Shownotes
In this episode Dr Zavaleta talks to Dr Ana Pellicer-Sanchez about learning vocabulary through reading as well as her research using films with bilingual subtitles. You will find out what Ana recommends to improve vocabulary knowledge in and out of the classroom: from reading a book to watching a film and using an app, her message is clear, enjoyment is key!
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Follow Dr Zavaleta on twitter: @dr_klzavaleta
Or get in touch via email: kaitlyn.zavaleta@dmu.ac.uk
Link to Dr Zavaleta's research lab: sites.google.com/view/languagelab-dmu
The Language Scientists Podcast website: languagescientists.our.dmu.ac.uk
Visit Dr Pellicer-Sanchez's research webpage
Or get in touch with Ana via email: a.pellicer-sanchez@ucl.ac.uk
Link to the article on bilingual subtitles mentioned in the episode:
Transcripts
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
If you have a connection to languages, this is the podcast for you. Whether you're a language learner, a language teacher, a language researcher, or anybody who is really just interested in languages. I'm Dr. Kaitlyn Zavaleta and alongside Dr. Marie-Josee Bisson. We are the language scientists and this is our podcast. We are senior lecturers in psychology at De Montfort University, and we conduct research into the area of language learning. Throughout this series, we hope to translate the science behind language learning into informative and useful practical advice. So whether you're a language learner, teacher or researcher, sit back and enjoy. And today we have Dr. Ana Pellicer Sanchez on our podcast. So welcome. Ana is a an associate professor at the Institute of Education at University College London. She completed her undergraduate in English studies at the University of Murcia and did her M.A. and PhD at the University of Nottingham. Was that in psychology or?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
It was in Applied Linguist.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
In Applied Linguistics, okay, cool. I have another linguist here. Ana's research primarily uses eye tracking methods to study how we learn vocabulary through reading. Can you tell us a little bit about your background? University of Murcia that is not in the UK.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
It's not. Yes, so I'm originally from Spain, as you might be able to tell by my accent. I grew up in a very monolingual environment, so my family spoke Spanish and that's the language that I learned when I was growing up. And I learned English mainly at school and also out of school classes and some summer camps because I really liked it. And I then, as you were saying, I studied English studies at the University of Murcia. So that's where I continue learning English and becoming more proficient in, in the English language. As part of my undergraduate degrees. I also spent one year as an exchange student at the University of Birmingham in the UK. That was my first experience in a second language environment. I really loved it. Yeah, it was like eye opening experience for me. And then while yes, part of my undergraduate studies, I also studied German for five years is a foreign language. And yeah, I'm still a language learner. I never stop. So I'm trying to learn Portuguese at the moment. So that's a bit of my language background history, I would say.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Oh, that's fun. So when did you how old were you when you first started learning English in school? Was it like primary or.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah, I was four, I would say when I started. So four or five years old.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Oh thats cool. Yeah, so you started really early then.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah, we started at the primary school and I think I started even a little bit earlier because I had an older brother and he was already studying English and I was really intrigued and you know, I wanted to learn more. So we had these out of out of school, you know, evening classes. And I was doing that. I mean, we were mainly playing games in English, but yeah, I was, yeah, from a very early age I was really into learning English then I wanted to, you know, learn more. So yeah, I started, yeah, I would say four or five years old. That's how I first started.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah. So okay, you moved to the UK then for your M.A. and Ph.D. So you finished English studies and then you decided. What? how did you how did you go from English studies to your graduate degrees?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yes, well, that's a good good question. During my undergraduate studies, I realised I really, really enjoyed all the modules that were related to language learning and language processing. So applied linguistics and second language learning, psycholinguistics. So I really wanted to continue studying those areas. So after I graduated, I applied for a M.A. in Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. So I came to the UK, completed my master's degree and I loved it. I really enjoyed it as well. So I was like, okay, this is a confirmation that I really like this area. But after my M.A., I moved back to Spain. Try to remember now. Yes. So I lived in in Spain and in Germany as well to practice my German. And I did my teacher training in Spain. I was teaching English for a while and while I love teaching. I knew from the very beginning I wanted to teach and I've always loved teaching. I realised that my passion was really learning more about how to teach. So I wanted to teach. I wanted to definitely work with education, but I wanted to teach about those modules that I really, really felt passionate about and I really wanted to know more about how to make teaching more effective. And this is really the reason why I decided to go back to university after teaching for a while, and I applied for scholarships to start my Ph.D. and this is really why I started my academic career really.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah. And I mean, so your research is on vocabulary learning?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yes.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
To study how people become more foreign language learners, right?
