UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

EDUCATION COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES : SPEECH

AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES

MA in TESOL

EDU843 Pedagogical Grammar and Lexis

LEVEL M

Critically examine a sample of materials, which focuses on vocabulary learning.

Suggest how the materials might be improved and justify your suggestions in
respect of the learning processes and intended outcomes (you may want to do
this by constructing an alternative lesson plan). Please make sure that you relate
your analysis to relevant background literature.

Relate your submission to a particular group of learners at a particular phase of

education in a setting with which you are familiar.

Dr Jan Hardman and Scott Windeatt

Student number: 038014035

Friday 23rd April 2004

Word count: 5109

 UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

EDUCATION COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES :

SPEECH AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES

I certify that all material in this Assignment

which is not my own work, has been identified and that no
material is included which has been submitted for any other
award or qualification.

Signed:

Date:

2
Introduction

There is an argument that contemporary research goes round in circles, invariably ending

up where it started many years earlier. Nowhere is this premise held to be more true than

in the social sciences. This could be explained away by the fact that post-modern and

nihilistic intellectual trends, having sidelined God, or killed him off entirely as Nïché

attempted to do, have left us in a paradoxical relative quagmire. We are left floundering

in a world which has rejected the only source of objectivity yet still seeks absolute truths.

In this surreal intellectual climate right and wrong are held to be the same and different at

the same time. The present state of applied linguistic theory in general and the role of

vocabulary in second language acquisition (SLA) in particular can be held to be startling

examples of the circular nature of contemporary research; “So how can linguistic

approaches to translation have been so right, and then so wrong and then alright again?”

(Kenny 2001, p2) asks one theoretician. Kenny’s question can be rephrased for any

manner of approaches, word lists and rote learning being a few examples of the many

approaches that were so right, then so wrong and then alright again.

SLA theory is in somewhat of a transitionary phase at this time. Having seen what can

genuinely be described as linear progressions in theoretical models, from early grammar

translation approaches to audio lingual methods and communicative language teaching

(CLT) there was a coherent pattern to this discourse. At present this is not the case, as

several competing ideas are jockeying for position (Willis and Willis 1996) at a time

3
when Bax (2003) has declared CLT to be truly dead and buried. In the quagmire of

current discourse we seek here to engender some clarity.

This article is an analysis of vocabulary exercises used to teach oversees students arriving

in the UK to study at universities here. This work has three broad sections. The first of

these will seek to place our analysis in its correct historical context and to advance from

current theoretical commentary suitable theories for vocabulary teaching. For reasons I

will describe later I have selected Krashen’s reading for vocabulary approach and

Lewis’s new lexical chunking model to be the basis of my analysis.

Working with these two paradigms, I will seek to offer a detailed critical analysis of a

sample of contemporary vocabulary learning material taken from the New Headway®

series of language textbooks by Liz and John Soars. This will seek to determine the

extent to which these exercises fulfil the criteria laid down by Lewis and Krashen.

The final section will deal with suggestions for improvements and will also comment on

areas for future research. Cleary this work is too brief and limited in scope to even

contemplate covering all the areas and aspects in full, what it does seek to do, however, is

offer an insight into contemporary discourse and its pragmatic and practical relevance to

current teaching practice. I will finish with a brief conclusion, highlighting my findings.

4
Historical Overview of SLA Teaching

What is new is not true and what is true is not new

(proverb)

The past one hundred years have seen a linear progression in language

teaching paradigms. In the first fifty years of the last century, up to the

Second World War, language teaching was dominated by three approaches,

Grammar Translation, Direct Method and the Reading Method (Carter &

McCarthy 1988, Schmitt 2000, Zimmerman 1997, Nation 2001). During the

war the need for a more direct and efficient method was sought to teach

military recruits languages in a short space of time. What the theoreticians

came up with was the Audio-Lingual method, that relied heavily on grammar

drills and listening exercises (Schmitt 2000).

