Universidad de Concepción – Campus Los Ángeles

Escuela de Educación,
Departamento de Didáctica, Currículum y Evaluación

ACQUISITION AND LEARNING; RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE VOCABULARY

Research

Professor : Cristián Sanhueza

Students : Daniela Hermosilla, Paula Salas
Subject : Taller de Vocabulario
Deadline : July 30
Introduction

The objective of this research is to present and analyze the main concepts which
are directly related to the learning of a second language. As a second language we will
understand any language learned in addition to the mother tongue, even if it includes
learning a third or fourth language.

The basis for learning a new language is in the vocabulary, because of this,
generally, the process of teaching the foreign language focuses on memory, so that the
focus of true understanding is lost.

Therefore, to learn a new language it is important to concentrate and apply four of

the most effective concepts to learn a second language properly and acquire the skills to
write, read and speak fluently and correctly. These concepts are "receptive" and
"productive” vocabulary and "vocabulary acquisition" and "learning".

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Vocabulary Acquisition and Learning

Vocabulary Acquisition is an incidental learning process consisting in words being

acquired not only with the use of learning vocabulary, it can also be reading a book,
listening and understanding a native speaker or singing a song.

Acquisition is a subconscious process which does not presuppose teaching

of grammatical rules. People just repeat what is said to them getting a feeling about what
is or is not correct. Through acquisition, learners can understand, speak and interpret
signs (Brooks and Kempe, 2014) without a teaching process.

To acquire a language, learning requires an environment where they can be

become familiar with the language, mainly by listening.

Vocabulary Acquisition is mostly focused on learning new words and its

pronunciation and spelling, so that the learner can understand what he hears or reads.

Schmidt indicated that vocabulary acquisition is incremental in a variety of ways,

but it is not the only one (2010). Therefore, vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary
learning must be united, so that the written and spoken increase in parallel manner.

Vocabulary Learning is an intentional learning process, and it is the result of direct

instruction in the rules of language. When we learn a new language, we have a deductive
approach to the intonation, phonology, morphology, syntax and grammar of the target
language.

In this process, the learners have a conscious knowledge and can talk about that
knowledge. They can be able to fill blanks of a grammar evaluation, however who has
only memorized the grammar rules can be successful in tests but may not be able to
speak correctly.

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 Vocabulary Aquisition and Learning

ACQUISITION LEARNING is the

doesn’t presuppose result of direct
teaching of instructions in the
grammatical rules rules of language

VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AND LEARNING MUST BE

UNITED

So that

WRITTEN and
SPOKEN increase in
ACQUISITION is LEARNING is parallel manner
an incidental an intentional
process process

Through ACQUISITION, Trough LEARNING,

learners can learners can be
Fig. 1
understand, speak and successful in tests but
interpret signs may not be able to
speak correctly

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Receptive and Productive Vocabulary

Learning and acquiring a new language is not as easy as it might seem, it involves
a lot of skills that you need to be able to grasp before becoming a fluent second language
(from now on referred as “L2”) speaker. There are specifically two types of learning
methods that can help you achieve this goal. The first one is the Receptive skill and the
second one is the Productive skill. Even though these two complement each other, there
are some differences when it comes to understanding and assessing new vocabulary.

The Receptive skill —or passive skill— is attributed to reading and listening
techniques, especially in knowing words we receive from a third party, while the
Productive skill —or active skill— is related to speaking and writing, more specifically to
spreading a correct message to others (Hunston, 2013). These abilities are important for
L2 students since they stimulate a better comprehension and future communication skills
in a new language.

Some people might discuss that one ability is more important than the other (often
the Productive skill is considered as the most important), nevertheless both are needed
to be able to pick up a new language. If one is more prominent than the other, it might
cause some troubles when trying to communicate with a native speaker.

To correctly acquire another language, it is essential to take both Productive

vocabulary and Receptive vocabulary in use, so that way you keep exposing yourself to
your target-language to create fluency in it, that is to say master it, eventually. As Reed
(2000) said, learners need to know about words’ and sentences’ forms but they also need
to be able to pass a message correctly. But of course, this isn’t a quick process, it occurs
gradually since you must constantly take part of a L2 environment where you can learn
new vocabulary and also their contexts (Benjamin & Crow, 2012).

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 Productive and Receptive vocabulary

Fig. 2

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Final Remarks
There are several factors that influence people in learning and acquiring a new
language; these are incidental learning, the use of the Language 1 (mother tongue) as a
crosslinguistic skill, structural equation modelling, etc. (Schmitt, 2010), however they are
not taken into consideration when talking about learning strategies. This doesn’t mean
they are less of important when acquiring your target-language. In fact, they’re as
important as established learning strategies.

When studying a new language, pupils never get told about terms such as
“acquire”, “learning”, “receptive vocabulary” or “productive vocabulary” even when they’re
important for the learning process of a foreign language. Memory is more important than
understanding, and passing the classes is the priority. So why does it matter if they don’t
get these concepts? Well, it does matter since without them the process of acquiring a
language gets tedious and irritating.

The differences between learning and acquiring a language can help students
understand the process of earning a new language better. This can also help them realize
some mistakes that they’ve been doing while studying a L2 and hence get better at it.
Besides that, if they also understand what Productive and Receptive skills are, they can
make better use of them to fully master their target-language.

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References
Benjamin, A. & Crow, J. (2012). Vocabulary at the Core. Larchmont, NY: Eye On
Education, Inc.

De Oliveira, A. F., Cárnio, M. S. & Couto, A. J. (2005). The relevance of receptive

vocabulary in reading comprehension. CoDas, 4 (Vol. 27), 333-338. Retrieved
from http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20152015016

I.S.P. Nation. (2000). Learning Vocabulary In Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

Schmitt, N. (2010). Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual. England:

Palgrave Macmillan

Reed, J. (2000). Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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Index

Introduction 1

Vocabulary Acquisition and Learning 2

Mind map 1 3

Productive and Receptive Vocabulary 4

Mind map 2 5

Final Remarks 6

References 7

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