Narrowing the Gap: Building Vocabulary During ... - ZENEX Foundation

Narrowing the Gap: Building Vocabulary During the Foundation Phase Presented at the Zenex Panel at RASA (01 October 2016)

Elizabeth J. Pretorius

Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, Unisa

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Introduction

vocabulary component within the project is implemented in order to help teachers actively build up their own vocabulary knowledge so that they better positioned to build strong vocabularies in their learners’ HL and FAL in the Foundation Phase.

Research has shown that vocabulary correlates strongly with all aspects of language proficiency such as oral comprehension, reading comprehension, writing and academic literacy; it also correlates with academic performance and general knowledge. Although vocabulary research has a robust tradition, there has been surprisingly little explicit focus on vocabulary development within the South African education landscape, specifically with regard to vocabulary development in the African languages, and in English as a First Additional Language (FAL).

Identifying underlying causes of poor literacy performance In South Africa, as in most schooling systems around the word, learners by the end of Grade 3 are expected to read accurately, fast 1 , with meaning and enjoyment. The reason why building fluency and speed are important in the early years is that if readers spend too much time and attention to trying to figure out the lower levels of reading, comprehension becomes compromised.

Many Grade 3 children are not well prepared for the switch to English as LoLT in Grade 4. Building learners’ knowledge of words to help them ‘read to learn’ poses a challenge to teachers. However, given our bilingual education system, learners’ vocabulary needs to be developed in both home language and FAL. Even though CAPS has introduced vocabulary goals at each grade level for home language and English FAL in the Foundation and Intermediate Phases, anecdotal evidence suggests that many teachers approach vocabulary development in a lackadaisical manner or feel overwhelmed by the task. In effect, teachers’ content and pedagogic knowledge concerning vocabulary development needs to improve in order to for them to help build their learners’ word knowledge in an organised and rewarding manner.

The PIRLS 2006 and 2011 results show that South African learners have serious problems with reading comprehension, irrespective of whether they are reading in their home language or in English as FAL. Reading research over the past three decades indicates the following three trends: 

The Zenex Literacy Project (ZLP) aims to help Foundation Phase teachers in Grades 1-3 to become better reading teachers. Because reading and vocabulary are so strongly correlated, a vocabulary component has also been explicitly included in the project. A brief outline is given here to explain how the

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Reading ‘fast’ is intended here in the sense of reading at a steady pace, commensurate with Grade appropriate 1

Decoding skills (as measured by soundletter knowledge, word reading ability and oral reading fluency) are strong predictors of reading ability in the early years. If children have difficulty understanding how the written code works, and if decoding skills are not automatised, then comprehension is seriously compromised (Pinnel et al. 1995; Fuchs et al. 2001). Explicitly teaching comprehension strategies and constantly modelling in

reading norms. Reading fast, as used here, does not refer to speed reading.

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explicit ways how to construct meaning while reading helps improve learners’ reading comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000; Block & Pressley, 2007). The size of children’s vocabulary in Grades R and 1 is a strong predictor of later reading skill. By Grade 3 a limited vocabulary can be a strong limitation for reading comprehension and academic success (Hart & Risley 2003; Biemiller & Slonim 2001).

The ZLP is aimed at helping Foundation Phase teachers in Grades 1-3 to become better reading teachers. In pursuance of this aim, attention is focused on all three the above aspects of literacy development. In this presentation attention will be focused only on the vocabulary component.

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The vocabulary component A vocabulary component was included in the teachers’ training component for two reasons: i.

ii.

To help the teachers develop their own vocabulary in both their HL and in English FAL, and thereby also indirectly improve their language proficiency levels; To make teachers aware of how vocabulary develops and what factors support or impede vocabulary growth, so that they in turn can help the learners in their classes develop rich vocabularies. If Foundation Phase teachers actively help children build strong vocabularies in both their HL and FAL throughout the Foundation Phase, then the children are likely to cope better with the switch to English as LoLT in Grade 4.

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The vocabulary component within the ZLT is implemented in various ways.