The Audio-Lingual method maintained enduring popularity right up to the

beginning of the eighties when it was replaced by Communicative Language

Teaching (CLT) (Zimmerman 1997) as the dominant paradigm. At the time

of writing CLT had been declared obsolete by eminent authorities such as

Bax (2003). If we accept Bax’s assertion that CLT is finished then a

dominant paradigm to replace it is not apparent. Indeed as Woodward (1996)

points out there are many contenders

If there is a great degree of dissatisfaction with a dominant

paradigm then usually a new model gradually emerges

5
 accompanied by much resistance. There are many

contenders [to CLT] available…: Total Physical Response,

The Silent Way, Counselling Learning, Suggestopedia,

Psychodramatic Language Learning, The Receptive Skills

Model, Stimulus-based teaching, The Bank Accounts

model, The Natural Approach, The Options Approach, The

Lexical Approach and Task-based Learning (p8).

Right through from Grammar Translation to CLT, vocabulary teaching

maintained a secondary and almost peripheral relevance. This is especially

surprising in CLT;

In any meaning based approach one would expect

vocabulary to be given a prominent place. Once again,

however, vocabulary [in CLT] was given a secondary

status, this time to issues of mastering functional language

(Schmitt 2000, p14).

Perhaps as a result of this secondary status, vocabulary began to be viewed in

the nineties as a separate branch of language learning and a plethora of new

theory and text books were written on the practice of vocabulary teaching.

Although these texts contained multifarious suggestions with respect to

vocabulary teaching two distinct approaches stand out for different reasons.

6
The first of these, the Natural Approach, is particularly controversial, and it is

to this that we first turn our attention.

Krashen’s Thesis

Widely respected amongst teaching practitioners, loathed amongst

theoreticians, everybody has something to say about the works of Stephen D

Krashen. It is necessary here to briefly outline the theoretical underpinnings

of what Krashen is saying to allow us to understand which part of his thesis is

relevant to our discussion here.

Together with Terrell, Krashen outlined five hypotheses’ in their book The

Natural Approach (Krashen & Terrell 1983). These five hypothesis are: The

Acquisition-Learning hypothesis, the Natural Order hypothesis, the Monitor

Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis and the Affective Filter hypothesis. There

is no room here to engage in a critical discussion of these hypothesis,

however we shall comment on a few salient and relevant aspects.

With respect to vocabulary acquisition, Krashen puts forward the Input

Hypothesis which, in the context of vocabulary acquisition, states that ‘We

acquire vocabulary and spelling by reading’ (italics mine, Krashen 1989,

p440) and ‘more comprehensible input in the form of reading is associated

7
with greater competence in vocabulary’ (p441). It is necessary to distinguish

acquisition from learning in Krashen’s paradigm. Acquisition takes place

when we are exposed to the target language in a manner that we can

understand. Learning, on the other hand, involves the memorisation of

structures and forms (Krashen & Terrell 1983). This distinction between

acquisition and learning has come in for some very heavy criticism (De

Beaugrande 1997, McLaughlin 1991). One of the key criticisms is the fact

that ‘Krashen has given no way of independently determining whether a

given process involves acquisition or learning (McLaughlin 1991, p21).

Acquisition, according to Krashen, can only occur via comprehensible input

at a level that is slightly above that at which the student is at, or as Krashen

puts it ‘i+1’. There are two concepts here, one of comprehensible input and

the second of giving this input at ‘i+1’. The latter of these has come under

great criticism from the ‘highest authorities in our [applied linguistics] field’

(Wheeler 2003, p92). Part of the problem, evidently, is the identification of

what constitutes ‘i’ but it is difficult to understand the difficulty of the

criticism here. This concept of ‘i+1’ is not a new concept, indeed it looks and

sounds almost identical to the ‘zone of proximal development (ZPD)’ put

forward by Vygotsky. Indeed for all intents and purposes they are the same

in the sense that both theories put forward the idea of teaching at some, quite

undefined, level above the current performance of a student. As with any

approach that requires any form of student personalisation, it is effectively

8
not possible in a class of twenty or thirty students to predict the ZPD or ‘i’

with any great accuracy. Krashen counters this by saying that

When the input is understood, if there is enough input, i+1

will usually be covered automatically. Other structures will

of course be present in the input as well, but there will be

plenty of exposure to the i+1 (Krashen & Terrell 1983,

p33).

