Thematic units and aspects of vocabulary knowledge in L2 Spanish

textbooks

Unidades temáticas y aspectos del conocimiento léxico en los

manuales de ELE

Claudia H. Sánchez-Gutiérrez

University of California, Davis

chsanchez@ucdavis.edu

Pablo Robles-García

University of Toronto, Mississauga

p.roblesgarcia@utoronto.ca

Diego Alins-Breda

University of California, Davis

dalinsbreda@ucdavis.edu

ABSTRACT

Learning vocabulary entails the development of several aspects of lexical knowledge. Concretely,

Nation (2001) proposed nine aspects of particular relevance. This study aims at analyzing their treatment

in four L2 Spanish textbooks. Seven vocabulary themes that were present in all textbooks, were selected

for analysis since certain aspects of lexical knowledge are more likely to appear in specific themes. For

example, greetings would promote the introduction of constraints of use since Spanish greetings depend

on the formality of the situation and the relationship between interlocutors, whereas introducing the

parts of a house would not implicate contextual constraints. Results show that textbook activities mainly

focus on the form-meaning aspect of vocabulary knowledge, while all other aspects play little to no role

in vocabulary learning activities. This situation is overall consistent across themes, indicating that even

when a particular theme could foster a specific aspect of lexical knowledge, this was not fully exploited

in any of the textbooks. Additionally, the presentation of vocabulary in communicative contexts seems

to promote the practice of several vocabulary knowledge aspects, whereas words presented in

decontextualized semantic clusters tend to be practiced exclusively in terms of the form-meaning link.

Keywords: lexical knowledge, textbooks, L2 pedagogy, vocabulary

RESUMEN

Aprender vocabulario conlleva el desarrollo de nueve aspectos del conocimiento léxico, según Nation

(2001). El presente estudio analiza su tratamiento en cuatro manuales de ELE. Siete temas de

vocabulario se seleccionaron para el análisis, ya que ciertos aspectos del conocimiento léxico tienen

mayores probabilidades de aparecer en ciertos temas que en otros. Por ejemplo, en el capítulo sobre los

saludos, se espera encontrar más actividades sobre las restricciones de uso de las expresiones aprendidas

dependiendo del grado de formalidad de la situación y la relación entre los interlocutores. En cambio, el

capítulo sobre las partes de la casa probablemente favorezca menos el tratamiento de dichas

Revista Nebrija de Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas (RNAEL) ISSN 1699-6569

Vol. 15 Núm. 31 (2021) doi: 10.26378/rnlael1531446

Recibido: 18/05/2021 / Aprobado: 4/10/2021

Publicado bajo licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento Sin Obra Derivada 4.0 Internacional

restricciones pragmáticas. Los resultados muestran que la mayor parte de las actividades se concentran

en el desarrollo de la asociación entre forma y significado, mientras que los demás aspectos se mantienen

en un segundo plano. Esta situación es similar en los diferentes capítulos, lo cual indica que, aunque

algunos temas podrían favorecer otros aspectos, esta ventaja no se explota sistemáticamente.

Adicionalmente, la presentación de vocabulario en contextos comunicativos parece promover la práctica

de más aspectos mientras que la presentación tradicional de listas de vocabulario promueve un enfoque

exclusivo en la asociación entre forma y significado.

Palabras clave: conocimiento léxico, manuales, pedagogía de L2, vocabulario

1. INTRODUCTION

Vocabulary learning is essential to the development of linguistic competence in a

second language (L2), as a broad lexicon fosters both oral (Van Zeeland & Schmitt,

2012) and written comprehension (Hu & Nation, 2000), favors oral proficiency (Hilton,

2008) and plays a crucial role in academic achievement (Stæhr, 2008). Therefore,

vocabulary should be a central component of the L2 classroom. To date, research on

L2 vocabulary learning and teaching has mainly focused on investigating the number

of words that learners need to know in order to observe such benefits (Nation, 2006).

Indeed, since the lexicon of most languages is formed of a network of tens of

thousands of word families, which amounts to a huge amount of individual words, it

is necessary to adopt a clear criterion to help define the number of words that are

most relevant for L2 learners. And this criterion is overwhelmingly clear in the

literature: students need to learn the 2,000 – 3,000 most frequent words of their L2

prior to any other lower frequency vocabulary (Schmitt & Schmitt, 2014).

