Abstract
This research examines dictionary-induced vocabulary learning and inferencing in the context of reading. One hundred and four intermediate English learners completed one of two word-focused tasks: reading comprehension and dictionary consultation, and reading comprehension and inferencing. In addition to performing the tasks, some subjects reported their thinking processes either during or after the completion of the tasks, and those who did not were tested both immediately and one week later for their learning of target words. The results show that dictionary-induced vocabulary learning was significantly more effective than inferencing. The researcher explains such results in terms of theories of the degree of elaboration and connectionist models, and suggests that the provision of a number of various aspects of knowledge about a target word is very facilitative for word learning.
Highlights
As vocabulary is one of the crucial components of a language, an increasing amount of research on second language acquisition has concentrated on vocabulary acquisition
The results showed that subjects obtained great gains of knowledge about the target words after doing these two tasks, given that their pre-knowledge of these words was almost zero
With an attempt to figure out how dictionary-induced vocabulary learning differs from inferencing, the thinking processes of the subjects doing these two tasks were analyzed from two perspectives: the diverse degrees of elaboration entailed by the two tasks and the diverse complexity of connections that make up the networks of target words
Summary
As vocabulary is one of the crucial components of a language, an increasing amount of research on second language acquisition has concentrated on vocabulary acquisition. Some researchers argue that using a dictionary while reading leads to inefficient learning (Chan 2011), or extra time spent on looking up words was unlikely to be used efficiently (Knight 1994). It does not always improve comprehension (Koyama and Takeuchi 2004); or looking up too many words without careful consideration led to shallow processing and short-term retention (De Ridder 2002). After examining dictionary assistance for learners' identification and retention of collocations, Laufer (2011) concluded that learners sometimes had challenge of identifying the correct verbs, but often they regarded dictionary consultation unnecessary
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