This article investigated the potential of Grade 3 English Second Language (ESL) teachers’ vocabulary development practices to equip learners in English-deprived environments with English vocabulary requisite for transition to Grade 4 where English is the Language of Learning and Teaching and where learning to read gives way to reading to learn.
This study sought to document and interrogate incidental and explicit Grade 3 ESL teachers’ vocabulary development practices
Three classrooms from one township and two diverse rural schools in three different districts of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa were observed.
The case study sourced qualitative data through video and field notes recorded in classroom observations in 10 English First Additional Language classes for each teacher. Quantitative data on teacher talk vocabulary exposure and recycling were generated using the AntConc 3.2.4 software.
The study found that the incidental vocabulary development was compromised by low English language exposure occasioned by teachers’ frequent recourse to the Home Language, little word recycling in classroom talk and lack of rich contexts in which words were encountered. Explicit vocabulary instructional practices mostly drew learners’ attention to novel words and had a narrow range of strategies dealing with word meanings.
In view of the manifest lack of a robust vocabulary development programme among ESL teachers, the study recommends planned and deliberate attention to vocabulary development on the teachers’ part and a reconsideration of the learners’ vocabulary needs and learner meaningful engagement in vocabulary development.
In South Africa, learners’ Home Language (HL) is the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) in the Foundation Phase (FP) covering Grades R–3. The LoLT for 80% of the South African learners (Howie et al.
… must reach a high level of competence in English by the end of Grade 3, and they need to be able to read and write well in English. For these reasons, their progress in literacy must be accelerated in Grades 2 and 3. (p. 11)
Insufficient English vocabulary is a severe handicap for second language (L2) readers. The symbiotic relationship between the knowledge of English vocabulary and the development of reading strategies is manifest in their mutual causation. The massive vocabulary requisite for reading proficiency and learning necessitates a robust, sustained, explicit and principled approach to classroom vocabulary development. Linse (
This article is based on an aspect of a larger study that investigated the English vocabulary needs of English FAL Grade 3 learners transitioning to Grade 4, and the extent to which they were met. The results reported in this article focus specifically on vocabulary-related classroom practices of three Grade 3 isiXhosa-speaking teachers in English FAL lessons. Three questions framed the study:
What English vocabulary development pedagogical practices manifest in Grade 3 English FAL classes?
What is the implication of teachers’ vocabulary development practices to lexical acquisition and learning among Grade 3 learners as they transition to Grade 4?
To what extent are the observed practices consistent with what the study views as a comprehensive vocabulary instruction programme?
The learners within the study context experienced multiple disadvantages. Some of them were the low language proficiency of their teachers, poor language infrastructure, inadequate material provisions, among others. Such disadvantages required compensation in the form of sound instructional practices. Research has documented low English proficiency among many South African teachers (Krügel & Fourie
The notion of practice and that of vocabulary development constitute the underlying theoretical framework for the study, with the notion of practice seen through the works of Kemmis (
Practice is not easy to determine owing to its fluidity. Green (
Vocabulary development can be conceived in two ways, namely facilitating vocabulary acquisition or fostering vocabulary learning. The former constitutes opportunities that the teacher creates from which learners incidentally and implicitly make gains to their vocabulary repertoire. In this respect, context is critical to vocabulary acquisition. The latter is used in this study to denote explicit and deliberate strategies that teachers used to ensure learners learnt new words. For this study, the term ‘vocabulary development’ accommodates opportunities availed for both the incidental acquisition and explicit learning of words by learners.
A key aspect of incidental vocabulary acquisition is the quality and quantity of vocabulary exposure and recycling, particularly for non-cognate languages, as was the case with this study. Joe (
The study further classifies explicit vocabulary development practices into those that merely sought to draw learners’ attention to key or novel words without further mediating their meaning and use on the one hand, and those that mediated word meaning or word use knowledge on the other hand. The former, which we refer to as ‘flagging’ strategies, do not extend beyond mere word recognition at the sensory level, be it at the phonological or orthographic level. The latter classification was that of vocabulary episodes, which Wright (
Explicit attention to word form is foundational to long-term retention. Joe (
A framework outlining effective vocabulary instruction is instructive for a study establishing practices related to vocabulary development. According to the Texas Reading Initiative (
How much students read and are read to determines the vocabulary gains they will make. The Texas Reading Initiative (
Notwithstanding the immense gains emanating from extensive reading, learners in the study context were still on the learning to read trajectory and so needed quality exposure to oral language in the target language (English) that approximated written and literate English lexically and syntactically (Texas Reading Initiative
For word consciousness, activities where learners get a feel for the distinction between written language and ordinary conversation are requisite. Learners’ play with words enhances word consciousness. Techniques for independent word learning would include dictionary use, guessing word meanings from contextual use and the use of affixes.
