Meet Adel Alharbi author of Vocabulary: 5 steps to help your students learn more vocabulary interviewed by Ndeye Labadens
Book title: Thank you for being with us. Please Introduce yourself.
I am Adel Alharbi, I am an ESL Instructor, researcher, publisher, translator, and editor too. I obtained my MA in Applied Linguistics from LaTrobe University, Australia in 2010 and currently I am doing my Ph.D. in Vocabulary Learning Strategies at the University of Memphis, TN, USA. My major research passion areas include; SLA, ESL, Culture, and Intercultural Communication (ICC). My recent work is on Vocabulary Learning Strategy and language identity. I have been working with some US companies as an interpreter and Intercultural Communication consultant. There are also some studies that I like such as, Phonology, Language literacy, and Cultural differences. Since I traveled to many different countries such as U.K, Australia, Spain, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the US, I enjoyed observing their cultural differences. I relished noticing their languages, accents, habits, and behaviors. I believe this experience has enriched my ability to communicate with different kinds of people. On the other hand, it has enhanced both my language competencies and cultural differences. I love doing some sports too such as tennis, swimming, hiking, walking, rafting, and many other outdoor sports and activities. I am an independent person and love to help other people and learn from them. My best intelligent is nature and physical world and I am kinesthetic-visual learner type. I wish to be an influencer and entrepreneur one day soon to fight against illiteracy and poverty around the world and empower new generations.
What's the story behind the title?
This book was sparked by my students’ determination as they struggled to manage their language learning and showed that they wanted to succeed in their academic life.
The story of why this book came about began in the winter of 2013 when I devoted my time as a volunteer teacher to teach a group of European and Asian students at the American Language Center in northwest Philadelphia. At that time, I worked for free: I did not get a salary paycheck or even one penny from the institution. I felt this work was so important that I drove over 40 minutes (one way) to help those students for two semesters. One day, I was teaching them some reading that they needed to comprehend. It was full of new vocabulary for them and out of reality somehow. The students asked so many questions about vocabulary meaning because they lacked sufficient vocabulary knowledge to read or to link the new text with their previous knowledge. They were looking for a single meaning for every word they read in their classes, a simple link between one word and one meaning. But that was not the real issue in their understanding difficulties, because it is one that appears to everyone. Instead, it was more than that. I realized that I wanted to help out students with these troubles, so at this point, I started to guide my thinking by putting down questions. I started with big questions. I will come to specifics of these questions soon, but for now, I first wish to discuss my vocabulary story. My experience with these students was the trigger of this strategy.
Why did you write this book?
I have been thinking of these steps as a language support strategy. What I am hoping to encourage are habits, since I found that my students often struggled with vocabulary knowledge expansion during their language development. What I noticed was that after ten years of teaching ESL and EFL students, my students’ language acquisition was, in almost all classes, very limited. In other words, it was neither their lack of learning motivation nor their style of communication that lowered their language proficiency. Rather, their troubles stemmed from a lack of using their own learning strategy to learn new vocabulary. In order to understand why this is important, a fundamental perspective on how our children begin their language with one word can be a good example, which they learn at an age between 18 and 22 months old. Then, as they get older, their capacity for words will eventually expand, as they have new life situations. This is the natural process of learning the language. In contrast, for ESLs, learning vocabulary usually developed gradually through various ways among which, communication, conversation, and strategic learning.
How do you keep the reader's attention?
I approached different strategies to hook up my reader’s attention. For example, I used my own real stories that sparked this book and then draw on some studies that I did in this area. However, I kept the genre more reflective to attract students and teachers too by showing them how simple to use my vocabulary learning strategies. I used lots of visuals to make my theory simple to be understood and remembered. Also, I devoted some analytical questions to guide and build good trust between me and the readers of my book such as what, how, and why this book is important and more.
How did you come up with this book idea?
It took me two semesters to build this book idea. I am putting in your hand the project that I have built from nothing. Since I first thought of writing this book, my goal has been to assist teachers and language learners of any language, because what I have gone through during my language learning has proven that the vocabulary learning strategy works better to develop your language, which is necessary for becoming successful in your academic life.
What publishing elements do you most enjoy and most like to avoid, and why? (e.g., design, marketing, formatting, etc.)
In the beginning, everything was so hard to do it and not able to manage and control all the writing processes on time and right. However, since I published this book, I have gained a very good amount of publishing strategies and marketing my own product myself. I felt it will be so hard for this kind of job, but then I completed most of the work by myself. However, I hated the formatting part because I was not good at it and every time I was doing it I kind of losing what I have done before. Also, I prefer to leave the formatting to a specialist who is more professional than me in this type of work. Other than that, I became very confident to control it myself such as designing the book cover, marketing my book and reach out and grow my networks. I think it has been really a great year of personal development when I started to write this book and I consider it the most important development update I gained during my career time.
What’s next on your writing journey?
I am writing a book about freedoms clashes called: Freedom to defend vs. Freedom to Offend. Hopefully, I can finish it soon. But I am welcoming any coauthor to join me publish it.
Where would my audience find your book?
My book is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0776L1KNH Or at Smashwords.com https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/758176
Thank you for your time, Adel!
Ndeye Labadens
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