Applying Formal Vocabulary To Academic Writing: Is The Task Achievable?
Applying Formal Vocabulary To Academic Writing: Is The Task Achievable?
Applying Formal Vocabulary To Academic Writing: Is The Task Achievable?
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ABSTRACT
This study investigates the effectiveness of an English course in teaching academic
writing with reference to students’ use of tone and style. It also conducts a thorough
examination into the students’ use of reference tools to tackle linguistic tasks. Students’
two drafts from a process writing task were first compared and the results show that
they failed to employ pertinent vocabulary or phrases generally used in academic
writing, after having received their teachers’ written feedback. Results obtained from
in-depth interviews indicated that students lacked vocabulary knowledge to tackle the
task which tested their knowledge of tone and style. Through both direct observation
and students’ recollection, it was revealed that students’ skills in using reference tools
to look up lexical information were rudimentary. I argue that while it was appropriate
for the course to introduce the notion of academic word lists, the course needs to
integrate the learning of such words into its curriculum. This study also recommends
strengthening students’ general knowledge of vocabulary and dictionary use through
explicit teaching and training. Such knowledge and training are essential scaffolding
for students to advance to acquisition of academic English.
Coxhead’s Academic Word List (2000), is a popular teaching resource for many
EAP teachers (Hyland & Tse, 2007). It presents not only a manageable size of
academic vocabulary to be acquired within a short period of time, but also offers
a methodical approach to help students overcome potential difficulties of reading
and writing within an academic context.
With such studies in mind, this paper examines the effectiveness of an EAP
course in academic writing with reference to students’ use of tone and style. In
this paper, tone and style in academic writing refer only to the formality of writing
achieved, for example, through the use of formal vocabulary.
Scope of Study
Contents of the course taught in the two semesters are independent of each other
and this paper focuses only on the second semester component, when academic
writing is introduced. One teaching focus of the paper covers formal tone and
style as characterized by, for example, the use of formal vocabulary.
In this study, students’ writing will be examined to decide if the objective
that they use formal tone and style in their essays to meet the requirement of the
genre of academic writing has been achieved. Findings will be used to suggest
changes, if appropriate, in the course content and structure.
After charting the study direction of some students to integrate formal
vocabulary in their writing to attain the requisite tone and style for academic
writing, further investigation on students’ reference skills will be conducted. This
secondary aim is to determine whether students can make effective use of various
reference tools to improve this aspect of their writing.
Method
Design
The teaching content (formal tone and style of writing) followed the designated
course material. Although some of the teaching points in the course book could
be questioned as to whether they fully characterize formal English writing, it
is not the intention of this paper to challenge the existing course content. This
study examines the two pieces of students’ writing required by the course. The
aims are to investigate students’ awareness of the kinds of mistakes they make
in their writing, and the extent of their capability to correct their work using
available reference tools.
Students were advised to avoid using the following features in their academic
paper:
● phrasal verbs
● general verbs which fail to show precise meaning intended
● conversational English
● idioms and
● abbreviations and contractions.
These five features were used as the yardstick to determine if the formality
of students’ writing was appropriate in both drafts.
174 Amy Man Lai Chi
Procedure
Ninety-two students’ first drafts were collected. On receiving the drafts, teachers
wrote feedback to students using marking codes (see Table 1).
Selected papers were then shortlisted for detailed examination. These
papers would have demonstrated, in general, an adequate or above-average
writing competence but contained distinguishable errors in the area of tone and
style. Papers which showed that the writers had poor grammatical and lexical
competence to the extent that the meanings of their sentences were impeded or
in general unclear, were considered not worthy of further analysis. The second
drafts of the selected students’ papers were later collected for comparison and
analysis. A small sample of students was randomly selected and invited to
participate individually in an in-depth interview to verify and complement the
data obtained from analyzing the two drafts.
In the interviews, they were first asked to complete a proofreading exercise
(see Appendix A) which required them to make changes to the original text for
appropriate tone and style as required in academic writing. Students were asked
to “think aloud” while deciding on changes to be made, and they were allowed to
speak in Cantonese, their native language. Through listening to their “thoughts”,
asking questions, and observing, I recorded how students arrived at the changes
and the rationales behind their decisions. When students finished the exercise,
they were shown their two writing drafts. Following the order of appearance of
the errors on the students’ first draft, questions were asked on how they adopted
the changes made.
