Abstract
This qualitative descriptive phenomenological study examined the lived vocabulary-learning experiences of Grade 7 English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners at a public middle school in Manassas Park, Virginia, United States. It addressed the limited learner-centered evidence concerning how adolescent ESOL learners experience lexical form, meaning, and use while encountering explicit vocabulary teaching, connected texts, contextual clues, and classroom discourse. Fifteen Grade 7 ESOL learners, ages 12 to 14 and classified within Emerging to Bridging levels of English proficiency according to WIDA standards, participated in the study. Data were gathered through an open-ended questionnaire with reflective writing prompts and analyzed using Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological method by identifying significant statements, formulating meanings, clustering meanings into themes, and synthesizing the essence of the shared experience. Five themes emerged: (1) Memorization as an Entry Point to Vocabulary Understanding; (2) Interpreting Meaning Through Contextual Clues; (3) Learning Vocabulary Through Classroom Interaction; (4) Experiencing Difficulty with Vocabulary in Academic Texts; and (5) Developing Confidence Through Vocabulary Learning. Participants experienced vocabulary learning as an interconnected process in which explicit word-focused support provided initial access, while contextual interpretation and classroom discourse made words more usable and personally meaningful. In response to the five themes, the researcher developed the Reflective Vocabulary Journaling Program (RVJP) as the proposed instructional output of the study, linking vocabulary entry and definition, contextualized reflection, collaborative sharing, difficulty tracking and strategy use, and self-assessment and application. The findings describe learners' reported meaning-making and affective experiences; they do not establish vocabulary gain, instructional effectiveness, or causation.
Keywords: vocabulary acquisition, ESOL learners, discourse-based instruction, phenomenology, reflective journaling, second language learning
DOI https://zenodo.org/records/22722672
