Proposing a research-based, comprehensive framework to teach English vocabulary in K-12 classrooms

Vocabulary learning significantly and substantially contributes to students’ reading comprehension and ultimately to their expressive functions such as writing and speaking. Children’s vocabulary learning, however, relies heavily on their incidental interactions with adults and less on systematic instructions in the classroom. This proposed presentation will introduce a comprehensive framework of teaching, based on extensive literature review and the presenter’s own research. Although empirical studies have examined diverse teaching strategies, effective teaching requires a systematic teaching framework that includes a thorough analysis of strategies, ranging from students’ acquisition of words and their meanings to their voluntary application of their learning to expressive functions such as writing and speaking. Therefore, this presentation will provide such a framework of teaching with students’ phases of learning (i.e., acquisition, fluency, maintenance, and generalization). Specifically, the framework will describe teaching methods for acquisition such as direct instruction and teaching words in purposefully created stories, methods for fluency of using learned vocabulary such as crossword puzzles and peer-mediated games, methods for helping students to retain learned vocabulary over time, and methods for facilitating students’ use of vocabulary in everyday situations. Because this framework incorporates research-based practices, it will substantially contribute to translating research to practice in K-12 grade classroom teaching.