Results
Table 1
Marking Codes Related to Tone and Style Used in Feedback on Students’ First Drafts
Tone and style Ts Inappropriate tone and/or style for the target audience of
your paper.
Informal word Infml The word(s) used is (are) too general or conversational.
Use of abbreviations/contractions, phrasal verbs, and
idioms.
Applying Formal Vocabulary to Academic Writing: Is the Task Achievable? 175
Six students’ first drafts were shortlisted for further analysis. These papers
demonstrated in general an adequate or above-average writing competence but
contained distinguishable errors in the area of tone and style. The number and
classification of the errors identified are shown in Table 2.
Errors are clustered around types 1, 2 and 3. A high frequency of error can be
found in particular with the use of general verbs, with 18 occurrences. There was
no record of use of idioms, abbreviations, and contractions. These two types of
error are relatively obvious and easy to correct, and I surmise that most students
would have eliminated such errors with the help of their classmates during the
peer evaluation session in class before submission of their papers. On the other
hand, error types 1, 2, and 3 demand a higher level of linguistic knowledge from
both the writer and the peer evaluators to identify and change, and they remained
as problems in students’ papers.
Table 2
Number and Classification of Errors Made by Six Sample Students in Their First Drafts
Phrasal verbs 4
General verbs 18
Conversational English 8
Idioms 0
Abbreviations and contractions 0
Table 3
The Number and Results of Changes the Six Sample Students Made in Their Second Drafts
Table 4
Results of the Proofreading Task Performed by Three Sample Students
S1 4 6 0
S2 1 8 1
S6 7 0 3
Applying Formal Vocabulary to Academic Writing: Is the Task Achievable? 177
Table 5
Strategies/Resources Students Adopted to Revise Tone and Style in Second Drafts
translation equivalents of the English words in question was always the core of his
search regardless of which reference resources he was consulting. For example, he
accessed Google Dictionary to research what he could use to replace “come from”,
which was marked as Infml on his first draft. The following was his description:
178 Amy Man Lai Chi
Table 6
Dictionary Search Record of S6 While Working on the Proofreading Task
(Third edition, 2003) once, while working on her proofreading task (see Table 6).
S6 finished the proofreading task within the shortest time and she had the best
score among the three students. Before she was prompted by the researcher to read
the course book, she completed the task in 20 minutes; S2 spent 27 minutes (after
spending 37 minutes in the first round when she approached the task wrongly).
S1 spent 1 hour and 15 minutes on the task in the first round. After he had read
the course book, he agreed to perform the task again at another meeting later
on the same day. He spent the same amount of time in his second round of the
task. S6 also had the most errors left unchanged in both the proofreading task
(3 out of 10) and her second draft (5 out of 7).
Also, their skill in using the reference tools to seek lexical information was found
to be only rudimentary.
Given that many problems exist in almost all types of teaching and learning,
this paper focuses only on areas that allow improvement, and these include
vocabulary learning, reference skills, and course design.
Two points here are worth further pondering. First, do these wordlists facilitate
students’ learning of academic vocabulary? Second, how do these 184 words
relate to students’ writing tasks?
Hyland and Tse (2007) are among those to question the representation of
Coxhead’s AWL in the lexical composition of academic writing. One of their
conclusions was that AWL has underrepresented some disciplines, with computer
sciences having the highest extent of word coverage (16%); and biology, the lowest
(6.2%). They further challenge the value of relying “on decontextualised lists of
vocabulary as a source of generally available and equally valid items for student
writers across the disciplines. Within each discipline or course, students need to
acquire the specialised discourse competencies that will allow them to succeed
in their studies and participate as group members” (pp. 248-249).
There are arguably potential benefits in identifying a set of “register-level
vocabulary choices” based on corpus evidence. Hyland (2007) explains that
genre pedagogy is based on specific students’ needs and such course design
offers explicit explanation of what is to be learned, and a clear framework of
the collaboration of language and contexts. Within this designated framework,
it is obvious that there are words and grammatical structures which are more
frequently employed when compared to other genres. While it is difficult to have
definitive proof that the HKUST Academic Word List 08 serves students better than
Coxhead’s AWL, HKUST’s list seems to be pertinent in serving students studying
at universities in Hong Kong. Besides 570 words on Coxhead’s AWL, it includes
another 320 corpus-based high frequency words found in first-year university
students’ textbooks of various disciplines across universities in Hong Kong. It is,
therefore, reasonable for the English course being examined to have introduced
words on this academic wordlist to students.
