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Applying L2 Lexical Research Findings in ESL
Teaching

KEITH FOLSE
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida, United States

doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.254529

&

English language learners face a debilitating lexical gap between the

words they know and the words they need to know. Although educated native
speakers of English know approximately 20,000 word families (Nation, 2001),
or roughly 70,000 words, one estimate of ELLs’ lexical needs is approximately
2,000 words to maintain conversations, 5,000 to read authentic texts, and
perhaps 10,000 to comprehend challenging academic materials (Schmitt,
2000). Unfortunately, even well-educated ELLs may know less than a quarter
of their native counterparts’ vocabulary (Laufer & Yano, 2001).

Within the last 15 years, this lexical gap has prompted a number of

useful studies addressing issues relevant to both learners and teachers.
Though much of this work has investigated reading (e.g., Cobb, 2008),
lexical knowledge impacts all skill areas, including writing (Engber,
1995; Ferris, 1994), listening (Chang, 2007), and speaking (Joe, 1998).

The purpose of this short article is to present several teaching applications

from the current body of L2 vocabulary research. This information focuses
on four key pedagogical questions. (Readers interested in research details
should see the timeline of influential L2 vocabulary studies of vocabulary
acquisition presented by Laufer [2009], the review of extant research on
vocabulary instruction by Schmitt [2008], and the extensive vocabulary
bibliography by year or topic at the Vocabulary Acquisition Research Group
Archive [2011] at http://www.lognostics.co.uk/varga/.)

PEDAGOGICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT L2 VOCABULARY
RESEARCH

1. Why Should Teachers Teach Vocabulary?

Native speakers do not learn most of their vocabulary through explicit

instruction, so common wisdom in TESOL pedagogy has favored a

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natural approach involving substantial communicative interaction with
authentic language (e.g., extensive reading), especially comprehensible
input, as the best way for ELLs to develop their lexical proficiency.
According to this limited thinking, ELLs simply pick up vocabulary from
context naturally as native speakers do. For many reasons, however,
relying on guessing the meaning of new words from context clues is not
an especially good strategy for ELLs whose goal is to learn a lot of
vocabulary in a short time (Folse, 2004; Hulstijn, 1992; Laufer, 1997;
Nassaji, 2003; Schatz & Baldwin, 1986).

Unlike native speakers who develop their L1 skills over many years,

ELLs face an extremely tight time crunch. Cobb (1999) aptly sums up
ELLs’ lexical dilemma: ‘‘Students typically need to know words
measured in thousands, not hundreds, but receive language instruction
measured in months, not years’’ (p. 345). One of our principal
pedagogical questions, therefore, is how learners can overcome their
lexical gap as quickly as possible. Though lexical learning can take place
through natural exposure (e.g., Pigada & Schmitt, 2006), many more
studies have shown ELLs learn and retain vocabulary more effectively
when it is explicitly taught (e.g., Laufer & Shmueli, 1997; Min, 2008;
Zimmerman, 1997).

Based on this research, teachers should cover vocabulary explicitly.

During class discussions, teachers should write important vocabulary
from the discussion on the board to aid noticing and retention.
Teachers should choose textbooks that have overt attention to
vocabulary in each lesson. Teachers could dedicate one area of the
classroom walls for the posting of new vocabulary (e.g., a word wall).
Likewise, teachers should include vocabulary items in assessments to
complete the learning cycle.

2. Which Words Should Teachers Teach?

Work from corpus linguistics, currently using corpora measured in

the hundreds of millions of words (e.g., Davies, 2011), has provided
amazing insights into not only the frequency of words but also the usage
of these words. Useful corpus-based vocabulary lists teach academic
vocabulary (e.g., Coxhead, 2000), idioms (e.g., Liu, 2003; Simpson &
Mendis, 2003), phrasal verbs (e.g., Gardner & Davies, 2007), and
collocations (e.g., Ellis, Simpson-Vlach, & Maynard, 2008).

Teachers should choose a list that is appropriate for their ELLs’ actual

objectives (e.g., conversation, academic work, business) and proficiency
level. In addition to teaching directly from word lists, one way to use lists
indirectly is to choose textbooks incorporating extensive use of one or
more lists, for example, Essential Academic Vocabulary: Mastering the

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Complete Academic Word List (Huntley, 2006), Inside Reading: The Academic
Word List in Context (Zimmermann, 2008), or Vocabulary Mastery 3: Using
and Mastering the Academic Word List (Wells & Valcourt, 2010).

At first glance, using lists may seem counterproductive. In the rush

toward natural language learning, word lists were downplayed, but there
is no empirical research showing learning words from a list to be
unproductive (cf. Myth 2 in Folse, 2004). In fact, research comparing
studying words in a list versus various kinds of context has shown that
lists yielded better results than extended context (Laufer & Shmueli,
1997; Prince, 1996).

Teachers should not give students a whole alphabetized list to

students to learn. Instead, the most frequent and therefore most useful
words should come first, with the number of words in one list based on
logistical factors such length of the course and class meetings or the time
interval between class meetings. Teachers should not hesitate to teach 20
to 30 words but should make sure the words on the day’s list are not
similar phonologically, orthographically, or semantically, as learners may
confuse words that sound or look alike (e.g., chicken and kitchen). In
addition, all relevant research shows that members of a semantic set
(e.g., color words, clothing names, directions) should not be presented
simultaneously because students have more difficulty learning new
words presented in semantic groupings than they do learning
semantically unrelated words (Tinkham, 1993).

