Previous Meeting - Saturday, May 17
The Japan Association for Language Teaching -JALT-
Co-sponsor : Ibaraki University
Presentation:
1. Featured Speaker Presentation (14:30~ 16:00)
Vocabulary and textbooks: What textbooks do,
what they don't, and what you can do
by Dale Brown (Osaka University)
The commonsense view of vocabulary learning is that learning a word means learning its meaning. Vocabulary researchers, however, have established that there is a lot more to learning a word than this. Full mastery of a word includes, among other things, knowing its spoken and written form, knowing the concepts it can refer to and what other words it is related to, and knowing the grammatical and collocational patterns it occurs in. Classroom observation studies appear to show that teachers, for the most part, take the commonsense view and focus on word meaning. This presentation will begin by reporting on a study which aimed to find out whether the same is true of textbooks. The study investigated how and to what extent nine aspects of word knowledge (based on Nation’s well-known framework) are dealt with in nine general English textbooks covering three proficiency levels. The study found that in general they do indeed have a narrow focus. Two of the nine aspects receive a great deal of attention, while most of the other aspects receive only scant attention, and some are almost wholly absent from the textbooks. The second part of the presentation will suggest that since textbooks have such a limited view of vocabulary, teachers need to take the responsibility for looking at other aspects of vocabulary knowledge in the classroom. To that end, a range of vocabulary activities involving the other aspects will be introduced. The focus will be on activities that require little preparation and that can be easily used to follow up on the vocabulary activities that are standard in many textbooks. The intention is to help teachers build on the foundation that textbooks provide, and give them the means to extend the range of vocabulary knowledge dealt with, the ultimate aim being to give learners a deeper and more secure knowledge of the vocabulary items concerned.
Dale Brown teaches at Osaka University and is pursuing a PhD in Applied Linguistics with Cardiff University. His primary research interests are in extensive reading, the analysis of language teaching materials and vocabulary acquisition. In his PhD research he is looking at the development of EFL learners' knowledge of collocations.
2. Business Meeting (16:15~17:15)
Saturday, May 17, 14:00 – 17:15
at Ibaraki University, Humanities building Room C205
(Doors open from 14:00 p.m. No pre-registration required!)
JALT Members: Free Non-Members: ¥500
JALT Ibaraki chapter meetings are open to all interested in learning and teaching languages. Abstracts for the presentations and access information for the venue, as well as further information for future events are available,here, on the chapter home page. Please share!
http://ibarakijalt.blogspot.jp/
. . . and afterwards join us for the
Chapter Party
Starts at 17:30 p.m.! At Coji Coji
Support the Chapter Book Fair!
Donate your unwanted books – and get used books for ¥50!