1. Rugby players and fairy stories
Rob Waring
Notre Dame Seishin University
JALT PANSIG May 21, 2011 Matsumoto

2. Fluency vs. Fluent
A fluent speaker (reader, writer, listener) can process the language automatically, smoothly, and without much effort. Fluency (in ELT) often refers to the development of the skill to become fluent in it (i.e. fluency practice). This often done by: - speed reading / writing activities - speed word / sentence recognition activities - using graded readers / graded listening materials - pronunciation repetition - etc. Someone can be fluent but not accurate Our challenge is to help them become fluent and accurate

3. Fluent Reading = Extensive Reading

4. A Balanced Curriculum INPUT Listening Reading OUTPUT Speaking Writing
LANGUAGE FOCUS
(Study)
(Intentional learning)
(Explicit knowledge)
Using a dictionary
Intensive reading
Asking the teacher
‘Teaching’
Phonics ….
Productive tests
Sentence / gap fill Pronunciation practice
Controlled speaking tasks
Sentence level writing
FLUENCY FOCUS
(Communication)
(Incidental learning)
(Implicit knowledge)
Graded Reading
Extensive listening
Watching movies and TV
Listening to songs
Chatting and discussion
Keeping a diary
Writing poems
Making a speech ……

5. What do learners need to know to be ‘good’ at English?
Learners need 4000 word families ( to read native novels easily) and their inflections and common derivations / multiple meaning senses About common phrasal verbs and idioms Common phrases, fixed and semi-fixed Collocations and colligations Register, pragmatics, discourse level awareness Pronunciation Some basic grammar Skills and strategies Etc. Etc. etc.

6. How long will it take to learn this?
An average word family needs meetings for it to be learnt receptively from reading (more for productive use)
An average word’s meaning takes meetings to learn from intentional study
Intentional vocab learning is 16 times faster than incidental
To learn the collocations and ‘deeper’ aspects of language learning takes MUCH longer than learning the words alone.
There’s little research into the rate learning of collocation, colligation or lexical phrases from reading
We know nothing at all about how long it takes to master a particular grammatical form e.g. a tense, the articles, comparatives

7. Which collocations?
Transparent ‘weak’ collocations – easy to learn – don’t teach
Beautiful flower, look out of a window, read a book, play a game
Specialized collocations – teach only if needed
Insolvency act, habeas corpus, spaghetti bolognese
Infrequent collocations – don’t bother teaching
Rancid butter, a glimmer of hope, circle of friends,
Those that need attention
Highly frequent collocations (not too many of these)
make/do + noun
False friends
weak tea, *thin tea; meet friends / *play with friends

8. Most collocations aren’t worth teaching individually
Collocations will always occur less frequently than the words that make them up In the British National Corpus (100m words) Strong occurs 213 times / 1m words Wind occurs 73 times / 1m words Strong wind occurs 3.06 times / 1m words The ‘difficult’ word compromise occurs 31 times Most collocations aren’t worth teaching individually

9. How frequently do lexical phrases occur (BNC)?
Raw Rank
Word
Per million words
177
out of
490
222
per cent
382
272
such as
321
285
of course
309
378
for example
238
1538
in front of 65
1725
all right 58
2159
as soon as 47
2491
in general 41
2970
in addition to 34
3307
next to 30
3755
on top of 26
4378
instead of 21
5409
in charge of 17
5987
just about 15
7396
provided that 11
7885
as good as 10
9125
with a view to 8
Raw Rank
Word
Per million words
11459
in between 6
13507
by and large 5
14369
at random 4
16684
per se
19505
old fashioned 3
22060
grown up 2
24444
per cent.
28441
matter of fact
43572
sq m 1
48241
fait accompli
51717
straight forward
58511
habeas corpus
74321
self-same
76170
haute cuisine
82928
a good deal
83882
laissez faire
88912
thank you
89371
persona non grata

10. How well are our courses presenting the language students need?
Research suggests an average language course:
does not systematically recycle the grammatical forms outside the presentation unit / lesson
has an almost random vocabulary selection (mostly based on topic) without much regard to frequency or usefulness
rarely, if ever, recycles taught words either later in the unit, the book, or the series
provide little additional practice in review units or workbooks
has an overwhelming focus on new material in each lesson

11. The number of words a learner will probably learn from course work plus graded readers
Probably known
Partially Known
Probably unknown
50+
30-49
20-29
10-19
5-9
1-4
Total
Course book only
523
210
229
472
580
1,261
3,275
Add one reader a week
1,023
283
250
539
570
1,325
3,990
Add two readers a week
1,372
380
367
694
877
2,882
6,572
Data from Sequences, Foundations, Page Turners and Footprints by Heinle Cengage
225, , , , (=1,029,000)

12. Uptake rates
When learning only from a course book over (3 years): Only 962 words will be learnt well (29.4%) A further 1,052 will be partially known (32.1% ) 1,261 words are likely to be forgotten (38.5%) Adding one graded reader per week: 1,556 words (40.0%) will be learnt well, plus 1,109 words (27.8%) will be partially known and only 33.2% unknown. Adding two graded readers per week: They will know 2,119 words well, plus partially know another 1,571 words

13. Notes:
40 function words (in, of, the, by etc.) accounted for 41.2% of the total words in the series
Typically one’s productive vocabulary is 20-25% of the receptive
Probably available
Partially available
Course book only
200
250
Add one reader / week
325
Add two readers / week
580
380
This does not include the learning of collocations, colligations, idioms, phrases, multiple meanings, lexical chunks, sentence heads… etc.

