Journal international review #4

Teaching Young Learners English Vocabulary with
Reading-Based Exercises in a Real Classroom
Situation

Using five naturally occurring lessons for a group of Primary three pupils, this teacher-
initiated classroom study documented how reading-based lessons could be conducted to teach
young learners L2 vocabulary from meaning recognition to using the word in a sentence
context. To ensure pupils’ mastering of target items to a productive level, both receptive
and productive exercises are needed. Young learners at this stage have great difficulties in
learning and using verbs accurately. Such difficulties can be partially attributed to learners’
L1 influence (as in this study) and partially to the L2 verbs’ own complexity. Considering
young learners’ relatively lower cognitive capacity than that of adult learners, teachers should
teach verbs in chunks as well as create opportunities for young learners to meet the target
word in contexts different from the original context. Attention should be paid to variant
morphological forms of verbs and the context in which they should be used. Reading-based
vocabulary text exercises prove to be an effective way to help young learners learn vocabu-
lary, but the importance of more communicative oral activities/tasks in facilitating vocabulary
use should not be underestimated. Future studies should focus on how text-based exercises
and oral activities can be synergized to promote young learners’ L2 vocabulary learning.