Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

It appears that my good friend Daniel has brought up some of my research on Biblical Hebrew vocabulary HERE and HERE (in the comments). I take Daniel’s compliments in high regard.

I have kind of been waiting until I defended my dissertation before I posted much on my research.  That will happen in less than two weeks now.  But, I’ll go ahead and say a couple of words.

I like what Adam is doing in his post on vocabulary, in general.  I also think it is problematic that flashcards do not provide contexts.  And, this is one things that I tried to remedy in the new approach that I tested in my dissertation.  There is indeed research that shows that vocabulary learned in a meaningful context is better learned.

With that said, I would throw out a word of caution, which I have mentioned here before. Learning vocabulary in frames is helpful, but might be better delayed to a later stage in the learning process.  The main problem with learning similar Biblical Hebrew words together is that it can cause interference.  Interference means that the vocabulary items are not distinct enough from each other and are easily confused by the learner.  This phenomenon has been demonstrated in no less than twelve empirical studies.

The idea of interference seems counter-intuitive because we have heard time and again that we learn by association.  However, most research on association has been done in monolingual contexts, i.e. learning lists of related words in the person’s native language.  This is not the same as learning a second language.  I think the empirical research on interference is difficult to argue with, and one must be careful about presenting too many semantically related words at one time, though they must come to be associated later in the learning process.  Thus, rather than association helping students to learn words initially, they can help to cement the learner’s knowledge later in the process of acquiring the word.

Second, I would also comment, just briefly, on Adam’s dislike of L2 (second language) – L1 (first language) vocabulary cards (e.g. Biblical Hebrew word on the front and English translation on the back).  I am sympathetic to this to some degree as this seeks to mimic the way in which we learn a first language.  However, I am not convinced that using the L1 in the second language instruction is as problematic as some think.   In fact, some researchers in second language acquisition (e.g. Michael Lewis well-known for his “lexical approach” the language learning) have concluded that using the L1 in second language instruction is inevitable, so we might as well make the best use of it we can.  And, Nation who has written one of the more important texts on second language vocabulary acquisition proposes traditional flashcards as a very helpful strategy, though they have fallen into disrepute with some second language instructors.

Ironically, I think not including the L1 on a flashcard might actually benefit because it makes more use of the first language translation than flashcards that include the L2 and L1.  Take Adam’s example of prepositions.  Imagine that a student looks at the picture for the preposition bet and sees the preposition “in” the glass.  It is difficult for me to imagine that the student learning Biblical Hebrew is doing anything other than looking at the picture and thinking of the English word “in.”  Thus, they might be making more use of translation than required by traditional flashcards.

Anyway, I’m just weighing in on a couple of these matters here.  I realize that there are some who would disagree with the assessment I gave above.  But, hopefully I can let you all know soon when my dissertation is online, and you all can judge these arguments as they are developed more fully.

I should preface this second post on the limited usefulness of semantic domains for learning Biblical Hebrew vocabulary by stating that I did not always think this was the case.  In my intermediate Hebrew course, I remember having Landes as the vocabulary text and thinking it was great to see someone finally do something other than a strict word list.  And, going into my dissertation research on Biblical Hebrew vocabulary learning, I believed that I would use this approach heavily, but supplement it with more vocabulary learning strategies.

However, I started my vocabulary research by reading vocabulary texts written by researchers who focus specifically on Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition (particularly the three at the end of this post plus a couple of others), rather than Second Language Acquisition in general.  And, I am glad I did so because I don’t believe these two groups of researchers are saying the same things (Yes, I have read many more general SLA texts as well).  I began to see the use of semantic domains as an overarching strategy as problematic after reading Nation.  He states the following:

Care should be taken in introducing lexical sets because this goes against the criterion of frequent use… Further arguments against the presentation of lexical sets as a way of introducing vocabulary can be found in the research of Higa (1963), Tinkham (1993 and 1997) and Waring (1997b) which show the difficulty caused by learning similar items together (387).

I, like some of the readers of my first post, was not completely convinced by the principle of frequency as there could be ways of tweaking this.  However, after reading the experimental studies referenced by Nation (as well as about five or six others) on “the difficulty caused by learning related items together,” I became much more strongly convinced that introducing vocabulary by lexical relationships was not a beneficial practice.  That is not to say that I think there is no place for lexical sets in vocabulary learning.  I do not have time to elaborate on this here, but word knowledge is multi-faceted, with semantic associations being one of those facets.  So, this should receive attention; however, in my opinion the focus should come later in the learning process when learners are consolidating their knowledge of a word for which form and meaning has already been paired.

