence Dinner

Thursday 19 December, 4:15pm – 9:15pmEntry is by ticket only

Join us or a abulous evening at Boomrock, a lodgewhich is situated on 8kms o stunning coastline.Boomrock sits high above the Tasman Sea and issurrounded by 3,000 acres o armland. Boomrock isnamed or the sound o the waves thundering againstthe 250-metre cliffs and the echo back out across theexpansive sea.

I you have registered to attend the dinner, your ticketwill be located behind your name badge. A ticket to the

dinner includes pre-dinner drinks and nibbles, a threecourse meal, a ew rereshments, and transport to androm the conerence dinner venue. There will be a cashbar with EFTPOS acilities.

Ticket in hand, meet outside the ront o RutherordHouse at 4:15pm. We will go by bus directly to Boomrock.At the conclusion o the dinner, buses will returnyou to the ollowing hotels: Rydges, Ibis Wellington,InterContinental and Downtown Backpackers. Buses willdepart rom Boomrock at 8:30pm.

I you haven’t purchased a ticket to the ConerenceDinner and would like to attend, please check with theregistration desk or availability. I you do not have aticket, you will not be able to board the bus.


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Vocab@Vic 11.10.

Abstracts (in alphabetical order by presenter surname)Agustin Llach, Maria Pilar (Universidad de La Rioja, [email protected])

Preliminary description of CLIL vs. traditional EFL learners’ vocabulary profiles

The present paper presents a comparative study o the lexical profiles o young CLIL and traditional EFL learners. Vocabularyhas been given a prominent role in CLIL approaches. CLIL instruction contributes positively to vocabulary learning anddevelopment as well as to enhancing use o vocabulary learning strategies (Dalton-Puffer 2008, Sylven 2010). CLIL learnersuse the FL as a vehicle or content transmission. We scrutinized the writings o 72 CLIL and 68 non-CLIL traditional EFLlearners or requency bands o words used, word origin, L1 influence in lexical production, and phonetic spelling. We alsocompared learners’ writings in terms o writing quality and measured their vocabulary sizes. Learners attended the 4th levelo Primary school, averaged 9-10 years and had Spanish as their L1. CLIL learners had been exposed to 700 hours o English,and traditional learners to 419. Very similar results were obtained: similar global lexical profile, and similar amounts oborrowings, L1 adaptation types, and instances o phonetic spelling. Writing quality assessment shows that traditional EFLlearners obtain significantly better assessments than their CLIL peers. CLIL and traditional learners do not differ significantlyn their lexical knowledge o high requency words. Results are interpreted in terms o the young age o the learners which

might impose certain cognitive constraints that override hours o instruction and the beneficial communicative nature othe CLIL approach. Furthermore, the low L2 proficiency o learners may also play a significant role in the results obtained,together with their little CLIL experience.

Friday 20 December, 11:55 - 12:15pm, Room: RHLT3, paper

Aizawa, Kazumi (Tokyo Denki University, [email protected]), Iso, Tatsuo (Reitaku University, [email protected])

Better predictor of reading comprehension: Lexical coverage or vocabulary size?

This study investigates which is the better predictor or reading comprehension, text coverage or vocabulary size. Two readingtexts (400 words length) with ten multiple questions were prepared or this study. Participants were fify-two Japaneselearners o English at an engineering university. By using JACET 8000, beyond-2000 requency band words used in each textand their word tokens were analyzed and made into a list. The actual text coverage was calculated by taking the number ounknown words in the list rom the results o the sel-report and multiplying it by the number o occurrences o such wordsn the passages. As or vocabulary size, l earners were asked to take the VLT Flash to estimate their vocabulary size. This online

vocabulary test was established by the authors to estimate the vocabulary size o the learner based upon the JACET 8000.By using these data, l earners’ vocabulary size and their text coverage o the texts were calculated. They finally read two textsand answered twenty reading comprehension questions. The resulting correlation coefficients were .54 (p < .05) or readingcomprehension and text coverage and .46 (p < .05) or reading comprehension and vocabulary size. This showed that thecorrelation between reading comprehension and text coverage did not differ much rom that o reading comprehension andvocabulary sizes. However, it was suggested that knowledge o passage-specific vocabulary, as opposed to general vocabulary,may be a better indicator o successul reading comprehension.

Wednesday 18 December, 11:20 - 11:40am, Room: R HLT3, paper

Akbari, Neda (University o Canberra, [email protected])

Comparing the trends of development in L2 and L1 mental lexicon, associations, vocabulary size, and reaction time

Words are an important component o language in second language (L2) learning since words carr y meaning, and the abilityto communicate occurs through the meaning o words. This study investigated the trend o development in the L2 mentallexicon (ML) rom the three dimensions o associations, vocabulary size, and reaction time. The main purposes o this studywere to determine whether the L2 ML had a similar trend o development to the first language (L1) ML i the L2 was learned insimilar circumstances to the L1, and whether the L2 ML could resemble the L1 ML at some age. The immigrant students aged6-17 undertaking mainstream education in the L2 (English) participated in this study. A Word Association Task and a yes/noLexical Decision Task were utilised in order to elicit associations and measure vocabulary size and reaction time respectively.

The findings o this study revealed a relatively similar trend o development or the L2 and L1 ML with small differencesbetween them. The findings also demonstrated large similarities between the L2 and L1 ML o students aged 15-17. Thefindings were discussed in the broader context o children’s cognitive and linguistic development. The impacts o age andenvironment or language learning were also discussed.

Wednesday 18 December, 12:10 - 12:30pm, Room: RHLT2, paper

Altalhab, Sultan (King Saud University, [email protected])

Teaching and learning vocabulary through reading at Saudi Universities

The present research examines two issues: first, it looks at the vocabulary teaching techniques employed by the teachersinvolved in this study. Second, considering different aspects about vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) since existing VLSsstudies have mainly ocused on “the requency o use” (Schmitt, 2010:93). It examines the VLSs identified by students as themost useul and the strategies students elt competent in using while reading. One hundred and fify students majoring inEnglish rom six colleges in our different universities completed a semi-structured questionnaire and twenty-two o themwere interviewed. In addition, nine teachers o vocabulary and reading subjects were interviewed and their classes observed.The findings revealed that the teachers were “textbook-centralised” with a high dependence on the textbook since they did notuse any materials outside the textbook. They employed diverse vocabulary teaching techniques with a ocus on techniquessuch as using synonyms, defining new words in English and using Arabic. The students used a range o VLSs and employed thestrategies that they thought were “ast” and “easy” to use. They tended to avoid complex strategies that require deep mentalprocesses. They identified specific benefits rom using certain VLSs in relation to providing accurate and diverse inormationabout new words and retaining these words. They made a link between the strategies they used most ofen and their level ocompetence in employing these strategies. Teachers were asking students to deploy particular strategies rather than teachingthem how these strategies can be used effectively.

Friday 20 December, 9:00 - 9:20am, Room: RHLT3, paper

Anthony, Laurence (Waseda University, [email protected])

Non-presenting author: Andrew Burd, Chinese University o Hong Kong

A novel approach to medical program assessment using vocabulary profiling

Traditionally, medical programs have been divided into two distinct stages. In the pre-clinical stage, students would studysubjects in biological and natural sciences in a traditional classroom environment. This would be ollowed by a clinical stage,ofen attached to a working hospital, where students would learn general medicine and surgery and begin to specialize. Inrecent years, however, these traditional programs have been criticized or overloading students with content and separatingmedicine knowledge rom medical practice both temporally as well as geographically. (McKimm, 2010). Recently, manyuniversities have begun adopting an integrated program design, in which the pre-clinical and clinical stages are less distinct(‘vertically integration’) and knowledge and skills across traditional content areas are grouped together into themes or panels(‘horizontally integration’). However, these vertically and horizontally integrated programs pose a new challenge or medicalprogram administrators, i.e., ensuring that important content is not overlooked or taught repeatedly across themes. In thispaper, we propose that vocabulary profiling o medical terminology can allow administrators to identiy which key itemsare under-emphasized or overemphasized in medical programs. The first step in this approach is to identiy the vocabularyassociated with key concepts, diseases, signs, and symptoms o a particular theme. Using the example o dermatology, weshow how this vocabulary can be extracted rom medical textbooks and course materials. We then show how vocabularyprofiling can be applied in the evaluation o a medical program in Hong Kong, beore discussing some o the limitations o theapproach.