Yet, it is a questionable pedagogic decision requiring students to learn these
academic words out of context. In all fairness, Coxhead recommends her list of
words to be employed “to set vocabulary goals for EAP courses, construct relevant
teaching materials, and help students focus on useful vocabulary items” (2000,
p.227). The words are not meant to be studied and tested in isolation for the
assessment of comprehension of their meanings.
Numerous studies have revealed that learning new words in context, by
association and reading the same new words many times in meaningful contexts
can increase the chance of acquiring them (Hulstijn, 1997; Zahar, Cobb, & Spada,
2001). There is evidence to support that meaningful communicative context and
work will enhance success of vocabulary recognition and use (Nation & Newton,
1997). The 184 academic words that the HKUST English course requires students
to learn are neither taught in the course, nor contextually related to any course
materials. Throughout the course, students are not encouraged or required to
apply vocabulary knowledge of these words in class discussions or in their writing.
From students’ perspectives, it is hard to see the relevance of these words in the
course; in fact, few of these words appear in the students’ two drafts of writing.
To students, the message from the course with regard to these academic words
is simple—study them for the blank-filling test at the end of the semester.
I propose that the course integrate the identified academic words into the
182 Amy Man Lai Chi
proficient. It was suggested earlier in this paper that first-year university students
in Hong Kong have in general a relatively small vocabulary repertoire. Hence,
students’ poor vocabulary learning knowledge might have inhibited them from
utilizing other reference resources for assistance to complete their linguistic tasks
successfully.
Fan’s (2000b) study surveying 985 tertiary students in Hong Kong found that
students were not using much of the information provided in dictionaries, such
as collocations, pronunciation, frequency, and appropriate usage of words. She
suggests that students in general are not aware of the importance of these aspects
of word knowledge. Indeed, most Hong Kong students may not have learned
such aspects of vocabulary, or the learning might have been sporadic, at school.
For example, it is recommended that pronunciation symbols (International
Phonetic Alphabet) be taught in the English syllabuses at school level since the
sound symbol is not a tested item in public examinations and is not taught in
most schools in Hong Kong. Most Hong Kong students do not know how to use
the pronunciation symbols in an English learner’s dictionary (Chi, 2003).
Due to inadequacies in their understanding of what it means to know a
word and lack of training on use of dictionaries for linguistic information, most
students would resort to looking up translation equivalents of words in question,
or when learning new English words. Fan (2000b) found that the majority of
subject students used a bilingualised dictionary (English and Chinese), and their
searches were limited mostly to definitions and translation equivalents. In Chi’s
(2009) survey, the Internet dictionary was found to be the most popular means for
students to search dictionary information both for decoding and encoding tasks.
The online dictionary in this case referred mostly to the Yahoo Dictionary, where
Chinese equivalents are given. Findings of this survey also echoed Fan (2000b)
in that students looked up mainly translation equivalents and definitions, with
the former significantly more sought after than the latter.
A reliance on translation equivalent as the sole source of information when
learning a new English word, and ignorance of other aspects of word knowledge,
have created major obstacles in vocabulary learning among local students. S1’s
recall of strategies used in tackling his second draft and the strategies he applied
in the proofreading task were consistent: based mostly on the meaning obtained
from the Chinese equivalent found. Also, in both cases, the strategies he used
restricted his success rate in correcting the mistakes. S1 explained that whenever
he has an English word in doubt, he will turn to the Yahoo Dictionary to look
up the Chinese equivalents and/or definitions, and the synonyms of the word.
