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Language Teaching for Young Learners
Vol. 1:1 (2019) ► pp.4–33
Survey article

Teaching vocabulary to young second- or foreign-language learners

What can we learn from the research?

| University of Pennsylvania

While vocabulary knowledge is considered a foundational element for young learners of a second or foreign language (L2/FL), pedagogically useful information on this topic is not easily accessible for practitioners. This is in part due to the fact that the relevant information is scattered across multiple fields, including first-language acquisition, child development, and education. The aim of this paper is to synthesize recent knowledge from the related fields and to provide theoretically sound and evidence-based information that is useful for teaching vocabulary to young learners of L2/FL. I identify four major recommendations for vocabulary instruction: (a) ensure frequent and repeated exposure to the target words (as well as nontarget words); (b) provide explicit word definitions and meanings in context; (c) create opportunities for discussions and interactions around the words in question; and (d) use multimodal approaches to teach vocabulary. I also suggest future research directions, with the goal of finding effective approaches that teachers can use to improve their vocabulary instruction while meeting the specific needs of their young L2/FL students.

Keywords: young learners, vocabulary learning, vocabulary teaching, implicit learning, explicit learning, input-based tasks, interactions, formulaic language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.General mechanisms of learning vocabulary
    • 2.1Heterogeneity of the target group
    • 2.2The role of knowing an additional language
    • 2.3The role of age
  • 3.Studies on young L2/FL learners’ vocabulary instruction
    • 3.1Ensuring frequent and repeated exposure
    • 3.2Providing explicit word definitions and meanings in context
    • 3.3Creating opportunities for discussion and interaction
    • 3.4Using multimodal approaches
  • 4.Suggestions for future research
    • 4.1More detailed investigations concerning the interaction between intervention (both types and quality of interventions) and individual differences
    • 4.2More considerations of outcome measures: What is the target vocabulary knowledge and how do we measure it?
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 22 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltyl.00003.but
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