However, establishing the list of words that should be emphasized the most in

the classroom is only a starting point in order to develop L2 vocabulary teaching

programs that address learners’ needs. Once this list has been agreed upon, the

emphasis needs to shift towards depth of vocabulary knowledge, and the different

aspects that underlie vocabulary learning. For instance, some relevant questions to

ask ourselves, as researchers and language instructors, are: What do learners need

to know about a word in order to remember it in the long term? What type of lexical

knowledge do they need in order to use those words in appropriate contexts? How

can they organize their emerging L2 lexicon in ways that connect newly learned words

with already-acquired vocabulary? Indeed, word knowledge goes beyond the mere

recognition of form-meaning mappings (Nation, 2001) and is a multifaceted construct

that needs to be studied in all its complexity. Thus, agreeing on the number of words

to teach is not enough, when the real question is: What does it really entail to know

each one of those most frequent words in a language?

To answer this question, Nation (2001) proposed that lexical knowledge

involves nine different aspects: spoken form, written form, word parts, form and

meaning, concept and references, associations, grammatical functions, collocations

and constraints of use. For each of those aspects, learners need to develop receptive

(R) and productive (P) knowledge, as summarized in Table 1.

Form

spoken

What does the word sound like?

How is the word pronounced?

written

What does the word look like?

How is the word written and spelled?

word parts

What parts are recognizable in this word?

what word parts are needed to express the meaning?

Meaning

form and meaning

What meaning does this word form signal?

What word form can be used to express this

meaning?

concept and

references

What is included in the concept?

What items can the concept refer to?

associations

What other words does this make us think of?

What other words could we use instead of this one?

Use

grammatical

functions

In what patterns does the word occur?

In what patterns must we use this word?

collocations

What words or types of words occur with this one?

What words or types of words must we use with this

one?

constraints of use

Where, when, and how often would be expect to

meet this word?

Where, when, and how often can we use this word?

Table 1. Aspects of word knowledge (Nation, 2001: 49)

In this context, it seems necessary to assess to what extent current teaching

practices take all of these aspects into account and provide L2 learners with sufficient

opportunities to practice them in the classroom. One way of studying whether this is

the case is by analyzing how vocabulary is presented in L2 textbooks, since these

constitute one of the pillars of curriculum design in L2 courses and instructors rely

upon them when organizing lesson plans and classroom activities (Garton & Graves,

2014; Guerrettaz & Johnson, 2013; Marcos Miguel, 2015; Shawer, 2010). Thus, as

stated by Cubillos in his recent state-of-the-art review on Spanish language textbooks

in the US (2014: 206): «textbooks are powerful indicators of prevalent pedagogical

paradigms, and that the content analysis of published titles can provide a snapshot of

established practices and perspectives on language teaching and learning».

When it comes to research on vocabulary in L2 textbooks, most studies have

focused on word frequency, that is, studying to what extent language textbooks

include high-frequency words in order to address the students’ need to be exposed to

relevant, everyday life, vocabulary (Davies & Face, 2006; Lipinski, 2010; Matsuoka &

Hirsh, 2010). In this respect, the literature offers a very clear and consistent picture:

contrary to what would be expected based on the suggestions from the literature,

textbooks do not base vocabulary selection decisions on lexical frequency. This pattern

has been found in textbooks for different L2s and proficiency levels.

While the role of word frequency in textbooks’ vocabulary selection has been

studied repeatedly, few studies have analyzed to what extent the different aspects of

vocabulary knowledge are taken into account in L2 textbooks’ vocabulary exercises.

In a context where the amount of vocabulary that is taught and is really relevant to

the students is limited, it is necessary to analyze how the vocabulary included in the

textbooks is actually practiced and whether such practice favors the development of

the different aspects of word knowledge. To the best of our knowledge, the only two

studies to date that have addressed this issue were conducted by Brown (2011) for

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks and Neary-Sundquist (2015) for L2

German textbooks. No study has looked into this question yet in the context of L2

Spanish textbooks.

The main goal of both Brown and Neary-Sundquist was to study the extent to

which L2 textbooks offer practice opportunities for the nine aspects of word knowledge

proposed by Nation (2001). The descriptions of activities that were considered to tap

into each word knowledge aspect in both studies are presented in Table 2.

Spoken form

An activity that requires students to notice the spoken form of an item or

to produce its features. An activity that involves matching the spoken form

to the written form. Activities that include the spoken form of items (for

example, in a listening passage), but draw no special attention to the form

are not included.

