TEACHING SPECIALIZED
VOCABULARY BY INTEGRATING A
CORPUS-BASED APPROACH:
IMPLICATIONS FOR ESP COURSE
DESIGN AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL
HSIAO-I HOU
A JOURNAL ANALYSIS
Lorelyn N. Saltoc, PhDE 716
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
• To demonstrate how to integrate
specialized corpora from a particular
hospitality field into an introductory wine
tasting course
Specific Objectives
• To describe the characteristics of word composition
• To identify core and specialized vocabulary word lists for
practical ESP teaching materials for non-native speakers
• To determine the difference between the students'
performance in the pre- and post test on the following:
– Specialized vocabulary and keywords
– Academic word List (AWL)
– Reading Comprehension
ELEMENTS DETAILS
Concepts CORPORA IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
(LITERATURE REVIEW)
• A general corpus is most useful for developing an idea
of the global behavior of vocabulary items or
phrases and can be used for publishing dictionaries
and textbooks. Unlike the corpora for dictionaries, a
specialized corpus consists of language that is selected
for specific purposes. A specialized corpus is particularly
useful for understanding how language is used in a
particular register of the language (Tribble, 1990).
• A corpus-based approach gives authentic examples
while providing students with opportunities to be
explorers (Dodd, 1997). With authentic examples,
learners observe the true use of language.
• Corpus-based language learning can meet the needs of
learners by stimulating their motivation to learn with
authentic examples (Sun, 2007) through inductive
thinking strategies, developing ESL learners’
comprehension and transforming learned linguistic
knowledge into reading and writing skills.
ELEMENTS DETAILS
Concepts SPECIALIZED VOCABULARY & TEACHING APPROACHES
(LITERATURE REVIEW)
• Nation (2008) defined specialized vocabulary as words
that are “recognizably specific to a particular topic,
field or discipline” (2001, p. 198). Acquiring specialized
vocabulary is crucial to learners to attain academic
literacy and to become part of their chosen academic
discourse communities.
• According to Waring and Nation (2004), a reader needs
to know at least 95% of the surrounding vocabulary to
successfully guess the meaning of a new word through
context… If specialized vocabulary constitutes as much as
30% of a text, then it will be difficult for students to
acquire these words incidentally when they first meet
them, and it will be extremely slow and frustrating for
them to be constantly using a dictionary.
• Sutarsyah et al. (1994) found that using texts from a
variety of disciplines to introduce vocabulary led to
learners acquiring a great deal of vocabulary that would
be of no use to them in their own disciplines.
ELEMENTS DETAILS
Concepts SPECIALIZED VOCABULARY & TEACHING APPROACHES
(LITERATURE REVIEW)
• Hyland and Tse (2007) suggested that academic
vocabulary should be viewed as discipline-specific
words ranging from those that are particular to one
discipline to those that share some meaning and use
with words in other fields, and they concluded that
these should be the words that teachers introduce
and spend time practicing in the ESP classroom.
• Specialized vocabulary definition and acquisition have
been seriously lacking in research. In addition, current
GAP research outcomes are not sufficient to instruct on how
to teach specialized vocabulary. One controversial issue
has been whether to teach vocabulary implicitly or
explicitly for better comprehension.
• Schmitt (2000) and Nation (2001) suggested that a
combination of both approaches be utilized because
certain vocabulary is best acquired incidentally through
repeated exposure or specific learning activities,
whereas other features, such as word forms or
grammar features, should be explicitly explained.