Dr Ana Pellicer
Yeah.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Okay. So so what do we mean by, like, looking at how we learn vocabulary? What, what does that mean to you and how do you use that in your research?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah, when I started learning about languages and how to learn and how to teach languages, vocabulary was an area that really stood up for me and I found it really exciting and fascinating because we all know that vocabulary is a main component of language proficiency. Right, it's like if you're learning a language, you need the words.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
And I mean, even for you're learning your first language, when you watch children develop, it's they have they have a word now. They have two words now.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Exactly. I mean, they are, they're referred words to as the building blocks of language, right. So first language, any second or any other additional language, you need those words to actually communicate successfully in the language. Also understand different text. So we know the second language learners need to have huge vocabulary sizes, right. Like you do need to know, so it's not just enough to know a few words. You can't get by with that. I mean, maybe for, you know, a couple of very specific things.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah, in the coffee shop.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Exactly, but you do need to build your your vocabulary size and you need to have huge
vocabulary sizes really to be able to communicate in a variety of contexts. So I always found it really intriguing when I started reading and learning about these. How do actually people build these massive dictionaries, right. These massive lexicons in in the while they're learning a second or foreign language. So we know that in the majority of contexts we don't have enough time in the classroom to actually study all those words and word families in a more explicit way is. We know it is a very effective way, right. If we devote one hour now to study a few words in any language we choose, we'll learn them. And, you know, that would be an effective way of learning vocabulary. But we can't do that with all the words that we are supposed to learn and master. So I was really intrigued by these and thinking, how do people actually build? Because there are a lot of successful language learners in the world, so how do they actually manage to do this? So this is really what got me started into vocabulary and vocabulary teaching and learning and we know the one main source of vocabulary growth in a second language is reading and also in our first language when we are learning our first language after we learn how to read, we know that reading is one of the major sources of vocabulary growth. And we've seen in research as well that second language learners also improve their vocabulary through reading. So this is really the area that I realise, that it's not the only one, of course that I investigate. I look at different ways of improving our vocabulary knowledge, but a lot of my research has focussed on reading and how in an incidental way. So without vocabulary learning being your focus, how you can actually improve your vocabulary knowledge and your vocabulary size by reading for pleasure and engaging in reading and processing different texts.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah. And using the things that you're interested in outside of, I'm going to sit and learn a language.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah, exactly. Because we do need to find ways of maximising our exposure to, to the language right. And, you know, maybe you feel like studying vocabulary with an app for 30 minutes and that's fantastic. But sometimes you just want to do other things and yeah, just read a text because you want to know what's going on today in the world I don't know. And through reading you can expand your vocabulary and you can improve. I mean, of course many other aspects of language, but vocabulary in particular is is improved with can be improved by reading. So yeah, that's what I wanted to know more about.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
That's cool. And now you've studied both children as they learn a new language and adults. Can you explain how they differ? Are they are they very different, actually?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Well.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
I was going to say, I thought they were different, but now maybe I'm assuming that wrong.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
It is. No, no, it's a very interesting comparison. I, there have many differences, of course. I, most of my research has been conducted with adult learners, but I've done a few studies with,with the younger learners, with kids, mainly around 11 years old or so. It really depends on the age, I would say. Yeah, of course there are are differences. And when we think about reading, for example, one of the main differences is that if you are researching kids who haven't fully developed their literacy skills yet and you're doing this a study on how they learn vocabulary from reading in a second language. Of course, it's not only that, but they are also developing their reading skills in their first language sometimes. So the prose is this is very different. And of course, you know, when you look at reading and learning from reading and you know, or eye movement patterns, as I also do in some of my research, it's the patterns you're going to find are different, of course. And of course, if we think about data collection, that's also a very interesting difference in as I was saying in most of my research, I use eye tracking. So to record participants eye movements while they're processing and reading a text on a computer screen. And it's quite important that people don't move a lot during the experiments so that we get good and quality data. And of course you can imagine with kids it's much more difficult for them to stay still and not move. And we try to,you know, keep experiments short so that they can do it.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
I didn't even think about that part yet.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Imagine.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
All the experience of my kids, I know full well that's.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
I thought production errors were hard to study. I take that back.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah, it is, is very interesting and I really loved it. But of course you have to factor in that you will need more time. There will be participants that you will lose because there is going to be a lot of movement. Things like that. But yeah, I would say in terms of data collection with kids, that's one of the main differences.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