Framework for vocabulary practices analysis.
Nature of vocabulary development | Manifestation of nature of vocabulary instruction | Related aspects of comprehensive vocabulary instruction (Texas Reading Initiative |
Link with Kemmis’ ( |
---|---|---|---|
Incidental | Quantity of vocabulary exposure | Encouraging wide reading | doings/relatings |
Vocabulary recycling | |||
Richness of contexts in which vocabulary is exposed | Exposure to high-quality oral language | sayings/doings | |
Explicit | Flagging strategies | Promotion of word consciousness | doings/sayings |
Vocabulary episodes | Teaching word meaning directly | doings | |
Teaching independent word learning strategies | doings/relatings |
Although the larger study from which this article derives was based on 10 teachers from eight schools, it presents practices of three, who represented the diversity of the 10 in terms of qualifications, experience and school location. The teachers are given the pseudonyms Anne, Beauty and Carol. In terms of qualifications and experience, Anne held a Master’s degree and over 20 years of teaching experience, Beauty had a Bachelor of Education degree and 0–5 years of teaching experience and Carol had an Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) and over 20 years of teaching experience. Anne taught in a township school, whereas Carol and Beauty taught in rural schools, whose rurality was diverse in terms of proximity to the urban area as well as infrastructure and resource provisions. The sampling of a sample of the larger study allowed for greater depth in reporting teachers’ practices.
English vocabulary instructional practices derived from both the three video-recorded lessons for each teacher, and observations captured through field notes for lessons that were not video-recorded. All lessons were observed during English reading sessions with the assumption that vocabulary development practices would be most manifest in reading sessions. Field notes were captured in accordance with categories on the framework for vocabulary practices analysis in
Incidental vocabulary development practices were examined under two of the Texas Reading Initiative’s (
All ethical protocols including the granting of informed consent for conducting the study, guaranteeing participants anonymity and confidentiality, and ensuring no harm to participants were observed. Video-recording of lessons was consented to on condition that the videos would not be used for any other purposes than the research purpose, and would be deleted thereafter.
Results presentation follows the broad categories of incidental and explicit vocabulary development divided into the five aspects of a comprehensive vocabulary development programme as envisaged by the Texas Reading Initiative (
This section documents the practices that had the potential to indirectly develop learners’ word acquisition.
The word count, done by the AntConc 3.2.4 software on the three 45-min recorded lessons for each teacher, was in terms of both word tokens and word types. While word types counted each single word once no matter how many times it appeared in the text, word tokens counted each word as many times as it appeared. Much token-type variation was indicative of many different words being used without being repeated, and little variation signalled use of fewer words repeatedly. The greater the token-type variability, the greater the word recycling. Ideally, the Type-Token Ratio (TTR) should be about 51.1% calculated as (number of types/number of tokens) × 100 (see
The type-token ratio of classroom talk.
Teacher | Type | Token | % Type-token ratio |
---|---|---|---|
Anne | 916 | 3843 | 23.8 |
Beauty | 312 | 1847 | 16.9 |
Carol | 821 | 4036 | 20.3 |
%, Percentage.
That the highest quantity of English words exposed to learners in 45×3 min was 4036 tokens (an average of 1345 words per lesson) evinced low exposure to English vocabulary. The highest TTR of 23.8 fell even below half the 51.1% expected signifying low recycling of vocabulary. The quantity of English vocabulary exposure was compromised by the over-reliance on the learners’ HL by both the teachers and learners. While the TTR gave some indication of the frequency with which some words recurred (word recycling), it did not indicate whether the word was a mere repetition several times at the same point in the lesson, which would not constitute recycling. A systematic way of capturing the extent of the HFWs’ recycling, to allow for repetitive exposure, was employed to determine how many of the 60 HFWs were recycled in 5 min intervals (see
Part of 60 high-frequency words recycled in at least four of the nine intervals.
