Using Academic Word Lists in the Communicative

Classroom

Andrew Foley

Introduction

The aim of this workshop is to examine ways in which academic vocabulary, and particularly
Academic Word List items, can be successfully integrated into classroom learning utilising a
communicative language teaching approach. The activities put forward are aimed at learners
undertaking English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses, and have been trialled in the
context of Direct Entry Programs in the Australian ELICOS sector, in which international
students are undertaking English language courses in order to prepare themselves for
tertiary study in Australian universities.

Background

The number of international students seeking to undertake tertiary study at Australian

universities has increased greatly in recent years, especially in the past decade. According
to ABS statistics, while all overseas student sectors increased between 1995 and 2005, the
major driver in growth of overseas enrolment was the Higher Education sector, which
increased fourfold. (Linacre, 2007). In order to meet the English language requirements of
Australian tertiary institutions, many international students are required to undertake English
language courses, typically of three to six months in length. This increased demand for EAP
courses has been met not only by an expansion of the Universities’ own English language
centres, but also through private ELICOS providers. The changing nature of the market has
led to many teachers needing to expand their knowledge of EAP and the requirements of
students continuing on to study at University. One example of this is preparing students to
undertake the IELTS exam, which is used as an input into many EAP courses, Direct Entry
or otherwise. Although many institutions have been able to provide adequate professional
development for teachers to help them cope with this new challenge, many smaller private
institutions may not have the capacity to adequately prepare their staff for the changing
demands of the market. Consequently, many teachers have had to undertake much of this
re-skilling process themselves, through such mechanisms as collegial support and trial and
error in the classroom.

Classroom approaches in General English and EAP

Although the focus of making the transition from General English programs to EAP programs
is often based upon the differing content, for example subject-specific materials and

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academic study skills, I believe that there is also a significant difference of emphasis in
teaching methodology. Teachers encouraged to implement interactive, student-focussed
teaching approaches, such as those advocated by Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) or Task based learning (TBL), have suddenly been faced with a classroom
environment in which the norm is, generally speaking, more directive and teacher-focussed
with learning becoming more “serious” and the teacher’s role subtly moving from that of a
“facilitator” towards that of an “expert informer”. This workshop would like to advocate the
use of communicative, participative strategies to EAP courses, and more specifically, to the
learning of academic vocabulary, such as Academic Word Lists (AWLs).

Communicative Language Teaching

CLT encompasses the broad learning goal of the learner being able to communicate
successfully in the target language in real situations. CLT has been defined as:

An approach that aims to (a) make communicative competence the goal of language
teaching and (b) develop procedures for the teaching of the language skills that
acknowledge the independence of language and communication. (Richards and
Rogers 1986:66, quoted in Knight, 2001)

According to the same authors, this approach encourages the teacher to utilise activities that
promote real communication, carry out meaningful tasks and that are meaningful to the
learner (Richards and Rogers 1986:72). There is thus a focus on group work and
participation and making the content of lessons relevant to the learner’s lives. CLT
advocates the type of activities that promote learner discovery, are multi-sensual and
multimedia-based and can involve, for example, personal narrative, humour, or movement.

Vocabulary acquisition and Academic Word Lists

There has been a large amount of research and discussion in the area of vocabulary and
vocabulary learning and this will not be discussed here. Suffice to say that when dealing with
vocabulary encountered through the intensive reading of texts, teachers and teaching
materials can deal with targeted lexical items through a variety of tasks at different stages of
the reading (pre/during/post). These tasks may focus on form, meaning or use of lexis and
may involve activating receptive or productive knowledge (Nation 2003: 21). Additionally,
reading academic texts

… provides the extra challenge for the learner of the need to deal with unknown
academic and technical vocabulary, and the opportunity for the teacher to draw on
background knowledge and develop knowledge of subject matter topics and
themes.(Nation & Yongqi Gu 2007: iv)

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The development of Academic Word Lists of high frequency academic vocabulary has
attracted a lot of recent attention. AWLs are generated from corpuses of academic texts, and
are words not included within General Word Lists (usually regarded as the most common
2000 words). The AWL lists, developed through corpus-based research by Coxhead
(Coxhead 2000), contain the 570 most frequent academic word families, divided into ten
sub-lists of decreasing frequency use. These lists are now often included in some form in
published EAP-type materials, especially those targeting reading skills. Although valuable
reading skills and strategies are explored in such materials, my impression is that the learner
tasks in these materials tend to be limited in scope and variety, are not conducive to pair or
group learning and often fail to spark learner interest. In the introduction to Inside Reading:
An Academic Word List in Context, Zweir claims the content to be;