That's really cool. Okay. So take me back with your research. What's a typical research study for you. When you're doing a research study because you want to understand more about language learning.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Take me through it. What happens if I come into the lab or if one of my kiddos comes into the lab? What happens?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah. So usually I'm thinking about I will focus on the studies on reading, which is what we are mainly talking about today. So usually we would record. Sorry, we would collect data individually in, in our eye tracking lab and you would come to the lab. And of course we go through all the ethics procedures and all the information sort out any questions you may have. We explain very clearly how long it's going to last and what are you going to do. And mainly what we do is a reading activity. So sometimes it might be just reading a text on a computer screen. Sometimes it presents both text and pictures, sometimes text and some written text and audios. So depending on the study, we would ask you to read a different type of text. So while participants are reading, we would record their eye movements. So of course, we have to always explain this very clearly to the participants at the beginning. And and we explain how it works and we calibrate the equipment to make sure that it will provide good data. And the quality of the data will be what we expect? And we just basically ask people to read a text on the computer screen and yeah, try not to move too much. In reading experiments what we do is to use most of the time, so we use a chin rest so that you get to try to minimise head movements. And yeah we just ask people to read for comprehension, read as natural. We always say as natural as possible. Of course this is not you reading at your home.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah someone is staring at you.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Exactly. And you know that your eyes are being recorded and you know, we always say as natural as possible. So I always get this question when presenting results from from from studies like this. How natural is this? Well, it is as natural, as close as possible to a natural reading experience.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Right.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
It a slightly different, of course. And even after the reading activity, we would perform different tests. So usually comprehension tests and vocabulary tests we are interested in vocabulary learning. So we might ask questions about the text, about the words that you encounter, whether you learned anything about those words. So there is usually a range of tests that we do after the reading and that's I would say that's the general design. Of course at the end we tend to have a chat with the participants and reveal the real, you know, intention and the real aim of the study and sort out any questions. But that's the usual procedure, I would say, for this type of, you know, eye tracking studies into learning from reading.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Is there like a research study that you've most recently conducted or written about or something that you'd like to share to explain like really cool findings about this?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Hmm. It's difficult to choose.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
It is hard.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
But I would probably talk about a recent one that I conducted with a PhD student of mine and the one where we used eye tracking as well to examine the processing of different types of subtitles when watching movies. So it's a it's another type of reading because people are reading subtitles. So we were interested in how people process subtitles, particularly focusing on bilingual subtitles. So you know that when you're watching a movie or TV, you could choose different types of subtitles. And one type of subtitles that is actually quite common in some parts of the world is bilingual subtitles, where you have both your first language and your second language text.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
I wish I could do that.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
And sometimes people say, Oh my God, that's a lot. I mean, how am I going to watch this movie and then try to read both the, you know, the translation in my first language, but then also the, you know, the second language text. That's way too much. I can't cope with that. I've heard those things before. So in this study, what we did was to really see use eye tracking, to see how learners would process all that text that was presented in the screen in bilingual subtitles while watching a documentary. And we compare that to different types of subtitles. And, of course, we looked at how that was related to comprehension and vocabulary learning as well. And it was interesting to see how second language learners actually distributed their attention, right. I mean, you have a lot of input and you have a lot of stimuli. You have the, you know, the dynamic image moving in the movie. And you also have the L1 text, the L2 text. So you have a lot of and of course, the audio. So it was very interesting to see, to use eye tracking to see how they distributed and split their attention among these different types of input and type of stimuli. So we were able to see that when processing, at least with our participant population, when processing bilingual subtitles, most learners tended to spend most of the time on the L1, so the L1 translation, and that was related then with clear advantages of the bilingual subtitle condition for comprehension. And it seems that, yeah,they seem to spend more time, at least with these participant population. Of course, it's important to know that this might not happen with absolutely every learner around the world. But with this population that we investigated, there was a tendency to rely more on the first language. And it makes sense because you get the meaning faster, right? You look at the translation. Exactly. And that was also related to the advantage of bilingual subtitles for the acquisition of the meaning of new words, but not so much about the form. And that makes sense because if you're looking at the L one line and the L one text, you get immediately the meaning.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Mm hmm.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
But you don't spend that much time processing the written form.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Because you don't need to.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Exactly. So, yeah, this. These were some of the things that we were able to to find out. And I think there is a lot of potential in in the use of, you know, bilingual materials. We we now have access to bilingual books and, you know.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
So I think with this study, we show that with the eye tracking, we can actually get a better understanding of how people process all these different input sources that we present to them, how they cope with that and how they allocate that cognitive and attentional resources to it to deal with this type of of input and the benefits that they can get from it. So this is certainly an area that I love to and I am continuing researching now.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah. Provide the teachers with those resources so that they can better support their students as they acquire this this other language.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah. Yes.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
What I really enjoy about your research is it's very applied. I mean, you start it off by describing you're interested in this area because your question is, okay, well, how do we had we build that vocabulary and this feels like something that is very much it lives in research, obviously, because you're using research methods to get at the heart of the why in the how. But it's also something that's very realistic and very applied. I mean, I'm constantly trying to build my vocabulary in my different languages and I'd be like.
