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Vocabulary in language learning| old_uid | 12833 |
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| title | Vocabulary in language learning |
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| start_date | 2013/10/04 |
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| schedule | 14h-16h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Despite the centrality of vocabulary in language learning, so far, research has had little impact on how textbooks are structured and how teachers work with vocabulary in the classroom. It has, for instance, been shown that many textbooks do not help pupils see relations between words, such as synonymy and collocation (Rixon 1999), and that many words presented in them appear without thoughts of frequency and relevance (Cameron 2001: 90). There also seems to be a lack of agreement as to what words are regarded as constituting a basic vocabulary (Carter & McCarthy 1988; Cameron 2001; Nation 2001).
We are currently involved in a project studying the correlation between textbooks used in Swedish elementary schools and vocabulary learning, and exploring what teaching methods are used to enable pupils to gain a sizeable vocabulary. To our knowledge, no extensive study so far has focused on vocabulary acquisition based on textbooks in a Swedish setting. This is a research gap that the present study aims to fill.
The project is divided into two parts. The purpose of the first part is to map how vocabulary is presented in seven Swedish textbooks for young learners of English. More specifically, it aims at showing how vocabulary is structured in the textbooks, what kind of vocabulary is included and to what extent words are recycled.
The purpose of the second part is to shed light on how vocabulary is taught in elementary classes. The specific aims are to illustrate how teachers work with vocabulary, how they test their pupils’ knowledge of vocabulary and ascertain that acquisition and long-term retention actually take place, and how well their choice of methods when working with vocabulary is related to learning strategies in second language acquisition and research within the field. |
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| responsibles | Knittel, Servas |
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