Is Second Language Reading Vocabulary Best Learned by Reading?

Raptis, Helen

doi:10.3138/cmlr.53.3.566

Cited by 35 publications

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“…Contextual richness, therefore, has little effect on word learning (Diakidoy, 1998;Zahar, Cobb, & Spada, 2001). These views question the effectiveness of vocabulary strategy instruction that focuses heavily on the importance of context (Raptis, 1997;Schatz & Baldwin, 1986).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Roles of Context and Word Morphology in Learning New Kanji Words

Mori¹

2003

The Modern Language Journal

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This study explores quantitative and qualitative differences between context and word morphology as determinants of students' guesses of the meanings of novel kanji compounds (i.e., words consisting of two or more Chinese characters). In this study, 74 Japanese language learners interpreted unknown compounds consisting of familiar characters under three conditions (i.e., words in isolation, contextual clues only, and both). When the students' guesses were compared against the actual meanings, context and word morphology were equally effective. However, the combined effect of both sources was the best, suggesting that the 2 sources provide information that does not overlap. Students expressed higher confidence in their context-based guesses than in their words-in-isolation guesses. Furthermore, contextual clues generated more syntactically related guesses than did kanji clues, whereas kanji clues yielded more semantically related guesses than did context. In general, the strength of contextual support and morphological transparency worked additively when combined but sometimes affected each other negatively. These findings suggest that context and word morphology play different roles in word inference.IN THE PAST 2 DECADES, A GROWING number of studies have examined the strategies that language learners use to learn new words. When second language (L2) readers encounter an unfamiliar word while reading, they often infer its meaning using available information and knowledge without referring to a dictionary (Hulstijn, Hollander, & Greidanus, 1996;Schmitt, 1997). Contextual information and word morphology (e.g., word roots, affixes, and inflectional suffixes) are two major sources that readers use to interpret novel words (De Bot,

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The Roles of Context and Word Morphology in Learning New Kanji Words

Mori¹

2003

The Modern Language Journal

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“…So, effective second language vocabulary learning, specifically through learning the Latin or Greek roots, is particularly important for English as foreign language (EFL) learners who frequently acquire lexicons despite years of formal study. Raptis (1997) believes that the systems of vocabulary learning in reading has not received as much attention in second language research as other aspects of reading and the instructors should pay more attention to teaching roots to help the students learn the words in their second language faster. Schmitt (2008), also believes that "overriding principle for maximizing vocabulary learning is to increase the amount of engagement learners have with etymological items, mainly the roots" (p.352).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Using Etymological Analysis on Teaching Vocabulary to EFL University Students

Hosseini¹,

Sarfallah²,

Bakhshipour³

et al. 2012

TPLS

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Abstract-Being disappointed in retention of previously encountered vocabularies is one of the most reported displeasures that EFL students have faced during vocabulary acquisition so far. Since most of the English words descend from Greek and Latin roots, among the multitude of distinct strategies employed in teaching vocabulary, providing learners with an awareness of how existing words are able to be dismantled into different roots, not only generate the opportunity to let them discover the meaning of the words for themselves but also makes them capable of retrieving the targeted words easily. The present study, thus, aimed at exploring the very effect of teaching vocabulary to 59 participants who belonged to two intact classes. They were assigned to experimental and control groups. As far as the level of vocabulary proficiency was concerned, a pretest was administered to both groups. While the control group was going to acquire new words by means of dictionary, and through inferencing the meaning of unfamiliar words from text, the experimental group received treatment based on etymological analysis. After 6 weeks, an immediate posttest was administered to both experimental and control groups. The results were analyzed through one-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). Subsequently, a questionnaire was given to the experimental group in order to collect their opinions regarding the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary through etymology. Findings indicated that experimental group outperformed the control group. Consequently, the positive effect of this strategy and its implication in teaching vocabulary was manifested by opinions elicited from the experimental group.

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“…Yet the rates of L2 vocabulary learning through comprehension-focused reading reported in many previous studies are, however, quite low (e.g. Coady, 1997;Paribakht & Wesche, 1997;Raptis, 1997;Horst & Meara, 1999;Huckin & Coady, 1999). These past studies have demonstrated that vocabulary learning from incidental exposure in reading does occur, but in an incremental mode and in small quantities.…”

Section: Multiple Word Exposure and Contextual Vocabulary Learningmentioning

confidence: 90%

Promoting contextual vocabulary learning through an adaptive computer‐assisted EFL reading system

Wang

2016

Computer Assisted Learning

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The study developed an adaptive computer‐assisted reading system and investigated its effect on promoting English as a foreign language learner‐readers' contextual vocabulary learning performance. Seventy Taiwanese college students were assigned to two reading groups. Participants in the customised reading group read online English texts, each of which was customised by the developed system to offer immediate and repeated meetings with previously encountered unknown words, while participants in the typical reading group read online texts without control on unknown word recurrence. After the 4‐week online reading treatment, the two groups of learners were tested by online immediate and delayed vocabulary tests, and the students from the customised reading group were also required to complete the questionnaire regarding system use. The results showed that the vocabulary mean scores from both immediate and delayed testing demonstrated significantly better results in word gain and word retention with the customised reading group and that the adaptive reading system was appealing for the students. The study demonstrated that by providing customised reading with word recurrence specific to individuals' unknown words, this adaptive computer‐assisted English as a foreign language reading system creates a more favourable condition for foreign language vocabulary growth.

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Is Second Language Reading Vocabulary Best Learned by Reading?

Cited by 35 publications

References 0 publications

The Roles of Context and Word Morphology in Learning New Kanji Words

The Roles of Context and Word Morphology in Learning New Kanji Words

The Impact of Using Etymological Analysis on Teaching Vocabulary to EFL University Students

Promoting contextual vocabulary learning through an adaptive computer‐assisted EFL reading system

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