Anthony, Laurence (Waseda University, [email protected]), Nation, Paul (Victoria University o Wellington,[email protected])

Freeware vocabulary profile and simplification tool for mid-frequency reader creationMany studies have reported on the effective use o graded readers in developing a learner’s depth and breadth o vocabularyknowledge. Most graded reader schemes end at around the 3000 word-amily level, but research has shown that unassistedcomprehension o texts requires a vocabulary size o around 8000 word amilies (Nation, 2006). This means that moreadvanced learners, who have completed a traditional graded reading program, have no suitable materials t o bridge the 5000-6000 word amily gap to reach the level o native-speakers. Mid-Frequency Readers are a new concept in graded reading thatare designed to address this issue. Mid-Frequency Reader texts are very slightly simplified and/or modified versions o theoriginal with low requency words removed or replaced by words at the target level. Typically, the adaption results in changesto only a ew hundred words in a novel. However, the task o locating which words to adapt and finding suitable replacementscan involve many tens o hours o laborious work unless a sofware tool is employed. In this paper, we present recent changesto a reeware, multiplatorm vocabulary profiling tool that allows Mid-Frequency Readers to be created easily and quickly.We will first explain the concept o Mid-Frequency Readers. Next, we will introduce our reeware sofware tool and show howit can be easily used by authors, teachers, and researchers. Finally, we will outline interesting areas or urther research andsuggest planned extensions to the sofware tool.

Thursday 19 December, 1:55 - 2:15pm, Room: RHLT3, paper


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Vocab@Vic 13.12.

Barcrof, Joe (Washington Univesity in St. Louis, [email protected])

Four input-retrieval patterns and incidentally oriented vocabulary learning during reading

Previous research indicates that allowing learners to retrieve t arget words on their own improves intentional second language(L2) vocabulary learning (e.g., Royer, 1973; McNamara & Healy, 1995). Barcrof (2011) also demonstrated benefits o retrievalon incidentally oriented L2 vocabulary learning during reading: gains were obtained when learners viewed target wordstranslated once and were then all owed to retrieve them twice, as compared to viewing them three times without being cued toretrieve them. The present study expanded on Barcrof’s study by comparing our patterns o input (target words translated)and retrieval (blanks in which to write target L2 words). Seventy-five Spanish-speaking intermediate learners o L2 English readan English text or meaning. Each o 6 target words (e.g., smidgen) appeared 3 times in the text. Participants were randomlyassigned to one o our groups based on input (I) – retrieval (R) patterns. Group 1 (control) (n = 19) always viewed Spanishtranslations o the target words (pattern III). Group 2 (n = 19) received pattern IIR. Group 3 (n = 19) received pattern IRI. Group4 (n = 19) received pattern IRR. First language (L1)-to-L2 and L2-to-L1 posttests were administered. Results indicated greatergains or IRI and IRR than III (control) group and greater gains in IRI than in IIR with no significant differences between IRI andRR. As compared to III (control), gains were 34.9% in IRR and 42.0% in IRI. These findings suggest that retrieval strengthens

developing lexical representations while interacting with input in an identifiable and telling manner.


Benson, Stuart (Kanda University o International Studies, [email protected])

Student perspectives on using Lextutor in the classroom

This presentation will report on the explicit use o Lextutor by students to critically analyse written texts. Two intact classeso third and ourth year students at an International University in Japan received 8 hours o in-class time instruction overone week with the goal o using the web program Lextutor to critically analyse the most appropriate written text or theirvocabulary level. Beore the treatment, the students were administered the vocabulary size test (Nation and Beglar, 2007) inorder to understand their vocabulary level. The students then received explicit instruction on aspects o analysing writtentexts such as high requency, academic and low requency words. Finally, explicit instruction in using Lextutor was given inclass. Students then picked 5 written texts to analyse using Lextutor and subsequently presented their results. A questionnairewas given to analyse the student’s perspective on both the treatment and use o Lextutor. This presentation will discuss thematerials used in the treatment, the results o the questionnaire and pedagogical implications rom the study.

Friday 20 December, 9:00 - 9:20am, Room: R HLT2, paper

Boers, Frank (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected]),Eyckmans, June (Ghent University, Belgium, [email protected])

Non-presenting author: Seth Lindstromberg, Hilderstone College, Kent

Gauging the memorability of alliteration and assonance in phrasal expressions

t has been estimated that up to 20% o English phrasal expressions maniest alliteration (e.g., a slippery slope) or assonance(e.g., small talk) (Boers and Lindstromberg, 2009: 114). This could be encouraging news or ESL/EFL learners, as it is widelyassumed that ‘catchy’ sound patterns such as alliteration help phrases stick in memory. Lindstromberg and Boers (2008a, b)report small-scale experiments where EFL learners indeed recalled alliterative / assonant items better than control items.These learners had been instructed to look or alliteration / assonance in the stimuli, however, and so the attested effect

may well have been task-induced. In this presentation, we report eight more recent experiments (total N > 300) designed togauge and compare the effect o alliteration and assonance on EFL learners’ recall o phrasal expressions with and withoutnstruction drawing participants’ attention to the sound patterns. All treatments included a dictation o alliterative / assonanttems and controls, and were ollowed by unannounced recall tests. Large positive effects o alliteration and assonance were

obtained only afer directing the learners’ attention to the presence o the sound pattern. Without such intervention onlysmall and short-lived effects were observed. We conclude that capitalizing on the mnemonic potential o alliteration andassonance or phrasal expressions learning hinges on conscious attention.


Boers, Frank (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected]),Siyanova-Chanturia, Anna (Victoria University oWellington, [email protected]),Warren, Paul (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected])

Does adding pictures to glosses promote uptake of new words?

Marginal glosses are a common means to acilitate learners’ uptake o words rom a text. It has been asserted in severalpublications that glosses with a picture added to the verbal clarification o the word’s meaning are particularly effective in thatregard (Al-Seghayer, 2001; Kost, Foss, & Lenzini, 1999; Yeh & Wang, 2003; Yoshii, 2006; Yoshii & Flaitz, 2002). In the first part oour presentation we re-assess the evidence presented in those publications. We then report data rom new experiments wherewe gauged adult L2 learners’ (total N > 130) recall o the orm as well as the meaning o glossed words afer conditions withor without pictures added to the verbal clarifications. None o the experimental trials yielded data that showed an advantageo having a picture with the gloss. Indeed, that condition consistently generated poorer post-test recall scores or the orm othe words. This suggests that pictures in marginal glosses distract rom the orm o the words that are clarified in them. Thatsuggestion is urther explored in the third part o our presentation, where we report data rom an eye-tracking experiment(N > 20) in which we compared the amount o attention that readers give to words in glosses with and without incorporationo pictures.


Boutorwick, TJ (Kwansei Gakuin University, [email protected])

The effects of extensive reading on learners’ lexical richness

This presentation will discuss the results o a case study examining how EFL learners’ written lexical richness (LR) is affected

by extensive reading. LR, the term or a variety o statistics that attempt to quantiy the degree to which a writer is usinga varied and large vocabulary, constitutes an insightul avenue or examining productive vocabulary knowledge in secondlanguage acquisition. Empirically, LR statistics have been ound to correlate with other productive vocabulary-assessingmeasures including holistic composition profiles and discrete-point vocabulary size tests. However, there are virtually nostudies that have investigated the effects o extensive reading on learners’ LR, even though research has suggested ER tobe an effective method or improving productive vocabulary knowledge. To address this gap, the current study tracked 13EFL students’ LR over 10 weeks or any systematic changes in two commonly-used LR measures: lexical variation and lexicaldensity. Each week the students read one graded reader. Afer reading, they were given approximately 30 minutes to composea summary/response to the story. Results show unstable fluctuations over the 10 weeks, suggesting a 10-week ER treatmentmay be insufficient or notable increases in learners’ writing quality.


