Abstract
This study explored the effect of incidental vocabulary exposure on receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge, acquisition and retention among 90 Iranian EFL learners. The research focused on how exposure frequency or the number of encounters with the target words in reading passages affected different aspects of vocabulary knowledge such as receptive and productive knowledge of orthography, parts of speech, associations and meaning. In general, the findings (based on ANOVA and its non-parametric version, Kruskal-Wallis whenever normality requirement was not met) indicated that incidental exposure to second language (L2) words through reading passages might be conducive to vocabulary acquisition and retention. Particularly, it was revealed that as the number of encounters to L2 target words increased, the learners were more successful in acquiring different aspects of vocabulary knowledge. In this regard, the effect of exposure frequency was significant in both the immediate and delayed post-test for all aspects of vocabulary knowledge when the amount of exposure increased from one encounter to seven. Nevertheless, the analyses of the scores obtained from the seven subtests suggested that the effect of exposure frequency may vary for different aspects of vocabulary knowledge. Moreover, there was no marked distinction between receptive and productive aspects of vocabulary knowledge. However, the scores on the semantic subtests revealed that increasing the number of exposure frequency could mostly affect the receptive knowledge of meaning and form as well as productive knowledge of associations. These aspects were also more vulnerable with the passing of time. It is recommended that English teachers put incidental vocabulary acquisition within the perspective of a longitudinal, intensive and systematic vocabulary recycling where the learners' knowledge of vocabulary is reinforced and accumulated over time. Moreover, English teachers may make use of form-focused or explicit instruction to compensate for any lack of time or their learners' need for more incidental exposure to L2 vocabulary. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/GEMA-2014-1401-04
Highlights
Interest in second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition has increased in recent years after the need for further research on this neglected domain of language acquisition (Meara, 2009) was asserted by pioneer vocabulary acquisition researchers (Webb, 2007; Schmitt, 2008; Meara, 2009)
Despite serious debates on the extent to which an incidental approach to vocabulary acquisition can be conducive to significant gains in vocabulary knowledge especially in the long run, many scholars believe that learning new vocabulary while reading passages is the main context of vocabulary development in intermediate and advanced stages of both the first language (L1) and L2 language acquisition (Rott, 2013)
The focus of the current study was on the incidental acquisition and retention of 20 English TWs by 90 Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners
Summary
Interest in second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition has increased in recent years after the need for further research on this neglected domain of language acquisition (Meara, 2009) was asserted by pioneer vocabulary acquisition researchers (Webb, 2007; Schmitt, 2008; Meara, 2009). Regardless of different definitions proposed by scholars, it is generally agreed that knowledge of L2 vocabulary entails knowing different denotations and connotations a word has, together with orthographic, syntactic and pragmatic functions it takes in written and spoken contexts both at the level of recognition and production (Hellman, 2011; HeidariShahreza & Tavakoli, 2012). Based on such multidimensional view of vocabulary knowledge, the present study aimed at investigating the effect(s) of varying amount of exposure frequency or the number of encounters to target words (TWs, hereafter) while reading English passages
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