Krashen is not alone in seeing the value of reading on vocabulary acquisition,

in recent research Gu (2003) and earlier Wright (1999) amongst others

intimated that reading was a proven method of vocabulary acquisition.

Krashen’s insistence that ‘competence in spelling and vocabulary is most

efficiently attained by comprehensible input in the form of reading’ (Krashen

1989, p440) is in and of itself not particularly controversial. There is

controversy regarding other assertions made by Krashen, as we witnessed

above, but since this article is concerned with vocabulary acquisition only,

and not with an exposé of Krashen’s entire thesis, we will refrain from

engaging in a fuller discussion here. One important point to make at this

juncture is that Krashen does not stand alone in his thesis that vocabulary is

acquired through extensive reading. The latest academic commentary

supports his assertions;

9
 Our results strongly suggest that a most effective way to

produce large-scale vocabulary growth is through an

activity that is all too often interrupted in the process of

instruction: Reading (Gardner 2004, p2).

From this part of the discussion we take the notion that a good vocabulary

exercise ‘should’ include an element of reading whereby the target

vocabulary is placed in a passage of text, perhaps from a short story or

something similar. A fuller analysis will follow when we come to analyse the

vocabulary exercises attached as appendix 1 and 2.

Lewis’s Lexical Approach

In the last ten years or so, works on vocabulary by Nation (2001), Schmitt

(2000), Coady and Huckin (1997) and others sought to give ‘pedagogical

guidance [on vocabulary teaching] through interpreting the research in terms

of classroom applications’ (Graney 2000, p3). During this time Lewis

attempted to put forward a practical and pragmatic new strategy for teaching

vocabulary. Although it was seen as novel, there are many similarities

between the writings of Lewis (1993 and 1998) and Cruse (1986). Perhaps

Lewis’ novelty lay in the fact that he offered a very practical way forward for

teachers wishing to include more lexis in classroom teaching.

10
Lewis bases his theory on lexical items, which he defines as

socially sanctioned independent units. These may be

individual words, or full sentences – institutionalised

utterances – that convey fixed social or pragmatic meaning

within a given community (Lewis 1997, p255).

Cleary from this definition lexical units, being ‘socially sanctioned’, can and

do differ from place to place. Lewis, however, goes further than this to

suggest that what constitutes a lexical unit can differ between social groups;

Indeed, lexical items can be peculiar to social groups of

many kinds: geographical, professional, or even family-,

class- or age-based groups (ibid).

From a pedagogical viewpoint this is a strange assertion to make for it

suggests that vocabulary teaching has to be designed at the local level,

to be truly effective, since no outsider can truly know the lexical units

of any particular community. This is an absurd and impractical

suggestion and offers little to language practitioners in the way of

practical assistance.

11
Lewis divides the lexical item into four categories: words/polywords,

collocations, institutionalised utterances and sentence frames or heads.

It is necessary here to briefly explain these in order that we may fully

understand what it is we are looking for when we advance to the

vocabulary analysis stage of this article.

The category of ‘Words’ requires no definition. Polywords are an

extension of words and refer to small utterances such as ‘by the way’

and ‘on the other hand’. Lewis defines these ‘phrases’ as single lexical

items.

Collocations are typically 3-5 words in length and are primarily

concerned with referential content (ibid, p256). Lewis’ view is that

collocations need to be ‘integrated as an organising principle within

syllabuses’ (Lewis 1993, pvi).