He only started using the Google Dictionary because this dictionary website was
linked to CMW, and he followed his teacher’s advice to use this to enhance his
writing accuracy. In listening to S1 recount how he approached his second draft
and observing how he worked, it is without doubt that S1 was conscientious
in consulting various reference resources in his search. In this way, he was
quite unlike most of the subject students in Chi’s (2009) survey. However, his
vocabulary learning strategy of using Chinese equivalents and/or definitions as
the main point of reference for any decision made about the word under search
misled him into many erroneous decisions, and eventually he failed to obtain
184 Amy Man Lai Chi
the appropriate answers for the task. For example, he wrote this sentence in his
first draft:
People working in kitchens often absorb cooking fumes which come from
cooking oil in high temperature
websites that provide dictionary help and the multifunctions that most of these
websites serve have blurred the meaning of the dictionary and the functions
it serves in learning a foreign language. Moreover, English teachers and those
involved in the field of pedagogic lexicography should be cautioned that although
computing technology has offered these students quick access and convenience to
dictionary information, it has not been able to guide them to choose a dictionary
which is relevant to their levels and meets their needs; nor can it yet help students
to be critical of the quality of dictionaries.
The teaching of vocabulary knowledge and dictionary use suggested in this
study could be introduced in the foundation year of the new four-year Hong
Kong university curriculum, as part of English language enhancement for first-
year students. A strong vocabulary knowledge foundation coupled with sound
reference skills are a boon to students’ learning of the genre of academic English,
which the designated English course being examined aims to teach.
Conclusion
This study does not intend to discredit the English course being examined. Indeed,
it supports the course objective of teaching the genre of academic writing to first
year university students to meet the imminent demands they face on entering
university. The study also argues favourably for the introduction of the academic
word list. However, the findings of generally poor performance in the sample
students’ written works examined in this study indicate that the teaching objective
has not been successfully attained.
I suggest restructuring the course to allow academic words to play a more
central role in the whole course. Through contextualizing these words and
providing genuine occasions in class when students will need to use them, the
course will enhance students’ chance of acquiring these words.
This study also recommends strengthening tertiary students’ general
vocabulary knowledge and reference skills through explicit teaching and training.
Free access to dictionary information has not enhanced students’ ability in using
dictionary information to assist their English learning. For students to fully reap
the benefits of resources that both English dictionaries and computing technology
offer, they need to return to basics—learn what it means to know a word and how
to use a dictionary to assist learning of English. Such knowledge and training
are parts of the scaffolding needed to support the ultimate teaching goal of the
designated English course, that is, teaching the genre of academic writing.
186 Amy Man Lai Chi
THE AUTHOR
Dr. Amy Chi has been working as an English instructor at the Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology for eighteen years. In the past two years,
she also co-taught a graduate course on Bilingual Lexicography, offered by the
Department of Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her major
research interests include pedagogical lexicography, vocabulary learning, and
dictionary use training. She has put much effort into promoting the use of
dictionaries to assist English language learning locally at secondary and tertiary
levels. She is the founding Secretary and Executive Board member of ASIALEX—
Asia Association for Lexicography.
Correspondence concerning this article should be directed to Amy Chi, Language
Centre, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay,
Kowloon, Hong Kong; e-mail:lcamychi@ust.hk.
References
Chi, M.L.A. (2003). Research Report Vol.4: An empirical study of the efficacy of
integrating the teaching of dictionary use into a tertiary English curriculum in
Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Language Centre, Hong Kong University of Science
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Chi, M.L.A. (2009). Using English dictionaries is not as easy as ABC. Unpublished
conference paper for The Dictionary Society of North America XVII Biennial
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Applying Formal Vocabulary to Academic Writing: Is the Task Achievable? 187
Appendix A
Proofreading Exercise
In each of the following sentences, there is one problem related to tone and style.
Identify and underline the error. Then write your suggestion in the space provided.
You may consult any reference books or websites for answers.
(1) Sport lovers spend lots of time outdoors. (2) If you are not careful,
you may get skin cancer. (3) A newly invented gadget called Sunnil has
protection against UV light. (4) Thanks to nanotechnology, the gadget is
very small in size. (5) It’s round in shape and its weight is just 10 grams.
(6) It has a cover at the top and it must be kept on tightly. (7) The sensor
inside the cover does all the functions. (8) When it senses that the UV light
is too strong, it will come up with a magnetic layer to protect the user’s
skin. (9) Using Sunnil is as easy as ABC. (10) All sport lovers will put on a
Sunnil when they go running.
(1) (2)
(3) (4)
(5) (6)
(7) (8)
(9) (10)
Applying Formal Vocabulary to Academic Writing: Is the Task Achievable? 189
Appendix B
Appendix B (continued)