L2 lexical growth through extensive reading and dictionary use: a case study

While it is widely accepted that language learners do increase their vocabulary through using monolingual learner dictionaries, there has been little evidence produced to support this belief. Problems with research into vocabulary acquisition from dictionary use in the context of extensive reading are various. They include the small levels of learning to be expected from single brief encounters with unknown words while reading, problems with pre-selecting a small set of unknown target words, and the danger that the focus on the target words will contaminate the incidental nature of the vocabulary acquisition being investigated. This paper reports a case study in which these difficulties are, partially at least, overcome: using a method in which a very long text is read a number oftimes, in which word knowledge for hundreds of words is elicited, and in which a more sensitive measure of word knowledge is employed. Case study results confirm the possibilities offered by this method and point to ways in which its reliability may be improved.