...high interest academic readings and activities (which) provide students with
opportunities to draw upon life experience in their mastery of a wide variety of
strategies and skills... (Zweir 2008: iv)

And yet in the classroom context, as a teacher, I found these materials, regardless of how
expertly-designed, to produce limited amounts of student interaction and long periods of
students processing texts and working silently though written activities. In order to make
these “serious” activities such as general and specific comprehension, word forms and
reading strategies more engaging to the learner, there is a need to integrate them with tasks
that activate different senses, are fun and have an element of unpredictability.

If learners feel that what they are asked to do is relevant to their own lives, and that
their feelings, thoughts, opinions and knowledge are valued, and crucial to the
success of the activities, then they will be fully engaged in the tasks and more likely
to be motivated to learn the target language. (Griffiths & Keohane: 1)

In currently-available learning materials AWLs tend to be presented as an appendix, or the

items dealt with in gap-fill sentences with no authentic context (Inside Reading is an
exception to this). As classroom learning practices are often driven by the tasks asked of
students by coursebooks and teaching materials, it is no surprise that EAP courses are seen
as more “serious” and less “fun” for both teacher and student (Picard 2004: 2).

The impression an examination of the type of tasks contained in EAP course materials
compared with those in General English course materials has given me has been compiled
in the table below.

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Table 1: Comparision of tasks required by General English and EAP materials

General English course texts EAP course texts

Shorter reading passages
Appealing to personal experience
Activating personal opinions
Vocabulary often channelled into discussion
Focus on vocabulary use
Pre and post reading discussion designed for Pre and post reading discussion limited to
learner small-group interaction and
personalised
Texts interspersed with photos and graphics
Learning goals and strategies often implicit
Activities as a goal in themselves
Longer reading passages
Appealing to world knowledge
Considering global themes and topics
Vocabulary dealt with predominantly through
matching and gap-filling activities
Focus on vocabulary form
small number of “serious” questions
designed for teacher-led open class
discussion
Text-dominated pages
Learning goals and strategies stated
explicitly
Activities requiring successful completion

A communicative approach to Academic Vocabulary

A variety of activities that have been successful in promoting student interaction and
engagement while dealing with academic vocabulary from AWLs have been provided below.
They are not systematically organised, and are loosely categorised into pre-reading, during
reading and post-reading activities. Most have been directly drawn or adapted from activities
suggested for dealing with vocabulary in ESL teacher methodology resource materials (the
source is provided after each activity where relevant), and have been selected with the goal
of making learning a social rather than a solitary process. ESL is on the whole a creative,
inventive and adaptable area of teaching, and there are almost unlimited possibilities for
creating similar activities (and finding the ones which work best for the individual teacher
with a particular class group and learning context).

All of these activities have been used with Academic Word Lists as the principal target
vocabulary. An invaluable tool in this process has been the AWL Highlighter tool on the
Nottingham University website (www.nottingham.ac.uk). This allows texts to be pasted into a
window, and the academic words within the text are highlighted in bold, at the level of AWL
required (from only the most common 30 items to the whole 570). These highlighted texts
can then be examined for the most appropriate types of learning tasks.

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Pre-Reading Activities

1. Meaning Graphs

Students are asked to draw an X and a Y axis on a full page, and are then directed to
label the two axes with different, preferably contrasting ideas. The teacher
subsequently dictates the selected vocabulary from the text to be used, and students
“plot” the items depending on how related they feel each vocabulary item is to the
two items on the axis. For example, with a text about the growing prevalence of stay-
home fathers, the labels love and money might be provided, and words such as
employment, income, and parenthood dictated. Once the dictation has finished,
students can compare their graphs, and justify their decisions. Thus word meaning is
discussed by the students, often with reference to their feelings and experiences
(adapted from Morgan & Rinvolucci 1986: 17).

