Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature

Navot Laufer

Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading

Bachelors Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: James Edward Thomas M.A

2011

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. .. Authors signature

Acknowledgement I would like to thank all my former students in The Czech Republic, Japan and Israel for inspiring me to write this thesis. I would especially like to thank those of them who showed me that it is possible to learn a second language and reinforced in me the belief that critical and independent thought is at the heart of the human spirit. I would also like to thank my instructor, James Edward Tomas and Niki Fotov for their assistance and kind advice along the long and winding road of writing this thesis. Most of all I would like to thank my partner for life, Lenka Votov, and my son Samuel, for tolerating me during the last two years.

Table of Contents Introduction

Part One - What is involved in knowing a word What is a word Function words Content words Lemma Polysemy Delexiclaised verbs Word families Collocation Interlanguage Chunking What is involved in knowing a word

Part Two Vocabulary Acquisition Learning strategies Acquisition versus learning Noticing Inferrencing Breadth of vocabulary versus depth of vocabulary Reading as a source of vocabulary for acquisition The Observation Hypothesis - Experiment cycle

Graded Readers Text from Jojos Story, Chapter One Only Me

Part 3 Classroom applications General Comments Work sheet 1 word patterns Work sheet 2 inferring meaning Work sheet 3 collocation

Works cited

Introduction The aim of this thesis is to develop classroom procedures which would provide secondary school students at lower levels (elementary, pre- intermediate) with skills for effective vocabulary learning. More precisely, it would focus on the ability to acquire vocabulary through reading. Awareness of the complexity of vocabulary, its value to students as well as the important role of reading as a means of increasing vocabulary knowledge has grown in EFL in recent years. However, course books for elementary level students still lack training students to notice vocabulary in texts. This is unfortunate because most students are exposed to everyday English on TV, radio, newspapers and popular culture. The idea for this thesis was stimulated by two people at a secondary school I used to teach at in Mohlnice. The first was the headmaster, a teacher of German, who told me that students must be drilleed in order to imprint the grammar in their mind and after this has been achieved everything is plain sailing. For him language was no more than grammar and the ability to use the language to communicate outside the classroom was irrelevant. The second person who inspired me was a student who was unable to create a simple question in the Present Perfect tense. Her handbag, which she had brought with her into class, had the phrase Emily. Have you seen this girl? printed on it in large golden letters. It seemed to me that the headmaster did not know what to teach and the student did not know how to study. I was not surprised later when a placement test taken by all students at school showed that during their 3 years of English studies, the average student did not improve his or her English at all. Clearly, something is wrong; something must be done differently.

In my thesis I suggest classroom procedures which aim at training students to infer the meaning of unknown words as well as to notice collocations and patterns in a text. There are two goals to this: in the short term to increase students knowledge of vocabulary, while in the long term it is to train the students to do these by themselves. Both would thus increase their ability to use English in their future lives for work, studies travel and so on. First, however, some definitions and concepts must be considered.

Part One what is involved in knowing a word What is a word? The concept of word is not simple to define. The Cobuild Intermediate Dictionary defines a word as a single unit of language in writing or speech. In English, a word has a space on either of it side when it is written. This however, is not always true. There are cases when a single unit of language is not separated from other single units by spaces. I shall elaborate this further when I discuses multi word units and Lexemes or Lemmas. When a lower level student encounters the sentence there was a man standing right over there they may be quite confused: The first word there caries very little meaning, if any. This is demonstrated by its redundancy: A man was standing. On the other hand the second there has a full meaning demonstrated by the changing of meaning of the sentence if we replaced it with here: there was a man standing right over here. This demonstrates that a word may or may not carry meaning. A word, therefore, performs a certain function within an utterance which may be of carrying information, or part of it, but it could also perform various other functions with or without meaning.

Function words The words there, was, a and others such as have, on, at and so on, perform a certain function within the sentence rather than simply signaling meaning. The function they perform is referred to as grammar. There are approximately 270 function word types (176 word families) [which] account for 43 44% of running words in most texts (Johnson and Hofland, 1989; Francis and Kuera, 1982 in Nation 2001: 206).

Content words Content words are those words which carry information or part of it. The great majority are nouns, along with the smaller groups of verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Content words are often presented to students in lists which are removed from any communicative context, that is, their relationship to the context in which the words will (one would hope) sooner or later be encountered is not directly shown (Oxford and Crookall 1990: 10). This manner of teaching vocabulary is problematic because, as Oxford and Crookall (1990: 12) hold even if learners are able to memorize the L2-Ll pairs in a list, they might not be able to use the new words in any communicative way without further assistance. Moreover, if students (as lower level students often do) learn them in isolation, they are likely to know only its most common meaning and thus be confused when they encounter it in context with a different meaning (see discussion of polysemy). Furthermore, as we shall see, it is incorrect to assume that meaning is transferred by independent words. If a language is a means of conveying information and the aim of teaching a foreign language at school is to enable students to communicate through the foreign language, it follows that content words have a more fundamental role than function words. This should be reflected in the syllabus and methodology, that is, contents words should receive more attention than function words. Unfortunately, my experience at state schools and other English courses in The Czceh Republic is that function words, that is grammar, remains the focus of the syllabus.

Lemma Stubbs (2002: 27) defines lemmas as abstract classes of word forms which are not directly observable. For example, verbs occur in different inflectional forms: the

lemma TAKE is realized in text by the word forms [its realizations:] take, takes, took; taking and taken. Similarly, the lemma of the noun RABBIT is realized by the wordforms rabbit, rabbits, rabbits and rabbits (Stubbs 2002: 25) When we say that a student has a vocabulary of 2,000 words we mean that the student knows 2000 lemmas (Stubbs 2002: 26). Nation (2001: 7) argues that lying behind the use of lemmas [] is the idea of learning burden [] the learning burden of an item is the amount of effort required to learn it. Normally, it is enough that the student knows what is referred to by the lemma and can apply the relevant grammatical rules, for them to recognize the word form in a text. For example, a student who knows the lemma HOUSE to mean dum is not likely to have problems when they encounter the word-form houses in a text. However, this is not as simple as it may seem a first. In the sentence they housed the homeless person for over a year, house is a verb. In my own experience teaching low level students at a secondary school in the Czech Republic, If a student is not aware that HOUSE may be a verb as well as a noun they are likely to be confused. Furthermore, stand, stood and standing are all realizations of the lemma STAND and students are likely to recognize them in a text. But as the verb to stand is irregular, we cannot automatically assume that a student would recognize it in all contexts because of its irregular past participle. Thus, with irregular verbs and nouns, it is not enough to know the head form of the lemma and the relevant grammar. Students need to be taught the past tense stood as if they were learning a new word. The conclusion is that though lemmas or lexemes help by reducing the amount of information students must remember, there are many cases when this is not enough and there is a need to teach each word-form independently.

