The Creation of a New ESL Spelling Vocabulary List
Keith Folse is Professor of TESOL at the University of Central Florida, where he teaches in the MA TESOL, PhD TESOL, and Undergraduate TEFL programs.
Our students report that they want more vocabulary, and evaluations of their written work clearly reflect a lexical deficiency. To determine the most beneficial vocabulary for English learners, researchers have produced many corpus-based vocabulary lists, including the General Service List, Frequent Phrasal Verbs List, and Academic Word List, among others. At the same time, certain language groups, especially lower-proficiency learners within those groups, have great difficulty with spelling, especially vowel sounds, in their English writing. What teachers and learners would greatly benefit from is a vocabulary list that is based not just on word frequency but also on spelling.
Twenty years ago, vocabulary was a distant stepchild to grammar, but now vocabulary has garnered almost a great deal of pedagogical attention, so much so in fact that very little attention has been paid to spelling. In this talk, the presenter will explain the reasoning and methods behind the creation of a brand new word list that aims to simultaneously improve students’ spelling and vocabulary. This need for such a list became more apparent as English programs across the U.S. have been inundated with hundreds of Arabic- and Chinese-speaking students who need to pass college writing courses. Coming from languages with writing systems that are vastly different from that of English, these learners—like all English Language Learners—need attention to vocabulary, but they also need systematic help with spelling, an aspect of English teaching that is not well addressed in our field today.
When: Saturday, October 12, 2013
3:00-4:00PM