{"id":55251,"date":"2020-12-18T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=55251"},"modified":"2020-12-17T13:25:06","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T21:25:06","slug":"why-students-need-to-learn-academic-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-students-need-to-learn-academic-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Why students need to learn academic words"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Method<\/em>,\u00a0analyse<\/em>,\u00a0conversely<\/em>. These words are more useful than you think.<\/p>\n

These and other \u201cacademic\u201d words are used in writing and speech at school and other educational settings without being specific to any discipline. They can be used, among other things, to describe research (method<\/em>,\u00a0analyse<\/em>) and to structure speech and writing (conversely<\/em>).<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, knowing them can predict performance at\u00a0primary school<\/a>,\u00a0secondary school<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0university<\/a>. In other words, how well students know academic words may affect how well they do at school. But although students are surrounded by academic words, they are not typically taught them at school \u2013 so learning them can be challenging.<\/p>\n

Challenging vocabulary<\/strong><\/h4>\n

International university students in\u00a0Hong Kong<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0New Zealand<\/a>\u00a0have reported difficulty with learning and understanding English academic vocabulary.<\/p>\n

Monolingual native speakers of English also face problems with academic words, including frequently used vocabulary such as\u00a0summarise<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0contribute<\/em>. Despite the common view that native speakers have well-developed vocabulary knowledge, research suggests that a low socio-economic background can hinder language development, including vocabulary, at both\u00a0primary<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0secondary school<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some academic words occur in everyday language too, so they may go unnoticed. A student can easily fail to realise that\u00a0reliable<\/em>\u00a0means \u201cof consistent quality\u201d in a scientific journal article if they already know that in everyday language it often means \u201cdependable\u201d. Research suggests that people\u00a0find it hard<\/a>\u00a0to correctly guess new meanings for words they encounter in a reading passage, because they stick with the meanings they already know.<\/p>\n

With extra meanings come other things students need to learn about a word. For example, when\u00a0random<\/em>\u00a0appears before\u00a0sample<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0sampling<\/em>, it means that \u201call the people or things being involved have an equal chance of being chosen\u201d.<\/p>\n

As with all word learning, academic word learning isn\u2019t just about understanding what a word looks and sounds like and a definition of its meaning. It also includes understanding which other words tend to appear close to it whenever it has a certain meaning.<\/p>\n

Another reason why it is difficult to learn academic words is that some can also be jargon \u2013 a word with a special meaning in a particular context. For example, the noun\u00a0function<\/em>\u00a0is used with\u00a0various shared meanings<\/a>\u00a0across scholarly disciplines but it has a specialised meaning in mathematics, and a more recent one in computer science.<\/p>\n

Perhaps a more important reason for the difficulty students face with learning academic words is how they are exposed to them. Unsurprisingly, words are learned faster when they are taught than when they are not. Unlike scientific jargon, academic words are not, typically, taught\u00a0at school<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0university<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ways forward<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Academic vocabulary instruction has been trialled at primary and secondary schools. Most of these studies have taken place\u00a0in the US<\/a>. They show that teaching academic vocabulary can lead to increased knowledge of academic words.<\/p>\n

It is important to note that not any kind of instruction will do. Contrary to\u00a0common practice<\/a>\u00a0in vocabulary teaching, these studies went beyond teaching a word\u2019s spelling and pronunciation together with its most frequent meaning. For example,\u00a0in one study<\/a>\u00a0students encountered the same word in different contexts, were taught more than one meaning for each word, and did activities such as meaning guessing and breaking words into meaningful parts.<\/p>\n

Research on what makes some academic words harder to learn than others for students with specific characteristics \u2013 age, English proficiency level \u2013 can help make educated guesses about which words and which aspects of these words should be taught to different students.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0my research<\/a>\u00a0suggests that bilingual university students are more likely to recognise an English academic word the more frequent it is, but they tend to recognise cognate words (words similar in form and meaning, such as English\u00a0university<\/em>\u00a0and Spanish\u00a0universidad<\/em>) even when they are infrequent.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0not all bilingual students<\/a>\u00a0recognise a cognate word when they see or hear one. Teachers can raise bilingual students\u2019 awareness of cognates by pointing out\u00a0equivalent word parts<\/a>\u00a0between English and the students\u2019 other language. They can also encourage them to use their knowledge of cognates while\u00a0reading or listening in English<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As with any word, knowing many things about an academic word is more likely to help students understand it correctly in reading and listening and use it appropriately while speaking and writing.<\/p>\n

However, classroom time is precious. Not all\u00a0academic words<\/a>\u00a0can be taught in such depth. The teaching of these words will be more efficient if it is tailored to individual students\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Sophia Skoufaki is Associate Supervisor in Applied Linguistics at the University of Essex<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Method,\u00a0analyse,\u00a0conversely. These words are more useful than you think. These and other \u201cacademic\u201d words are used in writing and speech at school and other educational settings without being specific to any discipline. They can be used, among other things, to describe research (method,\u00a0analyse) and to structure speech and writing (conversely). What\u2019s more, knowing them can […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":55252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[357558],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-55251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-academic-words"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy students need to learn academic words - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-students-need-to-learn-academic-words\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why students need to learn academic words - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Method,\u00a0analyse,\u00a0conversely. These words are more useful than you think. These and other \u201cacademic\u201d words are used in writing and speech at school and other educational settings without being specific to any discipline. They can be used, among other things, to describe research (method,\u00a0analyse) and to structure speech and writing (conversely). 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