1 EAP Vocabulary: trial, error, enlightenment? Marti Sevier English Bridge Program Simon Fraser University Vancouver, B.C.

2 EAP Vocabulary: trial, error, enlightenment? The English Bridge Program Selecting vocabulary Introducing vocabulary Recycling vocabulary & threading through Testing vocabulary Enlightenment through errors

3 The English Bridge Program

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5 The independent research project AS: research the paper; produce annotated bibliography, in 2 drafts AW: write the paper, in 3 drafts ACC: power point presentation

6 IELTS Academic Culture & Communication Academic Writing Academic Skills

7 The Problem of Selection & the Academic Word List Former approach: let students select academic vocabulary to study via the AWL New approach: –Instructor selection –Integration of vocabulary

8 Vocabulary program aims Select academic vocabulary most relevant to course material and students’ needs Develop tasks and practices to introduce, recycle and test vocabulary Integrate vocabulary activities among 3 courses

9 Selection: the Web Vocabulary Profiler and Web Frequency Indexer

10 Error #1: the pre-test

11 Tasks to introduce vocabulary--1 Use them in written work for AS. (Highlight the words.) Write them on cards. Choose 3 or 4 and write a short story using them. Highlight the words when you see them in your reading. Try hard to remember their meaning. Look up other forms of the word. Memorize them for vocabulary quizzes.

12 Tasks to introduce vocabulary--2 Choose 5 words and write vocabulary questions and answers on a card, e.g. What are 3 definitions of _____? Give 3 word family members (and their parts of speech) of _______. Where might you see a __________? (e.g. appendix) True or False: If you (e.g. facilitate) a process, you slow it down. What are 3 collocates of ( e.g. ethnic)? Looking at the list, choose 3 words and show how they are related.

13 Tasks to introduce vocabulary—3 1.Try to learn words in groups. Which word or its family member might fit under the following IELTS topic headings? Look at the examples and add more words. EducationScience & Technology BusinessSocial issues The arts Provide instruction Interpret the data Selling consumer products Ensuring access to technology for everyone Conduct a symphony

14 Tasks to introduce vocabulary—3 2.Focus on collocation. Look up words on the concordancer, choosing “30 lines” and the University word list corpus. Click on Option 2, “Collocates table”, based on “frequency”. 3.Learn word family members. Using the concordancer, click Keywords “contains” to give you help. (Be careful, though!)  tense, tension, tensed, Tennessee (X)

15 Tasks to introduce vocabulary—3 4. Make notes on what you find. Example: WordPart/s of speech Common collocatesWord family members Accessnoun~to, buy ~, provide ~accessed, accessible verb~mail, information;

16 Tasks to introduce vocabulary--4 For each word: Find the main academic definitions and the common word family members and their parts of speech. Use the word or a family member in a sentence related to your IRP topic OR an academic reading topic that we have covered on this course. Be sure to use collocation correctly. Example: WordDefinitionFamily members & parts of speech Sentence scoperange, extent, capacity NATen years ago no one could have predicted the scope of the HIV problem.

17 Recycling vocabulary in class Oral summary / recounting tasks Students teach students Teacher talk, questions GroupLex and quizzes Lab tasks

18 Recycling vocabulary: a lab task 1.Choose 5 words from the Weeks 4 & 5 list. 2.Paste in 10 concordance lines for each word. Can you draw any conclusions about collocates for these 5 words? 3.Make notes.

19 Recycling vocabulary outside class Highlight vocabulary in written work Use the AWL Highlighter in research

20 Recycling vocabulary: the IELTS Interview--1 Question and answer The individual long turn: a topic related to the interviewee Discussion: expansion of the topic to invite comparison, speculation, explanation

21 Recycling vocabulary: the IELTS Interview--2 TOPICWORDCHUNK The natural world (environment) degradeenvironmental degradation ecologyecological disaster/awareness

22 Recycling vocabulary: the IELTS Interview--3 EXPLAIN significant a gift that had great significance for me was… Coming to Canada was a significant decision because… COMPARE gender In terms of gender in the workplace, I would say that in many ways women are catching up to men… SPECULATE trend I think space tourism will be an important trend by 2050…

23 Recycling vocabulary: the IELTS Interview--4 Brainstorm some IELTS interview topics. Put the topic in the circle and add relevant vocabulary, in chunks where possible. Use the diagrams to practice the interview.

24 Testing Vocabulary--1 Vocabulary Quiz 2 Answer 15 of the following questions. You will be assessed for spelling at all times! 1. Give three word family members and parts of speech of the word defect. 2. Fill in the blank. They _______________ all their spare time to their children. 3. Write two different definitions of scenario. 4. True or False? Compute means to work something out. 5. What colour is carbon usually? 6. What are three collocations of ethnic? 7. Give three word family members and their parts of speech of the word reside.

25 Testing Vocabulary--2 1.Choose 10 vocabulary words from the list. Using correct word form, spelling, collocation and appropriate definition, write a sentence using one of the IELTS topic headings OR your IRP topic. You are encouraged to use as many different topic headings as you can. 2.Each sentence will be worth two marks based on the criteria above. You may use your notes but not a dictionary. Refer to the examples below. IELTS/IRP topicWordSentence IRP: Harm reduction approachIn Vancouver, a harm reduction approach attempts to help substance abusers. IRP: Herbal medicine supplementMany herbalists recommend the use of supplements because the daily diet is inadequate.

26 Testing Vocabulary--3

27 Error repair: future plans Pre-test Motivation Integration   Simplify: multiple choice?   Enforcement strategies   Plan more IELTS preparation tasks; link vocabulary more closely to readings