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Most research on the acquisition of second language vocabulary has depended on estimates of vocabulary size, or 'breadth' measures, rather than on estimates of 'depth' defined either in terms of kinds of knowledge of specific words or in terms of degrees of such knowledge. Breadth tests provide rough comparative estimates of individuals' overall vocabulary knowledge, useful for such purposes as placement in instructional programs, and for charting group gains for purposes such as program evaluation. However, such measures have a number of limitations, an obvious one being that they do not measure how well given words are known (Read, 1988); thus they are of limited value in studies of the vocabulary acquisition process or in assessment of curriculum-related vocabulary learning. Few procedures and even fewer test instruments have been proposed that attempt to carry out these functions. This article surveys existing second language (L2) vocabulary measures of both kinds and describes in detail a recently developed instrument designed to assess levels of familiarity with given words, the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) (Paribakht & Wesche, 1993a, 1993b).

The paper reports on an exploratory study of the acquisition of specific content vocabulary, discourse connectives and grammatical knowledge over time by instructed adult L2 learners. A major objective of the study was the development of an appropriate methodology and instruments for classroom research on these questions. The study followed 37 intermediate level ESL students through one semester, including one class in a themebased program centered on comprehension activities, and a comparison class in a four-skill program.Findings are reported and discussed in terms of the methodology and instruments developed and adapted for the study, and of learning outcomes for the two groups. TIle instruments proved to be largely appropriate for our purposes. The findings indicate that gains on grammatical knowledge measures were somewhat greater for the four-skill class, while the comprehension-based demonstrated greater gains in vocabulary knOWledge (both discourse connectives and content wordS). IN1RODUCTIONThis paper reports on the first stage of a long-term project to investigate the role of comprehension in second language development by young adults. The context is a comprehensionbased program for beginning to intermediate learners of English as a second language. Our objective is to study the language learning outcomes of a teaching approach which emphasizes global comprehension of written and oral texts. These outcomes include gains in vocabulary, grammatical and discourse knowledge. Inthis context we have focused on vocabulary learning outcomes from written texts used for global reading comprehension and related activities.Our immediate concern, however, has been the development of an appropriate methodology for beginning to investigate these relationships. We will discuss our findings from an exploratory study carried out in the fall of 1989. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDA widely held view in the current literature on second language acquisition is that one major way in which second language learners acquire grammatical and other kinds of language knowledge is through exposure to and comprehension of the meaning of oral and written texts in that language. Considerable research has been done on the nature of language input to second language learners TESL CANADA JOURNAL/REVUE TESL DU CANADA VOL. 11, NO.1, FALL 1993 9 (cf. review in Hatch, 1983Chaudron, 1988a;Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991; Wesche, forthcoming). Particular attention has been given to modifications made by native speakers addressing language learners, which are thought to increase the comprehensibility of the input and possibly to facilitate their language acquisition in several ways. Some studies have examined the effect of input modifications on the comprehensibility of spoken discourse by native speakers (e.g., Henzl, 1973;Long, 1985;Chaudron, 1985 Chaudron, , 1988. Other research has linked such modifications to global proficiency gains (e.g., Edwards, Wesche, Krashen, Clement & Kruidenier, 1984;Wesche & Ready, 1985), and in some cases to the acquisi...

The present study is a follow-up to a classroom experiment with university ESL students that demonstrated incidental acquisition of new lexical knowledge through the reading of thematically related texts. Introspective data from similar students using the same materials are analyzed in this study to explore how vocabulary knowledge may be acquired as a by-product of reading for comprehension. The researchers sought to identify the strategies and the kinds of knowledge and information learners used when dealing with new L2 words they encountered while reading. Learners tended to ignore a large proportion of the words. For those words they attended to, inferencing was the main strategy employed. A taxonomy of the knowledge sources they used in inferring word meanings from various textual and other cues was developed, which provided a framework for describing learners' inferencing behavior. Findings are interpreted in terms of existing research and theory on incidental vocabulary acquisition within an input-processing framework. Pedagogical implications are drawn.