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ЛИНГВИСТИКА И ПЕРЕВОД
VOCABULARY NOTEBOOKS Kozeta Hyso
Vocabulary notebooks are one way of promoting learner independence. Introducing vocabulary notebooks to provide the learners with an area of language learning where they could be given a relatively high level of independence that would build their confidence in their ability to act independently in terms of vocabulary learning. This article is focused on the effectiveness of keeping the vocabulary notebooks to empower the learner’s independence on their foreign language learning and also to employ the necessary techniques and means to enhance creativity and innovation in their curriculum. One way of achieving this is to have them keep vocabulary notebooks. Possible outcomes are considered, particularly in terms of the development of the study skills and cognitive strategies necessary for independent learning. These do not replace other forms of vocabulary learning, such as extensive reading. Learning implicitly through task work, or explicit classroom vocabulary exercises.
Keywords: Vocabulary, notebooks, instructed vocabulary learning, task-based learning, independence, task-based activities, task performance
Having been interested in the field of lexicology, I have always been concerned on training students to learn and store new vocabulary effectively. There are two reasons that make me write this article, the first one is the absolute absence of vocabulary instructions in our own curriculum and the second one is the failure to leave a specific classroom time devoted directly to learning and training vocabulary. In this matter, my article will focus on maintaining the vocabulary notebook which has been a very well-known practice to us, but indeed it has remained as a “good advice” doing nothing to put seriously in the practical order.
From my experience and to many teachers, students rarely attach importance to organizing their vocabulary learning systematically. During our daily practice we find that students still continue to note the new lexical items they encounter in the back of their books or any kind of note-
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book mostly one-to-one translation without any specific order. Very few students experience it practically.
I m a fervent believer that vocabulary learning should be central to the language program, and that our learners need help developing the necessary skills for processing and learning new lexical items. I guess that little has been written about what are benefits of a good vocabulary notebook and at least how it is constructed to play the most efficient role in enhancing the knowledge of the new lexical items. Recently in Albania we encountered with this concept that keeping the vocabulary notebook is an out of date practice. That was because models of language learning were based mainly on the directions that the teacher gave in the class and also this concept involved teaching vocabulary which were considered to be as something old fashioned too. But with the new rush of technology and its help in facilitation of the foreign languages learning, the interest has fallen under the influence of computing TECH because people neglect this method of work of keeping the dictionary. But I think the need for building and using the vocabulary notebook is still necessary.
So at a time when the area of vocabulary is experiencing a resurgence of interest, effective vocabulary learning strategies are particularly interesting. I see vocabulary notebooks teaching from the perspective of the learner’s curriculum developer and then the teacher. The use of vocabulary notebooks in a school language curriculum that I am advocating would therefore seem to provide the learners develop self-management and improve future learning that might aid the development of their metacognitive skills in particular.
Students feel motivated to plan their own learning from the very beginning and also to make the choice which has to do with an organization of their notebook. In this way they feel free to set goals for their vocabulary acquisition. Wenden (op. cit.: 21)1, is expressed Vocabulary notebooks utilize the vast majority of cognitive strategies outlined including ‘deduction’, ‘defining’, ‘resourcing’ (expanding on meaning), ‘elaboration’, ‘contextualization’, grouping’, ‘note-taking’, ‘translation’, ‘imagery’, ‘key word’ (recognition by association), ‘repetition’ (silent/verbal), ‘recombination’ (of language into meaningful sentences), ‘inferencing’, and ‘transfer’ (of knowledge to other linguistic tasks). I think it’s hard to find another area of language learning, which so comprehensively inte-
1 Wenden, A. 1991. Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy. Hemel Hepstead: Prentice Hall.
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grates such a large number of cognitive strategies. While keeping vocabulary notebooks we realize two aims:
1. Acquisition of new lexical items by taking various vocabulary notes , practicing and storing them into the memory which lead to enhancing vocabulary retention specifically and also language awareness in general and the :
2. Prompting learner’s autonomy through letting them choose words independently and creatively as well.
The studies relationship between learning and creativity has long been established in numerous research studies. I lead a spontaneous investigation in a center of foreign language learning among a group of learners who practice keeping the vocabulary notebook in the learning process ,they were 26 out of 42 students . Besides the advantages that I just mentioned ahead it was interesting what I guess:
First the large portion of the words were chosen from textbook , leaflets, magazines and almost none of them from dialogues or conversations or even from listening rubrics .They were almost neglected.
