Vocabulary Teaching in Refugee Children within the Context of the Greek Formal Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The research outlined in this manuscript is an intervention study that investigates the effectiveness of three different methods for teaching vocabulary (flashcards, pantomime, contextual clues) to refugee children. The 33 children studied were between 7 and 13 years old and attended different school in the Thessaloniki region of Greece. Most of the children had Kurdish as an L1, some spoke Arabic and Farsi. The research questions focus on the effectiveness of the teaching method for L2 vocabulary learning, differences between noun and verb learning and the impact of background characteristics of the children on their learning. Flashcards and pantomime were found to be effective methods for vocabulary learning. The use of contextual clues showed improvements but no significant difference. A comparison between noun and verb learning showed different patterns for flashcards and pantomime but no significant differences for any of the methods. The included background characteristics only show an impact of age in the method involving contextual clues.

The topic of the manuscript, the investigation of teaching methods with refugee children is a worthwhile pursuit as there are not many studies on this population and results have an impact on the way vocabulary is taught. The topic of the manuscript is therefore of interest to the readers. Also, given the focus on characteristics of the learner affecting L1 and L2 acquisition in recent literature, the inclusion of these is welcome. However, I feel that the manuscript needs to include more details and discussion.

1.     The first research question (174, p.4) focuses on the three different teaching methods with the refugee children to determine their effectiveness on enhancing vocabular skills.

The methods are quite different and are described to a certain extent on pages 2-3. However, some more detail relating to the way vocabulary learning is facilitated through each of these methods would be useful. As the authors state, flashcards provide visual and written information about the word. Within this method, concrete objects are easy to depict, actions are more problematic to convey through the use of still pictures. Pantomime provides a 3-dimensional space and allows the use of movement. How does this affect word learning? Does this method contribute to a better understanding of the meaning of verbs? There seems to be some evidence in the results that this is the case. The method of using contextual clues seems to require a higher degree of literacy in the L2.

2.     The second research question in the manuscript (177, p.4) focuses on acquisition of word classes and ‘nouns’ vs ‘verbs’ in particular. The assumption by the authors is that nouns are ‘the easiest word class’ (135, p.3) based on ‘less complexity from a conceptual and morphological point of view’ (140-141, p.3). While there is a common conception that nouns are ‘easier’ than verbs, this needs a more detailed discussion in my view. After all, Gentner’s (1982) suggestion of a ‘noun bias’ pertains to early L1 lexical acquisition. Studies (for example Kauschke & Hofmeister 2002) show that by the time children reach their 3rd birthday, verbs have increased significantly in their L1 vocabulary, showing the ability to learn more conceptually complex words. Morphological complexity is, of course, language dependent. Morphological marking for case and gender occurring either on the noun itself or the determiner preceding the noun is equally complex compared to the endings of verbs.

A noun advantage has still been found in studies using picture naming as a methodology (for example Masterson et al. 2008, Mätzig et al. 2009) in children and aphasic adults in terms of accuracy and response times. The basis for this difference is seen to be in the semantic organisation of both word classes, with verbs having a more complex semantic organisation.

The authors report (510, p.12) that the flashcard method showed a ‘slightly greater improvement in nouns’ but that the pantomime intervention showed the opposite pattern. Neither reached statistical significance. Could this be due to the fact that each intervention type only included 5 nouns and 5 verbs? The authors themselves note that the differences ‘call for further investigation’ (521, p.12).  Perhaps the answer to the question whether flashcards and pantomime differed in their effectiveness to teach nouns and verbs is inconclusive. 

3.     The third research question focuses on the relationship between children’s vocabulary development and their background characteristics. These include L2 proficiency, age, period of enrolment in the school, literacy background and L2 use.

The findings show that age was the only background factor that correlated with vocabulary acquisition but only in the teaching method that involved contextual clues. It is not clear how this can be interpreted given that age was not a significant factor for the other teaching methods. And the contextual clues did not show a significant enhancement in vocabulary between pre- and post-test. As the authors state, L2 literacy activities were limited. In my view, the authors need to be clearer in the interpretation of the findings.

4.     Some language improvements are needed:

-        Line 126 p.3 : ‘attending those techniques’ – is ‘methods’ meant here?

-        Line 186, p.4: is RC an acronym? What does it stand for? The footnote does not clarify this

-        Line 207, p.5: word order: ‘currently read to them texts’ – ‘currently read texts to them’

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This study was conducted to examine whether the different kinds of vocabulary teaching interventions (i.e. flashcards, pantomime, and use of contextual cues) influenced refugee children’s second language (L2) vocabulary in Greece. The relationship between students’ background information and their L2 vocabulary acquisition through different teaching interventions was investigated as well. The results showed that certain interventions including the flashcards and the pantomime instead of the use of contextual cues were effective for students’ L2 vocabulary acquisition. In addition, students’ age was found to be significantly correlated with their L2 vocabulary gains.

This is a significant research issue in the field of applied linguistics. I especially enjoyed reading the discussion as the author(s) tapped into practical aspects of L2 vocabulary instructions, especially the acquisition of Greek vocabulary. The author(s) provided detailed information of the participants so the research findings have applied significance in terms of delivering the current second language vocabulary instructions to the students with similar background information. Below are my comments regarding some minor issues which I hope do not discourage the author(s).

1. The wording, variables, in the following statement should be replaced with “tests”. The difference between the two variables reached statistical significance based on a paired samples Wilcoxon test (p. 420).

2. It is suggested that a table could be provided to describe the procedure. For example, I am wondering when the pretests, posttests and teaching interventions were conducted. Also, how long did the teaching interventions last?

3. This study showed the use of contextual cues to be ineffective for students’ vocabulary gains. Since students’ vocabulary gains were investigated only in the posttests, one of the possible explanations might be that the instruction regarding the use of contextual cues could have a delayed learning effect on students’ vocabulary gains.

4. The study indicated that the two word classes (i.e. nouns and verbs) did not vary with the three interventions types. Because the test formats used to assess students’ acquisition of the nouns and verbs are the same (matching exercises), this might be one of the possible reasons why no difference between the two words classes was found.

5. It is suggested that the author(s) should list the inclusion of control groups and delayed posttests as future directions for subsequent studies.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The changes made improve the clarity of the argument and the issues raised. The inclusion of table 4 gives a good overview of the procedure.

Please replace the phrase ‘Besides the afore-mentioned matters, however’ in line 150 with ‘in addition’.

Author Response

Reviewer:

Please replace the phrase ‘Besides the afore-mentioned matters, however’ in line 150 with ‘in addition’.

Point addressed. The phrase has been now replaced (see page 3, line 150).