Polysemy words with more than one meaning Only rarely do words have a single meaning; polysemy multiple meaning is the norm (Aitchinson 2003: 154). Stubbs (2002:13) explains: Words do not have fixed meanings which are recorded, once and for all, in dictionaries. They acquire, or change, meaning according to the social and linguistic context in which are used. Understanding language in use depends on a balance between inference and convention. In isolation, many individual words are ambiguous or indeterminate in meaning, but this hardly ever troubles us in practice because the phrases in which they occur are not ambiguous. Stubbs (2002: 15) demonstrates this with the example of BANK which has two senses: the place where you keep money: building or abstract institution; and an area of sloping, raised ground often the raised ground around a stretch of water. He refers to these as the money bank and the ground bank senses. While it is possible to invent sentences and to imagine circumstances, where bank is ambiguous, in the vast majority of cases, any potential ambiguity was ruled out due to words within a short spam to left or right. Many occurrences were in fixed phrases which signaled unambiguously the money or ground sense: Bank account, bank balance, bank robbery Canal bank, river bank In addition, the words usually co-occurred, within a few words to the left or right, with other words which clearly signaled one or the other: Cashier, deposit, financial, money, overdraft, pay, steal

Cave, cod, fish, float, headland, sailing, sea, water Polysemy is particularly problematic for lower level students for two reasons. Firstly, as students vocabulary is extremely limited, they are not likely to recognize the various contextual clues. The second reason is the persistent misguided belief that a word has a single distinct meaning and therefore one L1 equivalent. Although the question What does .. mean? seems a simple and natural question, it is often unhelpful. The typical answer, X Means Y is, I believe, even more unhelpful and even destructive. For the purpose of this discussion I will distinguish between faulty classroom meaning, and contextual meaning (my terms). Faulty classroom meaning is the most common translation, often the first entry in the dictionary; contextual meaning is the information carried by the word in the specific context. For example the first of many entries for stand in the Anglicko-esk esko-Anglick studijni slovnik dictionary is stt. In the example a man was standing faulty classroom meaning and contextual meaning correlate. Hence was standing would be explained (translated) as stal and the students are likely to take the word stand to mean the dictionary meaning. These students would then be confused by other usages of the word stand; for example, when they try to understand the expression cant stand someone / thing, or a stand-up artist. Such expressions would then be perplexing to a lower level student who has encountered stand only as defined by the dictionary. Though it is true that we could not possibly list all the various meanings of STAND when asked; it is equally true that we cannot claim it means only a position in which your body is upright and your legs are straight, and the weight of your body is supported by your feet (Cobuild Intermediate dictionary).

Raising students awareness of polysemy is outside the scope of this bachelor thesis. Nevertheless, as the discussion above illustrates it is an important issue which, I believe, should be confronted already in the early stages of learning.

Delexicalized verbs Many verbs in English are delexicalized; by themselves these verbs convey very little meaning. Stubbs (2002: 32) recounts searching the lemma pair TAKE a in a corpus of over two million words. There were over 400 examples, but in only about 10 per cent of these did TAKE have a literal meaning of grasp with the hand or transport. The most common use by far is in combinations such as Take a close look at; took an interest in; take a deep breath. where TAKE is delexicalized and where almost all the meaning is carried by the noun. Following Stubbs statistics, for about 90 per cent of the usages of TAKE its meaning depends on context. Delexicalized verbs pose a special challenge because many of them are those verbs that students encounter very early, at a stage in the development of their knowledge of English where translation is still unavoidable. As with polysemy, telling students that delexicalized verb x means y is unhelpful. Furthermore, unlike polysemy, doing so is misinforming the students because, as Stubbs illustrates, in most cases the verb has almost no meaning. Delexicalized verbs tend to appear in certain patterns, collocations and phrases, which if mastered, would prove invaluable to students. Martinez (in Lewis, 1997: 147) argues that course books often explain the use of the get-passive patter as a colloquial alternative to become. If so, he argues, then *Hurry up and become dressed, *I became

drunk on the weekend would be possible. On the other hand it got cloudy [] it started to rain [] he got wet [] he got sick [] he called in sick and his boss got mad [] he got fired are collocational and cannot be dismissed as an alternative. Martinez states that it boggles the mind that all course books give [the] highly generative get-pattern such little attention. Martinez (in Lewis, 1997: 148) demonstrates that a better approach to the problem of teaching delexicalized verbs is to make students aware of the patterns in which the delexicalized verb appears. Worksheet 1 demonstrates how this could be done through reading.

Word families A word family is a word along with its derivations derived by adding prefixes and suffixes, for example, legal, illegal, legislation; care, careful, careless, caretaker. Nation (2001: 264) argues that word families are an effective method of increasing students vocabulary. If a student has learned the prefix ir- and knows the word rational they are likely to be able to infer the meaning of irrational and thus increase his or her knowledge of vocabulary and understand a more complex text. There are, however, a number of problems with this assumption. First, if the stem word, as in the case of care, is a delexicalized verb or a polysemous word, the student might choose the wrong meaning of the stem and wrongly infer the meaning of the derivative. An example is care in the sentence please be careful when you go out tonight. A student who knows CARE only as the act of constantly providing what a person [] needs to keep them in good condition or to make them well (Cobuild Intermediate Dictionary); and the suffix ful as possessing a certain quality, he or she is likely to understand careful as caring (a person who is affectionate, helpful and

sympathetic (Cobuild Intermediate Dictionary)). The student is, therefore, likely to translate the above sentence as prosim, bud peclivy instead of prosim, opatruji se. As this example illustrates, a narrow knowledge of the stem can be hazardous. Depth of vocabulary will be discussed further in Part Two of this thesis. A further problem is that some prefixes and suffixes are used with a narrow range of words and although some perform the same function we cannot exchange them. We say an unlawful act and an illegal act but not * an illawful act or * unlegal act. Consequently, knowledge of the meaning of the stem and the prefix or suffix does not guarantee correct usage of the word (in terms of form although it is correct in terms of meaning). Nation (2001: 256) suggests a procedure for inferring the meaning of unknown words in which he uses morphology (prefixes, stems and suffixes) to verify that the word was inferred correctly. My own experience with low level students at secondary school in The Czech Republic is that this is an overwhelming task. For this reason I prefer to raise students awareness of stems and word families by asking them to think of similar words in either English or Czech, and introducing the word family of the subject word. This strategy is, of course, not foolproof and there are many instances in which this strategy would lead to confusion and misunderstandings; nevertheless, it is an optional strategy which has proved beneficial to students. In worksheet 2 in the Part Three of this thesis I do not use either of these strategies as the text contains few suitable words.

Multi word units Collocation When a lower level student says sentences such as *I cook tea we correct them and tell them that we make tea. Collocations are those combinations of words which occur naturally with greater than random frequency (Lewis, 1997: 25) Nation (2001: 56) notes that Collocations differ greatly in size (the number of words involved in the sequence), in type (function words collocating with content words (look with at), content words collocating with content words (united with states) in closeness of the collocates (express their own opinion), and in the possible range of collocates (commit with murder, a crime, hara kiri, suicide) Pawley and Syder (1983, in Nation 2001: 56) argue that knowledge of collocation is the reason for our proficiency in our mother tongue because we have stored large numbers of memorized sequences[and] instead of constructing these each time we need to say something, we frequently draw on these ready made sequence. Nattinger (1980: 341) holds that language production consists of piecing together the ready-made units appropriate for a particular situation and ... comprehension relies on knowing which of these patterns to predict in these situations. Lewis (1997: 25) cautions that collections are linguistic and not thematic. He illustrates this with drive and car. Though they are clearly related, we are unlikely to say I drove the car to work today. More naturally would be to simply say I drove to work today. Car and drive are related to each other thematically along with engine, traffic lights, congestion, petrol and many other words which are often introduced to students under the topic of transportation. Such topical arrangement can be affective in

increasing students vocabulary (the student may be able to name many related nouns and verbs) but does not guarantee proper use and in the long run does not foster fluency nor proficiency (Oxford and Crookall, 1990: 14). Fluency and proficiency are more likely fostered by collocational arrangement. For example car the car broke down on the highway, lose control of the car, have a car accident, step out of the car, flag down passing cars, take the car to the garage; drive go for a drive, drive too fast, drink and drive, driving license (along with other usages of drive not related to the topic of transportation: drive someone crazy, drive the last nail) A further example is fire and smoke in Chapter I of Jojos Story, the text I use to demonstrate my suggestions in Part Three of this bachelor thesis. Although smoke is caused by fire; in the text they do not collocate: There was a big fire there and now theres just smoke. There is smoke now, but smoke is quiet. The fires were noisy, but the fires have stopped. It rained yesterday, and after the rain there were no more fires. Just smoke. A person talking about a fire is likely to mention smoke as well, but fire smoke is not a ready-made units appropriate for a particular situation (Nattinger 1980: 341); whilst start a fire, put out a fire or white smoke, thick smoke, go up in smoke are.