Sufficiently recycled | Words from the 60 HFWs | Number of words/60 |
---|---|---|
In all 3 teachers’ talk | and, you, do, what, is, for, on | 7/60 = 11.7% |
In 2 teachers’ talk | it, that, out, not, look, again | 6/60 = 10% |
In just 1 teacher’s talk | can, because | 2/60 = 3.3% |
HFWs, high-frequency words.
The 60 HFWs had a fair mix of content and function words and it was interesting to note that of the 15/60 (25%) recycled words, only one, ‘look’, was a content word. This was possibly owing to function words abounding in speech and writing as they bring grammaticality to, and show the structural relations of, some words, which are the function words. It was less likely, therefore, that their use was deliberate on the teachers’ part. Word recycling, especially content word recurrence was, therefore, lacking.
In the classes observed, there was a manifest lack of a variety of books and no time was set aside for reading or being read to. Opportunities to expose learners to new words and recycle them was lost in the use of the first language for sayings like giving commendation, classroom control, beginning or ending the lesson, giving instructions and asking for information etc. These routine classroom activities were open to multiple ways of communication. Calling learners to silence and attention could have been done in half a dozen ways that could be repeated often until all the vocabulary involved was part of learners’ own vocabulary.
Reported here are practices that deliberately focused on developing word knowledge among the learners.
Word consciousness was achieved by the word flagging strategies or strategies for drawing attention to novel or key English words. Noticing words precedes learning word meanings (Christ & Wang
There was little variation to this pattern, as when Anne combined the choral repeated word reading with word spelling. The learners read each word twice after which she read out each letter making up the word while the learners said it after her. After the reading of the last letter, she read the whole word again and had the learners repeat it. The other variation manifest once in Carol’s class was when the choral repeated reading was led by a more competent learner after the teacher’s initial demonstration. The variations were too minor to warrant being a different form of the strategy. Sometimes what was meant to be word reading degenerated into word saying for some learners who would merely parrot the teachers’ reading when they were not even facing the board.
Teacher: What is the baby
Teacher: What is the baby
Learners: The baby is
The ‘wearing’ was meant to elicit a response in which the same word was used. Sometimes the stress was meant to model pronunciation or to distinguish one word from a similar sounding one. The stress/emphasis took the form of higher pitch or longer stress. Sometimes the word was enunciated slowly emphasising its syllables, for example, ‘vo-we-ls’. The stress was meant to engender word recognition at the phonological level.
Teacher: There is a dog that is barking
Teacher: This is a dog and the dog is ….
Class: Barking
The teacher’s stem or frame of the response gave the clue of what word was being sought. Sentence reformulation was meant to provide sufficient clues to the word she wanted noticed.
What was common about the use of all the flagging strategies was the choral nature of learner responses and their decontextualised nature. There was a manifest overemphasis on nouns on account of the ease with which their meanings could be demonstrated at the expense of novel words in other word classes. Sometimes words that were too basic, like ‘cow’, were isolated for direct instruction, which raised the question about the criteria for word selection and whether word choice had more to do with teacher convenience than learner needs. Though much concrete vocabulary was drawn attention to, there was very little done to represent the words in some concrete form, be it miming, use of pictures, diagrams or realia or even gestures.
Sometimes isolation of words for direct teaching during a reading session detracted from textual comprehension. Sometimes the words taught in isolation were not highlighted when they were encountered in text for consolidation. Some unfamiliar words in a text were isolated for direct instruction when they were not terribly important to textual comprehension. Graves (
As most instructional strategies are structured around first language vocabulary acquisition, second language vocabulary instructional practices needed much scaffolding in the form of realia, verbal and visual cues, body language, among other things, to accommodate the apparent lack of tacit knowledge of the language that native speakers have.
Loud repetition of words helped to match sounds to words, thereby enhancing word transfer to long-term memory (Woo & Price
In both repeated word reading and repeated word spelling, for instance, it was not clear whether a run-down of a list of words ranging from 8 to 23 would entrench either their graphology or phonology in the learners. Spaced repetition within given intervals was not built into the strategies. Whether reliance on choral reading for both word spelling and word reading maximised gainful learner engagement, as would paired or partner reading or individual reading, was equally questionable considering that learners congested themselves around the board during repeated word reading or spelling. Exclusive utilisation of choral reading meant teachers related to learners as a homogeneous group. While choral reading is good for modelling pronunciation, that the teachers were themselves non-native speakers did not always accord learners this benefit. The overuse of choral reading on a long list of words within a single lesson brought monotony and consequently learner inattention. No strategies were used in conjunction with choral reading to break the monotony. There also was no assurance that individual learners could identify the words as whole class instruction was not complemented by small group and individual instruction, practice and assessment.
