The Role of Vocabulary in ESP Teaching and Learning

Wu Jiangwen & Wang Binbin

Guangdong College of Finance

Introduction

It’s known to most second language learners that the acquisition of

vocabulary is a fundamental and important component in the course of their learning. A

good mastery of vocabulary is essential for ESL/ EFL learners, especially for those who

learn for specific purposes or expect to operate at an advanced level in English. ‘It is wise

to direct vocabulary learning to more specialized areas when learners have mastered the

2000------3000 words of general usefulness in English’ (Nation, 2001:187). In order to

have easy access to the specialized uses of vocabulary, learners need to learn and be

taught judgment about vocabulary and its use such as, different types of vocabulary,

which words are worth focusing on and at what time, during class or independent study

time, etc. It is useful for both teachers and learners to become aware of these points,

which will be discussed in this article. Specifically, I will focus on four parts, namely,

types of vocabulary, the type of vocabulary ESP teachers should teach, how ESP teachers

select vocabulary to teach, and teaching and learning vocabulary.

1. Types of vocabulary

In teaching and learning vocabulary, it’s essential to distinguish between

different types of vocabulary because different types of vocabulary need different focus

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and treatment or some types of vocabulary will be given priorities and emphases in

teaching and learning according to learners’ different aims of learning.

1）Spoken and written vocabulary

Although most of the existing literature on vocabulary has grown out of the

study of written texts, recent corpus-based investigation of written and spoken vocabulary

have enabled us to do more comparative study of spoken and written vocabulary in actual

use. They reveal the difference between the vocabulary of written texts and the

vocabulary of everyday spoken language. According to Cambridge International Corpus

(CIC) written data and spoken data, (Schmitt and McCarthy, 1997:24) the written list is

mainly made up of function words, non-lexical, i.e, non-content items, including

pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions, while the spoken list seems to embrace some

lexical words like ‘ know, think, well, get and right’. Other differences are: spoken texts

seem less ‘dense’ than most written texts in vocabulary terms, which is characterized in

language-in-action texts; repetition and lexical negotiation occur much more often in

spoken discourse than in written texts; vague and rather general words are more

frequently used in everyday talk than in written texts.

These differences are quite significant when we consider what kinds of

vocabulary items are important to teach in writing and in speech respectively. From the

comparative study, we now know that ‘ spoken language is the main source of exposure

to language for communication but written language will always remain a fundamental

source of input for language learning.’ (Schmitt and McCarthy, 1997: 38)

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2）Core and non-core vocabulary

As the word ‘core’ suggests, core vocabulary refers to those words that are more

central to the language than other words and tend to be the most frequently occurring

ones. ‘People prefer to use such words because they do have core meaning-potential’

(McCarthy, 1990). They are thought to be more ‘core’ because it is easy to find an

antonym, also they are neutral in formality and usable in a wide variety of situations.

Furthermore, an important point is that such words can be used to paraphrase or give

definitions of other words. For example, in Task 41, (McCarthy,1990) the following

instruction is given:[decide which is the core word in the set of words: slim, slender, thin,

emaciated and scrawny and we can easily figure out that ‘thin’ is the core word.]

In ESP teaching, we may come across subject-specific vocabulary, which is

non-core as far as the language as a whole is concerned. ‘This is because it is not neutral

in field and is associated with a specialized topic.’ (Carter, 1988:172)

They are subject-specific core vocabulary, for example, placebo and dialysis. Learners

with specific or academic purposes may need to acquire them in medical texts and

lessons.

3）Discourse structuring vocabulary and procedual vocabulary

In English vocabulary, there exist a number of abstract nouns that have little

independent lexical content like assumption, variety, solution, proposal and factor. Their

main function is to structure discourse, that is, to summarize or encapsulate previously

mentioned ideas and link one sentence to the next. These abstract nouns are also called

‘anaphoric nouns’ and belong to discourse structuring vocabulary. They are quite

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commonly used in expository academic prose and in newspaper articles. Therefore, it’s

important and necessary for second language learners, particularly, those who learn

English for academic purposes to be familiar with these words.

Procedual vocabulary is characteristically used to talk about other words,

paraphrase them, define them and organize them in communication. As they are

commonly used in dictionaries to give definitions, learners may find them useful when

learning other words for the accumulation of their vocabulary.

4）Technical, semi-technical and general vocabulary

In terms of teaching vocabulary in ESP, it’s most important to make a

distinction between the two types of vocabulary: technical and semi-technical because

they are of great importance to learners studying English for specific and academic

purposes. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 83) suggest resolving the overlapping six

categories (Baker,1988: 91) into two broad areas:

a). vocabulary that is used in general language but has a higher frequency of

occurrence in specific and technical description and discussion.

b). vocabulary that has specialized and restricted meanings in certain disciplines and

which may vary in meaning across disciplines.