Interlanguage Bialystok and Smith (1985: 116) define Interlanguage as the systematic language performance [] by second-language learners who have not achieved sufficient levels of analysis of linguistic knowledge or control of processing to be identified completely with native speakers.

Laufer (1998: 267) points out that In speaking or writing, learners stretch their Interlanguage to meet communicative goals. Liu and Shaw (2001: 181) argue that The paucity of compounds in the learners writing may on the one hand be related to the lack of collocational knowledge. A high proportion of the compounds used in the non-native corpora require collocational knowledge, e.g., film-making and film-maker (make a film), hay-making (make hay), decision-making (make a decision). On the other hand, even if the learners have the collocational knowledge, they may not have learned how to make compounds out of collocations or may not have controlled the process actively.

Thus, Liu and Shaw as well as Laufer support Lewiss (1997: 171) argument that many errors result from students trying to say something for which they do not have the linguistic resources [] the temptation is to correct [and] treat [the problem] as a grammatical error. The real problem was a defect in the students vocabulary. A written work by an elementary level student at a secondary school exemplifies this (collocational problems are in bold) The transporter 3 is a third addition of action movie. The name of the main person is Frank Martin. He is a professional driver. The story takes place in Paris and Ukraine. To the Ukraine he comes because of deadly enemy. In the story are fighting action scenes and scenes with cars. According to me its a very good film. Another example from the website of a language agency in Olomouc illustrates that even advanced learners who have mastered grammar still suffer from lack of collocational knowledge (collocational problems are in bold):

Welcome to the Web presentation of the AMADEUS language agency. We have been working in our line of business for more than 19 years and during that time we have gained a wealth of experience and, in particular, a lot of contented clients. As we want to update our services, we are now starting running our new Web pages with up-to-date information.

Chunking Ellis (2001: 24) defines chunks as a unit of memory organization, formed by bringing together a set of already formed chunks [sound or letter sequences] in memory and welding them together into a larger unit. The Cobuild Intermediate dictionary defines a word as a single unit of language [] with spaces on both sides. The following example illustrates that this is not so clear cut: Does right over there have the same meaning as right, over and there? If we translate right over there into Czech (as most students at a lower level would do), we get pesn tam, where, than, did the third word disappear? If these were single separate units, we could change them without influencing the others: *here over there, *left above there, *right over now which are impossible as well as right over here, left over there, wrong over there, etc which are possible but convey a completely different meaning. It is therefore reasonable to assume that right over there is a multi word unit or chunk. As Stubbs illustrates (2002: 32), many common words in English convey little or no meaning by themselves; they acquire meaning from words they collocate with.

Ellis (2001: 26) explains that

From a functional perspective, the role of language is to communicate meanings, and the learner wants to acquire the label-meaning relations. [] At some level of analysis, the patterns refer to meaning. It doesnt happen at the lower levels: t doesnt mean anything, nor does th, but the does, and the dog does better, and how do you do? does very well, thank you. In these cases the learners goal is satisfied, and the fact that this chunk activates some meaning representations makes this sequence itself more salient in the input stream. When the learner comes upon these chunks again, they tend to stand out as units The main advantage of chunking is reduced processing time [] instead of having to refer to a rule or a pattern to comprehend or produce a chunk; it is treated as a basic existing unit (Nation, 2001: 320). Reducing processing time give students a ready made [piece of] language which they can use without overburdening themselves and at the same produce language which is more akin to the native speaker use. One classroom implication of chunking is that there is neither an absolute need to analyze the grammatical structure of language items students encounter, nor is there a need to explain all the lexis in the texts or chunk. It is enough that students are made aware of its meaning and the fact that they are likely to meet it again. This is often used in modern textbooks when teaching so-called functions: the function of offering e.g. Would you like some is usually taught before the relevant grammar (module verbs and conditional clauses). However, as Lewis (1997: 26) illustrates, many texts, for example newspaper and magazine articles and none-fiction literature consist of little except collocations combined with each other. Thus, chunking could be applied to teaching a much wider range of language rather than merely to Functions.

In Part Three of this paper I suggest procedures for vocabulary teaching through reading to low level students based on these implications.

What is involved in knowing a word The extended discussion above established that knowing a word involves much more than simply knowing what it refers to. The following table, taken from Nation (2001: 26), summarizes therefore, what it means to know a word. If we assume that students know a word they should be able to answer at least most, if not all questions about it. Form Spoken Receptive productive Receptive productive Receptive productive Meani ng Form meaning and Receptive productive Concept reference association and Receptive productive Receptive productive Use Grammatical functions Receptive productive Collocation Receptive productive Constraints on use (register, frequency) Receptive productive What does the word sound like? How is the word pronounced? What does the word look like? Who is the word written and spelled? What parts are recognizable in this word? What word parts are needed to express the meaning? What meaning does this word form signal? What word form can be used to express this meaning? What is included in the concept? What items can the concept refer to? What other words does this make us think of? What other words could we use instead of this one? In what patterns does the word occur? In what patterns must we use this word? What words or types of words occur with this one? What words or types of words must we use with this one? Where, when and how often would we expect to meet this word? Where, when and how often can we

Written

Word parts

use this word?

As the table illustrates, knowing what is referred to by a word is not enough and certainly does not ensure proper use. The various and wide range of information included in knowing a word suggests teachers may teach their students not as many words as possible but rather as much as possible about certain words. Hence, teachers should consider asking What do you know about the word X? instead of the common Do you know the word X? In the next part of this thesis I discuss a number of important concepts which are relevant to learning vocabulary through reading.

Part Two - Vocabulary acquisition

Learning strategies OMalley and Chamot define learning strategies as special ways of processing information that enhance comprehension, learning, or retention of the information (1995:1). Wong Fillmore (1985) suggests [learning] strategies include analytical skills [such as] pattern recognition, induction, categorization, generalization, inference, and the like (OMalley and Chamot, 1995:11).

Macaro (2006: 321) states that Despite some setbacks [ ] and some reservations [], learner strategy instruction (or training) appears to be effective in promoting successful learning if it is carried out over lengthy periods of time and if it includes a focus on metacognition. For example [] how interventions appeared successful in enhancing vocabulary acquisition [] and in enhancing reading skills [] Other strategy instruction studies have claimed to improve general approaches and attitudes to language learning [...]. The fact that some students seem to use learning strategies does not automatically imply that these strategies could be taught to other students and that the instruction may prove beneficial. However, assuming that learning habits can be influenced by teachers, at least with young students, the habits which are formed should be effective learning strategies. Nation (2001: 223) agrees with Macaro that learners need to spend a total of at least four or five hours per strategy spread over several weeks [] it is certainly not

sufficient to demonstrate and explain a strategy to learners and then leave the rest to them. Rather than mere teaching, this is learner strategy instruction (or training) Macaro (2006: 321) One may ask whether it is possible to add strategy training to an already crowded (if not overcrowded) syllabus. If we consider the goal of teaching English is to enhance the students independence in the real world; then their ability to read and understand various real world English texts, that is, their skill at inferring meaning of unfamiliar words (as well as using these texts to improve their English further), is of vital importance and worth the time devoted to it. A further justification is that time devoted to such skills in the early stages of learning is likely to pay itself back later on. Lastly, as Flaitz, Feyten, Fox and Mukherjee (1995: 9) show, a manageable means of integrating strategy training into the language learning curriculum can be developed and successfully implemented. In the absence of an opportunity for the presentation and practice of well-defined language learning strategies, the achievement of students may still be enhanced by the development of a more general strategic awareness. [] A little bit may indeed go a long way. Studying English as a topic was often included in textbooks for school leaving exams in the Czech Republic (old maturita). However, learner training, I believe, is best incorporated into normal teaching and not focused on as a separated topic. The procedures I suggest in the third part of this thesis may be used with almost any reading text during a course. The strategies, or strategy clusters which will be discussed are inferring word meaning and noticing collocations in a text.

