Lexical instruction to improve l2 reading comprehension

This presentation introduces how lexical instructions in order to maximize the comprehension of L2 reading.Different approaches to L2 reading are discussed. A framework for the teaching is also provided.

 Section 1: Lexical load and

treatment

 Understand the effects of lexical

load in a text on its

comprehensibility;

 Use Vocabulary Size/Level Test to

learn about your students’ current

lexical sizes/levels;

 Use Vocabprofile to analyze the

lexical load in a text;

 Use the outcome from this analysis

to select what words to be treated

and taught;

 Use the four strands to select

suitable techniques for lexical

 Use cohesive devices to draw out the text organization;

 Use the paraphrased patterns

to locate the needed information in a text.

1 A text’s comprehensibility

 In groups of six, brainstorm all the factors

influencing your students’ reading comprehension

of a text, and then rank them in order of their

importance.

A brief summary of research

Skills

Background Knowledge Lexical base

Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti and Hart, 2000)

Decoding capacity Text comprehension Lexical knowledge

A case study

 Many students claimed that they could complete the required reading tasks in the textbook, yet without a sufficient comprehension of the target text.

 Discuss the possible reasons for this claim in your groups.

2 Threshold of lexical load and a

text’s comprehensibility

 Some key findings from research:

 Density of 15% unknown words  failed to understand (Marks et al., 1974)

 Density of 8%  failed to understand (Freebody & Anderson, 1983)

 Density of 7%  able to understand (Holley, 1973)

 Density of 5%  reasonable understanding (Liu & Nation, 1985)

 Density of 2%  optimal to understand (Nation, 2001)

Suggested threshold of known

words in a text

95% - 98% known words

For Reasonable Comprehension (Nation and Webb, 2011)

3 Analysis of lexical load in a text

 Discuss the following questions with your partners in your groups:

 (a) How would you know what words your students may have learnt

or yet learnt before you actually start the lesson?

 (b) How would you know how many words in a text might be

unknown to the target students?

 (c) What so-called “new” words do you often choose to teach in the pre-reading stage and why do you choose them?

Question 1: Understand your students

http ://www.lextutor.ca/tests/.