The few flagging strategies lacked variation. While repeated word saying and word reading was largely premised on the assumption that the more a word was repeated, the more it formed new networks of neurons and the better its retention and retrieval would be, re-reading of words in phrases, which Han and Chen (
Vocabulary development was a preserve of the teacher who assumed the role of causers of learning. This explains the absence of peer instruction in small groups, absence of deliberate instruction in word learning strategies and absence of opportunities to practise the learnt words. Less English-proficient learners were denied opportunities to interact with more proficient peers. Learners, consequently, did not develop autonomy in learners’ word learning. This vindicated Alexandra’s (
The choice of words taught explicitly was, in the majority of cases, only based on one criterion, that is, words that were in the passage for the week. There was no apparent pattern manifest in the list of words isolated for instruction. Words learners needed to make general conversations, to respond to routine instructions, to engage in particular classroom experiences, which they had greater likelihood to practise within and beyond the classroom, were not prioritised. Even the fact that the mind naturally clusters connected words together was not taken into account. The learners’ varied vocabulary needs were neither interrogated nor consulted.
Ostovar-Namaghi and Malekpur (
Teacher–learner relationships observed were consistent with those obtained in typical United States classrooms, both public and private across grade levels where:
The typical student interacted with their teacher (individually or in a small group) fewer than four times in an hour, and in most cases, these exchanges were perfunctory and compliance-directed. (Pianta, Hamre & Allen
There is a need for a balance in which the teacher guides but does not relegate the vocabulary acquisition process to learners or make it dependent on her. No self-regulated vocabulary learning behaviour was evident.
Three dimensions of lexical competence are word form, word meaning and word use. The documented explicit vocabulary development practices seemed to stagnate at the word form dimension and not go further to the word meaning and word use dimensions. Learners did not do much with the words that were isolated. No opportunities were given to manipulate, think about, talk about, apply and play with the new words. Christ and Wang (
There were no lessons devoted solely to vocabulary instruction and the longest part of the lesson that was exclusively about vocabulary instruction was 8 min by Anne going over the repeated reading of 13 words. Vocabulary instruction was, in almost all cases, a precursor to the reading of a passage and the purpose was to ease the identification of the word in context. When the words were encountered in context, no attempt was made to draw learner attention to the words.
For a duration of five 45-min English FAL lessons observed, the range of both quantity and recycling of English vocabulary exposure and that of ‘flagging’ strategies and vocabulary episodes was quite limited and limiting. This was aggravated by the absence of instruction in vocabulary learning strategies. Only so much could be achieved by learners relying solely on the teachers for vocabulary development. The English vocabulary development pedagogical practices manifest in Grade 3 English FAL classes were those largely meant to draw learners’ attention to novel words without doing much to entrench the words in learners’ memories and to require their retrieval, explanation and use by the learners. The nature of the manifest vocabulary development practices, which hardly empowered learners to be independent English vocabulary acquirers, could hardly develop sufficient lexical knowledge among Grade 3 learners, requisite for transition to Grade 4. Only the word consciousness aspect of the envisaged comprehensive vocabulary instruction programme received some considerable attention in the teachers’ manifest practices.
In light of these observations, the study recommends the need for clearly marked vocabulary lessons that would compel teachers to think deliberately about learners’ vocabulary needs and teachers’ vocabulary development and assessment practices. There is a need for varied practices that go beyond learners echoing teachers’ word reading and word saying that translates to vocabulary learning being a mechanical rather than a cognitive process.
We acknowledge and are grateful to the contributions from the Cape Consortium Strengthening Foundation Phase Research Programme for negotiating access into the schools at the provincial, district and school levels, and the consortium team for providing a collaborative space in which we could develop this study. Many thanks go to Sarah Murray for the guidance she provided, to Sally Hunt for introducing us to the AntConc software program and to Jonathan Jackson who did the language editing. We acknowledge the contribution of Anna, Gladys and Thobeka who were the research assistants in the field.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
J.S. conducted the research and did the final writing up and J.B. made conceptual and theoretical contributions to the papers. The authors jointly analysed the findings.