3. Task-Based Vocabulary Retention Strategies in the General English Classroom
- . Loyola Innaci & D. Praveen Sam
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Abstract
Vocabulary teaching and learning is neglected in most of the ELT contexts. So, students do not have adequate diction to express their thoughts while communicating. Exposing students to new vocabulary is not enough, whereas helping them retain those words for later use is what a student learns a language for. Therefore, retention strategies become vital. In course of learning words, the importance given is limited to synonyms and antonyms with a view to scoring marks in the assessment. Students learn new words they come across in the textbook only for that situation, but they fail to retain them and don’t make them part of their active vocabulary. This paper focuses on the vocabulary retention strategies administered in a general English class in an Arts and Science college. The strategies, to acquire vocabulary, designed for the study were Word Association, Connections, Word Link. The students were post-tested on their retention level and found to be greater. In the second phase of the study, the researcher incorporated retention strategies in course of the lesson and while doing vocabulary based activities. The retention strategies incorporated were using graphic organizer. In the study, it was found that words which were made explicit in some way for learners and given attention during the lesson were retained and the researcher was found out the feasibility of incorporating vocabulary retention strategies in the current General English course.
Introduction:
In India English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) is taught in a General English classroom for a limited period of time each week. Students are exposed to plenty of words and grammatical rules. Language teachers have been teaching vocabulary as a core component of language proficiency by means of traditional methods such as repetition, a notebook with list of vocabulary, dictionaries, synonyms, antonyms etc. Learning words and how to use and how to retain them is quite challenging and students of General English cannot achieve their potential without retaining their vocabulary.
Task-based language learning (TBLL)
One of the most effective ways of learning a language is participating in a context where the target language is used. Producing the target language by participating in activities designed with an objective to learn and effectively use target language is the primary aim of TBLL. The ‘tasks’ could be further defined as any job undertaken by somebody for himself or for other people. It can be buying a ticket, reserving a seat in the theatre and similar other jobs anybody does in his or her everyday life, personally or professionally. Watching a play and later enacting it is an example of a pedagogical task. Practicing or doing variety of tasks will enhance the language competence of the learners. Language is practiced for learning communication and not for the sake of the language.
Tasks can be carried out individually, in a pair or as a group activity. Learners have to invent, find out or guess the meaning and they cannot depend on meanings provided by others. The tasks which are given to the learners should be authentic and similar to real life situations. In the context of TBLL, prominence should be given not only to the successful completion of the task but also to the language enhancement of the learners.
Literature Review
There are many methods of vocabulary instruction exist in the current day context of vocabulary acquisition. However, how well students can retain the new words they have encountered and apply them in the day to day communication is important. This is where the concept of retention comes into play. Understanding how students retain and then use new words is critical for teachers to recognize and then apply in student learning tasks. The level at which students understand, recall, and store words is an essential piece of teacher knowledge.
To retain the words there are different strategies for retention might be necessary, although the position could be taken that avoiding inferring and disrupting conditions and refreshing storage by appropriate reacquisition or review activities are the general strategies.
Joe (1995) argued that the retention of unfamiliar words was significantly facilitated when students engaged in a text-based task that demanded a higher level of generativity. Similarly, Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) demonstrated that EFL students who participated in a composition task could retain target words better than those engaged in reading comprehension or fill-in task, which suggests that students who were involved in higher levels of vocabulary production-processing remembered target words better than those who were not. Plass, Chun, Mayer, and Leutner (1998) stated that students remembered unknown words better when provided with both pictorial and written annotations than when provided with only one kind or no annotation.
According to Rod Ellis (2003), a task is like a real work activity, which involves learners in productive oral and written skills like any other language learning process. However, students should acquire grammatical knowledge, while being involved in a task.
Task-Based Vocabulary Retention Strategies in the General English Classroom:
Research Design:
- Identifying the students for the experiment
- Identifying the problems in retaining words based on the responses of the students
- Designing and administering three different activities to address the identified problems based on retention
- Graphically representing and analyzing the performance of the students in each activity
Subjects and Instruments:
This study was carried out in an autonomous college in the central part of Tamil Nadu, India. This is an Arts and Science college where English is being taught as a second language. The English course which is offered during the first four semesters of a six-semester undergraduate degree programme focuses on four basic language skills namely Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (LSRW). For the purpose of this research work, 40 students of I year B.Com programme were used as subjects. The researcher was the course instructor of the class thus; the accuracy and validation of the study were ensured.
The intervention lasted for 25 sessions (55 minutes each). During the experiment, students were administered with two questionnaires, one before the students were given activities on retention strategies to identify the problems they face in retaining words, and the other after the activities to measure the impact of the activities on the students in terms of improvement in retention capacity.