Brown, Dale (Osaka University, [email protected])

Three approaches to an operational definition of collocation

Collocations have prompted much discussion in L2 research in recent years, and yet it has proven difficult to pin down adefinition o collocation. This presentation will discuss three approaches to an operational definition o collocation in thecontext o the refinement o an instrument designed to elicit the productive collocational knowledge o learners o English.The instrument, LexCombi (Barfield, 2009), presents learners with 30 noun cues and asks or three collocates in responseto each. The intention is that these responses can then be rated and the quality o learners’ knowledge o collocationsdetermined. In order to do this it is thus necessary to judge the acceptability o the learners’ responses; in other words,the idea o collocation must be operationalised and strictly defined. This presentation will report on the trialling o threeapproaches to operationalising collocation: (1) a dictionary-based approach, in which lists rom dictionaries o collocationshave been combined; (2) a corpus-based approach, involving multiple searches o corpora using different criteria; and (3)

a norms-based approach, using the responses o native speakers o English and o advanced L2 users o English to defineacceptable responses. The presenter will discuss the similarities and differences between the lists o acceptable collocationsproduced, looking both at where the lists overlap and at how and why differences arise between them, consider the possiblityo combining the lists in different ways, and reflect on the implications o each approach.

Thursday 19 December, 9:00 - 9:20am, Room: RH LT2, paper

Browne, Dr. Charles (Meiji Gakuin University, [email protected])

A new General Service List: Celebrating 60 years of vocabulary learning

In 1953, Michael West published a list o important vocabulary words known as the General Service List (GSL). Although thecorpus used was small by today’s standards (only 2.5 million words) and is o course missing many modern high requencywords such as “email”, “Internet” or “cell phone”, the list was the remarkable culmination o nearly 2 decades o pre-computerera corpus research and a series o meetings and discussions with corpus linguists and experienced EFL and ESL teachersaround the world. On the 60th anniversary o the publication o this list, we (Browne, Culligan and Phillips, 2013) would liketo introduce a New General Service List (NGSL). The NGSL is based on a careully selected 273 million word subsection o the


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Vocab@Vic 15.14.

more than 1.5 billion word CEC (Cambridge English Corpus) and uses the power o modern computers and corpus analysissofware to help create a list o high-requency words that provides a higher coverage o texts with ewer words than theoriginal GSL. Like the GSL beore it, this interim list is seen as a starting point or discussion and debate with corpus linguistsand experienced EFL and ESL teachers about what words should be added/deleted - a website dedicated to refining this listwill be introduced at the end o the presentation.

Thursday 19 December, 12:40 - 1:30pm, Room: Mezzanine Floor, poster

Browne, Dr. Charles (Meiji Gakuin University, [email protected])

Introducing the Online Graded Text Editor (OGTE)

This presentation introduces the online, ree-to-use, open-source Online Graded Text Editor (OGTE) webpage or writingand editing graded materials. The tool, created by Drs. Charles Browne and Rob Waring, is part o their ree website calledER-Central.com which pulls together as many relevant resources as possible or those who are interested in online graded-reading and vocabulary learning. Similar in unction to the wonderul VocabProfile tool available on Tom Cobb’s website, theOGTE is less ocused than VocabProfile on the ANALYSIS o texts and much more ocused on helping teachers and authorsto be able to EDIT and WRITE texts. In its current beta orm, the OGTE allows users to set the intended difficulty o the textthey want to simpliy (or create) rom 16 levels o lexical difficutly based on the ERF Scale (Extensive Reading Foundation).Users then paste their own text into the web page which calculates the requency and level o each word in the text. For easeo identification, the web app graphically colors all words that are outside the set level and words not appearing in the wordlists at all. Users edit the text by removing out-o-level words and the web app re-analyses the text automatically. Soon, users

will also be able to select rom additional word lists such as the GSL and NGSL, AWL, Business lists, TOEIC, etc. Users canalso set certain words (e.g . proper nouns) to be ignored in the analysis so they do not affect the detailed statistics or analysispresented.


Chang, Anna C-S (Hsing-Wu University, [email protected])

Learning Vocabulary from Graded Readers: Text Levels and Learning Rates

This study explores text levels and vocabulary learning rates. Thirty-one students, who had previously read 25 graded readersup to level two, were asked to read five level one readers and then to read five level three readers in 13 weeks. A total o126 target words were tested (51 and 75 rom levels one and three). Students’ receptive vocabulary knowledge was testedthrough a meaning-matching method. Twenty-one low requency words rom both text levels were urther tested with thecontextualized translation method. Students were given a pre-test, post-test, and a three-month delayed post-test. Theresults show that with the meaning-matching test method, students’ vocabulary learning rates were about 83% or level onetexts, and 80% or level three texts, and 95% o the words learned were retained afer a three-month period or both textlevels. For the contextualized translation method test, the acquisition rates were 92% and 85% or level one and level three,respectively, and the retention rates were the same, 94%. The overall results show that students’ learning rates or readinglevel one graded readers were slightly higher than reading level three texts in both test methods. The retention rates howeverwere similar or both text levels and also or both test methods. The unusually high learning and retention rates surprised theresearcher. Afer interviews with the participants, the researcher ound that continuous reading was the key to their higherlearning rates. The more they read, the easier it was or them to acquire vocabulary knowledge.


Cobb, Tom (Université du Québec à Montréal, [email protected])

A lot of banks: can collocates tell them apart?

The Range or Vocabprofile amily o text analysis computer programs (which analyze a text according to the requency o itswords in a corpus) has had a major impact on ESL reading, materials selection/creation, and testing. In conjunction with arequency based vocabulary test, such an analysis can reliably match texts and learners to achieve specific reading goals. Itspower can probably be increased, however, by refining the concepts o requency and word. ‘Frequency’ can be cut finer byconsidering what is requent to particular groups o learners, such as L2 words already known in L1. ‘Word’ can be cut finer by(1) dissociating different words that happen to share a common word orm (bank), and (2) combining different words that inact have a single meaning and are processed as a single unit (a lot, in certain contexts). Work on the requency modificationwith regard to French learners will be discussed in the presentation by Horst et al. My talk will look at ways to achieve theword modification, which involves training computer programs to distinguish contexts rather than items. A first guess ‘how’s to train computers to recognize and assess the collocates o particular words. Can a program use the requent collocates o

bank and bank, or a lot and a lot, to make such distinctions reliably? With what increase in power o the analysis? Two years’work incorporating the Sharp BNC-based Just-the-Word collocational database within Vocabprofile will be presented, andproposals or empirical testing with learners.

Thursday 19 December, 10:15 - 10:35am, Room: RHLT2, paper

Coelho, Lucas (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), [email protected])

An automated version of Nation’s VLT for studies with bilinguals

This research concerns the modeling, implementation and validation o an automated version o Nation’s VLT (VocabularyLevels Test) (Nation, 1990), aiming to uncover possible correlations between linguistic experience o bilinguals and theirscores on the test. The VLT consists o sets o six words and three definitions distributed on five levels o progressively lowerrequency o occurrence on the language. This version uses Nation’s BNC/COCA word amily lists, the Academic Word List(Coxhead, 2000) and definitions retrieved rom WordNet (Miller, 1995). The test is applied via the internet, being createdautomatically upon access o each test-taker. The lexical items are chosen randomly rom the word lists given a set o rules toconstitute consistent sets, generally respecting the considerations stated by Schmitt et al. (2001: 59). Other special eatureswere added, such as presenting each set individually and allowing restricted response time, to accomplish its intended tasko measuring the ability o activation o lexical items and avoiding much guessing or deduction. For validation purposeseach set is presented alternately with one o those rom Schmitt et al. (2001)’s revised version. Reerences: Coxhead, A. 2000:A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238. Miller, G. A. 1995: WordNet: A Lexical Database or English.Communications o the ACM, 38(11), 39-41. Nation, P. 1990: Teaching and learning vocabulary. Boston, MA: Heinle andHeinle. Schmitt, N. and Schmitt, D. and Clapham, C. 2001: Developing and exploring the behaviour o two new versions o theVocabulary Levels Test. Language Testing 18(1), 55–88.