At any rate, what is it that these studies report?  The studies report on a problem that Nation refers to as interference (303).  As in the comments of a previous post, interference in this context basically means that learning items like “mouth” and “nose” together does not make it more likely that these items will be remembered because of their close association, but rather makes it more likely that learners will have problems retrieving the meaning of either of these words because the initial learning was not distinct enough.  More simply, learners may be more likely to confuse the words, whether this results in delay or error.

As a basic summary of the experiments in these articles, researchers present groups with two different ways of learning words.  One group learns a set of unrelated words and another group learns a set of semantically related words (sometimes there are variations like pictures being used, etc.).  Then, the groups are each given a task to perform using the vocabulary.  Across the board, in the 10 studies that I have put into a bibliography, the subjects who learn words in related sets perform worse on the task in which they put the vocabulary to use.  These results have been replicated so often, I think, because they are so unexpected.  Throughout the psychological literature we are told that we learn by association.  These studies seem to violate that principle until one realizes that the idea of learning by association is extremely complex.

Against this background though, these results have been replicated so often that linguists and psychologists have developed a reasonably good explanation for them them.  In the comments section of a previous post, I noted that Finkbeiner and Nicol explain these results in terms of spreading activation, a concept that will be familiar to almost anyone who has reviewed psychological literature on language.  Spreading activation basically means (at least in this context) that when a person sees a lexical item all the other items associated with it are activated as well.  This obviously has a lot of beneficial effects in terms of language processing.  It helps us to read quickly because when we see a particular word we can begin to expect which words might come next.

Yet spreading activation also has an inhibitory effect.   This effect is possibly at work in the results of the studies cited here.  When a person learns words in lexical sets, the learning is not distinct enough.  Thus, in some cases, when a learner sees a particular lexical item all of the associated items are activated too strongly for the learner to make a correct or timely decision about the meaning of the item.  This happens time and time again in the literature.

At this point, I suppose a number of objections might be raised.  But, I think there is enough evidence here to suggest that there is at least something to this and that this is a very important issue for vocabulary learning.  There is enough here to suggest that these studies cannot be dismissed off-hand.  These are studies that I feel must be at least grappled with by those who develop the vocabulary component of a course.  On the other end of the spectrum, I, as Finkbeiner and Nicol, have not seen any empirical research that suggests introducing vocabulary in lexical sets can be beneficial.  Most, if not all, evidence proposed in this line comes from monolingual studies in which subjects learn lists of words.  This is not the same thing as pairing form and meaning in vocabulary learning.

Yesterday I posted a bibliography on the problem of interference when learning semantically related words, which I have updated this morning.  However, I know that not everyone will have access to all of those works and that not everyone will have the time to read them all.  But, I have found one of the articles online for free at the website of one of the authors:

Finkbeiner, M. & Nicol, J. (2003). Semantic category effects in second language word learning. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 369-383.

The article can accessed by clicking HERE and scrolling down to the second to last entry.

Here are some notable quotes with emphasis added:

The present study addresses a long-standing assumption in the field of applied linguistics: that presenting new second language (L2) vocabulary in semantically grouped sets is an effective method of teaching (369).

Although many SLA theorists and practitioners endorse (implicitly or explic-
itly) the seemingly sensible position that teaching new L2 vocabulary in seman-
tically grouped sets is an effective method of teaching, there is actually very
little empirical evidence to support this position. The body of literature often
cited in support of presenting learners with semantically grouped words includes
(monolingual) memory studies (370).

In studies that record the number of learning trials needed to reach a predetermined learning criterion, it has been shown that participants take longer to learn new labels for sets of semantically related items than for sets of semantically dissimilar items (Higa, 1963; Kintsch & Kintsch, 1969; Nation, 2000; Tinkham, 1993, 1997; Underwood, Ekstrand, & Keppel, 1965; Waring, 1997) (371).

Overall, then, presenting semantically grouped L2 words to learners has a
deleterious effect on learning (376, from the discussion section after their experiment dealing with interference).

