From Receptive to Productive: Improving ESL Learners' Use of Vocabulary in a Postreading Composition Task.

Limited research on ESL learners' use of vocabulary in writing prompted our investigation of vocabulary use in composition by secondary school multi-L1 intermediate ESL learners in Greater Vancouver (n = 48). This study showed that though intermediate learners' use of 1,000–2,000-word-level vocabulary tended to remain constant, their productive use of higher level target vocabulary improved in postreading composition and was largely maintained in delayed writing. It also showed how, in so doing, their lexical frequency profile (LFP) improved. We attribute this improvement to the teacher's use of interactive elicitation of vocabulary and a writing frame, and specific instruction to learners to use target vocabulary. Though the exact factor or factors of vocabulary acquisition in this study is unclear, it is obvious that teacher elicitation, explicit explanation, discussion and negotiation, and multimode exposure to target vocabulary are all means of scaffolding and manipulating vocabulary that increased learners' use of target vocabulary. All these strategies in turn improve LFP in writing. The results suggest that this approach also makes vocabulary learning durable. Increased productive vocabulary acquisition also implies a much larger increase in recognition vocabulary, improving overall classroom language performance. Hinkel (2006, p. 109) calls for integrated and contextualized teaching of multiple language skills, in this case, reading, writing, and vocabulary instruction.

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