Introduction To Vocabulary Improvement And Reading Comprehension English Language Essay

In the last clip, research on vocabulary acquisition and instruction in 2nd linguistic communications has gained a privileged place within the probe of 2nd linguistic communication acquisition and instruction.

Many surveies confirm the connexion between vocabulary size and reading comprehension. Some even argue that addition in vocabulary improves quality of reading comprehension and acquisition ( Cunningham 2010 ) .Schmitt ( 2000 ) references that a individual needs to cognize between 95- 98 % of the words in a text in order to understand it successfully.

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Educators and scientists likewise view vocabulary as stepping-stone in developing reading comprehension. Vocabulary size Acts of the Apostless as a constriction that prevents acquisition.

Lexical Quality Hypothesis explains how vocabulary affects reading comprehension ( Perfetti & A ; Hart, 2002 ) . Lexical representations are orthographic, phonologic, and syntactico-semantic. The theory argues that quality of representations controls how easy or hard is to recover information from memory. Besides, entree depends on how elaborate is one ‘s cognition of each representation, and how integrated the points are in one ‘s memory ( Perfetti and Hart 2002 ; Perfetti & A ; Lesgold, 1979 ) .

Another research shows that comprehension and fresh word acquisition is progressively hard when single reads printed texts containing over 2 % unknown words ( Carver, 1994 ) .

Educators are progressively cognizant of the importance of vocabulary for get the hanging comprehension of written text. This is particularly relevant for nonnative linguistic communication talkers. These pupils suffer even more hold in word acquisition. This paper will briefly reexamine the literature on word cognition definition and the facets involved in cognizing a word. In the 2nd portion, the paper will suggest that schemes affecting morphology and incidental acquisition are successful at bettering vocabulary.

Knowing a word.

Knowing a word involves much more than cognizing its significance ( the construct that designates a word ) and its acquisition.

Richards ( 1985 ) states that cognizing a word involves cognizing about its frequence of usage, the syntactic and situational restriction on its usage ; its implicit in signifier and the signifiers that can be derived from it, the web of its semantic characteristics and the assorted significances associated with the point.

Whereas Nation ( 1990 ) says that cognizing a word besides implies cognizing its spelling, pronunciation, collocation and rightness.

Seal ( 1991 ) agrees with Nation sing sing that word cognition is an indispensable constituent of communicative competency, and it is of import to develop receptive ( listening, reading ) and productive ( composing and talking ) accomplishments in a foreign linguistic communication. “ Receptive carry the thought that we receive linguistic communication input through others by listening or reading and seek to grok it, productive that we produce linguistic communication signifier by talking and composing to convey messages to others ” State, I. S ( 2001: 24 ) .

Therefore, after analysing different research worker ‘s points of position, what can be asserted is that word cognition, in a rigorous sense, means ability to acknowledge the significance of a word. It can mention to inactive acknowledgment of words in address, or to active production of words. To clear up the thought, see this illustration: pupil Anna deduces the significance of a word from its usage, but does non actively utilize the word in his or her ain address. In this illustration, word cognition consists of inactive apprehension of intending from context. Conversely, acknowledging the significance of the word, and right utilizing it in one ‘s address, describes production of the word. An person may hit positively or negatively on word cognition, depending on whether the trial focuses on word response or production.

A linguistic communication receptor has different cognition than a manufacturer. Communication concerned with response agencies form acknowledgment, consciousness of the right sound, form, and recognizable parts. For significance and signifier, one must infer intension from context. Besides, one must acknowledge grammatical functions from word form, collocations, and adjacent words and restraints on word usage.

In the old illustration, pupil Anna may read the phrase ‘transition from kindergarten to primary school ‘ , and infer that passage means patterned advance. She recognizes the form, sound, and identifies transit as word root. It means alteration, and uses prepositions as collocations. Student Anna, as inactive hearer, has a satisfactory cognition of theodolite.

If word cognition needs production of the word, so pupil Anna does non cognize the word. She can non state or spell the word, or remember equivalent word, collocations, grammatical signifiers, and normative regulations.

State ( 2003 ) , Schmitt ( 2000 ) and Miller ( 1999 ) suggest that there are several factors involved in cognizing a word.

Table 1 includes these characteristics. I will utilize the same word mentioned before to represent.

Core significance or intension: This is the actual significance of the word, normally find in the lexicon.

. E.g. Theodolite: the procedure of traveling, or the motion of goods or people from one topographic point to another.