The problem with that is that besides using the textbooks which introduces them to some concrete words which are of limited use in communicative process otherwise they limited themselves toward those words which are more practical and usable in colloquial English ( dialogue, conversations) In this point there is a need of instruction from the teacher.
The second problem, which follows from the first, is that most of these 26 students dealing with vocabulary notebook regarded as the most “useful words” those which do not belong to the 3000 most frequent English lexicon. Consequently, students spent much of their time on learning words which are of little use. Still there is a need for instruction from the teacher .The last problem is that students neglect to record collocations. They tend to be focused on the individual words just ignoring the importance of these collocations in English language. Teacher instruction is very useful in this case. In addition to it, students must give the same importance each class of words noun verb adjective and even adverbs too. All of these will be improved through the teacher. However, sometimes these notebooks may mislead language learners.
I see with great interest the practical suggestions of (Schmitt & Schmitt) in “Vocabulary notebooks theoretical underpinnings and practical suggestions”.
The following eleven principles need to be considered when designing any vocabulary programme. Most come from general memory research
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(reviewed by Baddeley 1990),2 while others have been developed by language researchers:
1. The best way to remember new words is to incorporate them into language that is already known
2. Organized material is easier to learn
3. Words which are very similar should not be taught at the same time Although organization can facilitate learning. teaching words together which are too similar can be counter-productive..
4. Word pairs can be used to learn a great number of words in a shorter time
5. Knowing a word entails more than just knowing its meaning
6. The deeper the mental processing used when learning a word, the more likely that a student will remember it
7. The act of recalling a word makes it more likely that a learner will be able to recall it again later
8. Learners must pay close attention in order to learn most effectively
9. Words need to be recycled to be learnt
10. An efficient recycling method: the ‘expanding rehearsal
11. Learners are individuals and have different learning styles
Vocabulary notebook, as a tool for teachers to be integrated in to various kinds of activities
Teachers may plan a lot of activities by putting in use the vocabulary notebook. For instance having students listen to a story and list how many new words they heard, they must write them down in their notebook and after this process the teacher tries to explain to them just by using the versions of synonyms not using the native translation for each word, in this way the teacher puts in use their own memory and also makes them more flexible in checking out the right meaning for each word.
Students must be given some classroom activities for instance to write a short story using the new lexical items from their vocabulary notebooks .It would be better to determine the number of words per story .
Also the teacher may focus on three letters of the alphabet and wants to know how many new words they added to their notebooks, after this they instruct students to break them into their roots and affixes and also to find out the possible collocations for each. It may continue with forming sentences for each word or collocation formed.
2 Baddeley, A. 1990. Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Needham Heights. MA: Allyn and Bacon.
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For each activity the teacher must regard individual differences, desires, personalities thus to attempt to allow them some voice in the curriculum, as well as to teach them how to learn independently.
Creating a need for the new words
When dealing with vocabulary. Allen (1983: 9-10)3 suggests that teachers should create a need for new words if they want them to be learnt. One way of doing this is to let students pick the words they want to study (Gairns and Redman 1986: 55-7: McCarthy 1990: 90).4 This fits in with the general recommendation that teachers should not be too prescriptive when teaching learning strategies. Another way is that the teacher must direct them towards an interesting text which bears some of the most practical words. It means that it will prompt the will to check them and find their meaning. The need to know the meaning of the interesting story and through it enhancing the vocabulary knowledge .In this process it is to be aware that there may well be as many different learning backgrounds as there are participants. Each person will come with their own experiences, feelings and attitudes, which are likely to surface during a course. Some participants may not be willing or used to discussing these new lexical items. People may have come from a learning environment where they are not asked to provide the diversity of information, or to absorb these words through different forms but simply to absorb it. They may not be used to giving their own opinion, or since students may have diverse learning styles, or simply different ways in which they like to study, the best teaching plan may be to introduce students to a variety of learning strategies and techniques and then let them decide for themselves which ones they prefer.
