Vocabulary testing and teaching in Finnish schools

This chapter explores how vocabulary is being tested and taught in Finland. There has been very little research on vocabulary testing in Finnish schools, which is all the more surprising seeing how ubiquitous it is. While in USS there is no standardised testing before the matriculation examination and the curriculum does not require vocabulary testing, the NCC (FNBE 2016: 240–

241) dictates that teachers assess learner progress continuously and dynamically with the learners.

In practise, this often translates to different kinds of tests and to vocabulary tests in particular.

Personal experience tells me that if not all, most language teachers in Finland give vocabulary tests. Indeed, in a wide national study nearly 3,500 9^th graders (6% of the cohort) reported

vocabulary tests being one of the most used teaching methods by their EFL teachers (Härmälä 2014: 142). Additionally, Huhta (2017) states that unit tests are a common tool of assessment used by Finnish language teachers.

While Read (2012: 308) states that a multiple-choice type is a typical vocabulary test item type, in Finland vocabulary tests are stereotypically lists of words in both L1 and L2, to which the test-taker has to provide translation. Even if this is the stereotype, in practice vocabulary tests used by Finnish EFL teachers are likely to contain different types of test items from complementing test types so that various aspects of the vocabulary knowledge are tested. Most USS EFL course books are accompanied with vocabulary tests, and these typically contain various test types.

NCC does not dictate which words or expressions have to be learned on any given course, but rather paints general, abstract goals. For example, the goals for the 3^rd English course (ENA3) in their entirety are:

The students’ multiliteracy is expanded and advanced in the course. The students produce texts in different genres, emphasizing linguistic accuracy typical for each genre. Themes include different cultural phenomena, English language media, and creative activity. (FNBE 2016: 118)

The goals, as can be seen, leave a lot of room for interpretation. But, even if the course descriptions do not include any goals to that are to be learned, NCC sets that the goal for USS students is to reach B2.1 level in the evolving language proficiency scale (ELPS), which is an application of the CEFR. In the ELPS, level B1.2 states that in text production “the student uses a reasonably extensive vocabulary and common idioms“ (FNBE 2016: 258) and level B2.1 requires that the learner “masters a relatively large vocabulary” (ibid.: 259). Mastering vocabulary sounds like having at least reasonable competence in the depth aspect of vocabulary knowledge.

Martinez and Schmitt (2010: 26) comment on the difficulty of incorporating formulaic sequences in teaching unless using them gives some sort of advantage, such as elevated scores on essays.

Finnish teachers are lucky in the sense that standardised testing only happens at the end of the USS, so at least in theory the teachers can give the additional value to the use of formulaic sequences when assessing student performance. As it happens, FSs are alluded to a few times in NCC. Firstly, there are common idioms mentioned above in the text production skills. Secondly, in communication strategies level B1.2 states that “the student is capable of […] using suitable

expressions in interaction situations that deal with familiar topics” (ibid.: 258), where suitable expressions could be interpreted as being the FSs one typically encounters in interactive situations.

The same category on level B2.1 states that learners should know how to “sometimes use standard phrases, such as ‘That is a difficult question’, to gain time” (ibid.: 259). This, in fact, is the one of the two instances in the whole ELPS where an actual example is given to illustrate a point, and it is a clear instance of formulaic language. I think based on these examples it is safe to interpret that ELPS places some weight on FSs, and expects teachers to convey their importance in fluent language to learners.

Besides FSs being alluded to a couple of times and one phrase being given as an example, nothing concrete is said in NCC as to what kind of words and expressions the learners are expected to master, and local curricula follow the same pattern. Therefore, the decision which words are taught is left for teachers to choose. In practice this will mean that the vocabulary in the course book, often chosen by the teacher themself, will set the objectives for vocabulary learning of the course.

Since it may be difficult to know on what basis the makers have chosen the vocabulary used in the books, knowledge on word frequency lists might be useful for teachers as an accompanying material. Fortunately, these lists are readily available online.

A study by Albrechtsen et al. (2008: 202) suggests that the size of vocabulary is of foremost importance for learners and should be ensured first, supplemented by expanding the networks between the words. They also show that as far as at the university level it is important to “keep consolidating [the learners’] basic vocabulary”, as the learners do not show stable mastery of high frequency words. The implication of these results is that teachers should be aware of high frequency word lists and use them actively as a part of their instruction methods. However, a study by Lahtikallio (2016) suggests that Finnish EFL students both in secondary school and USS have a much wider vocabulary than is expected from them. On the other hand, it seems that USS students might need more instruction on the depth aspect of vocabulary knowledge.

Albrechtsen et al. (2008: 198) argue that the L1 teacher and L2 teacher should work together to improve the complex processes that learning receptive and productive language skills require.

They state, “Instruction in declarative lexical knowledge should also be addressed in first language instruction” (ibid.: 198), or that it shouldn’t be only implicit as the learners would also gain in their L2. A common problem with some students is a vagueness of expression, where they settle for a

general language instead of using precise words to express the idea. Accepting roundabout expressions or synonyms in vocabulary testing may reinforce this habit. Since the new curriculum stresses teacher cooperation across subject boundaries, the kind of action Albrecthsen et al. call for could be executed in Finnish USS.

All in all, while the NCC sets some limitations to what teachers may do, also a lot of freedom is left to the teachers, and in practise each teacher and the course book decide the contents of each course. The aspects of vocabulary knowledge that teachers deem important, however, has been studied little if at all in Finland. Furthermore, even though vocabulary tests are so ubiquitous in EFL teaching in Finland, little attention has been paid to them in research. This study attempts to shed light on the kinds of vocabulary tests and vocabulary test items that teachers use.