Phonological construction: The usage of sounds to encode significance in spoken linguistic communication

. E.g. Transit by and large pronounced /E?tr?n.zE?t/

Orthographic construction: Word spelling.

E.g. t-r-a-n-s-i-t

Part of address: Grammar categorization.

E.g. Transit is a Noun and a verb.

Collocation behaviour: Word which co- occur together with high frequence.

E.g. Mass theodolite, rapid theodolite.

Register: a peculiar manner of linguistic communication which is appropriate in certain fortunes.

E.g. Transit is a loosely recognized word for the procedure of traveling.

Grammatical map: The syntactic relationships between words in a sentence

E.g. The theodolite of Venus. In this instance theodolite is the topic of the sentence and it is been used as a noun.

Synonymy: a word that can be exchanged for another without altering the significance of the sentence.

E.g. Transit and Journey are synonyms.

Intension: The emotional associations that a word may incorporate.

E.g. A positive intension of theodolite may be good memories of a Journey.

Polysemy: multiple significances of a individual word

E.g. Transit means its nucleus significance as above or a type of route vehicle used particularly for transporting goods.

Vocabulary betterment in ESL

Language acquisition is complex, and begins in the early phases of kid development ( Leach, 2007 ) . For nonnatives, larning new words is hard because of intervention of the new linguistic communication with the first linguistic communication. In add-on, acquisition of new words occurs at different ages for nonnatives and indigens.

Laufer ( 1997 ) describes several interlexical causes that make hard or easy acquisition of a new linguistic communication. These are: pronounceability, writing system, word length, morphology, synformy, specificity and registry limitation, abstractness, portion of address, idiomaticity, lexical ambiguity / multiple significance. See these illustrations:

Survey of school public presentation during the formative old ages ( 6-12 ) show that ELLs and ESLs experience most troubles when traveling from primary to middle and secondary degree ( Kieffer, 2004 ) . Explaining the linguistic communication spread between indigens and ESLs through deficiency of motive is untrue. On the contrary, parents of ELLs put high value on their kids ‘s cognition of the linguistic communication and their school accomplishment ( Suarez-Orozco, 2001 ) . Rather, pupils do ill in reading comprehension and acquisition because they have limited vocabulary ( Stanovich Carlo, 1986 ) .

Research shows that learning vocabulary through presenting pupils to long lists of words is uneffective. This is non a surprise, since long lists require root memorisation. In add-on, as pupils advance in their academic surveies, the figure of new words they face rises exponentially. The instructor could present all new words to pupils in primary categories, but subsequently this becomes time-consuming. A more effectual scheme involves showing pupils with tools that enable them to larn new words on their ain.

Amount and types of words to be Teach.

Harmonizing to Chonell, Meddleton, and Shaw, ( 1956 ) . Peoples on a regular basis use about 2000 words in their day-to-day conversation. Two thousand words seem to be the most normally mentioned initial end for L2 scholars.

The 2000 1000 word vocabulary size threshold is the reply to which words to learn. State, ( 1995 ) proposes that the most frequent 2000 1000 words are indispensable for any existent linguistic communication usage, and so are deserving the attempt required to learn and larn them explicitly.

Here comes another of import subject in learning vocabulary, which words should be taught explicitly and which 1s should be taught by the way. I agree with Meara, ( 1995 ) when he says that the 2000 1000 words should be taught explicitly and that they are so of import that we should concentrate on learning them right at the beginning of a linguistic communication class. I have seen that the deficiency of vocabulary in pupils is an hindrance to the development of speech production, reading comprehension, composing and listening. Therefore holding a good vocabulary would be a solid base to learn pupils how to develop more progress accomplishments.

Furthermore, harmonizing to Ellis, ( 1997 ) vocabulary cognition can assist grammar acquisition, cognizing the words in a text or conversation permits scholars to understand the significance of the discourse, which in bend allows the grammatical patterning to go more crystalline.

Schmitt ( 2000 ) says that there is no “ right ” or “ best ” manner to learn vocabulary. The best pattern in any state of affairs will depend on the type of pupil being taught, the words targeted, the school system and course of study, and many other factors.

Morphology as Method of Teaching

Many surveies point to morphology as one of the most successful schemes that aid pupils in single or corporate survey of new words. Morphology refers to analyze of word with accent on morphemes, the smallest word unit ( Kieffer, 2007 ) .

For illustration, see the morphological analysis of pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism. It contains four prefixes ( pseudo- , pseudo- , hypo, para- ) and one postfix ( -ism ) . Pseudo- agencies fake, or false ; hypo- means less than normal ; para-means alongside, beside ; and -ism agencies typical cause. The word means false pseudhypoparathyroidism.

