Incidental versus intentional vocabulary learning A selection of research articles

Laufer, B. (2003). Vocabulary acquisition in a second language: do learners really acquire most vocabulary by reading? Some empirical evidence. Canadian Modern Language Review, 59(4), Laufer, B. (2005). Focus on form in second language vocabulary learning. EUROSLA Yearbook, 5,

Can learners learn new words from reading? Assumptions that The learner 1.recognizes this as a word he/she doesn’t know and tries to infer 2. has a good chance of inferring rightly 3. retains partial knowledge of the word 4. additional encounters will enhance chances of learning 1.Not true: often learners think they know words they don’t 2. Difficult to infer: insufficient clues etc. Difficult words that are not essential will often be simply ignored. Words easily inferred are also easily forgotten. Only essential, difficult to guess but guessable words will be remembered. 3.Yes, but how much? 4. In order to encounter these words enough times need to read a lot

Such a quantity of reading can hardly be expected in instructed language learning. Bill Grabe documented his own vocabulary acquisition from reading (Grabe and Stoller 1997). He learnt about 350 words after reading 3 hours per day for 5 months, ie about 450 hours. My teaching experience leads me to believe that even motivated learners … will not read more than 4-5 hours a week, i.e. about 250 hours a year. If their acquisition rate is similar to Bill’s, it will take them a year to acquire at best 200 words from reading.

Focus on form vs focus on formS Focus on form: pause to focus temporarily on the vocabulary as you are doing a communicative task. Focus on formS: do activities where vocabulary learning is the primary goal. Laufer is in favour of both, but crucial to include also Focus on FormS. This does not negate the added value of extensive reading and incidental learning.

Waring, R., & Takaki, M. (2003). At what rate do learners learn and retain new vocabulary from reading a graded reader? Reading in a Foreign Language 15(2),

The Study 25 words in The Little Princess. 15 young adult learners. High percentage (96%) of known vocab. Used substitute words, e.g. house = windle Tests of various kinds: word-form recognition, m/c, meaning by translation Overall: long-term unprompted learning – one word per one hour’s reading. Learn much better if meet several times About half the words forgotten after 3 months (but weren’t encountered again)

But other types of lexical learning may have taken place: deepening of lexical knoweldge of items already known, familiarization, collocation and chunks, increased ability to guess from context, etc. Extensive reading mainly consolidates already- known language-

Pigada, M., & Schmitt, N. (2006). Vocabulary acquisition from extensive reading: a case study. Reading in a Foreign Language 18(1), 1-28

Research design One-month period of extensive reading, 133 target words, measurement procedures that are sensitive to partial knowledge, and different types of knowledge other than form-meaning relationship (spelling, phonology, syntax, collocation…) Present study looked also at form (spelling), meaning (form- meaning relationship) and use (grammatical functions). Even if can’t guess meaning, other aspects of the word learnt e.g. spelling. Importance of consolidation of previously learnt words – other research has focused on new words. Importance of frequency (cf. Waring and Takaki study).

66/133 enhanced in one way, 13 in two ways, 8 in all three 87 in at least one way- So learned at least something about 14.5 words per hour (about 70 pages?) as compared to Laufer’s estimate of less than one word an hour About 2/3 of new words enhanced in some way. And this doesn’t take into consideration the enhancement of knowledge of previously partially- known words.

Zahar, R, T. Cobb & N. Spada. ( 2001). Acquiring vocabulary through reading: effects of frequency and contextual richness. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(4),

1.Is the amount of L2 vocabulary acquisition that takes place through reading a)predictable b)sufficient in principle to establish a functional lexicon? 2.Does the number of encounters needed to learn a word vary with learner proficiency? 3.Does type of contextual richness contribute differently to vocab acquisition?

Research Chose words unlikely to know, checked through pre-test. The post-test to see how many of words remembered, compared to amount of reading. 144 Francophone Canadian students learning English. Listened, then reread on their own.

Results Average learning about 1 in 12. Frequency significant, particularly for lowest group, made a big difference. Learners who knew more words needed fewer encounters. Need to supplement with direct instruction.

Schmitt, N., & Sonbul, S. (2010). Direct teaching of vocabulary after reading: is it worth the effort? ELT Journal, 64(3),

Study Medical students in UAR: reading a text plus vocabulary activities vs reading a text with only comprehension activities. Students who did vocabulary activities remembered better. Interesting that post-test (after one week) showed little attrition maybe because read it again during the week (important: sandwich principle?)

Cobb, T. (2007). Computing the vocabulary demands of L2 Reading. Language Learning and Technology, 11 (3),

RE-encounter Even with a modest estimate of 6 re-encounters, Frequent vocab (up to 2000) is likely to be encountered enough times within a limited reading program. Less frequent vocabulary not.

Cobb’s computation If an intermediate/advanced learner reads: six novels (of the length of Alice in Wonderland), 100 pages of newspaper text, 17 academic articles They will encounter K1 – more than 6 times K2 – mostly yes, a few not K3 – mostly not. K4 – 5 almost definitely not.

Cobb’s suggestions Manipulate reading so as to induce further encounters: Find and use texts that use the same vocabulary (computer tools). Eliminate very low-frequency vocabulary using Lextutor. Link unknown words to a concordance. Get the text read out.

Practical implications Reading aloud by the teacher, with the students ‘reading along’ can help both reading fluency and comprehension of lexis. Possibility of using computerized read-aloud programs (details of a program will be sent to you separately) Problem of students not ‘reading along’: Keep an eye on them, tell any student who is looking at you that they should be looking at their text! Tell them you will occasionally stop, they have to read the next word. Other strategies: Read the whole text, then tell them to close their books, read out beginnings of sentences / collocations, they have to complete them from memory Weekly quizzes on words they’ve been taught Simply re-reading the text Composing and performing ‘jazz chants’