The Effects of Contextual Richness on the Guessability and the Retention of Words in a Foreign Language1

Mondria, Jan-Arjen; Boer, Marijke Wit-De

doi:10.1093/applin/12.3.249

Cited by 126 publications

(116 citation statements)

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“…Additionally, the learning effect of the correction of an incorrectly inferred meaning is greater than the learning effect of the confirmation of a correctly inferred meaning (cf. Mondria & Wit-de Boer, 1991). As a result, the (correct) retention of incorrectly inferred words is, after verification, similar to that of correctly inferred words after verification (16% and 15%, respectively).…”

Section: Meaning-inferred Methodsmentioning

confidence: 64%

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

Mondria

2003

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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This study investigated whether a word-learning method in which learners infer the meaning of unknown words from the context, subsequently verify the meaning with the aid of a word list, and finally memorize the meaning ("meaning-inferred method") leads to better retention than one in which the meaning of unknown words is given in the form of a translation so that learners can immediately start memorizing ("meaning-given method"). Additionally, the learning effect of the various stages of the meaning-inferred method (inferring, verifying, and memorizing) was investigated. In all cases the amount of time invested was recorded. The most important findings were: (a) The meaning-inferred method leads to a similar level of retention as the meaning-given method, but the former is considerably more timeconsuming and therefore less efficient; and (b) each separate stage of the meaning-inferred method leads to retention, but the learning effect of memorizing is the greatest, and the learning effect of verifying is about the same as that of inferring.

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Section: Meaning-inferred Methodsmentioning

confidence: 64%

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

Mondria

2003

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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“…The average retention ratios of participants in incidental and intentional groups were 4% and 53% respectively on the immediate posttest in which all 12 target words were tested in isolation, and 43% and 73% on a subsequent posttest in which target words were tested in their original context. In a similar study, Mondria and Wit-de Boer (1991) asked Dutch high school students to learn eight French content words, which were presented in sentence contexts of varying strength along with their L1 translation. Study time was ten minutes.…”

Section: Differences In Learning Rates Between Incidental and Intentimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Retention over all groups and texts consistently favored the bilingual condition (with an average retention score of 18.6, over an average of 14.7 in the monolingual condition, out of a maximum of 35). Studies addressing the latter issue, context or no context (Grace, 1998;Lawson & Hogben, 1996;Mondria & Wit-de Boer, 1991;Prince, 1996;Qian, 1996;Seibert, 1930), have obtained mixed results, probably due to the fact that, as Nation (1982) and Nagy (1997) have pointed out, context is a multifaceted construct. Tinkham (1993), Waring (1998), and Schneider, Healy and Bourne (1998) investigated whether it is good practice, as dictated by most L2 teaching materials, to have learners study lists of semantically related items (such as words for clothes) or whether it is better to have students learn lists of unrelated words.…”

Section: Practice-based Educational Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incidental and Intentional Learning

Hulstijn¹

2003

The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition

257

136

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“…A study by Mondria and Wit-De Boer (1991) highlights Schouten-van Parreren's idea which focuses on the receptive acquisition of words. "…words are best learned through reading, in which the process of inferring the meaning of words from the context is thought to have a clearly positive effect on retention" (Mondria & Wit-De Boer, 1991: 250).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longer Efl Vocabulary Retention: Learning in Context or in Isolation?

Herusatoto¹

2012

LiNGUA J.

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This research aims to examine the effectiveness of two different vocabulary learning strategies on vocabulary retention. The first is learning words in isolation in which learners learn new words and their meanings presented in the form of word lists; and the second is learning words from context in which learners use clues in sentences in texts to generate meanings for the target words. In the instruction sessions, a group of senior high school students learning vocabulary in isolation was presented with a number of words in English and their meanings. Their task was to say and repeat the words and their meanings several times as they attempted to learn the new words and their meanings. The group of students learning words from context was presented with some texts containing the target words and was asked to find out the meanings of the target words by using clues in the texts. Recall tests were administered twice, a week and two weeks after the instruction sessions. For word retention, results of the recall tests revealed that learning words in isolation appeared to be more effective than learning words from context. Students learning words in isolation retained the target words and the meanings better than those in the other group.

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The Effects of Contextual Richness on the Guessability and the Retention of Words in a Foreign Language1

Cited by 126 publications

References 0 publications

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

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

Incidental and Intentional Learning

Longer Efl Vocabulary Retention: Learning in Context or in Isolation?

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