Morphemes separate into edge and unbound. Unbound morphemes appear separately in address and authorship. Bound morphemes, as geo- geographics, are prefixes or postfixs. ( geo- agencies land and graphy, means representation ) . Suffixes divide in two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional postfixs ( -ed, or -s ) , change word significance, but non the portion of the address. Derivational postfixs ( -ity or -tion ) , change both significance and portion of address. Addition of inflectional morphemes as in talked make a word inflected. Persuasion is derived by add-on of postfix -ison ( Kieffer, 2010 ) .

Surveies in psychological science show that acknowledgment of morphemes occurs really early in kids ‘s development. An interesting experiment surveies acknowledgment of repeated short sequence in babies. Consequences showed that babies are sensitive to certain input constellations. The input was easier detected when it involved add-on of short sequences, repeated frequently ( Salasoo, 1985 ) . The writers deduced the findings may propose that babies have a perceptual ability in the auditory centres that allow for later acquisition of linguistic communication ( Gervain, 2008 ; Reader, 2002 ) .

Other surveies claim that inflectional morphology is already mastered by first old ages of simple school ( Kuo & A ; Anderson, 2006 ) . Mastery of derivational morphology continues into adolescence and for some pupils even later. Since kids detect morphemes before direction, pedagogues predicted that larning morphology would be accessible.

Learning of new words occurs in phases, and calls for both agencies of encoding information, every bit good as methods for retrieving the information. Morphology can profit both. Indeed, surveies show that native and nonnative pupils improved significantly their vocabulary, after larning morphological rules. Surveies disagree on whether bettering vocabulary associates with better reading comprehension and acquisition. What is certain is that morphemes have helped many ESLs kids gain a solid cognition of the English linguistic communication.

Principles of learning new words through morphology

Teaching morphology should see specific rules ( Carlo et al. 2004 ; Stahl and Nagy 2006 ; and Graves 2006 ; Kieffer & A ; Lesaux, 2007 ) . These rules intend to transform morphology into an instrument that pupils can utilize independently, throughout their academic development. The rules consider both method of instruction, and the content.

Principle 1: Thatch Morphology as a Cognitive Scheme

The first rule recommends that morphology is taught as a cognitive scheme. This rule follows from thought of metacognition, which merely put refers to “ believing about thought. ” Metacognition involves be aftering the word analysis, supervising apprehension, mensurating patterned advance towards end. Apart from morphology, metacognition is necessary for successful acquisition ( Borkowski, Sternberg, 1984 ) .

Research workers recommend that morphology is taught to kids as a series of phases in thought ( Kieffer, 2010 ) . The schemes involve practical stairss, steering pupils in executing a undertaking. When analysing a hard word, pupils must execute these subtasks: 1 ) recognize that the word in the text is unknown 2 ) analyze the construction and come up with morphemes that make the organic structure of the word ( postfixs, prefixes, roots ) 3 ) explicate a hypothesis about the significance of the word based on its parts 4 ) usage context to verify and rectify if necessary their hypothesis.

Stairss must be taught through extended mold to accomplish staging and be weary of exclusions to the regulation. Despite its advantages, the technique has bounds. See this illustration: prefix in- from incorrect, is different from the same syllable seen in this word input ( Kieffer, 2010 ) . This is because same syllables may be morphemes, or merely normal syllables.

Principle 2: Thatch Morphology in the Context of Rich Vocabulary

Second rule provinces that instructors should present morphology in a context of rich vocabulary direction. Application of this rule ensures that pupils become familiar with morphological regulations and exclusions from this regulations. In add-on, in presenting the pupils to big figure of words the instructor helps them go familiar with unknown words.

As mentioned earlier, the passage from primary to simple school is hard. Educators believe that high volume of new words make understanding and learning hard. Therefore, debut of pupils to new words must be deliberate. A reappraisal of major surveies on larning new words sets these specific guidelines. New, high public-service corporation words should look in assorted contexts, in print or verbal treatments. The vocabulary must be rich. However, the end is to concentrate attending on a few words, characteristic in use and significance to the morphological regulation they describe.

Principle 3: Describe Rules and Exemplify in Meaningful Contexts

Teacher must accommodate the lesson program to each pupil ‘s demands. Many pupils who struggle with reading find independent survey hard. They learn when direction is clear and focussed. These pupils benefit from exercisings that make seeable the thought processes. On the contrary, taking direction outside of context makes hard larning for ESLs, who might non understand all words unless they can put them within a context.

