A Comparison of Norwegian and American Pupils' English Vocabulary Usage in Upper Secondary Schools
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A Comparison of Norwegian and American Pupils’ English Vocabulary Usage in Upper Secondary Schools Dallas Elaine Skoglund A Thesis presented to the Department of Teacher Education and School Development The University of Oslo In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master’s Degree in English Didactics Fall Term 2006 Table of Contents Acknowledgements............................................................................................................. 4 1 Introduction and Aims................................................................................................. 5 2 Vocabulary.................................................................................................................. 9 2.1 Defining Vocabulary........................................................................................... 9 2.2 Aspects of Knowing a Word............................................................................. 11 2.3 Vocabulary Size ................................................................................................ 14 2.4 Frequency.......................................................................................................... 16 2.5 Vocabulary Acquisition .................................................................................... 17 2.5.1 Second Language Acquisition Approaches .............................................. 17 2.5.2 What Role Does Memory Have in Vocabulary Acquisition?................... 18 2.5.3 Does the Difficulty of a Word Affect Acquisition?.................................. 20 2.5.4 Social and Academic Language Acquisition ............................................ 21 2.5.5 Interlanguage............................................................................................. 23 2.6 Vocabulary and Writing.................................................................................... 25 3 The Role of Vocabulary in English as a Foreign Language ..................................... 27 3.1 Vocabulary - Historical Role in Norway .......................................................... 27 3.2 The Use of Corpora in Vocabulary Studies ...................................................... 29 3.3 Methods of Vocabulary Learning ..................................................................... 30 3.4 Teaching Vocabulary in English as a Foreign Language.................................. 34 4 Research Methods and Materials .............................................................................. 38 4.1 Aims and Methods ............................................................................................ 38 4.2 Material ............................................................................................................. 39 4.3 Vocabulary Aspects of the Essays .................................................................... 44 4.3.1 Number of Words per Essay (W/E) .......................................................... 45 4.3.2 Vocabulary Individuality (VI)................................................................... 46 4.3.3 Frequency (F)............................................................................................ 47 4.3.4 Vocabulary Variation (VV)....................................................................... 47 4.3.5 Vocabulary Maturity (VM)....................................................................... 48 4.3.6 Vocabulary Errors (VE)............................................................................ 49 4.3.7 Correlation and Significance of the Vocabulary Aspects ......................... 50 5 Vocabulary Analysis of the Written Essays.............................................................. 53 5.1 Number of Words per Essay (W/E) ........................................................................ 53 5.2 Vocabulary Individuality (VI)................................................................................. 55 5.3 Frequency (F) .......................................................................................................... 58 5.4 Vocabulary Variation (VV)..................................................................................... 62 5.5 Vocabulary Maturity (VM) ..................................................................................... 64 5.6 Vocabulary Errors (VE) .......................................................................................... 68 5.7 Correlation and Significance of the Vocabulary Aspects ....................................... 72 6 Summary and Conclusions........................................................................................ 74 Bibliography...................................................................................................................... 79 Appendices........................................................................................................................ 82 1 Tables: Table 1 Word count results ............................................................................................... 45 Table 2 Tokens and Types ................................................................................................ 54 Table 3 VI ......................................................................................................................... 55 Table 4 Frequency............................................................................................................. 59 Table 5 VV........................................................................................................................ 62 Table 6 VM ....................................................................................................................... 64 Table 7 VE ........................................................................................................................ 68 Table 8 Correlation and Significance of the Vocabulary Aspects for Norwegian essays. 73 Table 9 Result averages for all the vocabulary aspects..................................................... 74 Figures: Figure 1: Common underlying language proficiency (CULP) (Shoebottom 2003) ......... 23 Figure 2: A Framework for Developing EFL Reading Vocabulary (Hunt and Beglar 2005) ................................................................................................................................. 31 Figure 3 Moira Linnarud’s criteria for what constitutes an error...................................... 50 Figure 4 Types and Tokens Average ................................................................................ 54 Figure 5 VI Average.......................................................................................................... 55 Figure 6 VI Norwegian essays .......................................................................................... 57 Figure 7 VI American essays ............................................................................................ 57 Figure 8 Frequency Average for American and Norwegian essays.................................. 60 Figure 9 Frequency of words in lists 1, 2 & 3_American Essays ..................................... 61 Figure 10 Frequency of words in lists 1, 2 & 3_Norwegian essays.................................. 61 Figure 11 VV Average ...................................................................................................... 62 Figure 12 VV Norwegian essays....................................................................................... 63 Figure 13 VV American essays......................................................................................... 64 Figure 14 VM Average ..................................................................................................... 65 Figure 15 VM Norwegian essays...................................................................................... 66 Figure 16 VM American Essays ....................................................................................... 67 Figure 17 VE Average ...................................................................................................... 68 Figure 18 VE Norwegian essays....................................................................................... 69 Figure 19 VE Norwegian essays....................................................................................... 70 2 Abbreviations: EMT English as a mother tongue EFL/ESL English as a foreign language/English as a second language L1 First language/mother tongue L2 Second language/foreign language SLA Second language acquisition CLIL Content and language integrated learning BICS Basic interpersonal communicative skills CALP Cognitive academic language proficiency NL Norwegian Learners NS Native Speakers W/E Number of words per essay VI Vocabulary Individuality F Frequency VV Vocabulary Variation VM Vocabulary Maturity VE Vocabulary Errors 3 Acknowledgements First and foremost my appreciative thanks to my supervisor Aud Marit Simensen for her professional and efficient direction within and beyond the subject of English didactics and vocabulary. I am very thankful for the cooperation and assistance of instructor Kathy Knudson- Mestnik with Sauk Rapids-Rice High School in Minnesota. She collected student essays from her class in a short time and delivered promptly. I hope someday she can take pleasure in visiting her roots in Norway. Thank you to the pupils who contributed their English skills to research. Without the corpora of texts, which was comprised by pupils in Norway and America this thesis would not have been possible. Finally,