Instructed Second Language Vocabulary Learning by Norbert Schmitt

    

    This is a review article which gives us overall perspectives on the current research on second language vocabulary learning. To facilitate adequate vocabulary learning, four vocabulary learning partners, which are students, teachers, materials writers, and researchers, need to contribute to the learning process. The review article first talks about the necessary vocabulary size for language users: 8000-9000 word families for reading and as many as 5000-7000 families for oral discourse. To reach the communicative goal in our daily life, it’s the necessary vocabulary size to reach. Then, the article further gives us overall ideas about enlarging the depth of vocabulary. It would be beneficial enough for teachers to teach the derivation, collocations, and some grammatical functions of each vocabulary. Then, from the review article, I got an idea which accentuates that vocabulary isn’t made up with a single word. We need to pay attention to the lexical bundles while learning new target word. Therefore, the knowledge of phrasal vocabulary is also worth to accentuating. Then, Schmitt provides two types of vocabulary learning: intentional and incidental vocabulary. In conclusion, the author accentuates that combination of intentional and incidental vocabulary learning is the best approach for teachers and students.

   

    From the past of my teaching and learning experience, I just instructed my students to foster the meaning-and-form link while I was teaching vocabulary with explicit ways. However, providing learners more word knowledge is worth paying attention to. For example, I could provide some grammatical knowledge, such as collocation, derivation or phrasal vocabulary to L2 learners. Moreover, extending learners’ opportunities for the incidental leaning of vocabulary is necessary for L2 teachers. I come up with some tips for teaching with incidental learning. First, ask learners to read simplied novels related to their interest per month. Second, assign learners some context-depended tasks to accomplish by using new target words. Third, foster learners’ vocabulary learning strategies. I usually believe the use of mind mapping which is finished based on semantic categories is beneficial to enhance vocabulary learning. In sum, it’s impossible to enlarge and extend learners’ vocabulary size and depth within a class in a short term. It’s essential to acknowledge the incremental nature of vocabulary learning, and to understand that an effective vocabulary learning program needs to be principled, long-term and recognizes the richness and scope of lexical knowledge. Fostering learners’ awareness of using proper word choices in an appropriate situation and meeting their need in their future are two essential aspects would be kept in each teacher’s mind.