It’s quite clear that the first area would be referred to as semi-technical and the

second area would be regarded as technical vocabulary. We can examine the following

text to illustrate the difference between them.

We report a double blind, placebo controlled, crossover trial of an angiotensin

converting enzyme inhibitor, enalapril, in patients with chronic fluid overload receiving

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dialysis. We used a crossover study and carried out procedures within the study

according to the standard of the ethics committee of this hospital. Each patient was given

either enalapril or placebo in the first period of treatment and the alternative treatment

in the second period; the order in which treatment was given was randomized, 13

patients receiving enalapril and 12 placebos first. Randomization was carried out by

suppliers of the drug.( Ferguson, G. 2002: course handouts)

The technical vocabulary is quite obvious. The items are: angiotensin, enzyme

inhibitor, enalapril, chronic, dialysis and placebo.

The semi-technical vocabulary items are as follows: report, double blind,

control, crossover, trial, convert, fluid, overload, receive, study, carry out, procedure,

standard period treatment, randomize, randomization, supplier and drug.

5）Academic vocabulary

So far, there have been several studies that have investigated the vocabulary

learners need for academic study. The most useful one is the Academic Word List

(Coxhead, 1998), which was compiled from a corpus of 3.5 million running words of

written academic text by examining the range and frequency of words outside the first

2000 most frequent occurring words of English, as described in General Service List

(GSL) by West. (1953). It contains 570 word families that occur reasonably frequently o

a very wide range of academic texts and the list is not restricted to a specific discipline,

which means that the words are useful for learners studying humanities, law, science, and

commerce. There is a number beside each word indicating the sub list in which it appears

and it’s quite convenient to look up.

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2. Which vocabulary type should the ESP teacher teach?

According to Hutchinson and Waters, (1987) ESP should be seen as an

approach to language teaching, which is directed by specific and apparent reasons for

learning. Nowadays most of the second language learners who are attending UK or US

universities learn English not for general purposes but for specific purposes. Their

specific and apparent reason for learning English is for academic purposes and their

academic study will involve specialized areas across different disciplines in physical

sciences as well as in social sciences. The aim of their vocabulary acquisition is surely

academic vocabulary.

1）Rationale

As we can see from above, learners who will do academic study in English

must focus on academic vocabulary which is variously known as ‘general useful

scientific vocabulary’ (Barber,1962) and ‘semi-technical vocabulary’( Farrell,1990),

because they need to exhibit a wide range of academic skills like reading about research

papers in their own fields, listening to teachers speak about their work, writing academic

papers and presenting oral or written evaluations of methods or results in many cases.

With its importance shown here, academic vocabulary or semi-technical

vocabulary should be given priority in teaching by ESP teachers because, according to

Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:83), this type of vocabulary is used in general life

contexts but has a higher frequency of occurrence in scientific and technical descriptions

and discussions. Again, we will examine the above given text. ESP teachers should teach

learners general vocabulary that has a higher frequency in a scientific field such as:

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. academic: trial, study, standard, ethics ,period and order

. medicine: overload, procedure, chronic, treatment, fluid and drug

. verbs: report, control, convert, receive, give and randomize

．collocations: carry out

2）The issue of teaching technical vocabulary

It is often claimed that it is not the job of the ESP teachers to teach technical

vocabulary ( Barber,1964; Higgins,1966; Cowan, 1974). In general, we agree it is not but

it may be the duty of ESP teachers to teach technical vocabulary in certain circumstances.

a. beyond the duty of ESP teachers

A technical word is one that is recognizably specific to a particular topic, field

or discipline. It’s likely that they can only be learned and understood by studying the field.

Such words are considered to be the responsibility of the subject teachers. Strevens

(1973:223) claims ‘that learners who know the scientific field may have little difficulty

with technical words; but a teacher who doesn’t may have a great deal.’ We can examine

the examples in the given text. Technical words like enzyme, dialysis and placebo

are specialized words in the field of medicine, which are quite easy for a student studying

medicine but it’s a different matter for ESP teachers. There are some other technical

words that are quite familiar to learners (even if learners are not studying the specific

discipline to which the technical words belong) because the words are widely, even

internationally, known. Some very frequently occurring words in computer science, such

as browser, program, log, hypertext and internet, are quite familiar to learners.

