Grabbed early by vocabulary: Nation’s ongoing contributions to vocabulary and reading in a foreign language

“I was grabbed early [by vocabulary] and never let go. That’s why it’s difficult to explain why I enjoy working in this area. I just love doing it,” said Paul Nation (in Coxhead, 2005, p. 46). How many people get grabbed by an area of research, teaching, and learning that continues to engage interest and cause excitement after 30 years? In this article, I look at Paul Nation’s ongoing contributions to pedagogy in vocabulary and second language reading. I will focus on key questions from Nation’s research that support learning and teaching and contribute to our understanding of the lexical nature of texts

Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

This paper reports on the creation of specialized word lists in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is a discipline using vocabulary across languages (i.e., Chinese and English) and involves learners with different L1 backgrounds. First, a TCM Word List of 2,778 specialized words was established from corpora of TCM textbooks and journal articles. Selection criteria included specialized meaning, keyness in a corpus of general written English compared to the TCM Corpora, and frequency. The resulting TCM list covered 36.65% of the TCM Corpora but had low coverage over corpora of general written English and medical English. The TCM Word List was then divided into three sub-lists based on frequency, and graded into three levels. Level 1 contains high-frequency lexical items in English (e.g., organ, coating); Level 2 contains items that are mid-, low-frequency, or beyond any frequency levels (e.g., pericarpium, metabolism); and Level 3 contains Chinese loan words (e.g., qi, yang). Last, there is an overlap of 309 word families between this list and an earlier TCM list by Hsu (2018), which excludes words from the 1st-3rd 1,000 word families in English. Suggestions for teachers and future research are provided

Grabbed early by vocabulary: Nation's ongoing contributions to vocabulary and reading in a foreign language

Abstract "I was grabbed early [by vocabulary] and never let go. That's why it's difficult to explain why I enjoy working in this area. I just love doing it," said Paul Nation (in Coxhead, 2005, p. 46). How many people get grabbed by an area of research, teaching, and learning that continues to engage interest and cause excitement after 30 years? In this article, I look at Paul Nation's ongoing contributions to pedagogy in vocabulary and second language reading. I will focus on key questions from Nation's research that support learning and teaching and contribute to our understanding of the lexical nature of texts. Keywords: vocabulary knowledge, second language reading pedagogy, four strands, fluency, extensive reading There are several reasons for writing about Paul Nation's contributions to second language vocabulary and reading. Firstly, Paul's work has inspired or sparked the research reported in this special issue. Secondly, postgraduate students, language teaching colleagues, and language students have all been party to research into pedagogy either carried out by Nation or inspired by him. A major part of Paul's contribution to the field is his commitment to developing and supporting new researchers. Thirdly, some readers may be familiar with his work in one area but not others. And finally, Paul is "retiring" in 2010. The inverted commas are necessary because he is continuing to research, supervise postgraduate students, and contribute to the field of applied linguistics in his "retirement," which means he will be busier than ever. Narrowing the focus of this article to Nation's contributions in vocabulary and second language reading is not an easy task. He has a much wider range of interest in applied linguistics and TESOL, with an enviable depth and breadth of experience in research, postgraduate supervision, teaching, and language learning. In the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University a few years ago, Paul was good-naturedly "asked to leave" a peer support research group after one meeting because he was too productive. His side of the story was that he could have achieved far more in the time it took to attend the meeting. Those achievements would have included mentoring and publishing with many colleagues and postgraduate students, as can be seen in the reference list of this article. Paul's generosity in this way is legendary

Plain Language or Anything But?

This paper focuses on what language needs to be used in emergencies by air traffic controllers based on an investigation of plain language definitions and descriptions in International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) publications and in the beliefs of nine air traffic controllers in the United Arab Emirates. The aim of the study is pedagogical, in that it is important to establish what language trainee air traffic controllers need to use during emergencies, but there is little in the way of course books or materials that can inform course development. Findings suggest there are contradictions in the ICAO documentation, and differences in beliefs held by air traffic controllers largely mirror these documents. The paper presents a model of the contradictions found in interview and document data and explores the likelihood of differing assumptions leading to variation in language output. The implications for training, testing and ICAO policy are presented, as well as possibilities for future research

Exploring learners’ understanding of technical vocabulary in Traditional Chinese Medicine

This study explores English for specific purposes learners’ understanding of technical words in a previously-developed technical word list in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The principal aim was to estimate what kind of technical terms pose problems to TCM learners and might therefore merit special attention in instruction. Of particular interest was the question whether there is a divergence in the understanding of technical vocabulary in TCM between Chinese and Western background learners. To achieve these aims, a combination of word association tasks and retrospective interviews was implemented with 11 Chinese and 10 Western background TCM learners. The data showed that both Chinese and Western learners encountered certain difficulties in understanding technical vocabulary in their study. However, their sources of difficulty were different. Comparisons of typical word associations between Chinese and Western learners indicated that there was a degree of divergence in the way these two participant groups understood TCM terms

Exploring EFL teachers’ English language proficiency: Lessons from Indonesia

This paper reports on a study looking at the reading and writing proficiency and vocabulary knowledge of Indonesian EFL teachers, the relationship between proficiency and years of service, and the teachers’ own perceptions of their proficiency in English. Three proficiency tests (Vocabulary Levels Test/VLT, Reading and Writing Tests), questionnaire, and interview were used to collect data. The results point to mixed levels of English language proficiency, negative correlations between years of service and vocabulary, reading and writing test results, and that teachers themselves had difficulties in judging their own English language proficiency. Factors that inhibit the capacity of teachers to focus on their English proficiency are presented. Limitations of the study as well as implications for EFL teachers’ professional development (PD) and future research are also discussed

Gauging the effects of exercises on verb–noun collocations

Many contemporary textbooks for English as a foreign language (EFL) and books for vocabulary study contain exercises with a focus on collocations, with verb–noun collocations (e.g. make a mistake) being particularly popular as targets for collocation learning. Common exercise formats used in textbooks and other pedagogic materials require learners to establish appropriate matches between sets of verbs and nouns. However, matching exercises almost inevitably carry a risk of erroneous connections, and despite corrective feedback these might leave undesirable traces in the learner’s memory. We report four small-scale trials (total n = 135) in which the learning gains obtained from verb–noun matching exercises are compared with the learning gains obtained from a format in which the target collocations are presented to the learners as intact wholes. Pre-test to post-test gains turned out small in all of the conditions, owing in part to the learners’ substitution of initially correct choices by distracters from the exercises. The latter, negative side-effect was attested more often in the matching exercises than in the exercises where the learners worked with collocations as intact wholes

Academic Vocabulary in Teacher Talk: Challenges and Opportunities for Pedagogy

This article focuses on the opportunities and challenges afforded by teacher talk in Grade Six (10 and 11 year old students) English as an Additional Language, Maths, and Science classes in an international school context in Germany. Teachers recorded their classroom discourse for one week of classes three times in one academic year in each subject. The data shows that high frequency vocabulary prevails in all three subject areas, and Science has a higher vocabulary load than the other two subjects overall. The amount of academic vocabulary, measured by Coxhead’s (2000) Academic Word List, and science vocabulary, measured by Coxhead & Hirsh’s EAP Science List (2007), were lower over the teacher talk than over secondary school textbooks. This means that teacher talk is lexically easier than textbooks. Over the course of the year, the vocabulary load of the teacher talk increases in all three subjects. This article looks at opportunities and challenges presented by the lexis of teacher talk in these subjects for second and foreign language students in these classes and their teachers. Suggestions for further research are presented by way of a conclusion