Incidental Vocabulary Learning by Advanced Foreign Language Students: The Influence of Marginal Glosses, Dictionary Use, and Reoccurrence of Unknown Words

Abstract

Dutch advanced students of French read a French short story in one of three text reading conditions: Marginal Glosses (provision of L1 translations of unknown words), Dictionary (opportunity to use a bilingual dictionary), or Control. After reading, students were tested for their recall of 16 words that had appeared either once or three times in the text. Support was found for the hypothesis that frequency of occurrence will foster incidental vocabulary learning more when advanced second language (L2) readers are given the meanings of unknown words through marginal glosses or when they look up meanings in a dictionary than when no external information concerning unknown words' meanings is available. In the former case, reappearance of a word will reinforce the form‐meaning connection in the reader's mental lexicon. In the latter case, readers will often ignore unknown words or incorrectly infer their meanings, which will limit the frequency effect. This article ends with recommendations for teachers and researchers.

The Effects of Inferring, Verifying, and Memorizing on the Retention of L2 Word Meanings

“…2. Glosses (giving) led to higher retention than inferencing in two experiments (Hulstijn et al, 1996;Watanabe, 1997); in a third experiment, however, the superiority of glosses on the immediate test had disappeared on the delayed test (Jacobs et al, 1994). 3.…”

“…At the same time, the retention of incorrectly inferred meanings is counteracted. However, for substantial retention it is desirable to add a memorization stage after inferring and verifying, which improves the achievement rate once again (see Hulstijn, 2001, andHulstijn et al, 1996, who also argued for intentional learning as a follow-up to incidental learning, and Mondria & Mondria-de Vries, 1994, for an efficient and practical form for this intentional-learning stage).…”

“…Luppescu and Day, 1993). Hulstijn, Hollander, and Greidanus (1996) compared the incidental-learning effect of (a) reading, (b) reading with marginal glosses, and (c) reading with access to a dictionary. On the immediate test, students in the marginal-glosses condition knew more words than students who had to resort to inferencing or to a dictionary.…”

Internet and Literacy in the Developing World: Delivering the Teacher with the Text

“…The gains for resource-assisted reading have generally been strong. First, in terms of facilitation, easy access to resources, through a computer click as opposed to a lengthy lookup, has been shown to double or even triple their use (Goyette, 1995;Hulstijn et al, 1996). Second, in terms of learning, Knight's (1994) study found that high-verbal learners, after reading a text on a computer screen with a computer dictionary available, were able to rec-ognize 55% of new items and produce acceptable definitions for 21% of them.…”

“…Studies by Knight (1994), Hulstijn, Hollander, and Greidanus (1996), LymanHagar and Davis (1996), Chun and Plass (1996a), and Lomicka (1998) have developed and tested software packages for reading with the various resources that a computer can make available, and in addition have developed useful measures for establishing the effectiveness of such systems with learners who are learning or consolidating a second language. These packages present learners with texts linked to click-up options for some or all of the text's words, leading to definitions, pictures, small videos, or other types of information, both singly and in combination.…”