Coulson, David (University o Niigata Preecture, [email protected])Testing word-recognition ability of East-Asian learners of English

This presentation will examine proficiency in high-requency word-reading skill o learners whose first language does notuse the Roman alphabet. Nation (2001) divides vocabulary into categories o Form, Meaning and Use, each having active andpassive components. One aspect o lexical knowledge is knowing what a word looks like (passive) and how it is spelled (active).Indeed, word recognition is a critical component o reading comprehension, yet there are ew recognized, reliable methods orits assessment in classrooms. Two studies will be reported, both o which originate in testing or English L1 reading disability.One is based on the word-chain methodology (e.g. Jacobson, 1995). Secondary school students (age 12-18) in Japan andKorea were given a new version o this test. Items such as “gohousesing” had to be divided with pencil strokes (e.g. go/house/sing) as rapidly as possible. In the results, Koreans, whose L1 writing system is much closer to English than Japanese, showedstronger perormance. Further, Japanese high-school students’ ability on this test started regressing afer age 15. The secondtest was a replication o a study (Wydell and Kondo, 2003) on a Japanese-English bilingual severely dyslexic in English. Thetest was given to Japanese university students at distinct proficiency levels. In the results, most students perormed poorlyon the test and those with lower English proficiency perormed as i they were dyslexic. While some may be dyslexic, themain implication is that word decoding skill, especially in Japan, is considerably weak. Causes and appropriate pedagogicalresponses are discussed.


Coxhead, Averil (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected])

Are six new versions of the VST all created equal?

This paper will report on the development and trialling o six orms o a 20,000 version o Nation’s Vocabulary Size Test. Forty

six native and non-native adult speakers o English took all versions o the test. The data rom the 46 participants was used tocheck or equivalence o the tests across variables including the first language o the test takers, their gender, whether theywere currently studying at university or not, as well as their age and level o education. This talk will begin by outlining theVST beore moving on to the development o the new tests. We will t hen look at each o the variables above and their effecton the equivalence o the tests. We will then consider whether these six versions can be considered parallel orms in light oindividual scores and pair comparisons. Implications or teaching and urther testing will conclude the paper.

Friday 20 December, 4:25 – 4:45pm, Room: RHLT2, paper


9/21

Vocab@Vic 17.16.

Dang, Thi Ngoc Yen (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected])

Non-presenting author: Stuart Webb, Victoria University o Wellington

The lexical profile of academic spoken English

This study investigated (a) the l exical demands o academic spoken English and (b) the coverage o the Academic Word List(AWL) in academic spoken English. The researchers analyzed the vocabulary in 160 lectures and 39 seminars rom ourdisciplinary sub-corpora o the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus: Arts and Humanities, Lie and MedicalSciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences. The results showed that knowledge o the most requent 4,000 word amiliesplus proper nouns and marginal words provided 96.05% coverage, and knowledge o the most requent 8,000 word amiliesplus proper nouns and marginal words provided 98.00% coverage o academic spoken English.

The vocabulary size necessary to reach 95% coverage o each sub-corpus ranged rom 3,000 to 5,000 word amilies plus propernouns and marginal words and 5,000 to 13,000 word amilies plus proper nouns and marginal words to reach 98% coverage.The AWL accounted or 4.41% coverage o academic spoken English. Its coverage in each sub-corpus ranged rom 3.82% to5.21%. With the help o the AWL, learners with knowledge o proper nouns and marginal words will need a vocabulary o 3,000and 8,000 word amilies t o reach 95% and 98% coverage o academic spoken English, respectively.


Daulton, Frank (Ryukoku University, [email protected])

The heated exchange of (loan) words between Japan and American Japan, English borrowing is the juggernaut o lexical growth. Each day, English (and pseudo-English) words are unilaterally

adopted by various individuals such as students, academics, bureaucrats and marketers. Sometimes these loanwords reachthe lexical mainstream, ofen through dissemination by the mass media. Along with this lexical flood have come nearly halo the top-3000 word amilies o the British National Corpus (BNC), and the resulting cognates acilitate various aspects ovocabulary acquisition: aural recognition and pronunciation; spelling; listening comprehension; retention o spoken andwritten input; and recognition and recall at especially advanced levels o vocabulary. Naturally the Japanese greatly depend onthese cognates in their English production, and they are open to inormation on loanwords’ efficacy. Unortunately teachersand academics in Japan either ignore these cognates or acknowledge them disparagingly. Meanwhile, in contrast to the floodo English words in Japanese, there are relatively ew Japanese words in English, and their uses are circumscribed, typicallyfilling lexical gaps intrinsically related to Japan and thereore o narrow use. Yet Japanese is considered a major source oloanwords, and these borrowings play a prominent role, clustering in culturally salient areas highly relevant to ‘sophisticated’ndividuals, as can been in the Corpus o Contemporary American English (COCA).


Deconinck, Julie (Department o Applied Linguistics, Free University o Brussels (VUB), [email protected]),Eyckmans,June (Department o Linguistics Ghent University (UGent), [email protected]), Stengers, Helene (Department oApplied Linguistics Free University o Brussels (VUB), [email protected])

Non-presenting author: Frank Boers, Victoria University o Wellington

Can form-meaning motivation foster L2 word recall? An exploratory study.

The notion o orm-meaning motivation (FMM) in cognitive linguistics reers to the idea that a retrospective explanation can

be sought or why a lexical unit in a specific language comes in a particular orm or with a particular meaning. I known wordscan basically be defined in psycholinguistic terms as orm-meaning-mappings, the present paper explores whether FMM canbe harnessed to speed up discrete L2 vocabulary learning. To operationalize this, we designed a think-aloud protocol whereupper-intermediate Dutch-speaking learners o English (N=30) were invited to evaluate the potentially motivated nature othe connection between word orm (new) and word meaning (known) o 14 novel words, and to explain each evaluation, ipossible. Aferwards, participants were unexpectedly tested on their orm and meaning recall o the new words. Transcriptsshow that, in order to explain their ratings, learners drew on cross-lexical associations most requently (50%), reerring tosoundalike or lookalike words in the target or other known language(s). This tally was closely ollowed by sound-symbolicassociations (38%), where reerential values were assigned to the intrinsic sound or shape o a word. Our post-test resultsndicate that cross-lexical and sound-symbolic associations were equally successul in ostering both orm and meaning

recall. We suggest that the FMM rating task, by exposing cross-lexical connections and/or generating creative associations,may help to integrate new words aster in l ong-term memory.


Elgort, Irina (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected])

L2 vocabulary learning at different proficiencies: Do the rich really get richer?

What is the role o lexical proficiency in learning new words in a second or oreign language? Is its effect on learning quantitative,qualitative, or both? Studies in applied linguistics suggest t hat there is a quantitative effect, with more proficient bilingualsbeing able to learn more new words rom reading (Pulido, 2007; Horst, Cobb & Meara, 1998). There is also evidence rompsycholinguistic studies that the learning o meaning proceeds differently or less and more proficiency bilinguals (Finkbeiner,Forster, Nicol, & Nakamura, 2004; Kroll, Michael, Tokowicz, & Duour, 2002). Recent neurolinguistic studies suggest that thereare qualitative differences in lexical processing, as L2 processing involves more extended activity o the neural system orless proficient than more proficient bilinguals and native speakers, with brain areas related to cognitive control involvedin the ormer (Autalebi, 2008). In this presentation, results rom two experimental studies will be used to provide evidenceo quantitative and qualitatively differences in the outcomes o intentional and incidental L2 vocabulary learning. In thefirst study, deliberate learning using bilingual flashcards resulted in high quality lexical-semantic representations orhigher but not lower proficiency adult German-English bilinguals, even though there were no differences in their ability toconnect meaning and orm in a pen and paper test. In the second study, higher proficiency but not lower proficiency adultL2 participants were able to access abstracted meanings o incidentally learned words in a speeded semantic judgment task.Implications o these findings or L2 vocabulary learning will be discussed.