The implications that this study has for vocabulary instruction and curriculum
development are not trivial. As pointed out in the introductory section, several
authors in the teaching methodology literature have argued that vocabulary
should be taught in semantic groups. The results of the present study converge
with those of Tinkham (1993, 1997) and Waring (1997) to suggest that teaching
words in semantic sets creates competition between items, which in turn in-
creases difficulty during learning and during memory retrieval in language pro-
duction.

I will still have another of my own posts on this topic, so I hope that this article and the others in the previous post will be helpful in the meantime.

This morning I wrote a first post stating one of the reasons I believe learning semantically related items is of limited usefulness, at least early on in the learning process.  There was a bit of interest in that post with the first part of my reasoning being  called into question.  But, it may be a couple of days before I can write the follow up post, and I didn’t want to let the discussion sit for that long.

So, I decided to put together a bibliographical post for those interested that would serve two purposes.  One it will keep the issues in the first post alive perhaps until I can write a follow up.  And second, it is needless to say that I lack credentials on this subject to a certain degree.  My dissertation research has been in Applied Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew.  As an interdisciplinary researcher, I run the risk of being an expert in neither area and knowing just enough about each to be dangerous.  So, I thought I would refer readers to the studies by the credentialed applied linguists first.  Then, I’ll weigh in with my two cents in a couple of days (I’ve placed myself under a bit of a personal deadline with regard to my fourth chapter of my thesis).

Against this background, the second reason I believe learning semantically related words together is of limited usefulness is based on research on interference.  When dealing with the concept of interference one must at least deal with the idea that learning semantically related items together may actually be detrimental to learners.  I believe that is what the studies below suggest.  There is some research in the field of Psychology that suggests learning semantically related items together may be beneficial.  However, this research primarily deals with the learning of lists of words in a subject’s native language, which is not the same as pairing form and meaning in vocabulary learning.  These studies may even represent where the practice originated in vocabulary materials; however, the more recent studies focused specifically on vocabulary learning appear to call the practice into question.

I have arranged the bibliographical items by publication date and will almost certainly update the list tomorrow when I arrive in my office (or maybe after a staff meeting).  I’m sure there is a pertinent article by Laufer I am forgetting as well as maybe 1-3 others.

Bibliography

Higa, M. (1963). Interference effects of intralist word relationships in verbal learning. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2, 170-175.

Underwood, B., Ekstrand, B., & Keppel, G. (1965). An analysis of intralist similarity in verbal learning with experiments on conceptual similarity. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 4, 447 – 462. *

Kintsch, W. & Kintsch, E. (1969). Interlingual interference and memory processes. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 8, 16 – 19. *

Tinkham, T. (1993). The effect of semantic clustering on the learning of second language vocabulary. System, 21(3), 371-380.

Laufer, B. (1997). What’s in a word that makes it hard or easy. In Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy, N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (ed.), 140-155. *

Tinkham, T. (1997). The effects of semantic and thematic clustering on the learning of second language vocabulary. Second Language Research, 13(2), 136-183.

Waring, M. (1997). The negative effects of learning words in semantic sets: A replication. System, 25, 261-274.

Nation, P. (2000).  Learning vocabulary in lexical sets: dangers and guidelines.  TESOL Journal, 9(2), 6-10.

Finkbeiner, M. & Nicol, J. (2003). Semantic category effects in second language word learning. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 369-383.

Papathanasiou, E. (2009). An investigation of two ways of presenting vocabulary. ELT Journal, 63(4), 313-322. *

* Represents articles added after the original post

Postscript – Here are also a Dissertation and MA thesis that may touch on this topic. I have not read them, but Laufer (see above) cites them:

Balhouq, S. (1976). The place of lexis in foreign language acquisition. University of Sheffield: Unpublished MA thesis. (According to Laufer, in this study learners of Arab learners of English had trouble with semantically related words dealing with family relations.  This may have also had to do with cultural factors).

Stock, R. (1976). Some factors affecting the acquisition of foreign language lexicon in the classroom. University of Illinois: Unpublished PhD thesis. (Part of this study notes that learners have trouble confusing semantically related words like the two different colors of blue, i.e. kachol/tchelet).

My friend Karyn has linked to some pretty cool stuff for teaching or learning Hebrew.  There’s Hebrew Scrabble, Hebrew Comic books and a lot of other fun looking stuff.  Check it out HERE.