METHODOLOGY DETAILS
Research Design • Experimental (One group Pre test-Post test Research) -
Quantitative
Research Locale • Applied English Department, Taiwan
Respondents • 42 first year university students
5 or 12 % were in CEF A2 level
28 or 67% were in CEF B1
9 or 21% were in CEF B2
Data • Chose introductory level courses as model courses for
Collection/Sampling demonstrating CLIL teaching approaches
• Compiled two (2) in-house corpora and integrated them as
part of the teaching materials
• 1st lecture – the LCBO and AntConc softwares were
introduced; students were trained
• 2nd lecture – the 50 most frequent AWL and 100 most
frequent specialized vocabulary and keyword were given to
students
- Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension test was
administered
• Up to 14 week – Variety of activities and tasks were given as
th
assignments
• 17th week – the same vocabulary and reading comprehension
were administered to investigate the students’ progress
Data Analysis • Pre and post test Annova
SO_1: To describe the characteristics of word composition
As Table 1 shows, the TC Overall, in the corpora, the K1
contained 1,866 wine tasting notes and K2 (GSL) words constituted 70% of
(WC=933 and RC=933) and 124, 665 the texts. Approximately 4% of the words
words. The RC contained 65 421 words, appeared on the AWL, and more than
and the WC contained 59 244 words. The 25% of the vocabulary consisted of off-
average length of the red list words. The red wine corpus appeared
wine tasting notes was 71 words, whereas to contain more academic and off-list
the average length for the white wine words than did the white wine corpus.
notes was 64 words.
SO_2: To identify core and specialized vocabulary word lists for practical ESP
teaching materials for non-native speakers
The table shows that words in this
category tended to appear across
different disciplines and did not reflect
the nature of the specific discourse.
Among the listed words, 10 words
appeared in both the RC and the WC:
medium, complex, core, layer, intensity,
feature, style, concentration, display, and
classical. The table also shows that
reviewers describing red wine and
white wine used different words from the
AWL to write their tasting notes.
Table 4 lists the 20 most frequent
specialized vocabulary words from the
RC and the WC. The most frequent
specialized vocabulary in these two
corpora differed. Most of the words
were related to the nouns that are used
to describe the aromas and flavors of
the wines. On both lists, among the top
5 words, palate and aroma could be
identified as HF specialized words in
the wine community.
SO_2: To identify core and specialized vocabulary word lists for practical ESP
teaching materials for non-native speakers
Table 5 shows the 20 most frequent keywords from the RC and the WC. The list shows
that most of the words were related to the descriptions of the smell and taste of the wines.
The wine reviewers primarily used fruits and vegetables to describe the perceptual experience,
but the types of fruits and vegetables to describe the white and red wines were quite different.
In addition, providing suggestions for food pairing is an important aspect of wine tasting
notes. Therefore, certain words were related to cooking methods and food terms. For example,
on the RC keyword list, braise and tenderloin were ranked 8th and 12th, whereas sear, sushi, and
seafood were ranked 8th, 10th, and 16th, respectively.
SO_3: To determine the difference between the students' performance in the
pre- and post test
The pre- and post test ANOVA results clearly show that the
students’ performance on the vocabulary and reading
comprehension tests progressed. The average score on the pre-
test was 59.12, and the average score on the post test was 81.91.
The students scored significantly higher for all three test items on
the post test compared with the pre-test. This result indicates
that the students gained both vocabulary and content
knowledge of the wine community during the 18 weeks of
course instruction.
OBJECTIVES CONCLUSION
To describe the • The vocabulary analyses demonstrated that more
characteristics of word specialized corpora tend to have a higher
composition frequency of content words… . Compared with
normal general English texts, wine tasting notes
appear to be more challenging for non-native
speakers.
To determine the • Based on the pre- and posttest analyses, student
difference between the performance in vocabulary and reading
students' performance in comprehension improved significantly.
the pre- and post test on:
(1) Specialized vocabulary
and keyword,
(2) Academic word List
(AWL), and
(3) Reading
Comprehension.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Teachers • Teachers should focus on teaching the specialized
vocabulary and expressions that students will use or
be expected to use in their subject areas. This can be
done by helping learners gain the more general skills
of recognizing specialized words, interpreting
definitions, relating senses to a core meaning, and
learning word parts (Chung & Nation, 2003).
ESP teachers and • They are encouraged to use the results from the
material developers specialized corpus analysis as inputs for course
content design.
Future Researchers • They may investigate the same linguistic features in
the same field but using different text resources, such
as wine review articles in newspapers or magazines. By
comparing the research results, researchers can obtain
a broader understanding of wine language.