Academic Vocabulary
A study of EFL students’ lexical performance in university writing
The use of academic vocabulary across proficiency levels: a study of EFL students’ lexical performance in university writing
By Dr. Christianus I Wayan Eka Budiartha (Sampoerna University)
Vocabulary and syntactic knowledge in oral and written language encompasses specific skills that allow students to meet academic demands across the curriculum.
As students progress through school, they are expected to demonstrate increasing levels of sophistication in their language and reading skills across all content areas.
Many students struggle with academic language because their exposure to the language outside of school does not include advanced words and phrases. The transition to “school talk” poses a particular challenge for English Language Learners (ELLs) since they must simultaneously develop everyday language already familiar to their monolingual peers, along with academic language skills (O’Brien and Leighton, 2015).
This study was written by Christianus I Wayan Eka Budhiarta aims to investigate EFL students’ performance in recognizing and using academic vocabulary across three different proficiency levels of English, i.e., elementary, intermediate, and advance. Given the role of academic vocabulary as an important part of university life, investigation of the low-frequency words used by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in their university writing is getting crucial.
The author employed a quantitative approach with a cross-sectional design to examine the difference and the correlation between the two variables. By involving 150 subjects from private universities in Jakarta, some interesting results were uncovered in this study.
The term ‘academic vocabulary’ has been recognized in both English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course and the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course. Interestingly, since the 1980s the term ‘academic vocabulary’ has been recognized under several different jargon such as sub-technical vocabulary, semi-technical vocabulary, and specialized non-technical lexis. Interestingly, Coxhead’s (2000) AWL seems to have the biggest part of the words which involves extended meaning in specialized vocabulary items.
The author stated that there are two identifications commonly used by scholars to classify the notion of academic vocabulary, i.e.
(1) domain-specific words; and
(2) general academic vocabulary (Bauman & graves, 2010).
The domain-specific vocabulary includes vocabulary items from several disciplines such as biology, geometry, civics, and geography. Meanwhile, the general academic vocabulary refers to lexical items that are commonly used in broader areas.
By considering the classification, a related question on what makes academic vocabulary being ‘academic’ has later become an issue. There are at least two reasons why this type of vocabulary becomes a crucial component in any programs of comprehensive literacy. First, the connection between academic vocabulary and language comprehension should be well- established (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). Second, the importance of having academic vocabulary knowledge has also been indirectly sounding by the government in the regulation about the three pillars of higher education (Undang-Undang No. 12 Tahun 2012).
This study was designed to first, see the difference of students ‟academic vocabulary across students‟ proficiency levels and second, correlate the vocabulary items with the proficiency levels.
Academic vocabulary and multi-literacy texts
Research by Coleman in 1988 reveals that about 80% of the books and multi-literacy texts used in higher education level are available in English, which is a bit contradictive with the method of language teaching and learning commonly performed in classroom settings in Indonesia (Long, 2015, p. 102). For example, to comprehend English textbooks and multi- literacy sources, language learners also require the ability to express concepts by using academic vocabulary. With the traditional ‘transmission’ method, many language learners are still focusing their learning experience on memorization, recalling knowledge, recognition, and some other lower thinking skills, rather than working on the critical thinking skills. Therefore, knowledge of academic vocabulary a critical prerequisite that allows language learners to argue and to engage in inquiry.
It was stated previously that knowledge of academic vocabulary has a crucial role in university life. The statement refers to a situation that academic vocabulary plays a significant position in students’ productive competence, especially in the high stakes of writing. The decision to introduce and not to introduce some less frequent words has become an issue in teaching English as a foreign language. However, without massive efforts to bring aspects of language proficiency to attention, the students might encounter several difficulties in their future careers.
With the development of contextualized language use, including the availability of corpora (a large collection of texts) and computer-based tool to analyze the occurring discourse, researchers in Applied Linguistics and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) have directed their study to aspects of language use appeared in university or higher education contexts.
Three strands in researching vocabulary
Morris and Cobb (2004) propose three essential strands of vocabulary research across disciplines, and the strands involve several aspects such as psychology, semiotics, applied linguistics, and education. The three strands refer to lexical knowledge, literacy, and metalinguistic awareness, and they were designed by considering the background of language learners, such as mother tongues, ages, nationalities, and academic goals.
The notion of text and context in students’ productive competence
As a means of communication, language consists of smaller linguistic units such as sounds, words, and sentences. These units become an important combination to express ideas in verbal or written communication. When uses a language, people need to consider three important issues, i.e. context, text, and language system, and these issues were adopted to design the theory of register (Halliday, 2008).
What about the relationship between context and text? Context refers to features that can influence how communication takes place; a language is constructed based on a context (Butt et al., 1995, p11). Context can control, influence, and determine any choices made when composing or interpreting a text. In a certain context, people can use a language to accomplish the following three functions, i.e. ideational function, interpersonal function, and textual function (Butt, et.al, 1995, pp.13-14)
The text was generated from two contexts, i.e. the context of the situation (register) and the context of culture (genre). The term ‘written language’ does not only about write down language, but also the grammar of the target language. The text also involves three dimensions, i.e. field of discourse, the tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse.
In this study, having vocabulary knowledge, or in particular, academic words does not merely refer to knowledge of the words‟ meaning (concept, reference, association), but also knowledge of words‟ orthography or form (spoken, written, and word parts), and knowledge of the words‟ use (grammatical function, collocation, and constraints on use) (Nation, 2001).
In conclusion, investigation results on the use of academic vocabulary across proficiency levels show that the development students’ academic words were actually normal, indicating that lower-level students performed less academic vocabulary than those who are in higher proficiency levels. Overall, there was a significant difference or there was a significant development from the elementary level to the intermediate and from the elementary level to the advanced levels, however, there was no difference or there was no significant development from the intermediate level to the advanced level. This result reveals that EFL students were aware of common academic words used in university writing, which are often acquired during their study at the elementary level, but along with their improvement in language proficiency, the special attention on learning frequent words, such as academic words have decreased.
By Dr. Christianus I Wayan Eka Budiartha (Sampoerna University)
Eka began his career in education as an English instructor where he taught teaching general English and business English in 2000, in Bali. Currently, he is an English Language Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Sampoerna University.
Eka has taught various courses such as Contemporary issues in ELT. Semantics and Lexicology, Sociolinguistics, Introduction to the Study of Language, etc. He holds Master’s degree in Linguistic from Graduate Schools or Humanities, Nanzan University and Doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics from Atma Jaya Catholic University. He has been a presenter at numerous education conferences, to include ASIA TEFL, ICOELT, or LLTC.
INTERESTED IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION?
The Teacher’s Guide is getting around! Seen here up a cliff face in Thailand. When we said ‘a companion to your international adventure’ we didn’t quite mean literally!
Grab a copy to take on your own adventure.