3. How Should Vocabulary Be Practiced?

The single most important aspect of any vocabulary practice activity is

not so much what ELLs do with the word but rather the number of times
ELLs interact with the word. The number of learner retrievals of a word
is key, and teachers can and should control this factor (Folse, 2010). In a
large study of the effectiveness of three different types of written
activities, completing three short fill-in-the-blank exercises was better
than writing original sentences once, even though both took an
equivalent amount of time (Folse, 2006). This information is especially
important for novice teachers who often mistakenly believe that writing
original sentences is better for vocabulary acquisition because it is
supposedly cognitively more demanding and personally involving.

The number of encounters of each word is important (Webb, 2007).

Research has also shown the value of spaced rehearsals, that is, the
intervening time between each encounter. Thus, teachers should
incorporate multiple retrievals and spaced rehearsal into their courses.
For example, teachers could choose textbooks with explicit vocabulary

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presentations and multiple occurrences of new vocabulary throughout
subsequent lessons.

In class, teachers can encourage multiple retrievals through short oral

interactions with words. For example, when 15 to 20 words from a
discussion of a current event have been written on the board (e.g.,
voters, election, president, majority, incumbent, running mate, citizens,
at least, party, poll, ballot, politicians), the teacher should ask questions
requiring single and multiple answers and demonstrating recall of
multiple aspects of knowing a word, including meaning (Which word is
often a piece of paper? [ballot]), category (Which words are people? [voters,
president, incumbent, running mate, citizens, politicians]), collocation (Which
word goes after Democrat or Republican? [Party]), and personalization (Which
word is the most difficult for you to pronounce? Why? [Answers will vary]).

This vocabulary drill should take no more than 5 minutes. In

addition, teachers should use questions with only one answer, with
multiple answers, and with varying answers to make the activity less
predictable and therefore more interesting and interactive.

4. Most of the Discussion Is About What Teachers Can Do, But
What Should Students Do?

While classroom vocabulary instruction is important, the number of

unknown words is too great to be explicitly taught or even indirectly
encountered in reading or listening within the very limited time frame
that most ELLs have. ELLs must also become independent vocabulary
learners, making use of the most efficient vocabulary learning strategies.

There is no magic list of best strategies that will guarantee success in

learning vocabulary (Folse, 2009), and the most successful learners are
those who have a very specific concrete plan of action and consistently
carry it out (Folse, 2004; Sanaoui, 1995). One example of a concrete
action that promotes vocabulary learning is keeping a vocabulary
notebook (Folse, 2004; Hedgcock & Ferris, 2009). This notebook is
only as valuable as the number of times ELLs refer to it to practice their
words, so ELLs should arrange their notebooks based on their individual
preferences, not their teacher’s. For example, many ELLs write
translations in their vocabulary notebooks, a practice often frowned
upon by ESL teachers (McCann, 2005). However, numerous research
studies have convincingly shown that translation is in fact effective in
learning vocabulary (e.g., Hulstijn 1992; Laufer & Girsai, 2008; Prince,
1996).

Testing both passive and active vocabulary knowledge, Walters and

Bozkurt (2009) found that ELLs who kept a vocabulary notebook
learned significantly more vocabulary than similar learners in a control

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group that did not. Perhaps more important, ELLs who kept a
vocabulary notebook then demonstrated a greater tendency to use the
target words in freewriting compositions.

When my ELLs do freewriting, I require them to use and underline

two vocabulary items in their writing. Students must use one word that
we recently studied and one unknown word from their dictionary or
other source. I grade these short homework assignments based on the
inclusion of the two underlined words (100), only one underlined word
(50), or no underlined words (0). This activity challenges the status quo
in which our ELLs continue to make do with the limited vocabulary they
know and therefore never expand their lexical base. This simple
assignment requires ELLs to push their lexical limits. It also gets them
more accustomed to taking responsibility for their vocabulary growth.

SUMMARY

Second language vocabulary research has given us better information

on which words to teach as well as how to teach them. We also have more
information about how people learn vocabulary, and this information
can inform the design of classroom activities, books, and software for
vocabulary. Despite this growing information, many questions are still
unresolved, such as, Is there an ideal number of words to be learned in
one lesson? How can vocabulary best be presented in textbooks to
optimize learning? Should vocabulary be given more attention in
curricula than grammar? What connections are there between grammar
and vocabulary?

Vocabulary is perhaps the most crucial component in learning a

foreign language. Wilkins (1972) summarizes the situation best with
‘‘While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary
nothing can be conveyed’’ (p. 111). The field of TESOL has seen much
valuable lexical research in recent years, so practitioners are hopeful that
this line of classroom-based research will continue to inform teachers,
curriculum planners, and materials writers in order to improve second
language vocabulary acquisition and the learning of English.

THE AUTHOR

Keith Folse is Professor of TESOL at the University of Central Florida, in the United
States, where he trains undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in teaching
ESL. He is the author of many textbooks on language learning and is especially
interested in vocabulary.

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