you got to... You're always like trying to absorb it as easily as you can and then to, like, refresh it when you need it, right?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, if you are a language learner, you will have to deal with these fights like there's no way out. Do you have to learn vocabulary? And I think, and nowadays that we have access to so many different types of materials and resources online. I think it's quite important that as researchers we find out what is the most effective way of doing it so that we can actually provide well-founded recommendations to the teachers but also to learners. I think it's quite important the researchers engage in conversations with the different, you know, not just with other researchers, but also with learners, with teachers, policy makers and of course, app designers, materials writers. I mean, I think it's quite important that we, you know, work together to try to make it more effective. That's always been my goal.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Yeah, I agree. I mean, so I have my task now as a researcher to continue speaking with others. I will do that. I was going to also ask you if you had recommendations,too. Now going to give you to different groups here. To language learners, so people who do want to develop that second or third or fourth language, how they can best go about doing that, but also the language teachers. So how can they encourage their students, adult children to do this?
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yes, for learners, I would say try to do as much as you can maximise exposure. We know that learning vocabulary is it can be fun and it could be fun, but it is tricky sometimes because you have to learn, you know, loads of words that we were saying earlier. So there is no magic trick. It's not something that you are just going to develop in, you know, one week of intensive vocabulary study. That's not how it works. And we all know that. So try to maximise your exposure to language and of course try to do it while having fun. So as I was saying, we have exposure to loads of materials and resources now. So try to find the one that you enjoy the most and try to do a combination of things. So, you know, using an app for you to study vocabulary and complete some specific vocabulary activities is great. But then also try to, I don't know, watch a movie with subtitles, read a book or read the news online, or, you know, find this blog that you really like in English and try to engage with it to try to practice it with other people in even if it's, you know, online interaction. So really try to do as much as you can, try to do a variety of things and make the most of the resources that we have available now. And to teachers, I would say something similar as well. I mean, a good vocabulary teaching program would include a variety of methods and a variety of input sources to try to ensure that we have opportunities for learners to encounter new vocabulary through written expository, through reading, also through listening, but also opportunities to interact and practice spoken vocabulary as well and productive vocabulary. Of course, again, there should be a combination of methods. So having some time during the week to practice the specific vocabulary that we are learning this week and that we know learners need to know is great, but also try to implement that with opportunities to encounter that vocabulary in reading and listening in oral activity
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Right.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
In, you know, pair work. So a combination of methods is, as we know, always best because we also know that learners will have different preferences and learners will have different will benefit more or less from different approaches. So having a balanced approach would in a way also guarantee that all learners get something that they enjoy. And I think enjoyment, as we know from the second language learning literature as well, is key. Trying to make language learning fun and try to find ways to really engage and motivate the students. I think that's also key. It's obviously super easy to say not that easy to implement.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
It's hard to work into your life. Yeah, but you've given a lot of different examples. I mean, as you're on your commute, you can be listening to an audio book in another language. When you are settling down for the night. I mean, I have my like Facebook in French. Yeah, I would, you know, the tool names and things like that for the different files and settings and all that.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Yeah, absolutely. And nowdays I mean, as I was saying, we have access to lots of resources. I mean, it's like a dream.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to tell us a bit about your research in the area and give us all some really great suggestions for how we can improve our vocabulary.
Dr Ana Pellicer Sanchez
Thank you so much. And yeah, good luck to everyone out there in their language learning experiences.
Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta
So our next podcast is going to be about creative assessments, so how we might measure language learning in a bit of an atypical way. So we will have Dr. Alex Mangold from the University Aberystwyth. So I'm just going to take a minute and remind you all that now is the time to tell us what you think and what you want to hear about. So please, if you could just take 5 minutes to go into our shownotes and click on the link for our survey, and I promise it's really short. The survey is going to help both Marie and I know what you would like to hear for the next series. Thank you very much for listening and thank you to the British Academy for funding our podcast. I'm Dr. Kaitlyn Zavaleta and you've been listening to the Language Scientist podcast.