Wednesday 18 December, 10:55 - 11:15am, Room: RHLT2, paper

Fan, Na (Macquarie University, [email protected])

A study of vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning strategies

What is the status quo o vocabulary knowledge (VK) and vocabulary l earning strategies (VLSs) o Chinese non-English majorstudents at tertiary l evel? What is the role played by individual and overall variables (e.g. gender, discipline, proficiency level,vocabulary learning strategy use) to a comprehensive exploration o the flora and auna o the landscape o their VK? Whatare the Chinese EFL students’ perception o their VK and VLSs, and how do they think VLSs affect their VK accumulation? Thissession purports to illuminate their VK construction mechanism in relation to the aorementioned variables. Based uponCochran’s (1977) ormula or sample size, this paper intends to invite a total o 360 second-year and third-year non-Englishmajors rom three Chinese universities o different areas. The computational tool Coh-Metrix will be adopted to analyze theessays written by them using lexical indices related to depth, breadth and accessibility to core lexical items, with VocabularySize Test (VST), Word Associates Test (WAT) being carried out along, in order to arrive at an in-depth understanding o theirdepth and breadth o VK. In addition, a VLS questionnaire will also be implemented. To confirm the quantitative results o thestudy, a ollow-up qualitative semi-structured interview will be administered or purpose o triangulation. A uller pictureo the VK and VLSs o Chinese EFL leaners at tertiary level will be made possible through the findings, which will inormcurriculum developers and other stakeholders and shed light on both vocabulary teaching and learning.

Thursday 19 December, 12:40 - 1:30pm, Room: Mezzanine Floo r, poster

Folse, Keith (University o Central Florida, [email protected])

Vocabulary or grammar: What’s being taught in Spanish 101?

Research has clearly established the need or learning a tremendous number o vocabulary items, and oreign languagelearners acknowledge the severe lexical gap they ace. Given the preponderance o evidence supporting increased emphasis

on increasing students’ lexicons, we would expect that oreign language courses would emphasize vocabulary. In stark contrastto these research findings and related learner needs, however, many i not most language courses still ocus on grammar overvocabulary. Based on the design o a study o the extent to which vocabulary was taught in an academic prep intensive Englishprogram, this paper presents findings o a preliminary investigation into what is actually t aught in first-year Spanish classesat a large university in the U.S. While we in TESOL ocus on English, there are many more students o Spanish as a oreignlanguage in the United States than there are ESL learners.

Friday 20 December, 1:55 - 2:15 pm, Room: RHLT3, paper


10/21

Vocab@Vic 19.18.

Franken, Margaret (The University o Waikato, [email protected]), Wu, Shaoqun (University o Waikato, [email protected])

The questions of learners’ use of a corpus-based system for collocation learning

The last decade has seen significant possibilities through technological tools (including the web, digital library sofware) toexpose students to large amounts o language data that is searchable and browseable or vocabulary, collocations, and lexicalsequences. This affordance is beyond what Johns (1990), an early proponent o data driven learning, probably envisionedwhen he advocated or students to become language “research workers”. But in act, we know little about students’ use o suchtechnological tools. In this presentation, we discuss the perennial questions: How do we know students are using them? Howcan we know how they’re using them? How can we tell i their use makes a difference? We share the challenges and limitationsthat we as researchers have experienced in our development and evaluation o a sel-access, data-driven, and corpus-basedsystem or collocation learning, called FLAX (Flexible Language Acquisition). The paper evaluates whether the questionsabove have been, or can be, adequately addressed in our own studies, and those o other researchers working in this tradition.

Thursday 19 December, 1:30 – 1:50pm, Room: RHLT2, paper

Fraser, Simon (Hiroshima University, [email protected])

Non-presenting authors: Walter Davies, Hiroshima University; Keiso Tatsukawa, Hiroshima University

Corpus design and the creation of medical English wordlists

We report on the initial stage o a collaborative research project between the Institute or Foreign Language Research andEducation and the Faculty o Medicine at Hiroshima University, Japan. Our ultimate aim is to provide university learners omedical English with the means, via a highly specialised corpus and wordlists, to efficiently acquire the most useul lexisand phraseological/rhetorical patterns o their discipline. We expect these lists to provide the basis o a highly relevant andpractical English syllabus, leading eventually to the creation o a set o lexically-based materials. To compile such a specialisedcorpus, selecting the most appropriate texts is o primary importance. However, achieving this is usually ar rom easy or thenon-specialist English teacher, who will ofen rely on inormed guesswork, particularly in a “difficult”, multidisciplinary fieldlike medicine. Although we have had some previous success in compiling wordlists which provide good coverage o medicaltexts, the corpus rom which they were derived may not have included the subjects and text types most relevant to ourstudents. To address this limitation, we conducted interviews and surveys enabling us to build up an accurate picture olearners’ requirements. We ascertained 1) the various, and wide-ranging, medical sub-disciplines encountered in the differentyears o university study; 2) the precise contents o the medical syllabus and the materials used; and 3) the key medical textsand seminal research articles in each o the major areas. We show how this inormation inormed the design stage o ourmedical English corpus.


Fujieda, Miho (Kyoto College o Medical Science, [email protected]), Suzuki, Hiroko (Tokai University, [email protected]), Koyama, Yukie (Nagoya Institute o Technology, [email protected])

Creating corpus-informed word lists for a college radiology ESP program

n this age o English as a global lingua ranca, a key role o post-secondary education in an EFL context is supporting studentsto ully participate as bilingual specialists in proessional discourse communities (Fukui et al., 2009). To this end, collegeEnglish instructors are responsible or designing curricula and providing materials that anticipate students’ uture careers.

English or specific purposes (ESP) materials introduced as primary sources o language input are selected or developedaccording to students’ English proficiency rather than their knowledge o the content, English reading texts will all short oproviding undamental proession-specific vocabulary. A variety o English or academic purposes (EAP) and ESP word listshave been generated in the past through a range o methods (Coxhead, 2000; Wang, Liang, & Ge, 2008; Ward, 2009). The presentstudy goes urther emphasizing the vocabulary students need exposure to, specifically corpus-inormed graded ESP wordlists in the field o radiology. Three specialized corpora were compiled rom sources targeting audiences with different levels ospecialized knowledge: 1) patient education inormation or ordinary people, 2) texts rom introductory university textbooks,and 3) research journal articles. From each corpus, key words were extracted based on requency, range, and keyness. Thesethree word lists were compared and analyzed in terms o semantic relationships and degrees o overlap in order to reflect thepaths o learners’ specialized content knowledge. Pedagogical implications o the lists as a tool or developing ESP readingmaterials will be discussed.


Gharibi, Khadij (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected])

L1 Vocabulary Knowledge: The case of young Iranian bilinguals in New Zealand

My study investigates L1 vocabulary knowledge in young Iranian bilinguals in New Zealand. Participants in the study arethirty Persian-English bilinguals who have been living in NZ or different lengths o time.

Productive L1 vocabulary knowledge is measured by using a verbal fluency task. In this task, the participants are asked toproduce as many words as possible rom a particular semantic category such as animals and ood in a short time span. Inorder to investigate receptive vocabulary knowledge, an auditory picture-word matching task is used. In this task, a pictureis presented on a computer screen and the participant is asked to listen to recorded L1 words and tell me the name o thecorresponding picture. To my knowledge, auditory tasks have not been used in any attrition studies yet, while they are anecessarily alternative or written mode tests when participants are illiterate in their L1.

In addition, I collected inormation (through semi-structured interviews) about the participants’ age, length o residencein NZ, their use o L1, their attitude toward L1 maintenance, and other actors that are believed to influence developmentand attrition o vocabulary knowledge. In my presentation I report and discuss the extent to which each o these actors iscorrelated with the participants’ scores on the two vocabulary tests in my study.

Thursday 19 December, 12:40 - 1:30pm, Room: Mezzanine Floo r, poster

Gonzalez, Melanie (Salem State University, [email protected])

The relationship between vocabulary size and diversity in L2 writing

Although vocabulary has long been an important criterion or assessing second language (L2) writing proficiency, recentresearch on academic discourse has positioned word study as a leading method to improve learner writing. As a result, teachersmust make decisions on which words warrant instructional time and how to help learners deploy these words effectivelyin production. While there has been a growing trend in research investigating word lists, comparatively ewer studies haveexamined how words are actually used to achieve writing quality. Thus, the present paper reports the findings o a quantitativestudy that examined the extent to which vocabulary size and lexical diversity contributed to writing scores on 172 native andadvanced non-native English speakers’ academic essays. Results revealed that lexical diversity had a significantly greaterimpact on writing score than vocabulary size in both native and non-native speaker essays. Nevertheless, vocabulary sizedid initially acilitate writing scores at the lower score levels; however, it was lexical diversity that promoted an essay intothe higher score range. Additional findings demonstrated that vocabulary size had only a moderate relationship to lexicaldiversity. Outcomes rom this study suggest that variation o mid-range vocabulary may play a more important role in writingproficiency than the use o inrequent terms that signal a larger productive lexicon. Furthermore, the results indicate that itis not enough to simply teach vocabulary words in the L2 composition classroom, but to also guide learners in how to employthese words in a varied manner within their writing.