Acquisition versus learning Krashen makes a distinction between explicit linguistic knowledge (learning) and implicit linguistic knowledge (acquisition). Acquisition and learning are two separate language processes: Acquisition is described by Krashen as occurring in spontaneous language context, is subconscious, and leads to conversational fluency. Learning on the other hand, is equated with conscious knowledge of the rules of language derived from formal and traditional instruction in grammar. [] in Krashens view, learning does not lead to acquisition, because the sole function of learning is to act as a monitor or editor of the learners output. Therefore, the inescapable conclusion of Krashens model is that conscious use of learning strategies will make little contribution to the development of language competence (OMalley and Chamot, 1990: 10). A crucial (and certainly unpleasant) implication of Krashens distinction between acquisition and learning is that not all and perhaps very little of what is formally done in class is beneficial to students. This is because learning does not lead to acquisition, because the sole function of learning is to act as a monitor or editor of the learners output (OMalley and Chamot, 1990: 10). Every teacher, I believe, has experienced the discouraging situation when students continue to use language incorrectly even though they have been corrected many times. As I have mentioned in my introduction, a comparison test I gave to all students at the secondary school in Mohelnice revealed that during three years of formal instruction in English the average student hardly improved at all. Furthermore, the test found no significant difference between groups which received four weekly hours of instruction and those which received only three weekly hours.

Oxford and Crookall (1990: 23) challenge Krashens model: [Krashen] concedes that it is indeed possible to make small gains in vocabulary knowledge through large amounts of special vocabulary learning effort, but says that this is not worth the time involved and that better results can come through massive reading alone [] However, though learners might be able to infer the meaning of a word read in context, this does not guarantee that the word is completely learned or known. Receptive comprehension of a new word is fostered by massive reading, but the capability to produce that word is by no means ensured by this [massive reading] technique. Many teachers would testify that it is not rare to meet students who understand almost everything said to them even in natural rapid speech but are hardly able to produce a sentence. Oxford and Crookall (1990: 26) argue that vocabulary learning by osmosis [massive reading] is neither adequate nor efficient for the typical student. Likewise, production practice through speaking and writing can only operate when relevant schemata already exist and are ripe for action and expansion. Therefore, L2 practice must be supplemented by a range of additional techniques for vocabulary learning. Hence there is a need for direct vocabulary teaching which would activate the acquired vocabulary. The question which arises from this discussion is how and under which conditions a language item which was acquired could be activated and knowledge become proficiency.

Noticing Before something can be learned it most be noticed, that is, giving attention to [it as] an item. This means that learners need to notice the word, [and] be aware of it as a useful language item (Nation 2001: 63). A learner may encounter a word, a phrase, a new meaning or usage of a word a number of times but is not likely to learn it unless he or she has realized that this word or expression is new to him and is of importance and worth learning. This may explain the low efficiency of memorizing word lists; where often the student has not met the word in context and has not chosen it as a valuable item. Noticing involves decontextualisation [which] occurs when learners give attention to a language item as a part of the language rather than as a part of a message (Nation 2001: 64). Decontextualisation does not mean that the noticed word is taught without a sentence context, and the target word may be taught, as a starting point, in the context in which the student met it. Lewis (1997: 52) when discussing the similarities and differences between his Lexical Approach and Krashens Natural Approach, remarks that If Krashen is right, then all formal instruction is pointless, or even impedes acquisition. While this is more often the case than many teachers admit, it is not always so. Teaching helps, precisely when it encourages the transition from input to intake [] Exercises and Activities which help the learner observe or notice the L2 more accurately ensure quicker and more carefully-formulated hypotheses about L2, and so aid acquisition which is based on a constantly repeated Observe-hypotheses-Experiment cycle. While discussing Noticing, Nation (2001: 72) argues that

If words occur in important parts of the written input to a task they are likely to be noticed. The chances of a word being noticed can be increased by pre-teaching, highlighting the word in the text, by using underlining, italics or bold letters, and glossing the word. Thus teachers can foster vocabulary development not by formal instruction but by helping their students notice information about already known words (as well as new words). The student I have mentioned in my introduction did not notice the words on her handbag. It was my responsibility, as a teacher, to help her notice them.

Inferrencing dealing with unfamiliar words in a text A major hurdle lower level students must overcome and one they are likely to face for a long time is that of new unfamiliar words. The discussion of polysemy in the first part of this thesis illustrates that this is true not only to new words but also to unknown meaning or unfamiliar usages of words the student has already met. Nasaji (2006: 389) defines inferring as The connections that people establish when they try to interpret texts [...]. Inferring occurs at all levels of the reading comprehension process, ranging from integrating the text with background knowledge [...], to connecting the different parts of the text together [...], to linking known to unknown elements in the text in order to arrive at a coherent structure of the information in the text [] Aichinson (2003: 91) argues that word meaning is probably learned [inferred] by noticing the words which come alongside [it]. For example, the relatively new word WIMP which came into use in the early 20th century, Most people discovered its meaning of feeble, timid or ineffectual person because of its neighbours, as in pale-

faced wimp, craven wimps, pathetic wimps [and] a wimp and a crowd (Aitchinson, 2003: 91). Furthermore, the discussion of polysemy above illustrates that contextual clues to the meaning of a word are abundant: in the vast majority of cases, any potential ambiguity was ruled out due to words within a short spam to left or right [] the words usually co-occurred, within a few words to the left or right, with other words which clearly signaled [its meaning] (Stubbs, 2002: 15)

Inferring is not taking wild guesses at the meaning of unknown words or difficult texts, as Nasaji (2006: 389) elaborates In a study with university students, de Bot et al. (1997) found that when attempting to infer word meaning from context, L2 readers used knowledge sources ranging from knowledge of grammar, morphology, phonology, and knowledge of the world, to knowledge of punctuation, word association, and cognates. Analyzing the lexical inferring strategies of Danish learners of English, Haastrup (1991) found that learners used different strategies ranging from those related to the internal structure of the word (such as analysis of the phonological and orthographic structure of the word) to those involving the use of top-down contextual and sentence-level clues. For example, in the sentence I suspect that many children would learn arithmetic, and learn it better, if it were illegal (Holt, 1989: 45) there are three low frequency words which are essential to understanding it. However, a student who is skilful at inferring meaning would probably be able to inference their meaning. If he or

she analyses illegal by separating the prefix il from the stem legal, he or she is likely to recognizes legal (as it is also used in Czech) and thus infer the word correctly. The word arithmetic is the object of the verb learn thus the student may conclude that it is a certain school subject or a skill of some kind. The choice of a school subject may be supported by understanding illegal. Furthermore, although it is spelt and pronounced very differently in Czech; if a student is aware of similarities and differences in other words which are common to both languages, he or she would not find arithmetic difficult to infer. The last word suspect may seem more difficult. However, he or she may realise from the context in the sentence that suspect introduces an argument similar to I think that; or recognise it as a chunk similar to I believe that. These would lead him or her to what Nisaji (2006: 393) calls partially successful inferring. The example illustrates that a deeper knowledge of vocabulary facilitates inference and therefore stands a better chance to become an acquisition. Wesche and Paribakht (1999: 176, in Nasaji, 2006: 389) argue that "much if not most lexical development in both L1 and L2 appears to occur as learners attempt to comprehend new words they hear or read in context". Teachers, however, should not assume that their students would naturally apply such reasoning without guidance. The skill of inferring meaning is of special importance to lower level students who are at the beginning of their studies because; as opposed to more advanced students, they need to increase their vocabulary rapidly. Furthermore, students at beginner level come across new and unfamiliar words very often.