2. Word categories

The teacher selects 15-20 AWL items from the text, and then considers how these
words might be separated into categories. The stay-home father text mentioned
above provided words that could be classified under topics such as money, thought,
time, and change. The words are enlarged, and placed on laminated cards, including
the category words, and students in pairs or groups decide into which category each
word should fall. Their choices are discussed, and students are encouraged to make
use of a dictionary while considering each word if necessary. As with the previous
activity, the meaning of each word is negotiated between members of the class.

3. Human sentence reconstruction

Several short sentences/phrases/clauses of 6 to 10 words (that include AWL list

items) are selected from the text and then are placed one word per large piece of
paper (using, for example, a marker and recycled A4 paper). The class is divided into
two teams and each group is given one pack of words. Each group has to put their
words in the right order, with the first correct group “winning”. Movement is
incorporated by asking each student to hold up one or two words while standing in a
line. The process is repeated several times.

4. AWL Wheel of Fortune

I’m not sure if this is an apt title for this activity, as it doesn’t have the spinning
“money” wheel. A sentence (or two) containing several AWL items is selected from
the text and written on the board in large letters. All of the words are covered with

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 pieces of paper (attached with a little blu tack) except for the AWL items. Students
take turns at guessing the covered words until the whole sentence is revealed.

5. AWL Storyboard

Many teachers would be familiar with the concept of storyboard, which is similar to
the previous activity, except each letter has its own piece of paper, and the guessing
proceeds as in Hangman, by letter or (once guessed) by word. If this becomes too
time-consuming, it can be revealed in reverse, that is, only the AWL items are
covered, while the other words can be seen.

These last three activities all promote student interest in the target vocabulary
through competition and the expectation of the words being revealed.

During reading/listening activities

When giving students a text, and an instruction such as “Now please read the article”, a
teacher might often feel a little unsure as to whether this is a sufficiently specific task and
suitable task instruction. Is this productive time? Are all the students reading the text
effectively, or are some thinking of other things? Academic Reading materials often try to
focus the student’s attention onto strategies while reading, such as surveying and predicting,
looking for definitions of technical vocabulary and recognising textual organisation. While
these are all worthy ways of promoting effective reading, they do not necessarily lead to
increased student reading motivation and engagement in the reading process.

1. Scanning competitions

The students are provided with 10-15 AWL items, and then are asked to find them in
the text as quickly as possibly, underlining or circling them. The words do not have to
be typed above the text; they could be written on the board or dictated. The winner is
the first person to find all the items. This idea originated from a reading activity in
EAP Now! (Cox & Hill 2004: 38), and I usually vary it by selecting AWL items that
appear more than once in a text. Each word is called out by the teacher, and the first
student to correctly call out the number of times the word appears in the text gets a
point. The process is repeated for each word, a running tally is kept and a winner
declared. A small prize can even be awarded!

2. Which member of the word family?

This activity uses a listening passage, whether audio or video, rather than a reading
text, although the transcript can also be subsequently utilised. AWL items that appear
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 in the passage are dictated in their simplest word form (i.e. base verb/noun) and in
the same sequence in which they appear in the passage and the students write them
down in a vertical list. As they listen to the passage, students have to write down the
correct form of the word using their list. This can also be used to target specific word
formation or listening skills, such as identifying final “s” on nouns. The singular forms
of the AWL-selected nouns are dictated, and the students have to decide if there is a
final “s” or each item as they listen. This is a very useful skill for IELTS test takers,
who often lose marks in the Listening section for incorrect use of final “s”.

3. On-line Discovery worksheets

This idea relates more broadly to Academic Reading rather than to purely vocabulary
and involves the students following a teacher-created worksheet in the computer
room. Students are instructed to visit various web pages and then to scan for specific
information which they have to note down. Successful completion of one step is
necessary to progress to the next. The instructions themselves can provide a
challenge to the students, focusing on finding not only content in the web pages but
also hyperlinks and other web-based user information. I have made these
worksheets specific to Academic Reading and vocabulary use strategies, in other
words, the information the students are required to find is actually advice on effective
reading strategies, such as that on university web sites. It also provides a revision
and consolidation of previous class work.

