LIN2236 Teaching Vocabulary to Second Language Learners      

H-2009

Instructor: Tom Cobb
Email: cobb.tom@uqam.ca
Course website: www.lextutor.ca/2236/
Phone: 987 3000 #2743
Office: DS 3567
Office hours: Thurs 10h – 12h or appointment
Where/when: Thursdays, 14h – 17h, DS-M460

1. Official Course description: The aim of this course is to give future English teachers a coherent approach to teaching vocabulary in their classrooms. Topics include deciding which words to teach, to which learners, by what means, and the assessment of learning. A main emphasis is on principled materials selection and design for optimal lexical growth. Particular attention will be paid to potential uses of technology in the analysis and teaching of vocabulary.

2. Text: Scott Thornbury, How to teach vocabulary. Harlow, Essex: Longman.

 

Book blurb: What is the key to a successful ELT book?
It has to say something interesting in a way that is relevant to practicing teachers - in a wide range of teaching contexts. It also helps if it appeals to teacher trainers as much as teachers - that way it has a chance of getting on to the book list of training courses.

What does your book give teachers that others don't?
How to Teach Grammar and How to Teach Vocabulary combine a fairly up-to-date background in theoretical issues (such as recent developments like the lexical approach and corpus linguistics). They are also written in an accessible and non-technical style, with lots of practical ideas.

Source: http://www.eltforum.com/sthornbury_bio.html

 

 

3. Your prof’s philosophy on lexis.

 

Without grammar you can convey little; without words, you can convey nothing! From a recent publication of mine: “It is now commonplace to say there is an explosion under way in pedagogical vocabulary studies. And yet this is a trend with at least two anomalies. One is that despite the number of interesting research findings since about 1985, there are still more questions than answers. The other is that while virtually all ESL teacher-training courses offer a course in pedagogical grammar, few offer a course in pedagogical vocabulary. Which is odd, since one of the few things we know about either is that lexis is to some extent teachable while the same has never been shown for grammar.

 

From my own training as an English teacher in the late 1970s, the main thing I now remember concerned teaching the new vocabulary of a reading passage. The point was that it was less useful to define words for learners ("a dog is a four-legged animal that barks") than to ask them to find a word for a meaning ("find a word in this paragraph that means ‘a four-legged animal that barks’."). This idea seemed intuitively correct, although I would have been hard pressed to say why. For years this teaching tip was my personal example of something you can learn about language teaching. It is something you can do in a more effective or a less effective way. I gradually worked out the reasons why the tip had seemed appealing. First, it gives learners a more to do, and, second, it proceeds from known (concept) to unknown (label). I always wondered if we TESL trainees might not have been given a little more help to get started with this type of reasoning.”

 

Source: Cobb, T. (2002). Review of Norbert Schmitt, 2000, Vocabulary in language teaching. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5 (1-2), 173-177. [Available in full  at http://www.lextutor/cv/Schmitt.htm]

 

         

3a. Your prof’s philosophy on teacher training

 

Learning to be a teacher is mainly a ‘doing’ thing, yet it is a doing based on relevant theory from applied linguistics research. LIN2236 attempts to balance theory and practice.

 

4. MELS Competencies involved

[1] To act as a professional inheritor, critic, and interpreter of knowledge or culture when teaching students;

[2] To communicate clearly and correctly in the language of instruction, both orally and in writing, in various teaching contexts;

[3] To design and develop teaching content in line with (a) the level of particular groups of learners and (b) specific MELS competencies.

[5] To evaluate learners’ progress in terms of the competencies targeted in (Comp 3).

[6] To plan, organise and supervise different types of classroom activities so as to favour learning.

[8] To integtrate TICs at all levels including teaching, class management, and professional development.

[10] To work with others in teams or groups to develop teaching or other materials.

[12] To act ethically and responsibly in the performance of one’s duties.

 

5. Your work [and competencies pertaining thereto]

 

To do well in this course, you must do all of these: read and understand all materials [1, 12], attend every class [12], with a partner do one peer teaching [2, 3, 6, (8)], participate in all other peer teachings [10, 12], with a different partner produce one major project involving an important aspect of vocabulary teaching or acquisition in a Quebec context [1, 3, 10, (8)], take four formative in-class quizzes [1, 12], and pass one summative final exam [1, 12].