Gu, Peter (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected])Non-presenting author: Wang, Chen (Jiangxi Normal University, China, [email protected])

Creating an Advanced Practical Word List

Many advanced non-native users o English may unction well in their respective domains o work but encounter many

embarrassments or not having the right words or daily communication purposes. This presentation ocuses on the creationo an Advanced Practical Word List (APWL), a list o words o high practical utility in the daily lives o people living in an English-speaking environment. These words are known to most native speakers o English, but are unknown to most advanced non-native speakers. Three contemporary dictionaries were used in the initial development o the APWL. Seven native speakerswere then asked to rate the useulness o the initial word list. Sixty advanced non-native speakers and 40 native speakerso English were asked to identiy the words that were known to them. Based on these criteria, 867 word amilies have beenidentified by all native speakers as o high practical value but were unknown to most o the advanced non-native speakersin this study. The APWL comprises words rom a wide range o requency levels, although the overwhelming majority allbetween the 5th and the 11th thousand requency bands in the BNC-20. The APWL should be an important practical aid oradvanced learners in an English-speaking context. It is also a theoretical attempt at fine-tuning our understanding o mid-requency vocabulary rom the perspective o advanced learners.



11/21

Vocab@Vic 21.20.

Gyllstad, Henrik (Lund University, [email protected])

Non-presenting author: Brent Wolter, Department o English and Philosophy Idaho State University

The semantics of word combinations – Learners’ processing of collocations and free combinations

Even though vocabulary studies have traditionally been ocused on single words, there is now a growing body o researchthat highlights the importance o word combinations such as collocations. One theoretical approach to the study o wordcombinations assumes a continuum o semantic transparency, rom the most transparent category – ree combinations –through collocations, to the least transparent category – idioms. O these three types, collocations are ofen seen as a majorhurdle or second language (L2) learners, whereas ree combinations are largely considered unproblematic. The presentstudy was designed to determine i the assumed greater difficulty o collocations has psychological validity. Specifically, alexical decision task was used to assess both L1 and advanced L2 speakers’ reaction times to ree combination items versuscollocational items. In the study, collocations were seen as word combinations where one o the constituent words is eitherused in a delexical, technical or figurative sense, whereas ree combinations where seen to consist o words used in theirliteral sense. The underlying assumption was that i collocations are indeed more difficult to process, then they should beprocessed more slowly (and perhaps with less accuracy) than ree combinations. I, on the other hand, no differences weredetected, then it may have implications or our understanding o how collocations are stored and processed. The results ostudy will be discussed with regard to L2 acquisition theory and implications or teaching.

Thursday 19 December, 9:25 – 9:45am, Room: RHLT2, paper

Hananto, Hananto (Universitas Pelita Harapan, [email protected])

Measuring word-form and word-meaning link: a new vocabulary-size test format

This paper reports the development o a three-year goverment-unded vocabulary project in Indonesia ocusing onmonitoring the progress o vocabulary learning using sofware developed in the project. The program automatically generatesvarious exercise ormats based on the target words and the meaning given, either their synonyms /simple definitions ortheir meanings in Indonesian. This paper ocuses on its unique ormat combining the most sensitive gap-filling ormat andmultiple-choice ormat. It requires learners to do two things at once: supplying (1) the missing letter and (2) the numberndicating the meaning o the target word. Thereore, it can measure two different word knowledge strengths (i.e. word-orm

and word-meaning) at once. Bases on the double-task three scoring systems are possible to give credits to partial wordknowledge: (1) Word-Form Score: based on the first task only, (2) Word-Meaning Score: based on the second task only, (3)Word-Form & Word-Meaning Score: based on both the first and second tasks. The exercise scores so ar show that the word-orm scores are significantly higher than the word-meaning scores indicating that learners may know the word-orms withoutnecessary knowing their meanings.


Hestetraeet, Torill Irene (Department o oreign languages, University o Bergen, [email protected])

Teacher perceptions of vocabulary teaching and learning

This talk presents a qualitative study o vocabulary teaching and learning in English language classrooms in our primaryschools in Norway. The aim is to compare our 7th grade teachers’ perceptions o the teaching and learning o vocabulary,namely linking vocabulary to the field o teacher cognition. The study is based on a three-stage combination o pre-observationnterviews, classroom observation and ollow-up interviews. The aims o the pre-observation interviews included to find out

how vocabulary was promoted in the t eachers’ educational background and how it is promoted in their own teaching and intheir schools. The teachers were asked about their approach to English teaching and that o the school, how they themselveshad been taught vocabulary, how they teach vocabulary and how they think learners best develop their vocabulary. In thepost-observation interviews, the teachers were asked to elaborate on and explain key episodes observed in the lessons. Thentention was to access the teachers’ theoretical rationale or their teaching, especially t heir choices concerning the teaching

o vocabulary.


Hsu, Wenhua (I-Shou University, [email protected])

Frequent multi-word sequences in English-medium textbooks of engineering core courses

This research aimed to establish a pedagogically useul list o multi-word sequences or EFL engineering undergraduates,called the Engineering English Phrase List (EEPL). The EEPL was derived rom a corpus containing 4.57 million running wordso one hundred college textbooks across twenty engineering subject areas. Through the program Collocate plus manualchecking, five criteria were applied: requency, range, dispersion and cohesiveness o word groups or meaningul units as wellas comprehensible units that do not span two syntactic constituents. Totally, 1,000 o the most requent lexical bundles o twoto six words were ultimately selected and compiled into the EEPL. They accounted or approximately 25.73% o the runningwords in the engineering textbook corpus. Furthermore, this research explored how these requent multi-word combinationsrelate to the engineering field. Their attributes may be approached rom technicality in terms o subject relatedness andhow they are used in context. One o the findings in this research was that the most requent engineering-related words (i.e.technical, sub-technical, lay-technical or crypto-technical words) may not be ound in any o the most requent multi-wordsequences in the same corpus. Thereore, the researcher wishes to propose that or EFL engineering novices, the present EEPLand the EEWL (Engineering English Word List) in the literature may be mutually complementary in acilitating lexical masteryin engineering academic texts.


Hu, Hsueh-chao Marcella (Overseas Chinese University, [email protected])

The effects of different tasks on EFL learners’ collocation learning

It has been widely recognized that much o our ‘vocabulary’ consists o different kinds o preabricated chunks (Lewis, 2000),among which the single most important kind is collocation. Lewis (2000) pointed out that both native speakers o a languageand successul advanced learners o a oreign language have a high level o “collocational competence. However, most oreignlanguage learners o English with the intermediate language proficiency lack this collocational competence. Recent researchhas urther indicated that mere exposure does not guarantee language acquisition or EFL learners. Effective learningintegrates the concept o noticing and attention into a language course or collocational knowledge development, ollowedby orm-ocused activities to strengthen the orm-meaning connections (Lauer &Girsai, 2010; Lauer & Waldman, 2011).The present study is designed to investigate to what extent drawing learners’ attention to the target collocations via textualenhancement techniques plus different orm-ocused activities would acilitate their receptive and productive knowledgeo collocations. Three tasks with varying levels o attention will be included in this study: reading a text with L1 glossed andhighlighted collocations; reading a text with L1 glossed and highlighted collocations ollowed by multiple-choice exercises,and finally reading a text with L1 glossed and highlighted collocations ollowed by fill-in-the-blanks activities. One weekprior to and two weeks afer the study, participants will be given the same our tests assessing their productive knowledge ocollocation, knowledge o collocation recognition, productive knowledge o meaning, and knowledge o meaning recognition.Preliminary findings will be discussed.

Thursday 19 December, 11:30 – 11:50am, Room: RHLT2, paper

Hu, Hsueh-chao Marcella (Overseas Chinese University, [email protected])

Vocabulary learning measured by Involvement Load Hypothesis and Technique Feature Analysis: Which accounts for a morecomprehensive model?