Breadth of vocabulary versus depth of vocabulary (Nasaji 2006: 391) argues that

Studies investigating the role of vocabulary knowledge in reading have found that while measures of size of vocabulary knowledge are strongly related to the reader's understanding of texts (Laufer, 1997; Qian, 1998, 1999), measures examining aspects of depth of vocabulary knowledge make a stronger contribution to reading performance than those that simply measure a single definition of a word. Depth of vocabulary knowledge [] has been used to refer to the quality of lexical knowledge, or how well the learner knows a word (Meara, 1996; Read, 1993, 2000, in Nasaji, 2006: 391). The conclusion reached by Nasaji is that in order to be able to successfully derive word meanings from context, L2 learners need a good depth of vocabulary knowledge (Nisaji 2006: 397). And that One way of achieving this goal would be to establish a thorough vocabulary learning program that integrates extensive exposure to language and learning vocabulary from context with direct and systematic vocabulary instruction, particularly in the early stages of L2 acquisition (see Paribakht & Wesche, 1997; Zimmerman, 1997). (in Nasaji, 2006: 398) Thus in order to foster their ability to communicate in the real world, as well as help students gain more vocabulary and improve their language skills generally; teachers need not teach as many words as possible; instead, teachers should teach more about certain words. The exact choice of words is outside the scope of this thesis; nevertheless, focusing on high frequency content words with special attention given to de-lexicalized

verbs would be a reasonable choice. Nation (2001: 9) argues that when we look at texts our learners may have to read and conversations that are like ones that they may be involved in, we find that a relatively small amount of well-chosen vocabulary can allow learners to do a lot. The 2000 most frequent words comprise 80% of spoken English (Nation 2001:15). Consequently, teaching these 2000 words enable students, albeit not with great detail or accuracy, to communicate in most everyday situations. Nations (2001: 26) table What is evolved in knowing a word above illustrates what knowing a word may refer to. It lists various aspects of knowing a word and therefore information about words teachers should teach their students. If a student can say that word X means Y (in Czech) their knowledge of the word is very partial. For example, a student may know what the word refers to but not whether it is formal or not; a student may know whether a word is formal or not but be unaware of its collocations and patterns it appears in. Only when a student can answer most or all questions in the table, we may regard the word as known.

Reading as a source of vocabulary for acquisition Nation (2001: 155) argues that There is no reason to doubt [] that learners incidentally gain small amounts of vocabulary knowledge from each meaning focused reading of an appropriate text. This small gain in vocabulary knowledge need not be learning of previously unknown words; it could be gaining additional knowledge about words the students already know. Nation (2001: 149) differentiates between extensive and intensive reading. Extensive reading involves large quantities of reading while intensive reading involves the close deliberate study of short texts, [ accompanied by] a lot of attention to the

vocabulary, grammar and discourse of the text. Intensive reading is therefore more suitable to lower level classroom work. Referring to the controversy of acquisition versus learning Nation claims that Direct teaching can add to incidental learning of the same words and can raise learners awareness of particular words so that they notice them when they meet them while reading (2001: 157). He suggests two general activities which could be done after reading: 1. Meaning focused activities such as matching definitions, synonyms or contextually appropriate translations into L1. 2. Form focused activities such as matching collocations.

The Observation Hypothesis - Experiment cycle Lewis (1993:167) argues that the Present Practice Produce paradigm entails the assumptions that what you meet you master and the belief that error represents failure. However, as every teacher would testify, the situation in which students repeat a mistake and teachers respond (either to themselves or to the students) with but we have already done this so many times is not uncommon and proves that the assumption of what you meet you master is unsound and does not work in practice. As an alternative Lewis (1993: 168) suggests a cyclical paradigm of Observation Hypothesis Experiment. The Observation stage involves noticing of language items such as collocations, phrases, other patterns or structures; the Hypothesis stage (when vocabulary is concerned) involves inferencing or guessing the meaning, as well as formulating hypothesis concerning patterns and collocations in which the specific language item is used. The last stage, Experiment, involves testing the Hypothesis and Observing the

reaction or feedback. This may also be done, I believe, through intensive reading activities as suggested by Nation (2001: 157). If students are trained to observe language in a text, they may be able to test their Hypothesis with a text as well. In Part Three of this thesis I demonstrate how this could be done. Thus the Observation Hypothesis Experiment paradigm brings together all the issues discussed above. A major different between the Observation Hypothesis Experiment paradigm and the Present Practice Produce paradigm is the role error: A process view of learning values the confidence-building aspects of successful performance, but [also] recognizes the contribution of unsuccessful performance, providing it produces wellchosen appropriate feedback from the teacher (Lewis, 1993: 168).

Graded readers Graded readers are complete books [] that have been prepared so that they stay within a strictly limited vocabulary (Nation, 2001: 162). These may be books for native speakers which have been simplified, or original literature written especially for this purpose. Using graded readers has a number of advantages: firstly, as they are complete books, fiction or non-fiction, they are likely to be more interesting then the short simplified articles in common course books which can be quite boring or unsuitable for the students for various reasons; secondly, because they are simplified they allow even low level students to experience success which is highly motivating. Both Lewis (1997: 52) and Nation (2001: 72) agree that teachers can and should encourage noticing by indicating items. While a word which has been given attention

in a course stands a better chance of being noticed than another which has not received any attention; it is not certain that a word which has been written on the whiteboard or appeared in a vocabulary exercise would be noticed and students become aware of it as a useful language item. Two factors affecting noticing are motivation and interest (Nation 2001: 63). Therefore graded readers can create interest and motivation which in turn encourage noticing and hence acquisition. For these reasons I base part 3 of this bachelor thesis on a reader and a topic which is unlikely to leave students indifferent. Graded readers can fit into a course in many ways. Nation (2001: 163) elaborates: [Graded readers] can be a means of vocabulary expansion; [] because vocabulary is controlled, it is possible for elementary learners to read books where 95% of the vocabulary is already familiar. They can thus learn remaining words through guessing from context [] under conditions which do not place a heavy learning burden on them. They can be a means of establishing previously met vocabulary, learners can enrich their knowledge of known vocabulary [increasing their depth of vocabulary] Jojos Story by Antoinette Moses, published by Cambridge University Press (2000) is a Level 2 (800 lexemes) in the Cambridge English Readers series. It tells the story of a 10 year old boy who is the sole survivor of a village which was burnt down in ethnic clashes or war. The very simplified language of the book seems natural as the war is seen through the eyes of a child. The story is quite disturbing and does not make easy reading. These create interest, motivation and the involvement needed to foster learning.

