Do Reading and Interactive Vocabulary Instruction Make a Difference

Many teachers give little or no classroom attention to vocabulary, assuming students will learn words incidentally. Although research demonstrates that vocabulary can be acquired indirectly through reading, the question remains: Does vocabulary instruction make a difference? This article reports on a pilot study of the combined effects of reading and interactive vocabulary instruction for U.S. postsecondary L2 students preparing for university entrance. A 10-week classroombased study tested the hypothesis that L2 students exposed to a combination of regular periods of reading and interactive vocabulary instruction will show significant increases in their knowledge of the nontechnical terms that are used widely across academic fields. L2 students attending university-preparatory intensive English programs were divided into two groups: one received 3 hours a week of interactive vocabulary instruction plus an assignment to read self-selected materials; the other received the self-selected reading assignment only. The results of this study suggest that interactive vocabulary instruction accompanied by moderate amounts of self-selected and course-related reading led to gains in vocabulary knowledge; students' perceptions of how best to learn words corroborated these results. It is argued that teachers should give consideration to the effects of combining reading and interactive vocabulary instruction.

[1]  Richard C. Anderson,et al.  How Many Words are There in Printed School English , 1984 .

[2]  J. Aitchison.  Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon , 1987 .

[3]  I.S.P. Nation,et al.  Vocabulary learning and reading , 1978 .

[4]  Paul Nation,et al.  Teaching and learning vocabulary , 1994 .

[5]  Francis Mangubhai,et al.  The impact of reading on second language learning. , 1983 .

[6]  I.S.P. Nation,et al.  Factors Affecting Guessing Vocabulary in Context , 1985 .

[7]  James W. Hall,et al.  Metacognitive and Other Knowledge about the Mental Lexicon: Do We Know How Many Words We Know? , 1993 .

[8]  J. Carson,et al.  Students' Perceptions of EAP Writing Instruction and Writing Needs Across the Disciplines , 1994 .

[9]  S. Krashen,et al.  ACQUIRING SECOND LANGUAGE VOCABULARY THROUGH READING: A REPLICATION OF THE CLOCKWORK ORANGE STUDY USING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUIRERS , 1989 .

[10]  R. Ellis.  Factors in the Incidental Acquisition of Second Language Vocabulary from Oral Input: A Review Essay. , 1999 .

[11]  Philip Hubbard,et al.  High Frequency vocabulary and reading proficiency in ESL readers , 1993 .

[12]  Charles A. Perfetti,et al.  Effects of Long-Term Vocabulary Instruction on Lexical Access and Reading Comprehension. , 1982 .

[13]  Robert B. Kaplan,et al.  'Translated! A New Breed of Bilingual Dictionaries , 1994 .

[14]  B. Laufer.  Possible Changes in Attitude towards Vocabulary Acquisition Research , 1986 .

[15]  Frank Smith,et al.  Understanding Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read, Sixth Edition , 1973 .

[16]  J. Richards.  The Role of Vocabulary Teaching. , 1976 .

[17]  R. Day,et al.  INCIDENTAL EFL VOCABULARY LEARNING AND READING , 1991 .

[18]  Katy Parry,et al.  Building a Vocabulary Througb Academic Reading , 1991 .

[19]  Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman,et al.  Lexis: Academic Vocabulary Study , 1990 .

[20]  J. Channell.  Applying Semantic Theory to Vocabulary Teaching , 1981 .

[21]  B. Laufer,et al.  Lexical Guessing in Context in EFL Reading Comprehension. , 1984 .

[22]  S. Krashen.  We Acquire Vocabulary and Spelling by Reading: Additional Evidence for the Input Hypothesis , 1989 .

[23]  Paul Meara,et al.  Vocabulary Acquisition: A Neglected Aspect of Language Learning , 1980, Language Teaching.

[24]  J. Crow,et al.  A Semantic Field Approach to Passive Vocabulary Acquisition for Reading Comprehension. , 1985 .

[25]  Margaret G. McKeown,et al.  The Nature of Vocabulary Acquisition , 1991 .

[26]  S. Krashen.  The Power Of Reading , 1993 .

[27]  Patricia A. Herman,et al.  Breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge: Implications for acquisition and instruction. , 1987 .

[28]  Stephen Krashen,et al.  Sustained Silent Reading with English as a Second Language High School Students: Impact on Reading Comprehension, Reading Frequency, and Reading Enjoyment. , 1993 .

[29]  Stephen Krashen,et al.  The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications , 1986 .

[30]  Margaret G. McKeown,et al.  TEACHING VOCABULARY: MAKING THE INSTRUCTION FIT THE GOAL , 2017 .

[31]  Douglas Biber,et al.  Variation across speech and writing: Methodology , 1988 .

[32]  Patricia A. Herman,et al.  Learning Words from Context. , 1985 .

[33]  Marjorie Bingham Wesche,et al.  Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: Vocabulary enhancement activities and reading for meaning in second language vocabulary acquisition , 1996 .

[34]  W. Elley.  Vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. , 1989 .

[35]  Paul Nation,et al.  Vocabulary Size, Growth, and Use , 1993 .