Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 11-8-2018 A Corpus-driven Approach toward Teaching Vocabulary and Reading to English Language Learners in U.S.-based K-12 Context through a Mobile App Seyedjafar Ehsanzadehsorati Florida International University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, and the Language and Literacy Education Commons Recommended Citation Ehsanzadehsorati, Seyedjafar, "A Corpus-driven Approach toward Teaching Vocabulary and Reading to English Language Learners in U.S.-based K-12 Context through a Mobile App" (2018). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3860. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3860 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida A CORPUS-DRIVEN APPROACH TOWARD TEACHING VOCABULARY AND READING TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN U.S.-BASED K-12 CONTEXT THROUGH A MOBILE APP A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in CURRICULUM & INSTRUCTION by Seyedjafar Ehsanzadehsorati 2018 To: Dean Michael R. Heithaus College of Arts, Science and Education This dissertation, written by Seyedjafar Ehsanzadehsorati, and entitled A Corpus-driven Approach toward Teaching Vocabulary and Reading to English Language Learners in U.S.-based K-12 Context through a Mobile App, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. Teresa Lucas Haiying Long Phillip M Carter Eric Dwyer, Major Professor Date of Defense: November 8, 2018 The dissertation of Seyedjafar Ehsanzadehsorati is approved. Dean Michael R. Heithaus College of Arts, Sciences and Education Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2018 ii © Copyright 2018 by Seyedjafar Ehsanzadehsorati All rights reserved iii DEDICATION لیﻻ ,I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Leila iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to give my endless thanks to my supervisor, Eric S. Dwyer, who taught me how to write a dissertation. He has given me huge support over the past four years of my PhD and I am greatly indebted to him, thank you. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A CORPUS-DRIVEN APPROACH TOWARD TEACHING VOCABULARY AND READING TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN U.S.-BASED K-12 CONTEXT THROUGH A MOBILE APP by Seyedjafar Ehsanzadehsorati Florida International University, 2018 Miami, Florida Professor Eric Dwyer, Major Professor In order to decrease teachers’ decisions of which vocabulary the focus of the instruction should be upon, a recent line of research argues that pedagogically-prepared word lists may offer the most efficient order of learning vocabulary with an optimized context for instruction in each of four K-12 content areas (math, science, social studies, and language arts) through providing English Language Learners (ELLs) with the most frequent words in each area. Educators and school experts have acknowledged the need for developing new materials, including computerized enhanced texts and effective strategies aimed at improving ELLs’ mastery of academic and STEM-related lexicon. Not all words in a language are equal in their role in comprehending the language and expressing ideas or thoughts. For this study, I used a corpus-driven approach which is operationalized by applying a text analysis method. For the purpose of this research study, I made two corpora, Teacher’s U.S. Corpus (TUSC) and Science and Math Academic Corpus for Kids (SMACK) with a focus on word lemma rather than inflectional and derivational variants of word families. To create the corpora, I collected and analyzed a vi total of 122 textbooks used commonly in the states of Florida and California. Recruiting, scanning and converting of textbooks had been carried out over a period of more than two years from October 2014 to March 2017. In total, this school corpus contains 10,519,639 running words and 16,344 lemmas saved in 16,315 word document pages. From the corpora, I developed six word lists, namely three frequency-based word lists (high-, mid-, and low-frequency), academic and STEM-related word lists, and essential word list (EWL). I then applied the word lists as the database and developed a mobile app, Vocabulary in Reading Study – VIRS, (available on App Store, Android and Google Play) alongside a website (www.myvirs.com). Also, I developed a new K-12 dictionary which targets the vocabulary needs of ELLs in K-12 context. This is a frequency-based dictionary which categorizes words into three groups of high, medium and low frequency words as well as two separate sections for academic and STEM words. The dictionary has 16,500 lemmas with derivational and inflectional forms. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction .................................................................................................................1 K-12 textbooks critique.........................................................................................1 Lexicon in a second language in K-12 context .....................................................2 Context of K-12 vocabulary learning in a second language .................................2 Academic vocabulary............................................................................................4 STEM-related vocabulary .....................................................................................5 Fundamental issues with respect to vocabulary teaching and learning ................7 Statement of the research problem ........................................................................8 Research questions ..............................................................................................10 Overveiw of methods ..........................................................................................11 II. Conceptual framework and literature review………………………………………13 Introduction .........................................................................................................13 Conceptual framework for this dissertation ........................................................13 Text coverage as a criterion for learning burden ....................................14 Learning burden………………………………………………………..14 Learning burden of words in a second language……………………….15 Lemma vs. word family ......................................................................................16 Lemma ....................................................................................................16 Word family ............................................................................................17 Causes of vocabulary learning burden in a second language .............................18 Frequency of lemma ...............................................................................18 Word retrieval .........................................................................................18 Patterns of word appearance ...................................................................19 Threshold level and the necessity of word list ....................................................20 Typologies of academic and STEM-related vocabulary .....................................22 Vocabulary classification system for this study......................................24 Word frequency list and vocabulary instruction .................................................24 Mental lexicon and word frequency .......................................................24 Word Frequency and vocabulary development ......................................25 A model for learning vocabulary in another language ........................................28 Encoding and internal specification ........................................................29 Organization ............................................................................................30 Elaboration ..............................................................................................32 Depth of processing theory .....................................................................32 Rehearsal theory......................................................................................33 viii Corpus linguistics................................................................................................34 Corpus-based research ............................................................................34 Corpus-driven research ...........................................................................35 Current word lists ................................................................................................36 Academic word lists ................................................................................38 Sight word lists .......................................................................................41 Problems of current word lists ............................................................................42 Teaching/learning implications of using word lists ............................................43 Principle of least