The following is Chapter One of Jojos Story.

Chapter 1 Only me, Jojo Its dark again. So its evening. Its the third evening. No, Im wrong. its the forth evening. ItsTuesday..Wednesday .. Thursday. Yes, its Thursday. Why do I count the days? Why do I say its Thursday? There arent any more days. Theres just time. Time when its dark, and time when its light. Everything is dead, so why not days, too? Yes, no more days. no more Tuesdays. Theres only now. And theres only me. Why? Why arent I dead, too? Thats a stupid question, Jojo, I say to myself. You know why you arent dead. You arent dead because you werent in the house. You were in the fields when the men came. But thats not my question. I want to know why I was in the fields. Why wasnt I in the house with my family? There are no answers to questions like that, Jojo, I tell myself. I have to talk to myself because there isnt anyone else. I think there are mice here. I can hear them at night. You cant talk to mice. But there arent any other people. There is only me. Jojo. I know this because I listen. I listen all day and all night. I hide in our stable, where the horse lived. And I hear nothing. Just the mice. The village is quiet. There is smoke now, but smoke is quiet. The fires were noisy, but the fires have stopped. It rained yesterday, and after the rain there were no more fires. Just smoke. Of course, Im not the only thing alive here. As well as the mice, theres a dog somewhere in the village. I can hear it. And there are rats and flies. But I think Im the only person here. All the others are dead. Everyone in the village is dead. Theres only me now and I dont know what to do. Im not in our house. I went into our house after the men went away. So I saw my family. All of them on the floor. All the blood on the floor, too. They were all dead. My mother, my father, my sister, my brother. My family. Jojo, dont think about that, I say to myself. Dont think about the blood. Dont think about those things. But I cant stop thinking about them. My mother had no clothes on. Ive never seen my mother without clothes. Perhaps I will go into the house tomorrow and put some clothes on my mother. She must be cold without clothes. But I am afraid that the men are going to come back. Perhaps they are looking for me. Perhaps they will come back for me. Perhaps I want them to find me. Then I can be dead, too. I dont want to be the only one alive. Come on, Jojo, I say to myself. You are the man of the family now. You must be a big boy. You must be strong. Its difficult to be strong when youre ten. And I am only just ten. My birthday was last month. In July. I got a bicycle for my birthday. It was white. It was wonderful bicycle. I cycled to school on it every day. There isnt a school here any more. There was a big fire there and now theres just smoke. I dont know where my bicycle is. But I dont want it any more.

I dont understand why the men came to our village. Its not a very rich village. We dont have very much. Were not like the people in the big towns. My brother went to live in the town. He told us about the cars and the shops and all the things there. Why didnt my brother stay in the town? Why did he come back here? Why did he die? He was always laughing. He was always so nice to everyone. He wanted to be a teacher. He went to the town to study. My father said that my brother was a good son. He worked hard. He wasnt going to be a poor farmer like my father. I said I was going to study hard, too, and my father laughed. His big laugh. The laugh that made his tummy go up and down. I like that he said. thats good. Ill have two sons to look after me when Im old I going to study too said my sister. Just find a rich husband said my father. I dont want a rich husband, my sister told me. Im going to be a teacher like our brother. You see, Jojo, our father doesnt know, but there are lots of women teachers in the town. Our brother told me But my sister cant be a teacher now. Shes dead on the floor. There was blood on her legs. I pulled down her skirt. It wasnt nice like that. My sister was always very nice. She was kind, too. Why did the men hurt her? She never hurt anyone. Sometimes I want to die now, too. But sometimes I dont. I dont want to die. I sit at the back of the stable. The stable is where our horse slept at night. But the men took away all the horses. I heard them. Im happy that our horse is alive. She was a good horse. I gave her nuts. She liked eating nuts. Im very hungry, but I dont want to look for food. Im afraid one of the men will come back and see me. Ill stay here and be very quiet. Then no-one will find me. Its dark now. I can hear the mice. Or perhaps theyre rats. Im not afraid of them. They are probably hungry. Im so hungry I cant sleep. Dont think about food. Think about something else. Then Ill forget how hungry I am. Perhaps Ill talk to my mother. Or my brother or my sister. I like to think about them. Perhaps thats why Im alive. So one day I can tell people about them. Im Jojo, Ill say. Im alone now, but once I had a family. My grandmother said that when people die, they go away very slowly. After they die, they stay in the air so you can say goodbye to them. you mustnt be afraid of ghosts, she told me. ghosts are good. You can talk to them and they will help you. I think that there are lots of ghosts here. I think that my grandmother was right. Im going to tell them that Im here. This is Jojo, Ill say. Im not dead and I wont let the men find me. Ill stay here and Ill talk to you so you wont feel so sad. Maybe the ghosts will help me. Theres a sound outside the stable. Theres something there. Something bigger than a mouse. I dont know what it is. And now I can hear another sound. A bigger sound, like a lorry. It is a lorry. A lorry is coming here to the village. The men are coming here. Ill be very quiet. Perhaps they wont find me.

In the reminder of this thesis I apply the concepts and implications of ideas discussed in Parts One and Two using the First and Second Chapters of JoJos Story.

Part Three classrooms applications General Comments The procedures presented here are based on the theory and implications discussed in Parts One and Two of this thesis. They are by far not exhaustive and there are countless other ways in which the text could be used in order to extend students knowledge of vocabulary. The target students are elementary students, for whom I expect much of the vocabulary would be unfamiliar and therefore some of the tasks may be quite challenging, and pre-intermediate students who, I expect, would have met most words before but would have a limited knowledge of these words. The procedures suggested here serve to illustrate possible application of the theoretical part of this bachelor thesis (Parts One and Two). Although I recognize their important role of design in the methodology, I do not include pictures or images in the worksheets. I leave that to those who are more graphically gifted than I. Worksheet One presents a procedure which illustrates how students can be encouraged to notice words with similar meaning and contrast different patterns in which they are used. I used the verbs SAY and TELL but a similar procedure could be repeated with THINK and KNOW, LISTEN and HEAR, COME and GO. Worksheet Two presents a procedure, based on Nation (2001: 256), of inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words. At elementary and pre-intermediate levels this is a challenging task; nevertheless, if done in groups and class discussions, it is manageable.

The discussion and explanation of parts of speech is simplified for the sake of clarity to students who may not be familiar with this metalanguage.

Based on Nations (2001: 259) suggestion to award points to the students for their guesses, I add here a scale of points teachers might choose to award their student as a means of feedback on their inferring skills: 5 points for a correct guess. 4 points for a guess with a similar meaning (car / lorry). 4 points for finding the right clues / good reasoning / logical thinking. 3 points for a partially correct guess. 3 points for using intuition. 2 points an incorrect guess. 0 points for not guessing at all. The third worksheet introduces the concept of collocation and introduced a few adjective - noun and verb - noun collocations as well as some expressions. Some of the activities require students to recognize mistakes and correct them. I am aware that his technique is controversial and many teachers avoid it for fear of teaching wrong language. Nevertheless, A learner strategy of avoiding mistakes is always counter-productive. Self evidently, we want students to try out new language (Lewis, 1993: 168). I feel that this technique is useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, it could be seen as training for self-correction which is essential because at a certain point in their studies the student would have to stand on their own feet and produce correct language without a teacher to help them. In order to do so students need to notice errors in their language and correct them. Secondly, the errors the students are asked to recognize and correct are typical to Czech students and I see this technique as a preemptive measure. Thirdly, based on Lewiss Observe-hypotheses-Experiment cycle, the task involving the errors functions as an experiment. By the time the students face this

task they have encountered the target language and have (hopefully) formulated hypothesis concerning the patterns in which the target language appears. The text (as well as the teacher) provides feedback. Whenever possible the student is expected to find the answers in the text and is therefore referred to it repeatedly.