1

Vocabulary Size Test1

Circle the letter a-d with the closest meaning to the key

word in the question

1 SEE: They saw it

c are very interested

d do not like to work hard

6 DRI VE: He drives fast

a swims

b learns

c throws balls

d uses a car

7 J UMP: She tried to jump

a lie on top of the water

b get off the ground suddenly

c stop the car at the edge of the road

d move very fast

8 SHOE: Where is your shoe?

a the person who looks after you

b the thing you keep your money in

c the thing you use for writing

d the thing you wear on your foot

9 STANDARD: Her standards are very

high

a the bits at the back under her shoes

b the marks she gets in school

c the money she asks for

d the levels she reaches in everything

10 BASI S: This was used as the basis

1The test is created by Paul Nation, Victoria University of

Wellington, and found at http://www.lextutor.ca/ This test

is freely available and can be used by teachers and

researchers for a variety of purposes

b place where cars are kept

c cupboard to keep things cold

d animal house

5 PATI ENCE: He has no patience

a will not wait happily

b has no free time

c has no faith

d does not know what is fair

6 NI L: His mark for that question was nil

a very bad

b nothing

c very good

d in the middle

7 PUB: They went to the pub

a place where people drink and talk

b place that looks after money

c large building with many shops

d building for swimming

8 CI RCLE: Make a circle

a rough picture

b space with nothing in it

c round shape

d large hole

9 MI CROPONE: Please use the microphone

a machine for making food hot

b machine that makes sounds louder

c machine that makes things look bigger

d small telephone that can be carried around

10 PRO: He's a pro

a someone who is employed to find out important secrets

b a stupid person

c someone who writes for a newspaper

d someone who is paid for playing sport etc

1

Vocabulary Size Test1

Circle the letter a-d with the closest meaning to the key

word in the question

1 SEE: They saw it

c are very interested

d do not like to work hard

6 DRI VE: He drives fast

a swims

b learns

c throws balls

d uses a car

7 J UMP: She tried to jump

a lie on top of the water

b get off the ground suddenly

c stop the car at the edge of the road

d move very fast

8 SHOE: Where is your shoe?

a the person who looks after you

b the thing you keep your money in

c the thing you use for writing

d the thing you wear on your foot

9 STANDARD: Her standards are very

high

a the bits at the back under her shoes

b the marks she gets in school

c the money she asks for

d the levels she reaches in everything

10 BASI S: This was used as the basis

1The test is created by Paul Nation, Victoria University of

Wellington, and found at http://www.lextutor.ca/ This test

is freely available and can be used by teachers and

researchers for a variety of purposes

b place where cars are kept

c cupboard to keep things cold

d animal house

5 PATI ENCE: He has no patience

a will not wait happily

b has no free time

c has no faith

d does not know what is fair

6 NI L: His mark for that question was nil

a very bad

b nothing

c very good

d in the middle

7 PUB: They went to the pub

a place where people drink and talk

b place that looks after money

c large building with many shops

d building for swimming

8 CI RCLE: Make a circle

a rough picture

b space with nothing in it

c round shape

d large hole

9 MI CROPONE: Please use the microphone

a machine for making food hot

b machine that makes sounds louder

c machine that makes things look bigger

d small telephone that can be carried around

10 PRO: He's a pro

a someone who is employed to find out important secrets

b a stupid person

c someone who writes for a newspaper

d someone who is paid for playing sport etc

Question 1: Understand your

Question 2 + 3: Lexical load in a text

http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/bnc/

Question 2 + 3: Lexical load in a

text

The rest are proper nouns which are then not counted in this

profile.

Question 2 + 3: Lexical load in a text

4 Treatment of the overloaded

vocabulary items

 Discuss in your groups the following questions:

 (a) how do you often present a new word’s meaning to your learners?

 (b) how do you often help them to practice it?

 (c) are these techniques effective for their uptake, retention, and use

of the target words’ form and meaning?

Four strands in vocabulary teaching (Nation, 2007)

They also have chance to intentionally learn it.

Fluency development Finally, they have chance to automatize its use in

communication.

Four strands in vocabulary teaching

 Suggest one teaching activity for each strand above:

Four strands in vocabulary teaching

Four strands (Nation,

5 Treatment of overloaded vocabulary items – L2 lexical inferencing (Haastrup, 1991; Nguyen, 2012)

 Core Principle:

Try to create a favorable condition for your students to make good

guesses (Nation, 2001) since good guesses would benefit their uptake, retention and use of the target words, and poor guesses can be

dangerous due to its traits being imprinted on your students’ brain.

 Discuss, in your groups, how to create such a favorable condition.

L2 lexical inferencing

 Supportive contextual clues;

 98% of the words in the context known to your students;

 Strategy training.

Some common contextual clues

Practice: (1) use vocabprofile to ensure the threshold of 98% known words in the context, (2) modify the context to reach the

threshold if necessary, and then (3) embed some contextual clue for each item.

Treatment of overloaded vocabulary items – negotiation of meaning

Hamilton-Jenkins (2000) and discuss the

benefits of this activity.

Practice: (1) guess the meaning of the underlined words, and then (2) negotiate their meanings with your friends in your groups.

Treatment of overloaded vocabulary items – word cards (Nation & Webb, 2011)

 Which of the following word card is better? And why?

Treatment of overloaded vocabulary items – word cards (Nation & Webb, 2011)

 Some notes in using word cards:

 Play word card games with the learners after they have negotiated the words’ meaning;

 Recycle these games regularly;

 Extend the interval time between the games.

Treatment of overloaded vocabulary items – Prompted speaking (Swain, 2000)

 You are divided into two groups One group would read the following text and note the key

points.

