Developing a Productive Academic Vocabulary for Writing

1. Developing a Productive Academic Vocabulary for Writing Diane Schmitt diane.schmitt@ntu.ac.uk TESOL 2008 New York, New York

2. Aims • Take a “simple” lexical use problem • Use learner corpora to understand how the lexical item is being used • Use expert corpora to help students notice the gap between their own use and that of more experienced writers

3. Extract from a student essay – 1a Secondly, a significant internal reform in China is the acceleration of strong and comprehensive cooperative arrangements between China’s education industry and foreign providers. The most significant development is that non-governmental private education is the fastest growing ____wc____ of higher education in China. Private businesses and enterprises, non-profit agencies, community groups and individuals are establishing non-governmental private institutions (MoE.P.R.C., 2006).

4. segment noun segment [countable] 1 a part of something that is different from or affected differently from the whole in some way segment of segments of the population 2 a part of a fruit, flower, or insect that it naturally divides into: Decorate with orange segments. 3 technical the part of a circle that is separated from the rest of the circle when you draw a straight line across it 4 technical the part of a line or of a length of something between two points segment of segments of DNA (from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

5. area noun S1W1 [countable] 1 a particular part of a country, town etc in an area Only cheeses made in this area may be labelled 'Roquefort.' There were over 2 inches of rain in coastal areas. area of a working-class area of Birmingham Many areas of Africa have suffered severe drought this year. a rural area (=countryside) of woodlands and fields Crime rates are significantly higher in urban areas (=towns, cities etc). The police have searched the farm and the surrounding area (=the area around it). children from the local area a residential area of the town

6. area noun 2 a part of a house, office, garden etc that is used for a particular purpose: a no-smoking area Their apartment has a large kitchen area. Come through into the dining area. the reception area of the hotel a storage area on the ground floor 3 a particular subject, range of activities, or group of related subjects: The course covers three main subject areas. This study has clearly identified a major problem area for the National Health Service. We're funding research into new areas such as law enforcement technology. area of reforms in the key areas of health and education

7. area noun 4 the amount of space that a flat surface or shape covers area of an area of 2,000 square miles a formula to calculate the area of a circle ➔ grey area at grey 1 (7) (from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

8. Extract from a student essay – 1b Secondly, a significant internal reform in China is accelerating strong and comprehensive cooperation between China’s educational industry and Foreign Service provider. The most dramatically point is non-governmental private education constitutes develop in the fastest growing aspect of higher education in China. Businesses or enterprises, non-profit agencies, community groups or individuals establish non-governmental private institutions (MoE.P.R.C 2006).

9. aspect noun S3W1 1 [countable] one part of a situation, idea, plan etc that has many parts aspect of Dealing with people is the most important aspect of my work. Alcoholism affects all aspects of family life. 2 [countable] the direction in which a window, room, front of a building etc faces: a south-facing aspect 3 [singular, uncountable] literary the appearance of someone or something: The storm outside gave the room a sinister aspect. 4 [uncountable and countable] technical the form of a verb in grammar that shows whether an action is continuing, or happens always, again and again, or once: 'He sings' differs from 'He is singing' in aspect. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

10. Do we send the student looking for another word?

11. feature noun feature S2W1 [countable] 1 a part of something that you notice because it seems important, interesting, or typical: Air bags are a standard feature in most new cars. feature of An important feature of Van Gogh's paintings is their bright colours. common feature Striped tails are a common feature of many animals. The hotel's only redeeming features (=things that make it acceptable) were that it was cheap and near the city centre. main/important/significant etc feature The most distinctive feature of the dinosaurs was their size. One of the distinguishing features (=features that are different from other things of the same sort) of modern banking is its dependence on computers.(Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

12. Extract from a student essay - 2 “Global networks have been dramatically affected by the development of new machines and technologies, [such as] …fiber optic cables, jet planes, audio-visual transmissions, digital TV, computer networks including the internet and satellites, which shrink time-space” (Scott, 1998:5-6). They have influenced the social world in various ____wc_____. One of the most important areas is higher education.

13. Extract from a student essay - 2 “Global networks have been dramatically affected by the development of new machines and technologies, [such as] …fiber optic cables, jet planes, audio-visual transmissions, digital TV, computer networks including the internet and satellites, which shrink time-space” (Scott, 1998:5-6). They have influenced the social world in various aspects. One of the most important areas is higher education. 1 [countable] one part of a situation, idea, plan etc that has many parts aspect of Dealing with people is the most important aspect of my work. Alcoholism affects all aspects of family life.

14. Wordsmith Tools 22 occurrences of aspect across 9 student papers

15. Change the word? • By using the word choice (wc) editing code I’m encouraging the students to look for a new word • This ignores that fact that many of the students are attempting to use the word aspect • An alternative approach would be to focus on the word (or phrase) students are attempting to use • What is inappropriate and what’s not?