Variety of tasks leads to enhancing the vocabulary knowledge and prompt creativity.
Due to the strategies outlined by Schmitt 5 many must be built into the implementation of vocabulary notebooks in our education program. Additionally, it’s our task to use diversity of practices since we don’t know for certain how different learners are likely to carry out a task. One practical way is to be focus on meaning and looking for meaning will help
3 Allen, V. F. 1983. Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4 Gairns, R. and S. Redman. 1986. Working With Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5 Schmitt, N. and D. Schmitt. 1995. ‘Vocabulary notebooks: theoretical underpinnings and practical suggestions’. ELT Journal
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them with grammatical form. One way of dealing with this tendency is to sensitize learners to their own learning processes by adding to the curriculum a learning strategy dimension. Eventually, it should be possible for learners to make choices about what to do and how to do it. This of course implies a major change in the roles assigned to learners and teachers. By using a certain task as a basic unit of learning, and by incorporating a focus on strategies, we suggest to the students the possibility that our goal will also be learner’s goal too. However, there are some statements that, while we as teachers are focusing on one thing, learners are focusing on other things. We cannot be sure, then, that learners will not look for grammatical patterns when taking part in activities of planning and monitoring their own learning, and begin to break down some of the traditional hierarchies. Kinds of strategies used are : selecting and studding the word from the angle of different representation, explaining the meaning of it just in the target language, using its own synonym while necessary, connecting the word to synonyms and antonyms, grouping words together, using semantic maps, using clines for gradable adjectives, using new variants of the words in a sentence, studying the spelling of it , studying parts of speech, finding their own collocations if it is possible and paraphrasing the words meaning. It doesn’t mean that the teacher and learner will view the same task in the same way because it is also important to look at the outcomes in terms of enhancing learner independence.
It is difficult to think of another area of language learning, accessible to mainly low-level language learners, which so comprehensively integrates such a large number of cognitive strategies. At all stages, negotiation between facilitators and learners is encouraged. We may put in use all the factors that take part in discourse. They are physical environment (school, office, city, village field etc.), psychological environment (intention and behavior), social characteristics of the participants in discourse etc. It means using creativity. Creativity can be regarded as not only a quality found in exceptional individuals, but also as an essential life skill through which people can develop their potential to use their imagination to express themselves and subsequently to enhance their linguistic awareness. What is desired are creative students who have purpose for learning, know how and when to question, who recognize when more information is needed and the type of knowledge which is required, know how to find and organize information, and who can generate and evaluate a number of alternatives to human problems. It is the teacher who can prepare these kinds of students. The teacher will be able to deal with these issues
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successfully and employ the necessary techniques and means to enhance creativity and innovation in their curriculum. Learning is seen as a collaborative enterprise. Any approach must consider the context in which it is to be used and consequently the possible reaction of learners to the methodology.
