Effects of two post-reading tasks on English learners' use of vocabulary in writing

Abstract

The present study investigated the relative effectiveness of two types of post-reading tasks for improving English learners’ vocabulary use in their writing. The two post-reading tasks examined were (a) narrow reading (reading a series of relevant texts to build topic-related vocabulary) and (b) sentence production (creating a sentence with a set of topic-related vocabulary). Sixty high school students were assigned to two experimental groups (narrow reading, sentence production) and a control group. After completing pre-writing and pre-target vocabulary tests, the experimental groups read a text and then completed one of the two post-reading tasks designed to draw their attention to target words. The control group only completed the tests. Upon completion of the tasks, they took the same writing and vocabulary tests. Their essays were analyzed in terms of vocabulary use via the lexical frequency profile (LFP). Results showed that the narrow reading and sentence production groups included higher-level target vocabulary in their compositions than the control group. In addition, the LFP of the narrow reading group significantly improved. It was found that the repeated encounters with thematically related vocabulary items through narrow reading appeared to be beneficial in improving learners’ use of higher-level vocabulary in writing.