Institutionalised utterances ‘are all those chunks of language that are

recalled as wholes, and of which much conversation is made’ (Lewis

1997, p257). Lewis cites examples such as ‘I’ll get it’ and ‘There’s a

call for you’ (ibid). His point here is that so much of the language we

speak is made up of these utterances that to learn them whole makes

sense since they occur frequently. This is a point that is echoed by

others;

12
 Fluent and idiomatic control of a language rests to a

considerable extent on knowledge of a body of ‘sentence

stems’ which are ‘institutionalised’ or ‘lexicalised’ (Pawley

& Syder 1983, p191).

Nothing from what Lewis has written indicates how he would decide on

which utterances to include, although he does say that ‘input should be

biased heavily toward high-frequency utterances, most of which will be

fully of partially institutionalised’ (ibid, p258). However, no known

study has produced a list of the most common utterances and this leaves

us with the problem that with so many such utterances where does one

start with this and in which direction do we proceed?

Lewis’s final classification is sentence frames and heads. It should be

mentioned here that Institutionalised Utterances are typically found in oral

communication, i.e. the spoken language. Their written equivalents are

sentence frames and heads. They are defined as ‘those often large discourse

features that allow us to decode complex written text’ (ibid, p259). Again the

main criticism here, similar to Institutionalised Utterances, is that with so

many it is difficult to know where to start. Unlike normal teaching of

structures where students learn to formulate their own sentences here they are

13
memorising set phrases. Which phrases do we begin with and in which

direction do we travel? Lewis is surprisingly silent on these issues and

presumably leaves it up to the teaching practitioner to decide this, although it

is in no way clear as to how.

One final point to make is that in viewing vocabulary units as simply more

than words Lewis does not stand alone. As has been expressed above, Lewis

was echoing the sentiments of Cruse (1986) but later Bogaards (2001) who

said

Applied linguistics should assign a far less central place to

this whimsical notion of “word” than has been done up to

now… I follow Cruse (1986) who replaced the notion of

“word” with the concept of “lexical unit” (Bogaards 2001,

p323).

Links between Krashen and Lewis

Having outlined two, essentially separate, vocabulary learning strategies the

question that naturally comes to mind is whether the two are related. Lewis

answers this himself by saying:

14
 Although I am largely sympathetic to their [Krashen and

Terrell’s] view – I believe that structure of the language is

acquired, as is the vast majority of a learner’s lexicon- I

believe that activities that raise conscious awareness of the

lexical nature of language and its component chunks can aid

acquisition (Ibid, p260).

What Lewis is saying here is that whilst he does believe in the distinction

between learning and acquisition this does not preclude the possibility that

acquisition can be aided by engaging students in relevant exercises. This

appears to be a clear paradox and nowhere does Lewis offer any form of

explanation as to how he theoretically reconciles Krashen’s concept of

acquisition with his own understanding of what appears to be ‘learning led’

acquisition.

Essentially then when analysing the vocabulary exercises that follow we will

be looking for two things. Firstly, in line with Krashen’s thesis, some

reading component that allows students to acquire and internalise vocabulary

naturally via the reading process and secondly exercises that recognise that

lexis exists in ‘chunks’ with particular emphasis on collocations.

15
New Headway® Vocabulary exercises

The Headway® series of books by Liz and John Soars, published by Oxford

University Press, require little introduction. The books come in five levels,

beginners, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced.

Each level has an assortment of student’s books, workbooks, complimentary

cassettes, CD’s and teacher’s books. The arrangement of each student book

is similar with each unit containing seven sub classifications: grammar,

vocabulary, postscript, reading, speaking, listening and writing. We are

concerned with the vocabulary exercises but it would be a mistake to view

them in isolation since it may be the case that the target lexis is recycled in

other sub sections generally and in the reading section particularly. With this

in mind two entire units have been reproduced and appended as appendix 1

and 2. We shall analyse each separately and independently. To allow us to

understand the rational behind the structure of the vocabulary exercises and

their role in the context of the unit as a whole relevant sections of the

teacher’s book accompanying the series has been attached as appendix 3.