Vocabulary notebooks also provide opportunities for developing selfmanagement strategies. Students are involved in the planning of their own learning from the very beginning, when they are involved in making choices about the organization of their notebook, and the way the new lexical are made. As well as this, learners are involved in setting goals for their own vocabulary learning/acquisition. The selection of items to include in the notebook also requires them to monitor their present knowledge and to make choices and decisions about which words to include, depending on their own perceived needs. In the educational setting, an environment that fosters the creativity should include the following components: allowing time for creative thinking, encouraging sensible risk, allowing mistakes, imagining other view points, exploring the environments to find out new words, questioning assumptions (Stenberg and Williams, 1996). Finally, step by step they manage to evaluate the quality and usefulness of their own entries, as they refer back to them and compare them to others. In this case one of the best ways to represent them is through a certain text created imaginatively by them just using the new words. Some teachers used examples of ‘good’ tasks (text created) as a model for other learners to use in improving their task. At the same time, learners begin to develop a more critical awareness of their own preferred learning styles, having been given choices over, how to organize their vocabulary notebooks. Various types of metacognitive knowledge are explicitly introduced during the implementation of vocabulary notebooks. Students become aware of what tasks are involved, and how they should go about them. They then become sensitized to which strategies work best for them individually, and which they find more fulfilling or enjoyable. Generally, they become more aware of what vocabulary learning involves, and more active in the learning process. The fact that they also become more tolerant in dealing with ambiguity in language promotes their long-term independence, and increased self-confidence.
As the students’ attitudes towards themselves as learners evolve, they are able to see that there are various alternatives to the teacher-dependent mode of learning. This increases their self-esteem, and enables them to value their individual strengths as learners. The change in attitude seems
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particularly important for all age groups, as they are generally self-conscious, and concerned about improving language awareness The tasks and strategies involved in using vocabulary notebooks seems to assist in building their confidence as language learners. Individual vocabulary notebooks encourage students to strengthen their word knowledge and internalize meaning for use throughout their lives. Definitions provided from the dictionaries do not promote sufficient learning. They are often not written in “conversational language” and students are unable to internalize meaning. Colloquial language and nonlinguistic representations of the word are much more effective. The teacher can either assign specific vocabulary or direct students to identify unknown, confusing, or intriguing words from their reading. Models designed for the vocabulary notebooks are different.
Research has shown that it is much easier to remember words in context than in simple lists.
Keeping vocabulary in the file on the computer.
I advocate the idea of keeping vocabulary words in a file on the computer. Pedagogical advice tends to promote students to use all concern pens and paper rather than computer-based procedures. This is for the simple fact that teachers themselves are not trained enough in these kinds of procedures. But seen from a learners view it is much more practical in this new area of computational technology where students seem to be more familiar with it and more flexible in using it. Now a day’s computers are regarded as an essential study tool, as e-dictionaries start to provide word list facilities their potential should not be ignored.
Each day, students should make a vocabulary list of unknown words found while reading. At the end of the reading, students will be expected to make vocabulary entries into their computational notebooks. The notebook should be arranged in an index card binder, or on cards which are kept in a box. The advantage of these formats over traditional bound notebooks is that the word list items must be grouped under titles decided by the users. They can be renamed, deleted, and printed too. Learners can add synonyms and antonyms written differently. They may note connotations and collocations where it is necessary. Pages can be taken out and moved around to facilitate expanding rehearsal. In addition, this arrangement allows words to be organized into groups, which can make learning easier. Cohen (1990: 35-6)6 proposes several word-grouping possibilities,
6 Cohen, A. D. 1990. Language Learning. New York: Newbury House.
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including topics, parts of speech, themes, speech acts and even separate sections for productive and receptive words. (see Gairns and Redman 1986: 69-71 for additional groupings.)7 However, it is best to avoid placing words which are very similar to each other in these groupings until they are known well enough not to be cross-associated.
Cards have an additional advantage in that their handy size makes them convenient to carry around and easy to study in odd minutes of free time. The pages or cards should be large enough to include the elaborate information it is suggested students add to their word listings.
- Some more ways in memorizing the new lexical items.
One way for memorizing the L2 words is writing the word pairs in the vocabulary notebook using the L1 translation for an L2 target word. They can initially practice it by looking at the L2 word and trying to remember its Ll translation.
As soon as possible, they should switch to an Ll-L2 word pair order to practice recalling the new word, because recall involves deeper processing than recognition.