Written form

An activity that focuses students’ attention on the spelling of items.

Activities that involve reading or writing the items as part of the process of

doing something else are not included.

Word parts

An activity that focuses attention on the parts of a word, for example by

comparing the different forms of a word. An activity that involves the parts

of a multi-word item.

Form and

meaning

An activity that involves matching forms and meanings (expressed as, for

example, definitions or pictures). An activity that involves recalling forms

from meanings or recalling meanings from forms. An activity that explains

the meanings of items.

Concept and

referents

An activity that involves considering what is and what is not included in a

word’s meaning, for example by comparing similar items.

Associations

An activity that involves matching items with or producing synonyms or

opposites or that asks students to group items under different categories.

Grammatical

functions

An activity that requires students to manipulate a word in some way with

respect to a sentence, for example, by adding it to the sentence in the

correct position. An activity that explains the patterns an item appears in

or that asks learners to find these patterns. Activities that simply ask

students to use the items in speech or writing are not included.

Collocations

An activity that involves matching the parts of a collocation or that requires

the addition of one half of a collocation.

Constraints

on use

An activity that involves matching items from different registers or

classifying items as belonging to different registers. An activity that

explains the constraints on an item.

Table 2. Description of typical activities for each word knowledge aspect in Brown (2011: 88)

Brown (2011) and Neary-Sundquist (2015) followed a similar methodology for

their analyses: they analyzed odd-numbered units from the textbooks, and all

activities that showed a clear focus on vocabulary were included in the studies. This

means that the authors did not analyze only the activities from the vocabulary

sections of the units, but rather any activity that did somehow focus on vocabulary.

Both studies present similar results and reveal a lack of emphasis on aspects that are

not related to the association between a lexical form and its meaning. Thus, activities

that focused on aspects such as written form, collocations or constraints of use were

almost nonexistent in both studies. This reduced variety of options in vocabulary

practice activities might prevent learners from developing a deep vocabulary

knowledge, thus hindering their chances of remembering the words in the long term.

The limited scope of vocabulary activities may also preclude the use of some words

to very specific contexts presented in the textbook, without allowing learners to

develop a complete understanding about when and how these words can be used.

Nonetheless, not all vocabulary aspects -except for written and spoken form,

as well as meaning and form- are as relevant for all themes in the textbooks. For

instance, while it is imperative for learners to develop a clear knowledge of the

constraints of use in greetings, due to the pragmatic implications of using a more

formal or informal greeting depending on your interlocutor, this specific aspect may

not be as relevant when learning the vocabulary of the parts of the house, where few

pragmatic constraints exist. The same happens with the word parts aspect, which can

be practiced more efficiently when a particular theme includes several compound or

derived words. For instance, it seems more relevant to practice the use of derivational

suffixes in the context of the vocabulary of the professions (e.g., bake -> baker, act

-> actor, art -> artist) than in that of the clothes (e.g., skirt, pants, socks), which

tends to mainly include morphologically simple words (Robles-García & Sánchez-

Gutiérrez, 2016).

In this context, while Brown (2011) and Neary-Sundquist (2015) offer a

compelling picture of the overall treatment of the different aspects of vocabulary

knowledge in L2 textbooks, they fail to account for the differential relevance of certain

aspects in specific themes. For example, it may be true that there are overall few

activities that focus on practicing constraints of use, however what is really relevant

is whether this aspect is practiced in vocabulary themes that require its learning or

that would, at least, offer a natural starting point for the discussion about it. Indeed,

the fact that no exercise on constraints of use is included when teaching the

vocabulary of the clothes or the parts of the house is not as informative as finding

out that this is the case when teaching the greetings.

The present study aims to complement previous literature on vocabulary

knowledge aspects in L2 textbooks by differentiating among a variety of themes and

their relation to specific aspects. Additionally, this will be the first study of this kind

for L2 Spanish textbooks. The purpose is to select specific themes that are expected

to foster the teaching and practice of certain aspects and study whether or not the

textbooks respond to these expectations. For instance, are constraints of use

activities emphasized in the vocabulary section about greetings? Is there a specific

focus on word parts in the unit about the vocabulary of the professions? Concretely,

the research questions for this study are:

1. What aspects of word knowledge are more and less practiced in elementary

Spanish language textbooks?