Post-reading activities

1. Mini-research projects and presentations

An on-line corpus such as the Collins Cobuild Concordancer

(http://www.collins.co.uk/corpus) is not only a useful tool for language researchers
and teachers, but can be used as an effective and engaging tool in the classroom (or
the computer room). After demonstrating how more information about the use of the
word in (admittedly limited) context can be discovered using the corpus, the teacher
provides each pair or small group of students with two or three of the AWL items
previously encountered in the lesson. Learners are given ten or fifteen minutes to do
their research, and then they give a short presentation to the rest of the class about
each word. The information about each word the students can be asked to research
could include;

• What are the most common adjectives (before a noun)?

• What are the most common objects (after a verb)?

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 • What are the most common topic areas the word appears in?

Although concordance samples have been used in some learning materials

(Thurstun & Candlin 1998) the focus is on examining the written version rather than
conducting the analysis with a fellow student (and thus negotiating the task) using a
computer interface.

2. Collaborative writing project

This activity not only involves working in a group to produce a text, but also requires
students to negotiate their words with other groups. Each group of three or four
students is given ten selected words (in this case AWL items). They are asked to
think about a story/article they could produce from some of these words. They have
to decide which six words to keep, and the remaining four they are able to swap with
someone from another group. Once they select the six wanted words, each person
takes one or two unwanted words from their group and a bartering stage occurs with
the whole class mixing. The students come back to their groups with their new words,
and create a short text as a group using all 10 words. The texts are then read out for
the whole class (adapted from Maley & Duff: 183)

3. Rotating interactive writing

This activity occurs after students have been examining AWL items focused on one
particular thematic area. They are then given an imaginary situation in which these
words would be prevalent, preferably a situation of conflict. I have used speech verbs
for this activity, such as assume, challenge, consent, indicate, and asked the
students to imagine the situation of a student seeking an extension on their essay,
but the lecturer being reluctant. Each student is given a piece of blank paper, and
asked to imagine that they are the student, and write the question they would ask.
Then everyone passes their paper in one direction, reads their partner’s question,
and is asked to put themselves in the situation of the lecturer, and respond to the
question, and subsequently to create a new question. The papers are then passed
back in the opposite direction, and the process continues for several turns. The
finished dialogues can then be passed around the class and compared (adapted
from Maley & Duff: 136).

Conclusion

The communicative and participative teaching strategies that have worked successfully in
the general English classroom should not be abandoned when delivering English for
Academic Purpose courses. On the contrary, they can help to lessen student reticence in

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dealing with complex texts/passages with difficult vocabulary, such as AWL items or
technical vocabulary. Although the stakes, and thus expectations, for students are often high
in EAP programs, I believe that considerable advantages can be gained in class atmosphere
and student engagement through tasks that activate the learner’s cognitive abilities by
promoting activities with a variety of features, including movement, competition, interaction
and unpredictability.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cox, K & Hill, D (2004) EAP Now! (Longman: Sydney)

Coxhill, A (2000) A New Academic Word List, TESOL Quarterly, v.34, no. 2

Dobinson, T (2006) Investigating Why Learners Recall Certain Items of Vocabulary from
Lessons, EA Education Conference proceedings 2006

Gains, R & Redman, S (1986) Working with Words (Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge)

Griffiths, G & Keohane K (2000) Personalizing Language Learning (Cambridge University

Press: Cambridge)

Knight, P (2001) The Development of EFL methodology, in Candlin, C & Mercer, C (eds)
English Language Teaching in its Social Context (Routledge: London)

Maley, A & Duff, A (1983) Drama Techniques in Language Learning (Cambridge University
Press: Cambridge)

Morgan, J & Rinvolucri, M (1986) Vocabulary (Oxford University Press: Oxford)

Nation, P & Yongqi Gu, P (2007) Focus on Vocabulary (Macquarie University: Sydney)

Nation, P (2004) Vocabulary learning and intensive reading, EA Journal Vol. 21, No. 2, 20 -
29

Picard, M (2004) Academic English delicious from the start, EA Educational Conference
Proceedings 2004

Thurstun J & Candlin C (1998), Exploring Academic English (Macquarie University: Sydney)

Zweir, L (2008) Inside Reading: The Academic Word List in Context (Oxford University
Press: Hong Kong)

ON-LINE SOURCES
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Linacre, S (2007) Australian Social Trends 2007: International Students in Australia
Australian Bureau of Statistics
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats)

Collins Cobuild Concordancer http://www.collins.co.uk/corpus

Nottingham University AWL Highlighter http://www.nottingham.ac.uk

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