Alternatively, it is better if students know an L2 synonym, they could use that instead of the Ll translation. Enriching once the word has been learnt from the Ll translation or L2 synonym, knowledge needs to be enriched with some of the other kinds of word knowledge, for example, the more common words with which it collocates. To facilitate this, the word card or page should be divided into sections, with each having enough space to write down a different aspect of the word knowledge. A wide variety of activities could be used in the different sections of which the following are only some of the possibilities.
One very useful way in helping students visualize the associative network of relationships which unity between the new words and those they already know. Hierarchical trees may achieve the same purpose more clearly for words which are part of a superordinate or subordinate structure. Students might also keep track of words that seem to collocate with the new word at a noticeably frequent rate. Roots and derivatives in the word’s ‘family’ can be learnt by studying what affixes are used to change its part of speech. Students might quickly sketch a keyboard illustration to prompt recall of the word.
Learning is fostered and facilitated thorough performing a series of activities as steps towards successful task realization. The focus is away
7 Gairns, R. and S. Redman. 1986. Working With Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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from learning language items in a non-contextualized vacuum to using language as a vehicle for authentic, real-world needs. By working towards task realization, the language is used immediately in the real-world context of the learner, making learning authentic. The language needed is not pre-selected and given to the learners who then practice it but rather it is drawn from the learners with help from the facilitator, to meet the demands of the activities and task, relies heavily on learners actively experimenting with their store of knowledge and using skills of deduction and independent language analysis to exploit the situation fully. In this example, the aim of the session is to work together.
As can be seen by the example, menus have to be discussed, food has to be bought and jobs allocated. The participants are prepared for the task, so that they will be aware of the language they need in order to carry it out successfully. In this approach, motivation for communication becomes the primary driving force. It places the emphasis on communicative fluency rather than the hesitancy borne of the pressure in more didactic approaches to produce unflawed utterances. Exposure to the target language should be in a naturally occurring context. This means that, if materials are used, they are not prepared especially for the language classroom, but are selected and adapted from authentic sources. In the adapted framework, the focus of attention is upon a final task. By promoting activities which encourage students to use the words they are learning, teachers can make them feel their notebooks are more than just an simple tool be able to recognize lication for teaching are clear, if we want our students
The implications for teaching are clear: If we want our students to be able to recognize and use the vocabulary words we teach them, vocabulary notebooks are a useful addition to the language classroom, particularly for motivated students. However, if students are not motivated, it may be that vocabulary notebooks should be included added part of the syllabus in order to be useful
Conclusions
In this study it has been demonstrated that the use of vocabulary notebooks was effective in enhancing vocabulary development, and that both teachers and students had positive attitudes to their use, as well as their inclusion in classroom activities. However, in this setting, it appears that students will only use vocabulary notebooks if their teacher requires them to. In addition, it was found that the implementation of vocabulary note-
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books requires that sufficient time be set aside in the curriculum to allow vocabulary notebooks to be incorporated into classroom activities.
Vocabulary notebooks have been advocated for many years, but their benefits have been largely descriptive or speculative. This study has demonstrated empirical support for those claims for the benefits of vocabulary notebooks in terms of vocabulary acquisition. The use of vocabulary notebooks enhances learner autonomy. This study has shown that vocabulary notebooks themselves may not be enough to promote learner autonomy, in the absence of appropriate motivation for language learning. However, it seems safe to say that, in the right setting, vocabulary notebooks can enhance vocabulary acquisition.
Bibliography
1. Allen, V. F. 1983. Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Baddeley, A. 1990. Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Needham Heights. MA: Allyn and Bacon.
3. Cohen, A. D. 1990. Language Learning. New York: Newbury House.
4. Gairns, R. and S. Redman. 1986. Working With Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. Schmitt, N. and D. Schmitt. 1995. ‘Vocabulary notebooks: theoretical underpinnings and practical suggestions’. ELT Journal
6. Wenden, A. 1991. Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy. Hemel Hepstead: Prentice Hall.
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