2. How does the distribution of activities related to each word knowledge

aspect vary depending on the specific themes that are analyzed?

2. METHODS

2.1. Textbook Corpus

Four elementary Spanish textbooks from three different US publishers were analyzed

and are presented in Table 3. All of them are broadly used in American universities.

Three of these textbooks (Nexos, Pura Vida, Vistas) are divided into units that include

several different sections (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, writing, or reading sections)

and clearly distinguish between vocabulary sections and those devoted to other skills

or knowledge types. In this context, the scope of the analysis was limited to exercises

that were part of vocabulary sections. The rationale was that, if we want to assess

what textbook creators consider as vocabulary activities and what type of word

knowledge aspects are covered in those activities, it is imperative to only look at

exercises that are specifically meant to tap into vocabulary knowledge. Indeed, while

it is true that fill-in-the-blank exercises in grammar sections of the textbooks require

some knowledge of the verbs to be conjugated, the main aim of the activity is not to

reinforce vocabulary learning, but rather to train the students into proper conjugation

strategies. Nonetheless, such a narrow approach might not be applicable to other

types of textbooks that have more blurry separations between lexical and

grammatical exercises. For instance, in the fourth book that was considered in this

study, Protagonistas, no clear distinction is made between vocabulary versus

grammar sections and other types of skills and contents. Thus, all activities that

directly aimed at practicing vocabulary had to be taken into account, independent of

where they were placed in the textbook.

Publisher

Cengage

Wiley

Vista Higher Learning

Title

Nexos 3e

Pura Vida 1e

Vistas 5e

Protagonistas 2e

Table 3. Textbooks used in the analyses

Most Spanish language textbooks published in the US follow similar divisions

to those in Nexos, Pura Vida or Vistas, and few textbooks follow the same structure

as Protagonistas, which does not strictly separate activities into aspects of linguistic

knowledge or skill types. These differences are due to the fact that the vast majority

of elementary Spanish textbooks are organized around a mainly structural syllabus,

while only recent books such as Protagonistas aim to offer a more functional, task-

based approach (Cubillos, 2014). In this context, units correspond to tasks, rather

than linguistic contents and, as such, lexical and grammar information is introduced

as part of the tools needed to complete targeted tasks. Therefore, it seems relevant

to observe if these two types of syllabi present different patterns in terms of the

number and type of vocabulary activities that they include for each vocabulary theme.

Indeed, it could be hypothesized that the more task-based the approach, the more

aspects related to real-life language use (i.e., grammatical functions, constraints of

use, collocations) will be introduced. Alternatively, textbooks that introduce grammar

and vocabulary in a more decontextualized way may present more activities that

focus on form (i.e., spoken form, written form, word parts) and meaning (i.e., form

and meaning, associations, concept and referents).

2.2. Selection of themes

Brown (2011) and Neary-Sundquist (2015) selected complete units as their targets

of analysis, chosen at random (i.e., odd-numbered units). Thus, in both studies, the

results of the analyses from all units were collapsed into a single account of the

number and percentage of activities that tapped into each vocabulary knowledge

aspect. As such, no distinctions could be made between different themes, in which

the various word knowledge aspects may have carried different weights (e.g., more

word parts in the professions than the clothes due to the higher number of

morphologically complex words in the former theme). In order to offer a more fine-

grained analysis of how each aspect is treated in the textbooks, in this study, the

units of analysis were themes instead of textbook chapters This entails that activities

related to some themes might be spread across several chapters or units. For

example, it would be possible that the vocabulary of the professions is taught in the

chapter about introductions, where students learn how to give personal information

about themselves and is then reintroduced in the chapter about family members,

where one learns how to describe people in their families. Thus, activities were

selected from all units that included some contents that fitted into each one of the

selected themes.

The seven themes that were chosen are presented in Table 4, along with the

aspects that could be expected to appear in each one of them. For instance, the

distinction between formal and informal situations and the different types of

expressions that can be used in each situation is a highly relevant aspect of learning

how to greet or say goodbye. Thus, it could be expected that exercises that focus on

greetings and goodbyes introduce the constraints of use that need to be taken into

account when performing this type of interaction.

