Opportunities for Incidental Acquisition of Academic Vocabulary from Teacher Speech in an English for Academic Purposes Classroom

i Acknowledgments . iv List of Tables . vii List of Figures . viii Chapter One: Introduction . 1 Glossary of terms . 4 Chapter Two: Literature Review, Purpose, and Research Questions . 6 2.1 The role of vocabulary in EAP settings. 6 2.1. 1 What do EAP students need to learn about vocabulary? 7 2.1. 2 Importance of vocabulary in EAP . 9 2.1. 3 Importance of English academic vocabulary and the AWL . 13 2.2 What is the role of incidental vocabulary acquisition in learning academic vocabulary? 20 2.3 Classroom discourse as an opportunity for vocabulary learning . 26 2.4 Purpose . 33 2.5 Research Questions . 34 Chapter Three: Method . 36 3.1 Overall Design . 36 3.2 Context . 38 3.3 Participants . 40 3.4 Data Selection . 42 3.5 Data Analysis . 47 3.5.1 Transcription of Teacher’s Speech . 47 3.5.2 Coding the teacher’s speech . 52 3.5.3 RANGE Analysis. 55 vi Chapter Four: Results and Discussion . 59 4.1 Context: Class and category tokens. 59 4.2 AWL Tokens, Types, and Families . 64 4.3 Repetition of AWL items . 71 4.4 AWL Occurrence by Classroom Topics . 81 4.5 Further discussion: AWL use in context . 87 4.6 Review of Findings . 92 Chapter Five: Conclusion. 95 5.1 Summary of Findings . 95 5.2 Implications for EAP teaching . 98 5.3 Relation to other research . 102 5.4 Limitations . 107 5.5 Future research . 108 5.6 Conclusion . 110 References . 112 Appendix A: Institutional Review Board Approval Letter . 118 Appendix B: AWL Type List from All Classes . 119 vii List of Tables Table 3.1: Transcription comment abbreviations for activities that did not focus on the teacher’s speech 51 Table 3.2: Classroom Activity Categories 53 Table 3.3: Wordlists used by RANGE 56 Table 4.1: Number of tokens per word list per class 65 Table 4.2: Number of AWL Types and Families 66 Table 4.3: Repetitions of AWL types 72 Table 4.4: Normed frequency of the number of AWL types repeated six or more times / eleven or more times per 1,000 words 73 Table 4.5: AWL Types repeated 6+ times in a single class, ranked by total frequency 74 Table 4.6: Number of tokens per word list per classroom topic category 82 Table 4.7: Number of AWL types and families by classroom topic category 83 Table 4.8: Most frequent AWL Types by classroom topic category 84 Table 5.1: Comparison of AWL use in other classroom contexts 103 viii List of Figures Figure 4.1: Tokens of teacher talk per class 61 Figure 4.2: Number of tokens per category per class 62 1 Chapter One: Introduction This thesis presents an exploratory analysis of the frequency of academic word list (AWL) items students were exposed to in the speech of their teacher in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) grammar and writing classroom over one unit of the curriculum. Gaining control over vocabulary in a new language can be a timeconsuming, complex, and frustrating process for learners. Yet, as the prevalence of flashcards, vocabulary notebooks, software, and vocabulary quizzes suggests, it is an important part of studying English. Vocabulary learning is even more important for EAP students, as they need to learn and practice using a more specialized set of vocabulary used in academic settings. For these learners, vocabulary learning is crucial for their future academic success. Coxhead’s (2000) academic word list (AWL) presents a concrete set of word families that are frequently used in academic writing, which directly relates to the needs of EAP earners. As a result, the AWL has had a large impact on English instruction, and is widely used in EAP programs in classroom materials and curricular goals (for a review of the AWL’s impact, see Coxhead, 2011). Students in many EAP programs study AWL items, either as part of their classes, or as self-study. However, the focused study of new words using 2 dictionaries, vocabulary notebooks, or other learning materials is just one part of vocabulary learning. I have seen many students tackle the demands of academic vocabulary study, primarily through my experience tutoring students at Portland State University’s Intensive English Language Program’s Learning Center. Through tutoring, I have introduced many students to strategies and tools that fit their vocabulary learning needs and preferences. However, I also noticed that many students who began to study the AWL were already familiar with some of the words or word families in the list. Sometimes, students remembered seeing or hearing the words in situations that surprised me, such as television shows, host family interactions, or video games. Occasionally, it would take saying a word out loud to trigger a student’s recognition. In some cases, an AWL word would seem familiar to students, even though they could not provide an accurate meaning. When this spark of recognition occurred several times, students seemed to grow more confident about learning AWL vocabulary, as if it were not far out of their reach after all. My experience tutoring EAP students shows that explicit learning of vocabulary is not the only way that students are becoming more familiar with AWL items. Although learning about vocabulary in class and practicing items 3 with self-study methods is important for developing vocabulary knowledge, research has shown that vocabulary can be acquired incidentally in a variety of language modes when learners are focusing on meaning (e.g., Hulstijn 1992; Ellis, Tanaka, & Yamazaki 1994; File & Adams 2010). Some studies have investigated the opportunities for students to notice new words by attending to their teacher’s speech, because attending to a language teacher’s explanation of language structures or other content is itself a meaning-focused activity, and students spend a great deal of time in classrooms (Meara, Lightbown, & Halter, 1997; Lightbown, Meara, & Halter, 1998; Donzelli, 2007; Horst, 2009 and 2010). These studies have shown that ESL and EFL classrooms can provide some degree of repeated encounters with new vocabulary words, yet the evidence is mixed regarding the potential scale of this source of incidental vocabulary acquisition. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on this phenomenon in EAP classrooms, which are sites of learning for tens of thousands of students in preparatory programs around the world. Thus, research is needed to address the exposure of EAP students to AWL vocabulary in the classroom. Also, this research should include an investigation of how likely it is that AWL items are noticed because of repetition, and what different types of classroom topics have to offer in terms of incidental 4 acquisition. I present an investigation of the opportunities for EAP students to not