16. What can we learn from students current use of the word aspect? • What is causing the awkwardness? • Word knowledge

17. More to Word Knowledge than Just Meaning

18. What do we mean by correctness when talking about vocabulary use? • Word knowledge • Partial knowledge

19. Partial Knowledge • Spelling (Fitzpatrick, 2007) • Affixes (Schmitt & Zimmerman, 2002) • Collocation (Gyllstad, 2007)

20. What do we mean by correctness when talking about vocabulary use? • Word knowledge • Partial knowledge • Incremental view of vocabulary learning

21. Tracking Incremental Learning through repeated extensive readings 0= I definitely don't know what this word means 1 = I am not really sure what this word means 2 = I think I know what this word means 3 = I definitely know what this word means (Horst, 2000; Cobb, 2007)

22. The Scope of the Vocabulary Learning Task • Large vocabulary needed • Various kinds of word knowledge needed • Vocabulary learning is incremental • Vocabulary learning requires consolidation • Vocabulary learning requires enhancement of partial knowledge • Need to know phrasal vocabulary as well as individual words

23. How can students get beyond this kind of usage problem and enhance knowledge of aspect?

24. How can students get beyond this kind of usage problem and enhance knowledge of aspect? • Students should read widely to see how this word is used in texts

25. How can students get beyond this kind of usage problem and enhance knowledge of aspect? • Students should read widely to see how this word is used in texts • Occurrences of aspect • AWL word (sub-list 2) • 39.4 per million in the BNC • 2000 most frequent words

26. Common frequency benchmarks(Biber et al., 1999)

27. How can students get beyond this kind of usage problem and enhance knowledge of aspect? • Essay specific mini-corpus 9 texts (116,254 words) • 25 occurrences of aspect(s) across 6 texts

28. Wordsmith Tools

29. How can students get beyond this kind of usage problem and enhance knowledge of aspect? • Essay specific mini-corpus 9 texts (116,254 words) • 25 occurrences across 6 texts • Student writing mini-corpus 11 texts (24,621 words) • 22 occurrences across 9 texts • 15 problematic in some way

30. Wordsmith Tools 22 occurrences of aspect across 9 student papers

31. Learner data 1 he demands of market. Actually, the two aspects are the essential parts within t 2 g the most obvious examples. In various aspects, China can and will be of paramo 3 ization of higher education is economic aspect. Educational quality is increasin 4 more likely focus on the following five aspects: Firstly, Chinese higher educ 5 ld in linking together and affects many aspects. Higher education plays one of t 6 ciety to facilitate and advance in many aspects in China. 7 lobalization has an undeniably material aspect in so far as it is possible to id 8 start doing analysis is to decide which aspect of it we will delve into. As 9 stitutes develop in the fastest growing aspect of higher education in China. Bus 10 n the world is affecting almost all the aspects of our societies. It seems a ver 11 transformation of high education in the aspects of society, economy and itself. 12 rspective, globalization impacts on all aspects of UK's higher education. This e 13 ines the context relating the following aspects of China's higher education. In 14 rrying out the policy was a fundamental aspect of cultural construction." In th 15 r policy led to profound changes in all aspects of Chinese society. The higher e 16 plores the transformations of HE in the aspects of society, economy and itself i 17 ransformations and changes in different aspects of high education, such as the g 18 , the WTO's attempts to standardize all aspects of education around the globe c 19 l exchange has been enhanced in various aspects: students and staff flows betwe√ 20 earning affect higher education in many aspects, such as, change the organizatio 21 e of the most remarkable and noteworthy aspect. That is not only because high ed 22 rse culture, even to interchange in few aspects to benefit from each other. Acco

32. Learner data 1 he demands of market. Actually, the two aspects are the essential parts within t 2 g the most obvious examples. In various aspects, China can and will be of paramo 3 ization of higher education is economic aspect. Educational quality is increasin 5 ld in linking together and affects many aspects. Higher education plays one of t 6 ciety to facilitate and advance in many aspects in China. 9 stitutes develop in the fastest growing aspect of higher education in China. Bus 10 n the world is affecting almost all the aspects of our societies. It seems a ver 11 transformation of high education in the aspects of society, economy and itself. 13 ines the context relating the following aspects of China's higher education. In 16 plores the transformations of HE in the aspects of society, economy and itself i 17 ransformations and changes in different aspects of high education, such as the g 19 l exchange has been enhanced in various aspects: students and staff flows betwe√ 20 earning affect higher education in many aspects, such as, change the organizatio 21 e of the most remarkable and noteworthy aspect. That is not only because high ed 22 rse culture, even to interchange in few aspects to benefit from each other. Acco

33. Go to corpus lines and word document!

34. Steps in my process • Read student essays • Notice awkward use of a word • Create a mini-learner corpus from all student essays for this assignment • Search for patterns of misuse of word • Compare with another learner corpus • Compare with native speaker corpus • Plan corpus informed instructional intervention

35. Thank you for your attention! diane.schmitt@ntu.ac.uk

36. Aspect