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To improve teachers’ content knowledge of what vocabulary development entails, a section in the ZLP teacher materials is dedicated to vocabulary (Section C). Here teachers are given an overview of the ‘bigger picture’, where issues are dealt with, such as the importance of exposure (incidental and explicit), vocabulary size, vocabulary depth, stages of vocabulary development, factors that influence vocabulary growth, etc. These issues are also dealt with at workshops, where a component of each 2-day workshop is set aside for vocabulary matters. Specialist Xhosa/Zulu glossaries and word lists of high frequency words are given in the ZLP teaching materials To improve teachers’ pedagogic content knowledge of vocabulary, practical tips are given on how to build up word knowledge. These include creating a print-rich classroom environment and having reading corners, theme tables and word walls in the classroom. Ways of fostering word awareness, and explicit vocab learning and memory strategies are shared with teachers in workshops, e.g. having fun with words, stimulating curiosity in words, showing children how to use mental to infer word meanings, for example, teaching children to ‘unpack’ word parts, using context to infer new word meanings, teaching dictionary skills. These are issues are also dealt with in Section C of the ZLP materials as well as in handouts used at workshops. To improve teachers’ curriculum knowledge of vocabulary, attention is drawn throughout to the CAPS vocabulary requirements at each grade level. Teachers are constantly reminded to set short-term (for the week) and longer term goals (for the term/year) for their learners’ vocabulary development, and to plan for resources that will help

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 The coaches help to motivate and support the teachers over the 3-year period in their personal and classroom vocabulary development.  Children’s storybooks are given as prizes at each workshop to five teachers who have shown commitment or progress in any aspect of the ZLP.  To encourage the teachers to read more, a Coaches Book club has been started informally, where a book is donated at each workshop to the coaches, who each read the book and distribute it (and any other books of interest or relevance) to teachers. At the feedback sessions of each workshop, teachers are encouraged to stand up and share their personal attempts to increase their vocabulary or reading skills.

them achieve such goals via, for example, the selection of storybooks per week, flash cards, word cards for the theme table and word walls (in 2-weekly cycles). Regular assessments of word recognition of high frequency words, word meanings and spelling are suggested for each Friday when the week’s assessment is supposed to take place. Various support and motivational mechanisms have been established to help foster reading and vocabulary awareness amongst the teachers. For example:  Zenex provided each teacher with an A5 notebook to serve as their personal dictionary, where new words they encounter, in both HL and English FAL, are recorded and meanings given (in HL or FAL). They are expected to carry these notebooks with them and use them regularly, as a reference and for learning the new words. These books are occasionally checked by the coaches.  Zenex provided each teacher with a copy of the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. This dictionary signals which word entries are high frequency words, thus alerting users as to which words are important to know. When the dictionaries were handed out at one of the workshops, a series of activities and handouts were designed to familiarise the teachers with the dictionary, and example activities were provided to show how dictionary skills could be taught to learners.  Zenex provided each classroom with an illustrated XhosaEnglish/Zulu-English, EnglishAfrikaans dictionary appropriate for Foundation Phase learners.

Monitoring and evaluation Given the hundreds of thousands of words that exist in each language and the varying contexts in which vocabulary develops, vocabulary assessment is a challenging domain. Because no vocabulary assessment instruments and development norms have yet been established in the African languages, and because very little attention has been focused on vocabulary research in the South African context, it was decided to make do with existing instruments to try and assess and track vocabulary size and development in the ZLP. To this end the teachers' English vocabulary levels are being assessed at three different points in the 3-year project so that possible improvements in their personal vocabulary development can be tracked. Different versions of the productive Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) by Laufer and Nation (1999) are used: January 2015 (Version A), January 2016 (Version B). A third test round will happen in July 2018. 4

The VLT measures vocabulary size at five levels of word frequency: 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, academic words, and 10,000. Mastery is set at 85%. Teachers are expected to show mastery levels of the most frequent words in English (2,000 and 3,000 word levels). Increases at any of the word levels during the 3-year project period should reflect growth in vocabulary knowledge. Because the majority of the words at the 4,000 level onwards occur primarily in written language, increases at the 5,000, 10,000 and academic word levels are more likely to occur if teachers increase the amount of reading that they do. After each assessment, teachers are given individualised and confidential feedback of their performance at each of the levels, and they are encouraged to set goals and growth plans for the way forward. For example:

Dear ________________________________ Thank you for participating in the Vocabulary Language Quiz. Your score is as follows: Vocabulary level

Score Jan 2015

New goal 2016

Section A 2000 word level (high frequency) Section B 3000 word level (high frequency) Section C 5000 word level (mid frequency) Section D Academic words (for content subjects) Section E 10 000 word level (low frequency) TOTAL Please discuss your vocabulary goals for 2015 with your coach. The Zenex team wishes you every success with your vocabulary building efforts during 2015! January 2015

Version A of the productive VLT was administered in January 2015, at the start of the ZLP, and Version B of the productive VLT was administered in January 2016.

