Mid Sweden University

This research aimed to find out which methods and teaching strategies two teachers in lower secondary school had in using reading as a tool for vocabulary acquisition in the EFL classroom. Moreover, its purpose was to investigate to what extent these teachers’ methods reflect best practice according to current vocabulary acquisition research. The data collection procedure contained four sessions of classroom observations along with semi-structured interviews with two teachers in grade 7 and 9. My data was compared to recent research to examine the research questions further.

Findings and their comparison with the current vocabulary acquisition research indicated that the teachers observed during the investigation, did not have sufficient knowledge about the current approaches regarding vocabulary acquisition and they would benefit from more training in the methods they used. They both were aware of the importance of vocabulary acquisition through reading yet their practices had shortcomings which need to be addressed. Lack of time to cover all vocabulary related to the theme, difficulty of chosen material, and a tendency to ignore low achieving students during the reading task by one of the teachers are some major issues which had a negative effect. Certain positive points were observed in teachers’ methods as well: including different types of materials connected to the same topic in their practice, using pre and post-reading tasks, and providing pupils with glossary lists before reading. Nevertheless, there are a number of simple things that could be done to raise these teachers’ awareness of how to deal with vocabulary more effectively, e.g. guidelines on i+1 / quantity of new words, bolding / highlighting new words, recycling through word games etc.

With regard to implications for future research, it would be valuable to include more teachers from different schools and more observations in future qualitative studies to increase the validity of results. Findings of such studies can be used to diagnose the defects and shortcomings of methods which are applied by teachers in a broader level. It would be beneficial also to include the learners’ perspective in order to investigate the degree of practicality of different vocabulary acquisition methods from their point of view. Furthermore, performing an investigation with a focus group and control group of teachers is possible in which the focus group would be informed about current methods regarding vocabulary acquisition through reading while members of the control group would conduct their education based on their own knowledge. The comparison of results between two groups can present to what extent the new methods can enhance vocabulary acquisition among learners. It can also establish a link between research and practice and offer practical solutions for successfully incorporating research-based methods in teaching.