Teaching and Learning Vocabulary in Intercultural Team-Teaching Classrooms

• Main Authors: Wan, Lin-Yi, 萬藺儀
• Other Authors: Lin, Lu-Chun
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/65335853024030882378

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 英語教學研究所 === 103 === In 2001, Hsinchu city in the northern Taiwan launched the first Native English-Speaking teacher (NEST) program in elementary schools. Since then, intercultural team teaching between native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and local English teachers (LETs) has become increasingly common. Previous studies associated with team teaching in elementary school English classrooms centered on how NESTs and LETs collaborated, and conflicts as well as challenges in particular, involved in the collaborative teaching. However, little attention has been paid to the actual instructional practices employed by the two groups of teachers, differences in instructional practices between them, and potential association of certain vocabulary instructional practices with students’ vocabulary learning. Thus, the aims of the present study was (1) to explore vocabulary instructional practices between the NEST and the LET, and (2) to investigate the effects of different instructional practices on vocabulary learning outcomes for EFL students in the elementary grades. One dyad of elementary school English teachers, one NEST and one LET, participated in the present study. The NEST and the LET were told to read an informational story book, and teach the story to the two classes they taught. The story was read twice on two different days with one week interval. A general vocabulary test and a story vocabulary test were administered as the pretest and posttest to the two classes the NEST and the LET taught to measure participants' vocabulary gain from teachers' story reading-aloud. Classroom observation for the NEST and the LET was employed to keep track of the vocabulary instructional practices during each session. To analyze and compare the teachers' vocabulary instructional practices, instances for vocabulary instructional practices noted in the field notes were identified and coded. To explore the effects of different instructional practices on students' vocabulary learning outcomes, gain scores of the pretests and posttests were calculated and then analyzed through a three-way repeated measure ANOVA, with two within-subjects factors (i.e., pre- vs. post test and picture identification vs. L1 translation test), and one between-subjects factor (i.e., teacher status). The results demonstrated that the NEST and the LET both used multiple vocabulary instructional practices with focuses on different aspects of vocabulary teaching. The NEST put more emphasis on the visual needs of the learners, whereas the LET used more L1 translation and accuracy-based instruction than the NEST. Different parts of speech of the target words also determined how the two participating teachers implemented vocabulary instructional practices. The findings also suggested that the two teachers’ vocabulary instructional practices had positive effects on students’ learning of novel words. Both of the NEST’s and the LET’s students produced higher scores in the vocabulary posttest, with scores of the picture identification higher than the L1 translation test. When compared the two classes, the NEST’s students showed higher gains on picture identification test than the LET’s students, and the LET’s students exhibited higher gains on L1 translation test than the NEST’s students. The results and implications of the present study may inform teachers about effective vocabulary instructional practices in team-teaching situation. By investigating how the NEST and the LET taught vocabulary during story reading-aloud, we will be in a better position to propose ways in which the team can learn from and complement each other in team-teaching environment and thus provide EFL students with a rich language environment and cultural experience so as to facilitate their English learning.