Worksheet One - SAY versus TELL Introduction Read and listen to the story Is it a happy/sad/funny story? Where is the story happening? Who is Jojo? What has happened to him?

Analysis a) Work in pairs. Read and listen to the First Chapter again. Underline all the occurrences of the word SAY and TELL in the text. b) How many times does SAY appear in the text? Copy all the examples like this: Why do I say its Thursday? thats a stupid question Jojo, I say to myself. Jojo, dont think about that, I say to myself. .. 2. a) Look at the examples and try to memorize them for one minute. Then cover them. b) Work in pairs. Together write down the sentences as you remember them. c) Check your answers with the sentences youve copied.

3. a) Which of the following words do we use with SAY. for I to that us myself stories at will him father them goodbye grandmother can me going to about am he b) Check your answer with the sentences youve copied my sister

4. a) listen and read the text again. Pay attention to the word TELL. b) Work alone. Look at the examples above for two minutes, and then cover the text. Write the sentences you remember like this: There are no answers to questions like that, Jojo, I tell myself. Our brother told me. So one day I can tell people about them. c) Check your answers in pairs and then with the text.

5. a) which of the following words do we use with TELL for I to that us myself stories at will him father them goodbye grandmother can me going to b) Check your answer with the text. about am he my sister

6. One of each of these pairs of sentences uses say/tell correctly. Repair the other one. Our father told Just find a rich husband to my sister. Our father said Just find a rich husband to my sister.

I once had a family, Ill say. I once had a family, Ill tell.

Ill tell people about my family. Ill say people about my family.

My brother was always telling stories about the big city.

My brother was always saying stories about the big city

Come on, Jojo, I tell myself Thats a stupid question, Jojo, I say myself

Jojo says the ghosts not to be sad Jojo tells the ghosts not to be sad.

Some of the following words combine. Make as many correct combinations with say or tell as you can. Example: I said goodbye to my father for I to that us myself stories at will him father them goodbye grandmother can me going to about am he my sister

Worksheet Two - Guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words Introduction a) Read and listen to the story Is it a happy/sad/funny story? Where is the story happening? Who is Jojo? What has happened to him? b) How much of the text do you understand? Do you understand less than 50% / 50% / 60% / 70% / 80% / 90% / more than 90% of the text? How many words do you not understand? c). Discuss in pairs and the whole class: How important is it to understand all the words in a story? Would you ignore some words? Which? Which words would you guess and which would you ask / look up in a dictionary?

Analysis 1. a) read the text again and underline words which You are not sure what they mean You have met before but do not know what they mean Words which are completely new to you b) Work in pairs. Try to guess what these words mean.

2. We often use a pronoun instead of names people and places or objects. We can say my sister or she; the village or it. Write in the brackets the person or object which the pronoun refers to.

I (Jojo) dont understand why the men came to our village. Its (the village) not a very rich village. We (__ ___ _ ___) dont have very much. Were not like the people in the big towns. My brother went to live in the town. He (______) told us about the cars and the shops and all the things there. Why didnt my brother stay in the town? Why did he (_____) come back here (where?)? Why did he die? He was always laughing. He was always so nice to everyone. He wanted to be a teacher. He went to the town to study. My father said that my brother was a good son. He (______) worked hard. He (______) wasnt going to be a poor farmer like my father. I said I was going to study hard, too, and my father laughed. His (______) big laugh. The laugh that made his tummy go up and down. I like that he said. Thats good. Ill have two sons to look after me (______) when Im old

3. In the following paragraph from Chapter 2 some words have been removed. In pairs, try to guess what the missing words The sound ______ the stable door changes and I know what it is. Cluck. cluck cluck cluck. Its my chicken, whitetail. Whitetail is my favorite chicken. She gives us lots of _____. Were never going to eat her my father once told me. He understood that Whitetail was my chicken. I call to whitetail and she _______ me. She comes into the stable, but she is very afraid. Maybe the man tried to kill her. _____ take her in my arms and talk to her. Check your answers with the text (Chapter Two)

4. a) Put the following words into groups ask, mice, stupid, go, noisy, questions, hear, fire, house

verbs

adjectives

nouns

b) Look at the words you do not know, are they verb (an action or state), adjective (a quality like colour or size) or noun (a person or a thing)? For example: She Noun was verb a good adjective horse. noun

I dont want Noun verb

rich adjective

husband noun

5. Choose one unknown word. Look a sentence where it appears. What part of speech is it? Is it a verb / adjective / noun? Example: A lorry is coming. A lorry is a noun because we say A lorry

6. Look at the sentence with the unknown word. Can you find any clues to the meaning? Example: A lorry is coming A lorry is probably something which can move form place to place because is coming here to the village.

7. Look at the whole paragraph with the unknown word. Can you find clues? Example: Theres a sound outside the stable. Theres something there. Something bigger than a mouse. I dont know what it is. And now I can hear another sound. A bigger sound, like a lorry. A lorry is an object which makes a sound, it is probably something big.

8. Try to guess the meaning of the word Example: A lorry is a big thing which moves from place to place. It could be a kind of car or a vehicle.

9. Check your guess. a) Is your guess the same word part as the unfamiliar word? Example: we know that a lorry is a noun (point 3) car and vehicle are nouns too.

b) Does it make sense in the sentence? Can you replace the unknown word with your guess? Example: Theres something there. Something bigger than a mouse. I dont know what it is. And now I can hear another sound. A bigger sound, like a vehicle. It is a vehicle. A vehicle is coming here to the village. The men are coming here.

9. a) work in pairs. Use the procedure (points 2 6) to guess the meaning of the other unfamiliar words in the text. b) Join another pair and compare your answers.

c) Work the whole class together. Discuss your conclusions and how you reached them.

Worksheet Three - Collocation Introduction a) Read and listen to the story Is it a happy/sad/funny story? Where is the story happening? Who is Jojo? What has happened to him?

Analysis a) Look at your school mates. Do you sit in a particular order? Is it a typical order? At break time, do you keep certain groups? After school do you go out together with everyone or only with some of your classmates? b) Do you think that words behave similarly? Do we say fast food or quick food? A quality friend or a good friend? Words that behave this way, like fast food or a good friend are called collocations.

a) Match words from column A with words from column B. (some words pair with more than one partner).

a stupid a rich women a good a poor

farmer question son village husband

teachers

Study Work Feel say

sad hard goodbye

go up last every

month day and down

b) Read the first chapter of the story again and check your answers with the text.

a) Look at the table for one minute and memorize the collocation. Work in pairs. Without looking at the table, try to recall the collocations.

Using the collocations from Ex. 2 complete the following sentences (the fist letter of each word is given). Jojos family were not rich; they were p______ f_____ who did not have very much. Everyone in the village was like them; it was not a r______ v______. Jojos father went to the fields e_____ d____ where he w_______ h______ all day long. He hoped his children would have a better life. He wanted his daughter to find a r________ h______ (but she wanted to be a w_______ t______). Jojos father thought that his older son was a g_____ s______. He wanted his sons to s______ h____ at school and university so that they can have good jobs.

After the men went away Jojo hid in the stable and was afraid to go out look for food. He asked himself Why am I alive when my family are all dead? But then told himself it was a s_______ q________. His family were all dead and Jojo thought they f____ s_____ and he wanted to s_____ g_____ to their ghosts.