16
The Context and Intended Outcomes

The exercises which follow were chosen as material that would be taught on

pre-sessional English for academic purposes (EAP) courses that run in most

universities prior to the beginning of the academic year. Students arrive from

oversees and study for varying lengths of time, from a few weeks, to months

or years depending on their level of proficiency on arrival. The specific

intended or learning outcomes of these courses are appended as appendix 4 to

allow us to see the exact requirements from this course and how the exercises

would allow these to be met.

Of particular interest from the learning outcomes is number one which states

that students are expected to achieve:

An understanding of the English used in and around the

University and that they can make themselves understood

sufficiently to be able to feel confident in everyday

situations using a range of listening and speaking skills

including accurate recognition and production of sounds

and standard patterns of intonation, rhythm and stress

The key derivative from this outcome is that the vocabulary exercise

should deal with frequently occurring lexical items to allow students to

17
‘make themselves understood’ and also to have an ‘understanding of

the English used in and around the University’.

Unit 3 - Telling Tales- Appendix1

The vocabulary strategies used by the authors are three, namely the teaching

of new words in a lexical set, dictionary use and use of vocabulary systems

with particular emphasis on collocations; ‘We do a lot of work on collocation

in this book’ (Soars & Soars 1996b, pvi).

If we examine the teacher’s book we see that the lexis the students will

encounter in the vocabulary exercise is designed to ‘set the scene and

introduce some necessary vocabulary for the following reading texts’ (ibid,

p32). The first part of the exercise is a dictionary look up exercise and the

second is a collocation exercise. This is a very positive approach and, in the

spirit of what the authors intended, utilises multiple strategies. The third

exercise is designed to place the collocations into relevant contexts.

Although the vocabulary exercise appears to end there since the next section

deals with reading and speaking, this is not the case. If we examine the text

on page 30 entitled ‘The Writer’ we find that the collocates are repeated in

18
this text. Take for example the first paragraph where we notice the following

sentence ‘She wrote 78 novels and several plays’, this contains the collocates

‘write’ and ‘novel’ that students encountered earlier. From Krashen’s theory

we would expect students to acquire this collocation from reading the

passage. The is a good example of how Krashen’s input hypothesis can

interact with Lewis’s ideas on lexical chunking.

Unit 6 – Likes and Dislikes – Appendix 2

The vocabulary section in this chapter deals with ‘words that go together’. A

pertinent question is whether the phrase ‘words that go together’ is

synonymous with the term ‘collocation’? From the exercises laid out here it

appears that it may be. Take as examples the terms ‘rude people’, ‘old town’

or ‘tasty food’. All these are frequently occurring in English and hence

would appear to fulfil the conditions of being collocations or polywords.

This is a positive exercise that reinforces this collocational theme and

engenders into the learner the concept that words can frequently occur

collocationally with others on a frequent basis. Again we notice here, as with

the exercise in unit 3, the learners are asked to use their dictionaries to look

up the new words. This may seem odd, many teaching practitioners actively

discourage use of dictionaries in class. They prefer to use more modern and

up to date techniques for introducing new vocabulary. Again, the approach

19
used here is positive and as I will comment on later, has solid theoretical

backing.

The reading exercise, ‘In Search of English Food’, does not, surprisingly,

contain any of the collocations from exercise one. This is a strange omission

since this is a good opportunity for students to acquire these and reencounter

them. It may be that the text of this is authentic and the authors were unable

to find a text that contained the earlier collocations but despite this it is an

opportunity missed. Students encountering the collocations for the first time

would have benefited from repeated exposure. This can be a general

criticism of the vocabulary exercises contained in New Headway® that

repeated exposure is not given despite the fact that research suggests that

repeated exposure of vocabulary, i.e. six or seven repetitions (Crothers and

Suppes 1967), is required to facilitate vocabulary acquisition;

Nation (1990) suggests that a new word needs to be met at

least five or six times in a text book unit before it has any

chance of being learnt (Cameron,2001, p84).

