Academic vocabulary and middle school English learners: an intervention study

Abstract

The goal of this experimental intervention study was to determine if evidence-based instructional strategies for general vocabulary words are effective with middle school English learner (EL) students and academic vocabulary words. Participants showed significantly more growth in their knowledge of academic vocabulary during the treatment condition than during the control condition. A secondary goal of this study was to examine the predictive utility of students' English language proficiency, and students' general vocabulary knowledge in English was a positive predictor for their academic vocabulary growth during the intervention. However, participants' growth during the control period had the greatest predictive utility for their growth during the intervention. Furthermore, this relationship was negative, suggesting that the intervention had the greatest benefits for students who made the least progress in English vocabulary in the absence of the intervention. Implications for instruction, policy, and future research are presented.

The impact of frequency and register on cognate facilitation: Comparing Romanian and Vietnamese speakers on the Vocabulary Levels Test

“…We should note that language relatedness generally bestows other types of facilitation to L2 groups, for example, in terms of morpho-syntax, word, sentence-level and pronunciation. Our findings add to the intervention research using the Academic Word List (Lesaux, Kieffer, Faller, & Kelley, 2010;Snow, Lawrence, & White, 2009;Townsend & Collins, 2009) and suggest that EAP instructors need to be aware of their students' L1 and their needs regarding academic vocabulary. Some students may be familiar with Latin-Greek words while some others may need additional support.…”

Differential effects of a systematic vocabulary intervention on adolescent language minority students with varying levels of English proficiency

“…In their study on the effectiveness of an after-school program for Spanish-speaking middle school LEP students, Townsend and Collins (2009) showed that a well-designed research-based intervention can be beneficial for enhancing academic vocabulary knowledge of language minority students. In other studies (August et al, 2009;Lesaux et al, 2010;Proctor et al, 2011), researchers found that the effects of their treatment did not differ according to the language minority status of the students.…”

Supporting the Language Development of Limited English Proficient Students through Arts Integration in the Primary Grades

“…Drama lessons provide a means of building oral language skills that is useful for all students. A growing body of literature has pointed out that best practices for promoting vocabulary knowledge among ELLs have also proven to be best practices for building breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge among native English speakers (August et al 2005;Beck and McKeown 2007;Biemiller and Boote 2006;Blanchowicz and Fisher 2004;Carlo et al 2004;Townsend and Collins 2009).…”