Incidental and Instructed Vocabulary Acquisitionin L2 Contexts: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Vocabulary teaching is a neglected area even today in India in spite of researchers suggesting that ‘knowing more words in a new language is knowing the language better’. A quasi- experimental study was carried out in an Engineering college in India for a sample of sixty students and sixty six in two groups. Two strategies were tried out with one group of participants were exposed to incidental vocabulary learning strategy. The other group was exposed to explicit vocabulary learning strategy. Pre-test and post test scores were compared for quantitative data analysis and questionnaire was used for qualitative analysis. Both groups showed improvement in their post-test, but explicit vocabulary learning group scored more in post-test than the incidental vocabulary learning group. The effectiveness of the strategy was tested through Z cal test. The findings show that both groups performed well in their post-test, but the explicit teaching group’s post test score was better and the learners also showed more enthusiasm than the incidental vocabulary learning group. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s1p210