L2 vocabulary development through reading is a complex process in which various components are involved and integratewith one another. In particular, learners need to attend to the connections between new lexical orms and their meaningsso as to make elaboration by associating the word with its existing knowledge sources or maintaining it in working memoryor rehearsal (Ellis, 1994; Hulstijn, 2001; Pulido, 2007; Rott, 2007). An attempt to operationalize the construct o attentionis Lauer and Hulstijn’s (2001) Involvement Load Hypothesis, which proposes that retention o new words depends on thedegree o “need,” “search,” and “evaluation.” The Involvement Load Hypothesis assumes that the greater the involvement in agiven task, the better the retention. Nation and Webb (2011) urther proposed a technique eature analysis with five elaboratecriteria (i.e., motivation, noticing, retrieval, generation, and retention) to compensate or the inadequacy inherent in theInvolvement Load Hypothesis. However, they noticed that some vocabulary learning activities with a lower ranking by theinvolvement load hypothesis have a higher rating with technique eature analysis, and vice versa. To gain better insight intoand also more precise definitions o the involvement load indexes and technique eature actors, this study also investigatedto what extent tasks with consistent and inconsistent rankings between Involvement Load Hypothesis and Technique FeatureAnalysis contribute to L2 vocabulary learning. The preliminary findings suggested that Technique Feature Analysis appears tobe more sensitive in terms o its ranking in predicting vocabulary learning.



12/21

Vocab@Vic 23.22.

Hulstijn, Jan (University o Amsterdam, [email protected])

The notion of shared vocabulary: Size and theoretical relevance

n this presentation, I will first present a model o language proficiency in native and non-native speakers, distinguishingbetween basic language cognition (BLC) and higher (or extended) language cognition (HLC). BLC is the language, used inthe aural/oral modes, which all native speakers have in common; HLC concerns all other language knowledge and use. Anmportant empirical question arising rom the model is how small or large vocabulary knowledge in BLC might be. I will

report on two studies conducted in the Netherlands, in which we administered a battery o Dutch-language tests, includingvocabulary-size tests, to, respectively, 96 and 239 adult native speakers differing in age (rom 18 to 82 years old) and level oeducation (low vs high). The items in the productive (study 1) and receptive (study 2) vocabulary tests were selected on thebasis o their requency o occurrence in, respectively, a corpus o spoken Dutch (9 million words) and a corpus o writtenDutch (50 million words). A cautious interpretation o the results leads us to propose that the shared active and passivevocabularies o adult native speakers o Dutch amounts to 7000 lemmas. I will discuss the relevance o these findings or bothgenerative and usage-based theories o L1 and L2 acquisition, arguing that all theories o language acquisition must accountor the acquisition o BLC. I will also address problems in estimating shared vocabulary validly and reliably, and the extent towhich the findings can be extrapolated to other languages and societies.


Jiang, Nan (University o Maryland, [email protected]), Guo, Taomei (Beijing Normal University, [email protected]), Li,

Man (University o Maryland, [email protected])The translation frequency effect in L2 word recognition

The representation and processing o lexical knowledge is an integral part o research on vocabulary acquisition. Severalmodels have postulated that L2 words are linked to their L1 translations at an early stage and this link becomes less activatedas one’s L2 proficiency increases. However, direct evidence o L1 lexical involvement is scarce. Intererence errors in L2 worduse that have been considered as evidence or L1 involvement can be a result o conceptual transer. The present studyexamined L1 lexical involvement in L2 word recognition in terms o a translation requency effect (TFE). Chinese ESL speakerswere asked to perorm a lexical decision task on English words that were matched in requency, length, and part o speech, butdiffered in the requency o their Chinese translations. The mean requency o their Chinese translations was 801.3 and 20.6 permillion or the high-translation-requency (HTF) and low-translation-requency (LTF) conditions, respectively. In Experiment1 (reported at SLRF 2012), intermediate Chinese ESL speakers were ound to respond to the HTF words significantly asterthan the LTF words while no such TFE was ound among native controls. In the present Experiment 2 where an advancedChinese ESL speaker group and an English requency manipulation were added, intermediate L2 speakers replicated theTFE but advanced Chinese ESL speakers showed no such effect. Furthermore, both groups showed a reliable English lexicalrequency effect. The findings offered new insights on the processes involved in L2 word recognition.


Jiang, Guowu (The University o Newcastle, [email protected])

Non-presenting authors: Christo Moskovsky, The University o Newcastle; Alan Libert, University o Newcastle; Seamus Fagan,University o Newcastle

Bottom-up and Top-down Approaches in Second Language Vocabulary Teaching

This paper presents a quasi-experimental study examining the effectiveness o two essentially different types o vocabularyteaching approaches: bottom-up and top-down. The study involved 120 first-year university students in Hebei province,China, who were allocated into two research groups. Participants received 48 hours o exposure to EFL academic vocabularynstruction over eight weeks, but the groups differed in that each was only exposed to one method o vocabulary teaching,

either bottom-up or top-down. Two dimensions o participants’ academic English vocabulary development (reception andcontrolled production) were measured quantitatively at the start and at the end o the treatment. The analyses o the testresults revealed that both groups made significant gains in the attainment o English academic vocabulary—both in termso vocabulary size and in terms o controlled productive vocabulary knowledge. However, the study’s findings indicate that othe two approaches the bottom-up one worked marginally better or this population o EFL learners. A range o actors arelikely to have been responsible or this outcome, including processing differences between language perception and languageproduction, the learners’ proficiency level, the nature o L2 lexical acquisition, and the specifics o the Chinese cultural andeducational tradition. Additionally, it seems that the EFL academic vocabulary course that was specifically constructed or thepurposes o the study was quite effective in achieving good learning outcomes, in both o the two instructional approaches.These findings strengthen the argument or explicit vocabulary teaching which has been put orth in relevant literature.

Friday 20 December, 9:25 - 9:45am, Room: R HLT2, paper

Kamimoto, Tadamitsu (Kumamoto Gakuen University, [email protected])

The function of stems in a vocabulary test

Nation and Beglar (2007) recently developed the Vocabulary Size Test (VST). Some validation studies have since appeared(Beglar 2010; Karami, 2012; Nguyen & Nation, 2011). This study, though on a much smaller scale, also aims at validating thetest, ocussing on the manner in which test items are presented. The VST adopts a multiple-choice ormat with each item beingmade up o a stem and our options. In regards to writing guidelines or stems, Beglar (2010: 104) explains that each item isplaced in a short non-defining context. An underlying assumption here is that such a stem won’t give away a correct option.This assumption needs to be tested. A total o 110 Japanese EFL university students participated in the study. To controlor English reading proficiency, a bilingual Japanese VST orm was used. Stem sentences were omitted to develop a ormwithout stems. Two orms o the test, with or without stems, were randomly distributed to the participants. A maximum scorepossible was 80 points. Results show that means were 50.38 or the original group and 52.60 or the modified group, yieldinga difference o 2.22. A t-test showed that the difference was statistically significant at the .05 level. Contrary to expectation,students perormed better on the test without stems than on the t est with stems. Context was ound to be a hindrance ratherthan a acilitator. The presentation will report its ollow-up item analysis and discuss what the findings may imply.


Kasahara, Kiwamu (Hokkaido University o Education, [email protected])

Pedagogical implications of known-and-unknown word combinationsThis paper is a ull report o several studies on the effect o known-and-unknown word combinations or intentional vocabularylearning. The term “combination” in this paper means a two-word collocation o a amiliar word and a word that is new to L2learners. Kasahara (2010, 2011) ound that attaching a known word to a word to be remembered could help learners to retainand retrieve the meaning o the target word. In the encoding phase, the newly-ormed link between the known word andthe target word seemed to help the learners to fix the new word into their mental lexicon. In the decoding phase, the knownword appeared to help them to limit the scope o searching the meaning o the target word. Learning words in known-and-unknown collocations is superior to learning words in isolation (paired-associate learning) in that it gives a clue (a knownword) or learners to keep and remember the meaning o the t arget word. This way o learning words puts ewer burdens onlearners than learning words in context such as learning new words in example sentences or passages. This paper deals withthe ollowing three points: (a) the mechanism o learning words in known-and-unknown word combinations, (b) effectivetypes o two-word combinations, and (c) the effect o this word learning or beginning level L2 learners. Several suggestionswill be made in order to make use o learning words in two-word combinations.