These comments are echoed by others;

‘We agree that the frequency with which learners are

exposed to lexical items affects their acquisition of these

20
 items. Certainly, ensuring that students encounter words

frequently in a variety of contexts is a key to helping

students to extend their knowledge of the meanings,

functions and grammatical properties of words’ (Oxford

and Scarcella 1994, p234).

If this research is correct then New Headway® fails to fully take this

into account. Indeed in this unit the collocations encountered in the

vocabulary exercise were not recycled anywhere else in the rest of the

unit. One of the major criticisms of the New Headway® approach,

specifically with respect to our learning outcomes is that there is no

indication, and no comment to this effect in the teacher’s book, that the

target lexis and collocation is frequently occurring. To allow them to

achieve the intended outcome students need access to lexis that they

will encounter in classrooms, on the street and in public places

generally.

Discussion

We have analysed above two vocabulary teaching sections from the

New Headway® series of language textbooks. Using the Input

21
Hypothesis of Krashen and the Lexical Approach of Lewis it was clear

that elements of both these approaches were present. It needs to be

made very clear that the purpose of this analysis was to analyse

vocabulary exercises in light of contemporary theoretical trends.

Although we have commented above briefly on some possible

weaknesses in the exercises this section should deal with suggestions

for improvements. We will not do this however, instead this section

will detail the dilemma that arise out of any commentary that seeks to

‘improve’ upon current vocabulary exercises. It will seek to establish

that no single best way of teaching vocabulary exists and that the search

for one is doomed from the beginning. We will argue the case for a

contextual approach that does not seek to burden class teachers with

any one single specific strategy for vocabulary teaching. Although this

appears to be a radical departure from some contemporary academic

commentary, it will be shown that there is strong evidence to support

this approach.

Writing last year Bax cited Nunan saying ‘the search for the one best

method [in language teaching] would seem to be well and truly dead’

(Nunan 2001 in Bax 2003, p279). Nunan was not saying anything new,

he was simply echoing the words of Prabhu (1990) who questioned the

very idea of ever discovering a best method. Writing some months ago

Klapper endorsed this view saying that

22
 If it is possible to say anything with certainty about how

languages are learned, it is surely that there is no single, all-

encompassing model (Klapper, 2003, p40).

We reject outright the concept of a ‘best’ method of teaching vocabulary and as

we have seen we are not alone in this endeavour. When Kenny (2001) asked how

could it be that linguistic approaches to translation have been so right, and then so

wrong and then alright again he was essentially making the point that the science

of SLA has become circular. Academic journals still debate the role of grammar

more than fifty years after grammar translation was rejected as a teaching method.

There is no consensus as to the way forward, all we have is varying, unproven

opinions. But even when evidence of a theory is advanced there is no guarantee

that it will be accepted. On the contrary, despite writing more than 300 articles

for journals and scores of books Krashen’s theories are still said to be airy-fairy

and unsubstantiated.

One response to all this is given by Wheeler (2003) who says applied linguistics is

an art not a science and hence different approaches can never be proven. Wheeler

claims that a distinction exists between what applied linguists hypothesise and

what teachers require, ‘…applied linguists want data and science, teachers want

things clear and useful’ (Wheeler 2003, p8). From this perspective then theories

do not have to be verifiable, indeed persisting with demands for Krashen to

23
provide evidence for his theories and rejecting outright any assertion he makes

without this can lead to us rejecting what is known to be true. Such an approach

results in us being in ‘the absurd and untenable position of being told to give back

what we gained from Krashen simply because it is not possible to benefit from

him!’ (ibid, p9). Wheeler is not alone in his assertion here; ‘In most domains,

human practices were well established long before theories began to be provided

and have also played a much more effective role in the history of societies’ (De

Beaugrande 1997, p279). The negative efficacy of linguistic theory in vocabulary

is attacked by eminent figures in the field of applied linguistics ‘Current work in

psycholinguistics and computational linguistics does not seem to have made much

of an impact on the field [of vocabulary acquisition]’ and ‘…most vocabulary

research in applied linguistics is based on a narrow linguistic agenda’ (Meara

2002, p293).