b. in need of teachers’ guidance

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 In spite of the claims that teaching technical vocabulary is not the job of ESP

teachers, there may be several circumstances in which ESP teachers should offer timely

help. Firstly, when learners are reading specialized texts with a large number of unknown

technical words which cannot be ignored by learners because of their close connection

with the topic being discussed, ESP teachers now need to help the learners to decide

which words are worth focusing on. Secondly, when doing ESP exercises exploiting a

particular context with certain technical vocabulary, ‘it is important that both the teacher

and the learners appreciate that this vocabulary is acting as carrier content for an

exercise and it is not the real content of the exercise.’ (Dudley-Evans and St

John,1998:81). Thirdly, ESP teachers may help learners when learners find it a bit

difficult to deal with the general words used as technical words. For instance, wall in

biology, and resistance in electronics. Fourthly, if a technical word is not cognate with

the equivalent term in the student’s native language, the teacher will have to give some

explanations and introductions to the vocabulary to be learned. Fifthly, usually there is a

one-to-one relationship between the terms in English and the learners’ L1, but sometimes

when there is absence of one-to-one explanation, the teacher should check whether

learners have fully understood the term and give them guidance in the use of technical

dictionaries or such sources. Lastly, it is possible that difficulty with the pronunciation of

some technical words could lead to poor memorizing of the words. ESP teachers can be

of great help in this respect.

3. Selection of vocabulary for teaching

Preparing the vocabulary component of a language course, teachers should

have the basic words to refer to and ‘they need to judge whether a particular word

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deserves attention or not’ (Nation, Warring, 1997). Given description of word lists

suggest that large vocabulary word lists as the major source of vocabulary learning are

preferable in the teaching and learning of the English vocabulary.

1）Word lists at an early stage

Word lists mentioned are of great help because they are derived from different

corpora developed from millions of words, for example, GSL (West, 1953), UWL

(University Word List)(Xue and Nation, 1984) and AWL (Academic Word List)

(Coxhead, 1998). They are high utility general academic words profitable to EAP

students. The facts about word lists show that they can not only help teachers to select

those words worth attention and teaching but also enable learners to have a systematic

study of academic words they need for academic purposes.

2）Awareness of criteria in selection

It’s a good start to refer to word lists when teachers prepare a vocabulary

teaching programme for the learners. However, it is not motivating to utilize the word

lists mechanically. Some criteria should be taken into account when words are selected

for teaching.

Firstly, the word lists must contain words that are representative of the varieties

of words they are intended to reflect. For example, if we are to teach vocabulary of

speech, we must first make sure that the word list we select for teaching should be based

on the corpora with spoken data which show the representativeness of the words to be

taught or learned.

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 Secondly, the words selected should occur across a range of different text

types. The occurrence of a word in a wide range of text types will be beneficial to

learners who major in different subject areas for academic purposes.

Thirdly, special concern should be shown to some vocabulary items with multi-

units whose meaning are not deducible from the meaning of the individual words. For

example, so far, good morning, all right, etc. They should be regarded as a whole and

included in the teaching list.

3）The use of concordances

The use of concordances in selecting words is a good way to promote

vocabulary learning because of several advantages. Learners can meet the vocabulary in

real contexts with a variety of aspects of knowing a word including collocates,

grammatical patterns, word family members, related meanings and homonyms presented.

‘The use of concordances can challenge the learners to actively construct generalizations,

note-patterns and exceptions’ ( Nation, 2001:111).

4. Teaching and learning vocabulary

Considering the complexity of the vocabulary learning task, it is impossible

for the teachers to give explicit teaching of all vocabulary to learners. Besides, learners

can be encouraged to learn how to continue to acquire vocabulary after elemental level of

vocabulary teaching. ‘This not only makes the learner more responsible for his own

learning but also permits greater attention to individual needs’ (Gairns and Redman,

1993:76). Since individual learning of vocabulary will benefit learners, it is necessary for

teachers to encourage learners to develop their own vocabulary learning strategies among

which guessing strategies, dictionary strategies and memory strategies (Gu and

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Johnson,1996) are mainly accepted. Learners can be directed and trained to develop these

strategies in their independent study time. The following are some learning and teaching

strategies:

1) Contextual guessing

Contextual guesswork means inferring meaning from clues in the context.

There are three ways of doing this. Firstly, learners should be explained the theory behind

‘guessing’, in other words, guess through incidental and intentional reading. Secondly,

the proportion of unknown words to be guessed in the text; learners should know 90% of

the words in the text. Finally, what can be learned from the context; in other words, learn

the part of speech of the word, its collocation and the various forms the word can take.

2) Memorizing

Memory strategies involve relating the word to be retained with some

previously learned knowledge------that is facilitating the storage and retrieval of words.

As Nattinger (1988) observes ‘words in our mental lexicon are tied to each other not only

by meaning form and sound but also by sight.’ This said, visualization is a useful aid in

fixing words in memory.

3) Affixes learning

Another popular strategy for learners to develop is the knowledge of affixes.

