Academic Vocabulary

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Academic Vocabulary
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Academic Vocabulary

• If your goal is to read academic writing (college
  textbooks, etc) and write academic papers
  (essays, etc), you can save yourself a lot of
  time and effort by focusing on academic vocabulary

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What is Academic Vocabulary?

• Academic Vocabulary is a specialized vocabulary
  of 570 word families that commonly appear in all
  academic textbooks, regardless of major field of
  study

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Academic Vocabulary Learning

• In general vocabulary learning, to go from
  80 understanding to 86 understanding would
  require you to learn 2,000 more word families

• In academic vocabulary learning, to go from
  80 understanding to 86 understanding would
  require you to learn 570 more word families

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Do you think studying academic vocabulary will be
helpful?
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• This semester, we will focus on learning
  academic vocabulary

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Academic Vocabulary

• In each unit this semester, approximately 100
  word families from the academic word list will
  appear.

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Keeping 4 principles in mind will help you
develop your vocabulary as much as possible this
semester
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Vocabulary Learning Strategies
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In order to develop your vocabulary, you should
keep 4 main principles in mind
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4 Main Principles

• Number 1
• You should be active in developing your
  understanding of words and ways to learn them

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Active Learning Strategies

• Semantic Mapping
• Making a graphic representation of the
  relationship between words

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Semantic Mapping
desertification
deforestation
global warming
climate change
erosion
extinction of species
air pollution
water pollution
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Active Learning Strategies

• Definition Mapping
• Working with grammar, meaning,
• and sample sentences

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Active Learning Strategies

• Grouping
• Recognizing the relatedness of a word
• to other words

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Grouping
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4 Main Principles

• Number 2
• You should personalize your vocabulary learning

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Personalized Learning Strategies

• Choosing words
• Identify key concepts and the words required to
  understand these concepts

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Personalized Learning Strategies

• Choosing words
• Identify important terms you need to learn

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Personalized Learning Strategies

• Choosing words
• Identify meaningful similarities and differences
  among the concepts / words being studied

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Personalizing words

• Node Acquisition and Integration Technique
  (NAIT)
• Students identify key concepts or important terms
  they need to learn within a text.
• Students construct a semantic network around each
  of the selected key concepts.
• Students think of examples or potential
  applications of the key concepts and record these
  examples on the definition worksheet.
• Students identify meaningful similarities and
  differences among the different concepts being
  studied.

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4 Main Principles

• Number 3
• You should be immersed in words

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Immersion in Words

• Opportunities
• Put yourself in a word-
• and language-rich environment

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Immersion in Words

• Opportunities
• Become aware of words and how they are used in
  the input you receive

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Immersion in Words

• Opportunities
• Try to use new / interesting words
• in your speaking and writing

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4 Main Principles

• Number 4
• You should use multiple sources of information to
  learn words through repeated exposures

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Repeated Exposure

• Opportunities
• Watch television news / programs that are related
  to the topic of environment

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Repeated Exposure

• Opportunities
• Read newspaper / magazine articles
• related to the topic on environment

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Repeated Exposure

• Opportunities
• Discuss environment-related topics with friends,
  family, classmates, etc

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Summary4 Principles of Vocabulary Learning

• You should be active in developing your
  understanding of words and ways to learn them
• You should personalize your word learning
• You should be immersed in words
• You should use multiple sources of information to
  learn words through repeated exposures

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Keeping these 4 principles in mind will help you
develop your vocabulary as much as possible this
semester
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Two important elements of vocabulary learning

• Quality
• How well do you know each word?

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Quality

• Goal
• To improve how much you know about each word

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Quality

• Spoken Form
• What does the word sound like?
• How is it pronounced?

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Quality

• Written Form
• What does the word look like?
• How is it written?

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Quality

• Meaning
• What meaning does this form
• of the word have?
• for example
• consider vs. considerably
• individual vs. individualism

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Quality

• Concepts
• What things can the concept refer to?
• for example
• fertile soil
• fertile mind

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Quality

• Associations
• What other words does this word make you think
  of?
• for example
• fundamentally - basically
• vast - massive - huge - extensive

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Quality

• Grammatical Patterns
• In what patterns does the word occur?
• transitive vs. intransitive verbs
• two-word verbs opt out of
• prepositions interest in, responsible for
• relative clauses suggest that, conclude that

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Quality

• Collocations
• What words or type of words occur with this word?
• for example
• complex problem
• complex issue
• complex person
• complex idea

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Quality

• Restrictions on use (register differences)
• Where, when, and how often would you expect to
  meet this word?
• for example
• ethos, kin, institutionalize
• formal academic words

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Quantity

• Goal
• To increase the number of words you know

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Quantity

• Educated adult native speakers of English know
  approximately 20,000 word families

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Quantity

• College freshman ESL students know approximately
  2,000 - 3,000 word families

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Quantity

• If you know the most frequent 1,000 words of
  English, you should be able to understand 72 of
  the words on the page of a book, newspaper, or
  magazine

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Quantity

• If you know the most frequent 2,000 words of
  English, you should be able to understand 80 of
  the words on the page of a book, newspaper, or
  magazine

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Quantity

• If you know the most frequent 3,000 words of
  English, you should be able to understand 84 of
  the words on the page of a book, newspaper, or
  magazine

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Quantity

• If you know the most frequent 4,000 words of
  English, you should be able to understand 86 of
  the words on the page of a book, newspaper, or
  magazine

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Quantity

• In order to understand 95 of the words on a
  page of a book, newspaper, or magazine, you need
  to know approximately 12,500 words

• In order to understand 99 of the words on a
  page of a book, newspaper, or magazine, you need
  to know approximately 44,000 words

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