Abstract
ABSTRACT Vocabulary is an indispensable element in academic writing, and the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) has been considered to be one crucial learning target if L2 learners want to develop their academic literacy. While there have been substantial studies on vocabulary use in writing, (Chao, 2003; Lee & Munice, 2006; Lin & Liou, 2009) limited research on academic vocabulary development in writing has been conducted. With the advent of technology, referencing tools are commonly used by EFL learners in Taiwan and have been supported by empirical studies for its effectiveness (e.g., bilingual dictionaries, Laufer & Kimmel, 1997; electronic dictionaries, Tang, 1997; concordancers, Lee & Liou, 2003). However, very few studies investigated the role referencing tools play in learners’ academic vocabulary development in writing over an academic year. The aims of the study were to track three learners’ academic vocabulary development in writing for an academic year, and to increase our understanding of the role referencing tools play in the students’ academic vocabulary development in writing. To address the above issues, the importance of the Academic Word List and referencing tools were introduced to help the students develop their academic word use in writing. The data involved the three third-year college students’ writing assignments sampled at different time points of the year, the results of a questionnaire, Vocabulary Levels Test results and follow-up interviews. Five essay assignments and a research paper composed in a year and compiled as a learner corpus were analyzed using the Lexical Frequency Profile for its frequency, plus an accuracy measure. The learners’ use of academic multi-word units (i.e., academic bundles) was also identified. The findings revealed that the students’ frequency and accuracy of academic word use fluctuated over a year. They produced fewer academic bundle types over time, compared with that of academic word types. Previous learning and academic reading were two top ranking learning sources. Referencing tools were also one of the important learning sources among them. Each individual had unique habits of referencing tool use to help academic word learning in the writing process. It is argued that when learners’ language proficiency has not reached a certain level, their academic word development will manifest a progressive and regressive pattern in the learning process. Academic bundles are more difficult to acquire than single-academic words, and serve as one of the good indicators of language proficient use. Referencing tools, regardless of different learners’ diverse preferences, play a significant role in helping learners confirm word usage, and thus help learners enhance both their confidence level of academic word use and academic word accuracy rate. In teaching, the teacher should not expect students’ academic word use must exhibit stable growth. It is normal to have fluctuation in learning. While teaching vocabulary, the teacher should introduce the concept of lexical bundles, design activities, and provide opportunities for practice. The teacher’s instruction should not only focus on either implicit or explicit instruction. Rather, both teaching approaches should be used as students’ vocabulary learning sources. In addition, various kinds of referencing tools should be introduced so that students can choose their favorite tools and their most suitable tools, which help their word use during writing.