In English vocabulary, there is a relatively small group of very useful accessible affixes

that can be introduced to learners when learners are at appropriate levels of their language

development. For example, low intermediate learners may start with affixes like, --able,--

er,--ish, non--, un-- etc. An important point in being independent is to recognize the

learner’s own style of learning and find their own ways of expanding and organizing their

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word stores. Whatever vocabulary strategies are in use, learners must feel these are the

right for them. In the meantime, teachers may help the student develop a personal plan

that best suits his/her vocabulary learning.

Independent vocabulary learning strategies are absolutely necessary and useful

strategies to be developed by learners themselves in spite of some drawbacks. But we

cannot ignore the fact that individual learners have different styles of acquiring

unfamiliar vocabulary or they are not at the same level of the proficiency in English.

Therefore, it is worthwhile for teachers to teach vocabulary explicitly considering these

factors. Explicit teaching can be carried out through teacher instruction or classroom

activities. We should pay much attention to the two operative points when preparing

teaching and classroom activities:

4) Repetition and recycling a word:

Because there is such a lot to learn about a word, one meeting is not at all

sufficient. Following Richards’ ‘knowing a word statement’ (1976), knowing a word

covers widely, which includes its occurrence, spelling, derivation, appropriateness in

different situations and word associations. Only by meeting it repeatedly can learners

develop a full understanding of its use and meaning.

5) Relating the word in reality:

The use of visual images in the classroom is highly appreciated in vocabulary

teaching ‘because it gives some idea that it is easier to conjure up a mental image of a

concrete item than an abstract one’ (Gairns and Redman,1993). It is better to try to

imagine the new words by using wall charts, flashcards and pictures.

With everything considered, ‘the most effective way for students to increase

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 their active vocabulary store is for them to be centrally involved in the learning process’

(Jordan, 1997:162). This may be under the direction of a teacher, doing group work with

other students, or during independent study time, as we have just discussed.

6) Brainstorming activities

Doing brainstorming activities is another way to learn or accumulate learner’s

vocabulary. It generally refers to brainstorming associations that a word has and then

diagramming the results. For example, when asked to give words learners thought of

when they heard the word ‘bank’, most learners would generate a number of words and

phrases: money, account, deposit, accountant, invest, loan, debit, counter, credit card,

book-keeping etc.

Then they can cluster these words together that they think go together.

Conclusion

Having discussed the five parts of vocabulary teaching and learning, we may

conclude that the teaching and learning of vocabulary, although it is only one sub-goal of

a range of goals that is important in second language learning, plays a key role in the

overall structure of the language teaching program because of its basic functions in the

language components. It is highly important for learners, especially learners with specific

or academic purposes to make distinctions between all types of the English vocabulary

and it is also important for ESP teachers to make the best selection of the types of

vocabulary to be taught with the semi-technical vocabulary prior to other types in

teaching. To some extent, ESP teachers may pay less attention to technical vocabulary, in

that they are so technical in a particular field or a discipline. It is encouraging for a

learner to be independent of acquiring in his/her second language learning as the most

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appropriate way in learning can usually bring best result. To sum up, every possible

means should be tried to comply with vocabulary development in second language

teaching and learning.

References

Barber, C.L (1962) ‘Some measurable characteristics of modern scientific prose’

In contribution to English syntax and philology (21—43) Goteburg: Acta Universitatis

Gothoburgensis

Baker, M (1988) Sub-technical vocabulary and the ESP teacher: an analysis of some

rhetorical items in medical journal articles. Reading in a Foreign Language, 4: 91---105

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

London and New York: Longman

Cowan, J. R. (1974) Lexical and Syntactic Research for the design of EFL reading

materials. TESOL Quarterly, 8: 389---400

Coxhead, A. (1998) Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34,2 : 213---238

Dudley-Evans, T. & St John, M, J. (1998) Developments in English for Specific purposes.

Cambridge: CUP

Ferguson, G. (2002) Handouts on Vocabulary in ESP for MA Applied Linguistic Course.

Gairns, R. & Redman, S. (1993) Working with Words. Cambridge: CUP

Hutchinson,T. and A, Waters (1987) English for Specific Purposes. Cambridge: CUP

Jorden, R, R. (1997) English for Academic Purposes. Cambridge: CUP

McCarthy, M. (1990) Vocabulary. Oxford: OUP

Nation, I, S, P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: CUP

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Nattinger, J. (1988) Some current trends in vocabulary teaching. In R. Carter and M.

McCarthy ( Eds) Vocabulary and Language Teaching. London: Longman

Schmitt, N. & McCarthy, M. (1997) Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy.

Cambridge: CUP

Strevens, P. (1973) ‘Technical, technological, and scientific English’,

ELT Journal 27, 223---234

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