Theme

Expected word knowledge aspect

Greetings and goodbyes

Constraints of use

Professions

Word parts

Hobbies and pastimes

Grammatical functions

Daily activities

Grammatical functions

Parts of the city

Concepts and referents

Parts of the house

Collocations

Parts of the body

Collocations

Table 4. Themes and their expected word knowledge aspects

In the case of the vocabulary of the professions, three suffixes, -dor, -dero and

-ista, are particularly productive and form transparent pairs of words, such as vender

[to sell] -> vendedor [seller], pescado [fish] -> pescadero [fish seller], or piano ->

pianista [piano player]. While -dor creates names of professions based on the actions

that are performed (e.g., vendedor), -dero specializes in the formation of profession

nouns (e.g., pescadero) that derive from the product that is sold (e.g., pescado), and

-ista is even more specific, as it forms profession nouns (e.g., pianista, futbolista

[football player]) for individuals who play a musical instrument (e.g., piano) or a sport

(e.g., fútbol). Thus, professions vocabulary offers a fertile ground for the introduction

of word parts.

Both the themes related to pastimes and to daily activities include a significant

number of verbs. Given the highly inflected nature of Spanish verbs, a great challenge

in learning these is to be able to use them appropriately in sentences, applying the

adequate ending to the root and correctly placing the conjugated verb in a sentence.

Thus, a major emphasis on grammatical functions would be expected in those two

themes.

Brown (2011) suggested that prepositions and adverbs of place offer a cluster

of words that requires to pay most attention to meaning nuances. For example, the

meaning of al lado [next to] includes that of a la derecha [on the right] and a la

izquierda [on the left], while cerca [close to] and al lado are not always

interchangeable, even though they present some meaning overlap. Making sure that

learners get to practice these differences and similarities would be extremely useful

in order to encode these words as separate units. Thus, it could be expected that the

theme where these words are introduced, namely, the parts of the city in the four

textbooks analyzed, would include more exercises that practice concepts and

referents than would be the case in other themes.

Two themes that could easily fit some relevant exercises to practice collocations

are the parts of the house and the parts of the body. Indeed, most of the chores in

Spanish are formed as verb-noun collocations such as poner la mesa [set the table]

or hacer la cama [make the bed]. When it comes to the parts of the body, this theme

is generally embedded in the context of a visit to the doctor, where collocations such

as recetar un medicamento [prescribe a medication] are especially prevalent.

Additionally, knowing the vocabulary of the parts of the body is also key to

understanding some frequent Spanish idioms, such as estar hasta las narices

[literally: to be up to the nose; figuratively: to be fed up]. Given the recurrence of

useful collocations and idiomatic expressions in these themes, they should probably

provide repeated opportunities to develop the collocations aspect of word knowledge.

The remaining four aspects of vocabulary knowledge -spoken form, written

form, form and meaning, and associations- were not matched to any particular

theme. This decision is due to the fact that (1) no clear match could be found between

these aspects and the themes that appeared in all textbooks and (2) these aspects

could all be introduced in any vocabulary theme.

3. RESULTS

As can be observed in Table 5, the overwhelming majority of activities in all textbooks

focus on meaning and form. Concretely, an average of eight activities of this kind

appear in each theme, which represents approximately 78% of the total number of

activities. While it is true that there is significant variation across textbooks and

themes in the specific number of meaning and form activities, such variation is only

the result of the varied number of activities in the different themes. For instance, the

two themes that only present two meaning and form activities are also those that

include the most limited total number of total activities. The theme about professions

in Protagonistas offers a total of four activities while the one about the parts of the

body, in the same textbook, includes only two activities that are specifically devoted

to practicing the vocabulary of body parts. Thus, in both cases, the meaning and form

activities still represent between 50% and 100% of the total number of activities for

those themes. Additionally, themes that include a higher number of activities also

present mostly form and meaning exercises. Thus, an increased number of activities

does not necessarily indicate a varied approach to vocabulary learning that takes

several different word knowledge aspects into account. Only in the theme that

corresponds to greetings and goodbyes, in Pura Vida, do form and meaning exercises

cover less than 50% of the total number of activities.