In view of the fact that no best method to teach vocabulary exists, and that there is

no value in even searching for one, we are left with the following approach to

vocabulary instruction. Writing last year Gu (2003) examined the learning

strategies of two successful learners of English. The result of his study were;

These learners (a) saw vocabulary as but one aspect of

language learning that needs to be integrated with language

use, (b) demonstrated high levels of self-initiation and

24
 selective attention, and (c) employed a wide range of

vocabulary-learning strategies. (emphasis mine, p73)

These comments appear to cohere with earlier findings of others in

suggesting that specific vocabulary learning strategies did not

necessarily lead to increased vocabulary acquisition;

Strikingly, the findings of this study demonstrated that

students who received more instruction did not significantly

outperform students who received less instruction in terms

of EFL vocabulary acquisition; a sole strategy was as

powerful as a mixed approach (Chin 1999, p10).

Gu’s analysis is particularly interesting. In it he examined the strategy

two successful learners of English adopted and found them to be

profoundly different. In this he is confirming anecdotal evidence from

the authors own experience that successful learners of English have no

chartered path, on the contrary the truth is, as Gu found, that different

students will utilise different methods with wide ranging efficacy. The

implications for classroom teaching are that no one method works for

all or even most students. Rather a wide array of methods need to be

applied and students should be introduced to these at an early stage to

allow them to personalise their learning. They will do this by following

25
the example of the students in Gu’s study, by using those methods they

feel comfortable with and through which they find success. On the face

of if New Headway® appears to cohere with this approach. One very

positive aspect of the authors style is that they encourage students to be

given much of the lexis to learn as homework. This would allow all

students to utilise whatever strategy works best with them to learn the

vocabulary.

To end this section we will surmise then that putting forward

suggestions for improvements on the vocabulary exercises found in

New Headway® is a double edged sword. In order to do this we need

some form of reference but as has been shown above none exists. We

can suggest that words should be recycled more in the chapter, that the

reading should include more of the target vocabulary but in the end

analysis students learn vocabulary in multifarious ways as Gu and

others have shown. The important assertion is that students are given

maximum latitude to employ whatever method they feel happy with.

Conclusion

This article sough to analyse a selection vocabulary teaching materials

for an EAP programme for oversees students arriving in the UK to

study. To achieve a coherent and consistent analysis the discussion was

26
placed in its correct historical context. Following this there was

comment on two theories, those of Krashen and Lewis. The analysis

that followed this showed that the exercises in New Headway® utilised

some of the ideas of Krashen and Lewis.

The section which was originally designated for suggestions to the

exercises in New Headway® instead placed before the reader an original

thesis which claimed that such a task was futile in the face of the

realities at hand. Such realities included the view of eminent figures in

the field of applied linguistics that no best method exists in language

teaching. What was proposed was a contextual approach that allowed

students greater freedom in vocabulary learning strategy selection.

New Headway® was praised in this respect for adopting a multiple

strategy approach but concern was voiced that this approach did not go

far enough. Without any shadow of a doubt more research in this

avenue is required to ascertain if the authors assertions are indeed

correct and inline with the beliefs and findings of practitioners in this,

our chosen field, of second language acquisition.

27
 Bibliography

Books

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge:

CUP

Carter, R and McCarthy, M. (1988). Vocabulary and Language Teaching. Essex:

Pearson Education Ltd.

Coady, J. (1993). Research on ESL/EFL Vocabulary Acquisition: Putting it into context.

In T. Huckin, M. Hayes and J. Coady (Eds.), Second Language Reading and Vocabulary
Learning (pp3-23). Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Coady, J. and Huckin, T (Eds). (1997). Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition.