Treatment of overloaded vocabulary

items – Prompted speaking (Swain,

Treatment of overloaded vocabulary items – Prompted speaking (Swain, 2000)

 Now some in the second group have to summarize the key points of the reading text, based on the completed table.

Wrap-up of the first section

Understan

d your students

sizes/level

s test

Decide what words to teach

• Vocabprofil

e and its outcome

Decide how to teach

• Four strand s

Self-evaluation after the first section

Put a tick in the YES or NO box YES NO

1 Do you think that lexical load can affect

reading comprehension?    

2 Can you interpret the learners’ scores from

3 Can you know the lexical load of a text?    

4 Can you decide what words to be treated for

8 Can you design a suitable prompted speaking

activity for a text?    

Worksheet (in groups of six)

 Your students’ current vocabulary sizes are roughly of K2;

 Choose a text of their interest;

 Analyze its vocabulary profile;

 Determine whether its lexical load reaches the suggested threshold for reasonable comprehension or not;

 If not, decide what words to be treated and design suitable activities for their treatment.

Section 2: Lexical tools to unpack a reading text

 Share your worksheet with the whole class and receive the comments from your peers

Worksheet share: Evaluation

checklist

Put a tick in the YES or NO box YES NO

A, Is the outcome of their lexical load of the

target text presented illegibly?

B, Do they choose suitable words to be

treated?

C, Is the number of treated words

appropriate to reach the threshold?

E, Is their choice of the treatment type

effective?

F, Is the design of the treatment effective?    

G, Is the implementation of the treatment

effective?

1 Key words and wise prediction

 Underline the key words in the following titles, and make a guess on the content of their upcoming texts:

 A, Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation

 B, The western scientific medical model of health

 C, Gender bias and the glass ceiling

 D, How to change the world: Social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas

 E, Hearing deficit impacts learning

 F, How to kill the dead space

1 Key words and wise prediction

Use this topic-type analysis to find the key information in the titles

above.

Wise Prediction

Discuss the benefits of wise prediction in a lesson of reading comprehension:

 To activate the students’ background knowledge;

 To activate the top-down process in reading comprehension

Wise prediction: A suggested flow

2 Repeated key words and general

topic  Look at the reading paragraph below, spell out its topic, and describe

your way to do it.

Born in Hungary in 1913 as Friedmann Endre Ernő, Capa was forced to leave his native country after his involvement in anti government protests Capa

had originally wanted to become a writer, but after his arrival in Berlin had

first found work as a photographer He later left Germany and moved to

France due to the rise in Nazism He tried to find work as a freelance

journalist and it was here that he changed his name to Robert Capa, mainly because he thought it would sound more American.

2 Repeated key words and general topic

Another try with this one

Repeated key words and general topic

 Discuss and then demonstrate how you would instruct your students this technique.

3 Cohesive devices and a text’s

organization

One of the major causes seems to be the passenger’s behavior or their personality Fear of flying and the feeling of powerlessness associated with flying can lead to irritable or aggressive passengers Also, alcohol consumed on a plane pressurized

to 8000ft affects the drinker more quickly and the effects are stronger Many

people do not take account of this and drinking may increase any negative reaction

to the flying environment they have, which, combined with the lowering of their

inhibitions, may cause air rage Smoking withdrawal, which some liken in severity

to opiate withdrawal, is another major cause of air rage incidents Passengers

caught smoking in the toilets occasionally assault flight attendants and have been known to start fires When conflicts occur in these conditions, they can escalate

into major incidents if the passenger has a violent personality or a fear of flying and because of the enclosed nature of a plane offers no option of retreat as would be natural in a “fight or flight” reaction

3 Cohesive devices and a text’s organization

 Read and complete the table below:

3 Cohesive devices and a text’s organization

3 Cohesive devices and a text’s organization

 Design a similar table for the text below:

4 Lexical paraphrasing and its

needed information

information Remember to describe how you located it.

Example – Item 4

Wrap-up of the second section

Self-evaluation of the second section

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND SUPPORT