14. How many words do Japanese students meet in JH/ SH?
Types
Tokens
Horizon 1, 2, 3 (Junior High)
1,124
9,440
Powwow I, II, Reading (Senior High)
2,857
27,221
Centre tests (680 types / 3000 tokens average per test) x 4
1,000
12,000
College Entrance tests (590 types / 1600 tokens average per test) x4
6,400
A total of approximately 55,000 running words will be met (not counting juku and self-study).
A generous estimate is 100,000 words and about 3,500 types over 6 years.
Listening input would be approximately 10% of this.

15. What’s the optimum vocabulary coverage for building fluency?
Reading
Pain
(too hard, poor comprehension,
high effort,
de-motivating)
Intensive reading
(Instructional level, can learn new words and grammar)
Extensive reading
(fast, fluent, adequate comprehension, enjoyable)
Speed reading practice
(very fast, fluent, high comprehension, natural reading, enjoyable)
90%
98%
100%
% of known vocabulary
Slow
High
Reading speed
Low
High
Comprehension

16. A linear structure to our syllabuses
Unit 1
Be verb
Simple adjectives
Unit 2
Simple present
Daily routines
Unit 3
Present continuous
Sporting activities
Unit 4
can
Abilities
Unit 5 ….
…..
Each unit has something new
Little focus on the recycling of vocab, grammar and so on
The theory is “We’ve done that, they have learnt it, so we can move on.”
i.e. teaching causes learning

17. What does this all imply?
A linear course structure
is focused on introducing new words and grammatical features, not deepening knowledge of them
often leaves a lot to the forgetting curve
isn’t strong at building in repetitions of words and grammar features for long-term acquisition to take place
is not focused on deepening and consolidating older knowledge because the focus is always on new things

18. So what needs to happen?
We have to ensure our curriculums and courses:
build in some recycling and repetition of words and grammar structures
give students chances to see how the grammar and vocabulary are used together in real language
give students chances to deepen and consolidate the language they learn in their course books (or they forget it)
allow students to develop their own ‘sense’ of how the language works
give students chances to use language rather than just study it

19. Course work and Graded Readers work together
Unit 1
Be verb
Unit 2
Simple present
Unit 3
Present continuous
Unit 4
can
Unit 5 ….
Introducing language
Consolidating and deepening language knowledge
GRADED READING
(Extensive Reading)

20. How are we going to teach what?
Discrete knowledge
‘Fuzzy’ knowledge
Individual words
Important lexical phrases
False friends
Loanwords
Important collocations and colligations
Basic grammatical patterns
Important phrasal verbs, idioms etc.
Word, phrase and sentence level awareness
Register, Genre …
Pragmatic knowledge
Restrictions on use
Most collocations and collocations
A ‘sense’ of a word’s meaning and use
A ‘sense’ of how grammar fits with lexis - the tenses, articles etc.
Discourse level awareness
 Intentional learning
 Incidental learning
Selection issues – what do we teach?
Sequence issues – in what order?
Scaffolding issues – how do we consolidate previous learning?
Presentation issues – what method?
Rough grading
Ensuring recycling
Engaging text
Matching input text to intentionally learnt materials

21. What do we know about ER?
Beglar, Hunt, Kite (forthcoming): Learning from graded readers is better than reading ‘anything you like’ Nishizawa et al. (2010) found that the favourite ER materials for rugby players were fairy stories:- let learners decide Claridge (2005)- patterns of use of structure, discourse markers, redundancy, collocations, and frequency rates are similar in original and graded versions of the same story. Alshamrani (2003); and Allan, (2009) found GRs aided many aspects of language learning. Wodinsky and Nation (1988) found that it’s not necessary to pre-learn the vocabulary at the new level if students read at the right level.

22. Do graded readers aid fluency?
Hafiz and Tudor (1990) found students reading GRs gained significantly in fluency and accuracy; GRs provide models assimilation of knowledge from linguistic input, Iwahori (2008): ER improved fluency in a Japanese High School Taguchi, et al. (2004): repeated readings lead to larger gains in vocabulary than reading once: Successful reading is almost impossible without good word decoding skills Nation (2008) Speed reading practice gains transfer to normal reading

23. Making them fluent Give opportunities for fluency….
F ast and efficient reading and listening practice
L ink their practice to real tasks
U nderstanding is primary
E ncourage speed development work
N urture confidence
T ry extensive reading and listening

24. Finally…
You can review this presentation by downloading the article from the following website. More information about Graded Reading (Extensive Reading) at… The First Extensive Reading World Congress, Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto. Sept 3-6,