Abstract
ABSTRACTWe examined to what extent the variation in vocabulary learning outcomes (vocabulary knowledge, learning gain, and rate of forgetting) in English as a second language (L2) in context can be predicted from semantic contextual support, word characteristics (cognate status, Levenshtein distance, word frequency, and word length), and student characteristics (prior vocabulary knowledge, reading ability, and exposure to English) in 197 Dutch adolescents. Students were taught cognates, false friends, and control words through judging sentences with varying degrees of semantic contextual support using a pretest/posttest between subjects design. Participants were presented with an English target word and its Dutch translation, followed by an English sentence. They were instructed to judge the plausibility of the sentence. Mixed-efffects models indicated that learning gains were higher for sentences with more semantic contextual support and in students with stronger reading comprehension skills. We were the first to show that Levenshtein distance is an important predictor for L2 vocabulary learning outcomes. Furthermore, more accurate as well as faster learning task performance lead to higher learning outcomes. It can thus be concluded that L2 study materials containing semantically supportive contexts and that focus on words with little L1-L2 overlap are most effective for L2 vocabulary learning.
Highlights
Building a rich vocabulary in a second language (L2) is essential to gain a sufficient level of L2 proficiency and, entails a large part of L2 education
We examined to what extent the variation in vocabulary learning outcomes in English as a second language (L2) in context can be predicted from semantic contextual support, word characteristics, and student characteristics in 197 Dutch adolescents
Word, and student predictors of three different L2 vocabulary learning outcomes: vocabulary knowledge at immediate posttest after the vocabulary learning trials; learning gain, operationalized as the difference between pretest and immediate posttest vocabulary knowledge; and rate of forgetting, as reflected by the decrease in vocabulary knowledge between immediate posttest and delayed posttest looking at the prediction of time
Summary
Building a rich vocabulary in a second language (L2) is essential to gain a sufficient level of L2 proficiency and, entails a large part of L2 education. In proficient and less proficient L2 learners, better performance for vocabulary learning was found when target words were embedded in sentences with highly semantically related words, reflecting a higher degree of semantic contextual support (Elgort et al, 2015). This effect was largest for highly proficient learners, suggesting that such context effects may (partially) depend on learner characteristics. We used LSA as a continuous measure to operationalize semantic contextual support, assuming that higher LSA scores indicated more semantic contextual support
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