Principle 4: Introduce Wordss Systematically

Fourth rule refers to the construction of the learning lesson. It is recommended that instructors explicitly introduce morphological analysis to pupils. Similarly to any other course of study, instructors must develop a range and a program. The first taught morphemes should be the most common, and easy recognizable, the -er postfix. This ensures that new information will link to old information, enabling acquisition.

Table 1: Derived Wordss at Different Levels of Difficulty ( Keiffer, 2010 )

Easy

Slightly hard

Very Challenging

Swimmer – Swimming

Possession – Posse

Width – broad

Teacher – Thatch

Activity – Active agent

Categorical – class

Growth – Turn

Brave – Courage

Admission – admit

Discussion – Discus

Decision – decide

Durability – lasting

Further, the morphemes selected as illustrations must be representative of the category, and introduced if they form common words. See this illustration. Suffix -cide, in self-destruction, is instead rare. The word root lacks relevancy to simple school, as it stems from Latin. It is improbable, that this illustration will be of any usage to pupils who must undertake foremost more general words such as swimmer, instructor, or information, persuasion, treatment.

Teachers should form lessons harmonizing to the trouble degree of each construct. For illustration, some words are easier to deduce than others. Extracting the root from the word swimmer is easier than from activity, or lastingness. Wordss that change the sound of the root when derived are more hard to analyse. Similarly, words that alteration spelling and sound are most hard. An illustration of a morphological program that considers an accessible range and sequence for suffix direction is presented in table 2.

Table 2: Scope and Sequence illustrations for suffix direction ( Kieffer, 2010 )

Unit of measurement subject

Suffix targeted

Common words

Academic mark words

Communication and cooperation

-sion

-tion

determination, treatment

jubilation, imaginativeness, innovation

admittance, ownership

part, instruction, organisation, solution

Cyberbullying

-ify

-er

-ist

-or

classify, personify,

driver, assistant, instructor

transcriber

place

research worker

archaeologist, journalist, scientist, communicator, subscriber, locater, surveyor

Single gender instruction

-al

-ical

-ous

-ity

accidental,

charming, musical

adventuresome, brave

ability, equality

communal, cultural

periodical, topical, periodical

unsafe, cryptic,

community, complexness, ethnicity, individuality

Photojournalism

-ful

-ness

careful, helpful, playful

darkness, felicity, gaiety, unhappiness

powerful, resourceful

consciousness, resourcefulness

Antartic geographic expedition

-ly

rapidly, unhappily, easy

invariably, lawfully, about

Morphology and Incidental Learning

In add-on to morphological rules, vocabulary intercession is successful when combined with cognition that supports pupil ‘s incidental acquisition ( Carlo, 2004 ) . This is peculiarly true for ESLs, who can non think unknown words by infering intending from context. Most of the words in context are normally unknown to them. Additionally, they can non utilize linguistics cues and grammar to find significance ( Stoller & A ; Grabe, 1995 ) . Uniting direct instruction of words with incidental acquisition is effectual even for indigens ( Huckin, Haynes, and Coady 1995 ) , and more so for non-native.

The intercession should concentrate on all-purpose academic words, from assorted capable countries. Wordss selected should hold blood relations, and be accessible morphologically. To advance memorisation, teacher should show new words through interesting and prosecuting texts. When learning ESLs, it is of import that text is bilingual ( 1st and 2nd linguistic communication ) to advance comprehension and acquisition. Besides of import is that words appear often ( Reder, 2002 ) , and across assorted subjects. Research shows that such intercessions promote addition in vocabulary size ( Beck et all 1987 ) .

Consequence of intercession on vocabulary betterment

Surveies show that uniting morphology with incidental larning successfully increases vocabulary in both native and nonnative pupils. Such intercessions besides result in heightening reading comprehension, and as a consequence acquisition. Additionally, ESL pupils benefit in footings of satisfaction with school, and desire to go on surveies. It is of import to observe that such intercessions do non last in the course of study, but are merely employed as portion of an overall survey ( Carlos, 2004 ) .

Decision

Improvement of vocabulary is a cardinal aim of ESL instruction. Word acquisition conditions age appropriate reading comprehension and acquisition. Studies show that cognition of morphology is peculiarly relevant to vocabulary size. When morphology is combined with incidental larning benefits are besides seen in reading comprehension.

Teachers need to be cognizant of how vocabulary is most efficaciously taught and learnt.

And utilize their cognition to inform stuffs choice and practical schoolroom technique.

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