Using Vocabulary from Input Texts in Writing Tasks

Abstract

This study investigates the use of vocabulary from input texts in English for academic purposes (EAP) writing tasks in the context of writing in a university in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Using a linked case study approach, this research gathers, analyses, and interprets written and spoken data from second language participants in two separate studies. It also investigates teachers' approaches both to teaching vocabulary in English for Academic Purposes and to the EAP reading and writing tasks from the first two studies. Four main findings emerge from this research. Firstly, this study finds both negative and positive effects in instructed use of target vocabulary in writing. The negative effects include raised levels of anxiety, while the positive effects include higher levels of awareness of target words. Secondly, our understanding of the importance and kinds of knowledge required to use a word in writing in another language needs to be widened to include other types of knowledge such as actually how to use a word in writing, the academic context of the writing, and the writing topic itself, as well as understanding the role of personal attitudes of learners in productive word use. Thirdly, this research finds evidence for the benefits of direct instruction of vocabulary for learning but that EAP teachers' approaches to vocabulary primarily focus on meaning-focussed input and incidental rather than direct learning. Finally, this study finds teachers can create an environment to foster vocabulary use when developing writing tasks through task design such as using a set of teacher's notes to support comprehension of source texts, textual enhancement, and carefully setting up conditions around the use of words in writing. A teacher's expectation of productive word use needs to be tempered with an understanding of how a writer may demonstrate varying levels of generative use with the same word, depending on the task. This thesis discusses theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications of the findings for EAP teachers, learners, and materials designers, and recommends the inclusion of Nation's (2007) four strands of a vocabulary course in EAP curricula, as a principled and balanced way to foster vocabulary knowledge and opportunities to gain the knowledge needed for productive use of vocabulary in context.