5. a) Think of other possible collocations for the following words. Example: Verbs: ask a question; answer a question Adjectives: a good question, a difficult question study __________________________ feel ____________________________ say _____________________________ work ________________________ son _______________________________ village ____________________________ teachers ___________________________ husband ______________________

b) Look up these words in a good dictionary to check your answers. c) Discuss these with the whole class and with your teacher.

6. a) Cross out the words which do not collocate. I told / said / spoke goodbye to my friends and walked away. I got angry when the teacher said that I had asked a/ had a stupid / bad / wrong / question. My sister wanted to find a full / lot / rich / wealthy / husband but instead she married a weak / sad / poor farmer. In some countries most teacher are men, but in The Czech Republic lady / wife / woman / female teacher are the majority. We live in a / small / great / little / big / miniature village. Everybody, except his father, says Joe is a good / right / correct / son. b) Discuss your answers with your teacher.

In the following sentences there are collocational mistakes, can you correct them? The house burnt down before a month When he laughs, his tummy goes upwards and downwards. Jojo cycled to school on all days.

Choose some of the collocation above and write short true sentences about yourself.

Works cited Aitchison, Jean. (2003) Words in the Mind: an Introduction to the Mental Lexicon -3rd ad. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Amadeus Language Agency website, <http://www.amadeus.cz/en/ >. 6 June 2010. Ellis, Nick C. (2001) Constructions, Chunking, and Connectionism: The Emergence of Second Language Structure. In: Doughty and Long (eds.) Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell, <http://web.mac.com/ncellis/Nick_Ellis/Publications_files/DoughtyLongall.pdf> 12 November 2010. Holt, John (1989) Learning All the Time. Jackson, TN: Da Capo. Jeffra Flaitz, Carine Feyten, Sallie Fox and Keya Mukherjee (1995) Raising General Awareness of Language Learning Strategies: A Little Bit Goes a Long Way. Hispania 78, 337-348. <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.muni.cz/stable/pdfplus/345434.pdf> 31 May 2010. Lewis, Michael (1993) The Lexical Approach. Hove: LTP - Language Teaching Publications. Lewis, Michael (1997) Implementing the Lexical Approach. Hove: LTP - Language Teaching Publications. Liu, Eric T. K and Philip M. Shaw (2001) Investigating Learner Vocabulary: A Possible Approach To Looking At EFL/ESL Learners' Qualitative Knowledge Of the Word. IRAL 39, 171 194. <http://www.corpus4u.org/upload/forum/2005092000051795.pdf> 9 March 2011. Laufer, Batia (1998) The Development of Passive and Active Vocabulary in a Second Language: Same or Different? Applied Linguistic: 19/2 25S-27I. <http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/webdav/site/education/shared/about/centres/lipi s/docs/readings/laufer-1998.pdf> 9 March 2011.

Macaro, Ernesto (2006) Strategies for Language Learning and for Language Use: Revising the Theoretical Framework. The Modern Language Journal 90(3), 320-337. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876831> 31 May 2010. Moses, Antoinette (2000) Jojos Story. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nasaji, Hossein. (2006) The Relationship Between Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge and L2 Learners' Lexical Inferencing Strategy Use and Success. The Modern Language Journal 90, 387-401. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876835> 31 May 2010. Nation, I.S.P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nattinger, James R. (1980) A Lexical Phrase Grammar for ESL. TESOL QUARTERLY 14 (3), 57 64. <http://biblioteca.uqroo.mx/hemeroteca/tesol_quartely/1967_2002_fulltext/vol_14_3.p df#page=57> 22 May 2010. OMalley, Michael and Anna Camot (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, Rebecca and Crookall, David (1990) Vocabulary Learning: A Critical Analysis of Techniques. TESL Canada Journal 7, 9 31. < http://www.teslcanadajournal.ca/index.php/tesl/article/view/566/397> 15 December 2010. eetka, Miroslav (1997) Anglicko-esk / esko-Anglick Studijn Slovnik. Olomouc: Fin Publishing. Sinclair, John (ed.) (2008) Collins Cobuild Intermediate Dictionary of English. London: Thomson ELT. Stubbs, Michael (2002) Words and Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Abstract This Bachelor thesis deals with acquisition of vocabulary through reading. The target students are low level students at secondary state schools. It aims at two objectives. The first is to develop methodologically sound classroom procedures for introducing and training learning strategies. The second aim is to develop classroom procedures which would use these strategies to acquire vocabulary through reading. Two assumptions underline this thesis. The first assumption is that teachers teach because they want their students to be able to use English for affective communication independently. The second assumption is that even low level students can, if allowed, are able to think critically and analyze language. In Part One of the thesis the various and wide range of information included in knowing a word are discussed. It follows that knowing what is referred to by a word is not sufficient to ensure proper use. It is subsequently suggested that teachers teach not as many words as they possibly can but rather as much as possible about certain words. In Part Two concepts related to vocabulary acquisition are discussed. It begins by discussing learning strategies and vocabulary acquisition as apposed to learning. Next noticing and inferring word meaning in a text followed by a discussion of Breadth of vocabulary versus depth of vocabulary and graded readers. Finally Lewiss Observe Hypothesis - Experiment paradigm is discussed and thus bringing together all the various concepts discussed above. In the third part of my thesis I apply the issues discussed in Parts One and Two. I suggest three classroom procedures the first worksheet trains student to notice dissimilar patters in words with similar meaning. The second worksheet trains students to infer the meaning of unknown words using contextual clues. The third worksheet introduces the

concept of collocations and trains students to pay attention and notice multi-word-units while reading.

Tato bakalsk prce se zabv zskvnm slovn zsoby pomoc etby. Clov studenti jsou studenti sttnch stednch kol s nzkou rovn znalosti jazyka. Prce se zamuje na dva cle. Prvnm clem je vytvoen metodologicky platnch postup zavdn a trninku strategi uen pi vuce. Druhm clem je vytvoen vukovch postup, kter budou tyto strategie vyuvat za elem zskn slovn zsoby pomoc etby. Tato prce vychz z nsledujcch hypotz. 1. Uitel u, protoe chtj, aby jejich studenti byli samostatn schopni pouvat anglitinu pro efektivn komunikaci. 2. I studenti s nzkou rovn znalosti jazyka jsou, pokud je jim to umonno, schopni kritickho mylen a jazykov analzy. Prvn st prce se zabv a rozmanitost informac, kter jsou obsaeny v konceptu znt slovo. Znalost toho, co vraz oznauje, nen dostaten pro zajitn sprvnho pouit vrazu. Autor navrhuje, aby uitel namsto uen maximlnho mnostv slov radji uili studenty maximum informac o jednotlivch slovech a jejich pouit. Druh st prce se zabv koncepty spojenmi s osvojovnm si slovn zsoby. Zan diskuz nad pojmy strategie uen a osvojovn si slovn zsoby v kontrastu s uenm. Dle pokrauje diskuz o vmn si a dovozovn vznamu slov v textu. Zabv se dle slovn zsoby versus hloubkou slovn zsoby a upravenmi texty. Zvr druh sti prce se zabv Lewisovm paradigmatem Pozorovn Hypotza Experiment a tm ve uveden koncepty shrnuje. Tet sti prce aplikuje koncepty probran v prvn a druh sti prce. Navrhuje vukov postupy prvn pracovn list u studenta, aby si vmal odlinost mezi slovy s

podobnm vznamem. Druh pracovn list u studenty dovozovat vznam neznmch slov z kontextu. Tet pracovn list zavd koncept slovnch spojen a u studenty vnovat pozornost a vmat si vceslovnch spojen pi etb textu.