Associations are the next most practiced aspect of vocabulary knowledge,

covering 7.64% of the total number of activities in the textbooks. However, the

average number of activities of this sort across themes is of less than one, which

means that most themes presented zero of these exercises. In this case, all textbooks

include at least one activity of this type in at least one of the analyzed themes, even

though there are clear differences across them. For instance, none of the exercises

devoted to the parts of the city or the professions include any activity that promotes

the practice of associations and, of all the exercises on daily activities, only Vistas

includes one that fosters this particular aspect of word knowledge. The themes with

most exercises of this type are hobbies and pastimes as well as greetings. For

example, Nexos, page 234, exercise 1, and Vistas, page 118, exercise 6, require

students to associate a pastime with a place where it can be carried out. Another

alternative of association exercises for that theme is that proposed in Protagonistas,

page 138, exercise 2, where students had to organize a series of hobbies under three

categories of activities: cultural, fun or gastronomic. When it comes to greetings, a

typical associations exercise is to decide whether a series of expressions are used to

greet someone or to say goodbye or to associate a question (e.g., Hola, ¿qué tal?

[Hello, how are you?]) with an answer (e.g., Bien, ¿y tú? [Fine, and you?]).

Thematic units

Greetings and goodbyes

Professions

Hobbies and pastimes

Spoken form

(0)

(22)

(0)

(13)

(0)

(25)

(0)

(10)

(0)

(5)

Written form

(0)

(15)

(0)

Word parts

(0)

Form and

meaning

(72)

(67)

(37)

(38)

(100)

(87)

(100)

(50)

(63)

(70)

(91)

(80)

Concepts

and

referents

(0)

Associations

(38)

(22)

(0)

(7)

(0)

(37)

(20)

(9)

(5)

Grammatical

functions

(0)

(7)

(0)

(25)

(0)

(10)

Collocations

(0)

Constraints

on use

(0)

(11)

(63)

(12)

(0)

Total

activities

Table 5 (a): Number of activities per theme and aspect of vocabulary knowledge (first part)

Thematic units

Parts of the city

Daily activities

Spoken form

(0)

(11)

(0)

(15)

(0)

(12.5)

(0)

(25)

Written form

(0)

Word parts

(0)

Form and

meaning

(100)

(89)

(100)

(57)

(100)

(75)

(100)

(75)

Concepts

and

referents

(0)

Associations

(0)

(12.5)

(0)

Grammatical

functions

(0)

(28)

(0)

Collocations

(0)

Constraints

on use

(0)

Total

activities

Table 5 (b): Number of activities per theme and aspect of vocabulary knowledge (second part)

Thematic units

Summary across themes

Parts of the house

Parts of the body

Sum

Spoken form

(0)

(11)

(0)

(6)

(0)

5.56

0.57

1.17

Written form

(0)

1.39

0.14

0.76

Word parts

(0)

(11)

(0)

0.35

0.04

0.19

Form and

meaning

(100)

(89)

(77)

(70)

(72)

(89)

(87)

(100)

224

77.78

3.61

Concepts and

referents

(0)

Associations

(0)

(14.5)

(6)

(28)

(0)

(6.5)

(0)

7.64

0.79

1.1

Grammatical

functions

(0)

(12)

(0)

3.13

0.32

0.72

Collocations

(0)

(7.5)

(0)

(6.5)

(0)

0.69

0.07

0.26

Constraints

on use

(0)

(6)

(0)

3.47

0.36

1.1

Total

activities

Total number of activities:

288

Table 5 (c): Number of activities per theme and aspect of vocabulary knowledge (third part)

The third most practiced aspect in the textbooks is spoken form, with a total

of 16 activities, which represents 5.56% of the total number of activities in all

textbooks. However, Nexos and Pura Vida do not present any activity that falls into

this category in any of the analyzed themes. Interestingly, each vocabulary section

in Nexos starts with a video that includes some of the relevant vocabulary, which

could have made it easier to foster the inclusion of spoken form activities.

Nonetheless, all the activities that relate to the video concern general oral

comprehension and none of them promotes the noticing of the spoken form of the

words that are targeted in that specific section. Similarly, Pura Vida also includes

cultural videos in each one of its units but these are not even related to the vocabulary

theme of the chapter and, thus, do not promote a focused recognition of the spoken

form of the target words. In this context, the case of Vistas is interesting. This book

starts each vocabulary section with a short listening activity. While not all of such

listening practices focus on recognizing the spoken form of the new words to be

learned, it seems that the authors take more advantage of these oral materials as

sources for spoken form identification exercises than do either Pura Vida or Nexos.