Kent, Heidi (Simon Fraser University, [email protected])

Bricklayer: A computerized vocabulary assessment instrument

Vocabulary assessment commonly ocuses either on breadth estimates (Nation, 1990) or depth assessment or a ew items(Wesche & Paribakht, 1996). The checklist test (Meara & Buxton, 1987) relies on sel-assessment or large numbers o words,but there are concerns about its reliability. This presentation introduces Bricklayer, a computer game which modifies sel-assessment by spot-checking learners’ sel-report. Learners must rank their knowledge or a list o words. Perormance resultsin a game score. Unlike traditional tests in which each item is measured individually, words are ranked in relation to each

other, making the results highly contextualized. Intermediate ESL learners (N = 28) were assessed twice on each o 72 words. Asubsequent multiple-choice test elicited actual word knowledge. A logistic regression model was built using the participants’overall word rankings in Bricklayer, each user’s specific word rankings, and the user’s overall ability level based on game scores.The model’s predictive accuracy was comparable to a checklist assessment (61% accuracy or known words; 73% accuracy orunknown words). However, accuracy or unknown words increased to 87% when considering only low scoring games andaccuracy or known words increased to 71% or high scoring games. These results suggest that, given Bricklayer’s sensitivity tothe overall context, it is well suited to assessing large numbers o words in a computer adaptive environment in which the useris given word lists based on previous perormance. The presentation will discuss pedagogical implications and also exploreBricklayer’s sensitivity to partial semantic knowledge.



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Vocab@Vic 25.24.

Ker, Alastair (Victoria University o Wellington, [email protected])

Ultra-dark matter: How lexical superlatives supplement their grammatical equivalents

Comparatives and superlatives in English are identified most cl osely with inflected and phrasal orms o adjectives (e.g. better,more important, greatest, most common). Biber et al. (1999) ound that in a corpus consisting o news, academic prose, fictionand conversation, comparative orms o adjectives were twice as common as superlative ones. Given the human predilectionor expressing ourselves in superlative terms, such a high ratio appears surprising. The paper will begin by revisiting thenature o comparison. A taxonomy will be presented which expands the semantic range o how comparison is traditionallyunderstood to include categories like non-scalar (same / different) comparison (Ker, 2006). A conceptual ramework or thecase o superlative meanings building on Huddleston & Pullum’s (2002) distinction between absolute and relative superlativeswill also be established. Against this background, findings rom the ICE-NZ corpus will be reported which demonstrate themportant though under-appreciated role lexis plays in comparison in general. Further concordance data rom ICE-NZ will

then be used to demonstrate that lexical superlatives provide a varied and requently-used alternative to their inflectionaland phrasal equivalents. I the requency o lexical superlatives is taken into account, the gap between comparative andsuperlative adjective orms which Biber et al. pointed out narrows significantly – hence the analogy with dark matter.mplications o these findings or the teaching o English or Academic Purposes (EAP) will be explored. Some key semantic

eatures o lexical superlatives will be explained, together with patterns o collocation and colligation which are relevant totheir use.


Lauer, Batia (University o Haia, [email protected])

Collocations: hard to get and easy to forget

The use o L2 collocations is problematic or learners regardless o years o instruction they received, their native language,or the task they have to perorm (Alterberg & Granger, 2001; Granger, 1998; Hasselgren, 1994; Howarth, 1996; Liu, 1999;Kaszubski, 2000; Nesselhau, 2005; Schmitt, 2004). The use o L1 collocations, on the other hand, seems to be less immune toattrition than other language eatures (Lauer, 2003; Pavlenko, 2010). I report on two studies, one o L2 acquisition, the othero L1 attrition. The first study compared highly advanced L2 users and native speakers on five areas o lexical proficiency:richness and variation in writing, vocabulary size, collocation knowledge and use. The number o L2 users who perormed likenative speakers was l owest on collocation use and collocation knowledge test. The second study compared Russian- speakingmmigrants in Israel who remained monolingual, i.e. did not acquire Hebrew (L2) with immigrants who acquired Hebrew and

with Russian speaking controls in Russia. Four areas o L1 were examined: lexical retrieval, production o irregular verbs,production o the uture tense o regular verbs and correctness judgment o collocations. Attrition o collocations was oundn the results o both immigrant groups: those who learnt Hebrew and those who remained monolingual. I will relate the

results to the issues o input, instruction, direct and indirect cross linguistic influence in order to explain why collocations,more than other language eatures, are difficult to acquire and easy to attrite.


Lin, Chen-Chun Camille (University o Sydney, [email protected])

Partial word knowledge: Insights from an analysis of word learnability

The role o receptive morphological knowledge in partial word written orm production has not received proper attention in

second language vocabulary research. Addressing this issue, the current paper examined 54 Taiwanese university students’existing receptive morphological knowledge, as measured by the tests o word class and word segmentation, and theirproductive vocabulary knowledge. Preliminary results indicated: (1) the participants’ receptive morphological knowledge wassignificantly positive moderately correlated with their productive word knowledge; (2) repeated measures (within-subjects)analysis o variance showed that more completed words were produced when the word length ranges rom 6-letters to8-letters, and more partial words were produced or the lengths rom 9-letters to 12-letters; and (3) non-parametric Friedmantest revealed that the participants produced longer partial words or each word length category. These findings led to urthernvestigation or understanding the pattern o partial word written orm and its relationship between the students’ existing

morphological knowledge. The results rom urther investigation o the students’ partial word production revealed that thestudents produced longer letter-strings or partial words based on their knowledge o affixes and knowledge o word class.These arther results lend support to the contribution o receptive morphological knowledge to partial word production.mplications or integrating morphological knowledge into productive vocabulary teaching and learning are provided.

Thursday 19 December, 12:40 - 1:30pm, Room: Mezzanine Floor, poster

Lwin, Soe Marlar (National Institute o Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, [email protected])

Providing exposure to spoken vocabulary through multimodal storytelling interaction

This study investigates how verbal and non-verbal eatures o storytelling interaction could acilitate young children’sunderstanding o the meanings o spoken vocabulary items. Many studies have been done on parent-child interactionsduring shared storybook reading to examine their benefits on children’s vocabulary development. Few studies have examinedthe interactional strategies used by trained storytellers whose storytelling is not typically accompanied by a book but only bytheir well-coordinated gestures, elaborate acial expressions and voice modulation. Applying a multimodal spoken discourseanalysis, this study qualitatively examines the verbal, vocal and visual eatures used by three trained storytellers during theirstorytelling sessions or young children. The results show that besides verbal eatures, such as scaffolding through questioningor providing a synonym, the storytellers used specific types o gestures, acial expressions and voice modulation to helpchildren in making inerences about unamiliar words in relation to the plot and characters. Inviting and allowing childrento become involved in the storytelling process by acting out the meanings or representations o certain words was anothercommon interactional strategy used by the three storytellers. The children’s verbal and non-verbal responses shows evidenceo how these interactional strategies have possibly acilitated their understanding o the meanings o several vocabularyitems. The study offers implications or leveraging on the multimodal meaning-making potential o storytelling interactionwhile providing young children exposure to spoken vocabulary which has important links to their language development.


Manalo, Emmanuel (Waseda University, [email protected]), Henning, Marcus (The University o Auckland,[email protected])

Why students make little effort in learning L2 vocabulary

The influence o cognitive cost on students’ selection and use o learning strategies has not been adequately investigatedin previous research. In this study, we examined whether students make adequate effort in learning second language (L2)vocabulary words, and considered possible reasons or the amount o effort they use. The participants were 84 Japaneseundergraduate university students taking a compulsory course in English. The course required learning o words romCoxhead’s (2000) academic words list; the students received bi-weekly tests on selected words. We examined the students’perormance in two consecutive tests, and their responses to surveys about the learning strategies they used. The resultsshowed that on average the students employed a strategy requiring low effort, and hal o the strategies were o a shallowprocessing type involving only repetition and rote memorization. Sixty-two per cent o the students indicated that they couldthink o a “more effec

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