Cambridge: CUP

Crothers, E. and P. Suppes (1967). Experiments in Second-Language

Learning. New York: Academic Press.

Cruse, D.A. (1986). Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: CUP

Kenny, D. (2001). Lexis and Creativity in Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome

publishing.

Krashen, S.D. and Terrell, T.D. (1983). The Natural Approach. Oxford: Pergamon

Larson-Freeman, D. (1986). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. New

York: OUP.

Lewis, M. (1997). Pedagogical implications of the lexical approach. In J. Coady & T.

Huckin (Eds.)

Lewis, M. (1998). Implementing the Lexical Approach. Hove: Language Teaching

Publications.

Lewis, M. (1993). The Lexical Approach. Hove: Language Teaching Publications.

McLaughlin, B. (1991). Theories of Second Language Learning. New York: Edward

Arnold

Nation, P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary through in Another Language. Cambridge:

CUP

28
Pawley, A. & Syder, F.H. (1983) Two Puzzles for Linguistic Theory: nativelike
selection and nativelike fluency. In Richards, J.C. & Schmidt, R.W. (Eds.) Language
and Communication. Essex: Longman

Schmitt, N. (2000). Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP

Soars, L. and Soars, J. (1996a). New Headway Intermediate Student’s Book. Oxford:
OUP

Soars, L. and Soars, J. (1996b). New Headway Intermediate Teacher’s Book. Oxford:
OUP

Wilkins, D.A. (1972). Linguistics and Language Teaching. London: Edward Arnold.

Willis, J. and Willis, D. (1996). Challenge and Change in Language Teaching. Oxford:
Macmillan Heinemann

Woodward, T. (1996). Paradigm Shift and the language Teaching Profession. In Willis,
J. and Willis, D. (1996).

Zimmerman, C.B. (1997). Historical Trends in Second Language Vocabulary

Instruction. In Coady, J. and Huckin, T. (1997).

Journals

Bax, S. (2003). The End of CLT: a Context Approach to Language Teaching. ELT
Journal, 57,3, 278-287

Bogaards, P. (2001). Lexical Units and the Learning of Foreign Language Vocabulary,
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23,3, 321-343.

Chin, C. (1999). The Effects of Three Learning Strategies on EFL Vocabulary

Acquisition, The Korea TESOL Journal, 2,1, 12

De Beaugrande, R. (1997). Theory and Practice in Applied Linguistics: Disconnection,

Conflict, or Dialectic? Applied Linguistics, 18,3, 279-313

Gardner, D. (2004). Vocabulary Input through Extensive Reading: A Comparison of

Words Found in Children’s Narrative and Expository Reading Materials. Applied
Linguistics, 25,1, 1-37.

Graney, J.M. (2000). Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical

Approach-Review. TESL-EJ, 4,4, 3

29
Gu, P.K. (2003). Fine Brush and Freehand: The Vocabulary-Learning Art of Two
Successful Chinese EFL Learners. TESOL Quarterly, 37,1, 73-104

Klapper, J. (2003) Taking Communication to Task? A Critical Review of Recent

Trends in Language Teaching. Language Learning Journal, 27,2, 33-42

Krashen, S.D. (1989). We Acquire Vocabulary and Spelling by Reading: Additional

Evidence for the Input Hypothesis. The Modern Language Journal, 73,4, 440-464

Meara, P. (2002). The rediscovery of Vocabulary, Second Language Research, 18,4,

393-407.

Oxford, R.L. and Scarcella, R.C. (1994). Second Language Vocabulary Learning
Among Adults: State of the Art in Vocabulary Instruction, System, 22,2, 231-243.

Prabhu, N. (1990). There is No Best Method-Why? TESOL Quarterly, 24,2, 161-176

Wheeler, G. (2003). Krashen, A Victim of History. TESL Canada Journal, 20,2, 92-99

Wright, B.H. (1999). Asian EFL Students in English Content Courses. The Korea
TESOL Journal, 2,1, 13-29

30