Protagonistas is the book that presents a more systematic approach to the

inclusion of spoken form exercises. Both Protagonistas and Vistas include exercises

(that are not in the vocabulary sections) that specifically focus on the pronunciation

of some sounds in Spanish that tend to be challenging for L2 students, such as the

rolled r. Interestingly, these exercises are not based on the vocabulary of the units

they are embedded into but, at least, they reveal an interest on the part of the

authors, to include some awareness of the spoken form of Spanish words in general.

In sum, the simple inclusion of oral comprehension exercises does not seem to

directly result in an increased amount of practice of words’ spoken form, as all books

include some sort of oral input in each unit but these are generally unrelated to the

target vocabulary or are not used for phonemic recognition. Alternatively, textbooks

that include exercises that are devoted to pronunciation, even if these production

activities are not directly related to the target vocabulary of the unit, tend to offer

more opportunities for spoken form recognition practice as well. This points to the

idea that what matters the most is not necessarily the availability of relevant oral

materials but rather the awareness of the authors about the relevance of spoken form

as an important aspect of linguistic knowledge.

The constraints of use aspect is the fourth in line, representing 3.47% of all

analyzed activities. However, nine out of the ten total activities in this category are

all included in exercises that focus on greetings and goodbyes. This is the most

obvious case of a word knowledge aspect that can be introduced more naturally into

a specific chapter than in others. For instance, knowing when to use a formal or

informal greeting is extremely relevant when learning the different types of

expressions that can be used to greet someone. Thus, this result is not surprising and

provides evidence that a more fine-grained analysis of how the different aspects of

word knowledge are treated in the textbooks is needed. Indeed, based on the general

picture that sums and percentages of activities offer us, it simply seemed that

constraints of use was an aspect that was underrepresented. While this is overall true,

this aspect is not always underrepresented in specific vocabulary themes in which it

is most relevant. Indeed, Pura Vida includes as many as five activities of this sort in

the theme about greetings, and Protagonistas includes three of them. However, Vistas

includes only one activity and Nexos does not offer any activity on constraints of use

in the vocabulary section devoted to greetings and goodbyes.

Activities that aim at practicing grammatical functions represent 3.13% of the

total number of activities analyzed. This type of activity appears in most analyzed

chapters (except the one about the parts of the body and the one about daily routines)

in Protagonistas. However, in all other books, there is no trace of such exercises in

the vocabulary sections under analysis. Interestingly, contrary to what was expected,

the introduction of activities focused on grammatical functions does not seem to be

favored in themes that comprise lots of verbs. This situation might be due to the fact

that most of the textbooks analyzed include a specific grammatical section to practice

conjugation and other aspects that are more related to the integration of words into

sentences. The vocabulary sections, on the other hand, seem to focus quite

specifically on the discovery and practice of words’ meaning and form. Therefore, a

typical pattern in all the textbooks analyzed is that verbs are presented in the infinitive

form, with little attention to how they fit into sentences in the vocabulary section;

while students are asked to conjugate them or choose the accurate forms of the verbs

to introduce them in sentence gaps in the grammar section. This is confirmed by the

fact that Protagonistas is the book that includes most examples of this type of

activities, and it is also the only book that does not explicitly separate grammatical

and lexical contents in its units.

Activities focusing on the three remaining aspects of word knowledge (i.e.,

written form, collocations and concepts and referents) are virtually nonexistent in the

analyzed corpus of exercises. Only two activities on collocations are proposed across

all chapters and these are both in Pura Vida. However, even though the number of

activities is extremely low, both appear in the themes where they were expected to

appear: the parts of the body and the parts of the house. In both cases (pages 134

and 392), an idiom is presented in a text and students are asked to guess what the

idiom means based on the context. The two idioms are de tal palo tal astilla [literally:

from this stick, this splinter; figuratively: like father, like son] and costar un ojo de la

cara [literally: to cost an eye from one’s face; figuratively: to cost a lot]. There does

not seem to be any clear criterion to choose only those two idioms out of all the ones

that could be presented as well. Additionally, none of the collocations that could have

been exploited in these themes were even mentioned at any point.

Concerning word parts, only one exercise appears in all the analyzed textbooks,

and its placement in the unit about the parts of the body seems rather random and

unsubstantiated. The exercise (Vistas, page 333, exercise 3) requires the completion

of a text with words from the same word family than that of the words which are

underlined. For example, Cuando te enfermas, te sientes ________ y necesitas un

______ [when you get sick, you feel _____ and you need a _____], where the correct

answers would be enfermo [sick, ill] and enfermero [nurse], respectively. Finally,

concepts and referents is the only aspect that is not practiced in any activity at all.