This study focuses on task-based vocabulary retention strategies that help students retain words for a longer period of time or forever here, the researcher has adopted three different activities to help students to retain the learned words. Each activity focuses on ten words. All the three task-based vocabulary retention strategy activities are designed based on the words and contexts in the textbook prescribed to the students. Task-based vocabulary retention strategy activities are as follows:
1. Word Association.
2. Connections.
3. Word Link
Word Association
This is a matching activity where students associate the words in column A with the words in column B. The search for meaning doesn’t stop with identifying a word with similar meaning or with what the dictionary says, but goes beyond that. A word conveys different meanings depending on where it is used and with what it is associated with. For example, the words like mike, speakers, mob, and so on convey meaning. But when these words are associated in a particular context, ideas like educating, canvassing, promising and so on could be arrived at. This activity also helps in retaining the associated words. Students, after adequate practice, could use words in different context and go beyond the fixed meaning they convey. The following is a sample word association activity:
Table No. 01 (Look at the bottom of page)
This activity could be inferred that the performance of the students is consistent. Even though the range of the score is between 8 and 10, the performance seems to be consistent as the students who have scored 8 on 10 is fewer. The average score of the students in this activity is 9.1.
This activity was based on producing language associating the given words with an appropriate context. According to the students, this activity helped them in retaining the words better. They could remember the words for a longer period of time, and some of the students recalled a few words during the feedback session.
Connections
Images play a vital role in the process of vocabulary learning and retention. This is an activity where students were exposed to a series of images placed in a particular order which implies a word or a phrase. Students have to understand the images and also the sequence in with they are placed and identify the word or phrase they imply. This design was adopted from certain reality shows on the television. This was an effective activity as it motivated the students to participate in the learning.
Table No. 02 (Look at the bottom of page)
This was another activity in which the performance of the students is appreciable. The marks range between 8 and 10, and the average score in the activity is 9.12. Students could better relate with the activity as this was modeled based on a popular TV reality show named similarly. Another interesting element of this activity which was noticed during the sessions was peer learning. The students who could not identify the words were helped by their peers.
Table No. 03 (Look at the bottom of page)
Word Link
This activity was derived from the smartphone game called Word Link for android phones. Students have to guess different words within the given letters. This is an effective activity to help students learn new words and also, retain them. Students in course of doing this activity, recall all the words they have learned to arrive at the correct answer. This helps them to remember the words for a longer duration. The following is a sample of this activity:
Table No. 04 (Look at the bottom of page)
The marks scored by the students in this activity. The scores range between 8 and 10 which show that the performance of the students is significant. The average score of the students in this activity is 9.05.
Table No. 05 (Look at the bottom of page)
During the feedback session, students reported that this activity was one of the most interesting and engaging one because they could relate this to the mobile game which is named similarly.
The following are the major finding of this study:
- In the vocabulary acquisition sessions, the focus is on the learning of new vocabulary and not on the retention of those words. Therefore, the results of this study have proved the importance of retention strategies in vocabulary acquisition.
- The incorporation of these vocabulary based retention strategies is effective and students willingly participate when they are in the form of activities.
- In this study, three activities were designed by the researcher. All the three activities focus on helping students retain the new words they come across in the textbook. These activities were designed to facilitate students to work individually and also in groups. Based on the analysis it is evident that student participation and outcome are effective in the activities based on images.
Conclusion:
Forty ESL students drawn from the 1st year B.Com department were administered a questionnaire based on their information about vocabulary learning and retention. Based on the responses of the students, the problems in terms of retention were identified. To cater to the problem identified, ten retention based vocabulary activities were designed for the students to participate. The outcomes and results of the students were tabulated and analyzed. It was identified that these activities were effective in terms of developing their retention and also, vocabulary learning skills. To get a clear picture of their understanding of the activities and the impact of those activities on the retention skills of the students, another questionnaire was administered to the students after the completion of those activities. The analysis of the questionnaire established the validity of the experimental study.
Works cited:
- Craik, F. & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 103(3), 268-294.
- Ellis, R (2003). Task-based language teaching: sorting out the misunderstandings. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 221-246.
- Hulstijn, J.H., & Laufer, B. (2001). Some empirical evidence for the involvement load
- hypothesis in vocabulary acquisition. Language Learning, 51, 539-558.
- Joe, A. (1995). Text-based tasks and incidental vocabulary learning. Second Language Research,
- learning preferences in a second language multimedia learning environment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 25-36.
- Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Plass, J.L., Chun, D.M., Mayer, R.E., & Leutner, D. (1998). Supporting visual and verbal 11, 149-158.
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