Weighting of course elements

FIVE BI-WEEKLY QUIZZES

40%

PEER TEACHING + BRIEF PLAN + REPORT

10%

EVALUATING PEER TEACHING

10%

FINAL PROJECT (20) + PRESENTATION (10)

20%

FINAL EXAM

20%

TOTAL

100%

 

6. Weeky rhythm

 

DATE

(Thursdays)

READING, THEME

PEER TEACHING

TESTS

Jan  8

Intro/plan de cours

 

 

    15

Ch1     Terminology

 

 

    22

Ch2     Learning principles

Peer Teaching x1 pair

Test 1 (on CH 1)

    29

Ch2a   (Cont’d)

Peer Teaching x2 pairs

 

Feb  5

Ch3     Sources of words

Peer Teaching x1

Test 2 (on CH 2)

    12

Ch4    Texts, dictionary, corpus

Peer Teaching x3

 

    19

Ch5     How to present vocabulary

Peer Teaching x1

Test 3

    26

Ch5 (Cont’d)

Peer Teaching x3

 

 

Mar  5

 

SPRING BREAK

    12

Ch6     Putting words to work

Peer Teaching x1

Test 4

    19

Ch6a   (Cont’d)

Peer Teaching x2

 

    27

Ch7     Word parts & chunks

 

Test 5

April  2

Ch8     Testing vocabulary

Present projects

 

     9

Ch9     Training good vocab learners

Present projects

 

    16

Wrap-up, review, questions

 

Final test

 

7. Peer Teaching

Our textbook contains several sections for practical teaching ideas. Fourteen pairs of students will choose one of these, teach it, and explain its relationship to principles discussed in the text. Choose first = perform first (in next available slot – or trade with another pair.)

 

p. 33            Ch 3    [2] Exploit word lists, Bingo, Connections (shave)

p. 47            Ch 3    [2] Exploit textbook, Cognitive Depth

p. 49            Ch 3    [2] Brainstorming

p. 54            Ch 4    [1] Vocab chains, Snake

p. 55            Ch 4    [1] Finding lexical feature (idiom, long noun phrase)       

p. 57            Ch 4    [1] Literary text features

p. 66            Ch 4    [2] Dictionaries

p. 71            Ch 4    [1] Concordance keyword

p. 80            Ch 5    [1] Flashcards

p. 88            Ch 5    [1] Association network

p. 89            Ch 5    [1] Info gap peer work 

p. 94            Ch 6    [1] Identifying words

p. 98            Ch 6    [1] Rank and sequence

p. 102           Ch 6    [3] One of the nine games

p. 119-21      Ch 7    [1] Collocates

p. 147           Ch 9    [1] More word cards

p. 152-3        Ch 9    [2] One page of Learner dictionary  [Total=24]

 

Peer teaching timetable: 15 mins + 5 critique = 3 in one hour

 

8. Quizzes: These are short-essay exercises of about 40 minutes duration which can relate to any topic that has been dealt with significantly since the beginning of the course whether in readings, class discussion, or peer teaching. Quizzes take place in the final hour of class on dates indicated.

 

9. Peer teaching: Lessons will be scored from 10 by groups of peers with possible modification by the instructor. The lesson is to be preceded in the class before by a brief plan explaining the objective and its relation to principles discussed elsewhere in Thornbury or in classroom discussion.

 

Note an interesting contrast with the procedure in LIN1232 (Teaching Oral Comprehension and Production): in LIN1232 you were required to show which enabling objectives were needed to realize a communicative objective; here, conversely, you start from an enabling objective, some form of vocabulary knowledge, and show how it feeds into a communicative objective. (Communicative in the broad sense – it could refer to reading a text.)

 

9. Final project:
Two possibilities:
A. In the first, you will exploit this principle: “It is not possible for language course books to provide enough space for adequate learning of the new words they present; this must be provided by a teacher.” Obtain a substantial chapter or unit from a textbook currently used in your upcoming stage. Check with instructor that no one else has chosen the identical material (unless you plan to take two different approaches to the same material – check first). Develop a complete vocabulary supplement for this material, including assessment.

 

B. With a team of two others, scan an entire set of materials designated for primary or secondary learners in Quebec and, based on (a) research findings and (b) software tools discussed in the course, assess the adequacy of vocabulary learning that the materials support. (You prof is particularly interested in the newly MELS-approved Little Rascals series.)