4. DISCUSSION

Overall, results confirm the main finding in Brown (2011) and Neary-Sundquist

(2015), namely, that textbook authors seem to consider that form-meaning mappings

are at the center of word knowledge while all other aspects are secondary or even

irrelevant. However, the aim of the study was to propose an additional layer of

analysis to these shared findings. Concretely, it was hypothesized that if themes,

rather than textbook units, were analyzed, some of these apparently invisible aspects

of vocabulary knowledge might surface in specific themes. For example, we proposed

that constraints of use would appear more when practicing greetings than the

vocabulary of the professions, whereas word parts would present the exact opposite

pattern. Results do confirm that activities about constraints of use are quite prevalent

in explaining the different types of greetings and goodbyes, but all other hypotheses

that were posited concerning associations of themes and vocabulary knowledge

aspects were either not confirmed or only very partially so. For example, word parts

were as ill-treated when presenting the professions as they were in all other chapters

and the daily activities theme did not foster the practice of grammatical functions. In

some cases, the trend seemed to go in the direction that was expected but only in

specific books or in very limited proportions. For instance, the two examples of

collocational knowledge were in the chapters about the parts of the body and the

parts of the house. However, both cases appeared in Pura Vida and the choice of the

two idioms seemed rather random, given that none of the most useful collocations

that could easily be fitted into that theme were even mentioned.

In addition to the results obtained from comparing these aspects in different

themes, some differences were also observed across textbooks. Concretely, when

taking all the results into account, Protagonistas presents a broader range of types of

activities than the other books, covering six out of nine aspects. Nexos is in the

opposite situation, covering only two of the nine aspects of vocabulary knowledge,

when the suggestions to the instructor are not included in the analysis. As was

explained before, Protagonistas aims at offering a more task-based approach,

whereas the other three books follow a very classical structural syllabus, where

vocabulary, grammar, and each of the four skills are presented in separate sections

of each unit. As was expected, a presentation of the materials that is less focused on

structural aspects and puts more emphasis on communication and real-life

interactions seems to allow for the integration of more aspects of word knowledge

than a more de-contextualized approach. Indeed, it is easier to introduce activities

about spoken form, collocations or constraints of use when students are expected to

really use the words in realistic contexts. If, alternatively, they are only expected to

understand what a word means in order to associate it with an image or complete a

fill-in-the-gaps exercise, very few of the aspects are actually relevant.

In relation to this last finding, it is relevant to point out that the themes

analyzed in this study presented different characteristics in terms of communicative

relevance. While most themes were actually framed as lists of semantically clustered

lexical items that offer little opportunities for actual communicative exchanges, the

theme about greetings and goodbyes is the only one that clearly has direct

applications in real-life contexts. Indeed, the parts of the house or the parts of the

body are typical examples of semantic clusters, presented as vocabulary lists that can

be practiced without a specific context. While most textbooks try to integrate some

type of communicative activities even for these list-based themes, such activities are

ultimately quite unnatural, due to the necessity of incorporating so much vocabulary

of a same semantic cluster. For example, most of the textbooks include an activity

where students go to the doctor and describe their symptoms. This activity aims at

practicing the vocabulary of the parts of the body. Thus, instead of focusing on the

useful collocations that are used by the patient and the doctor when they interact, or

on the pragmatic implications of the doctor-patient relationship, students have to

come up with an exaggeratedly long list of symptoms in order to include as many

words as possible from the vocabulary list of the parts of the body. Because the aim

was not to actually practice how to go to the doctor but rather to practice the list of

vocabulary that was just learned in a somewhat contextualized activity, there was no

need to develop any real communicative strategy that would necessitate a deeper

knowledge of the words, and of how and when they are used and combined in frequent

collocations.

5. CONCLUSION

This study aimed at offering a thematic-based analysis of the treatment of the

different aspects of word knowledge in L2 introductory Spanish textbooks. Results

indicate that, contrary to our hypothesis, very few of the vocabulary knowledge

aspects that were expected to match with a specific theme actually did so. Instead of

the themes, what seemed more relevant in determining the number of different

aspects that were practiced was communicative need, as the necessity to actually

convey meaning in order to complete a task. Indeed, when a theme or textbook

promotes activities that entail real communicative need, more aspects of word

knowledge are introduced and practiced.

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