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Interim results

Uptake

Preliminary analysis of the results shows small increments at most of the frequency levels, except for the 2,000 word level, as shown in Table 1 below. According to Nation (2006), Versions A and B of the productive VLT correlate strongly, indicating inter-test reliability. The tests are also claimed to be developmentally valid, with increases in vocabulary development across the frequency levels as grades increase (Nation 2006).

KZN EC WC

2,000 words 2015 2016 81.7 63 87.2 69.3 92.8 89.3

Academic words 2015 2016 47.7 52.3 53.2 61.4 69.2 79.1

of

the

vocabulary

Based on both the results of the VLT tests and component anecdotal evidence by way of feedback from the coaches and informal interviews with teachers, there is much variation in terms of the teachers’ own personal vocabulary development attitudes and trajectories. Some teachers show good growth in vocabulary size between the 2015 and the 2016 assessments, are they display enthusiasm and determination in increasing their word knowledge. Table 2 below shows some of the more significant gains made by individual teachers between January 2015 and January 2016.

10,000 words 2015 2016 4.7 6.1 12.1 15.1 35.8 44

KZN EC EC WC WC

Table 1: Teachers’ vocabulary development – 2015 to 2016

Table

However, as can be seen in the table above, an unexpected anomaly arose in performance at the 2,000 word-level in Version B. The teachers (especially in KZN and EC) found this section (supposedly the easiest section of the test) more challenging than the counterpart items in Version A in 2015. This discrepancy could be an artefact of the test itself, rather than a result of a backslide in vocabulary knowledge. If knowledge backslides were to occur, one would expect them to occur more likely in the lowfrequency sections of the test rather than in the common, high frequency words. On the whole, gradual increases in word knowledge occurred at the other levels. Anomalies such as these point to the need for the further development and refinement of test instruments suitable for the SA context.

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Total vocab % Jan 2015 27 40 53 49 75

Total vocab % Jan 2016 40 52 65 66 85

Gains

13 12 11 17 10

2: Progress of individual teachers

In contrast, some teachers are disinclined to make an effort, possibly because they are not interested or motivated to do so, they find it too effortful, or because they find it easier to focus their energies on trying to improve their classroom literacy practices. Qualitative observational data relating to the appearance and use of words in the classrooms provide some evidence of how teachers are applying their vocabulary knowledge in their classroom practice.  

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The use of vocabulary cards and word walls is becoming more visible in classrooms. In 2016 all FP learners across the schools were issued with notebooks for recording new words used during the week. Although all learners have these books, entries in these notebooks vary

across schools, with some notebooks showing regular entries and use and others showing sporadic use.

Monitoring limitations 

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and

evaluation

The project is monitoring the vocabulary aspect by assessing the teachers’ growth in size of their vocabulary at the different levels, but not how they use vocabulary in the classroom (which would give and an indication of their depth of vocabulary knowledge). Furthermore, although a sample of learners are being assessed in terms of literacy development by ERA to evaluate the impact of the ZLP on learner literacy levels, the learners’ vocabulary per se is not being assessed directly. Attention to how these aspects could feasibly be done in interventions is an area for further consideration, as is the design of reliable and valid instruments for measuring learners’ vocabulary development in English, Afrikaans and the African home languages.

Although it is probably fair to say that awareness of vocabulary issues and the need to foster its development in the classroom is certainly greater than before the ZLP was implemented, there is a need to investigate more closely which vocabulary teaching and learning strategies are more effective for our context. The establishment of vocabulary norms and the extent to which ESL teachers and learners can grow their vocabularies within the course of a school year are also issues that await further local research attention.

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