Letter to the editor re: does a match-to-sample and physical prompting procedure result in receptive vocabulary learning in minimally speaking autistic preschoolers?

This study examined the impact of writing on the vocabulary acquisition of 32 universitypreparatory students in Izmir, Turkey. The students were in two separate classes of 16 each. Bothclasses learned vocabulary receptively by using direct explanations, readings that incorporatedthe target words, and post-reading exercises. In addition to this receptive work, one classproduced sentences and short compositions incorporating the target words. The students wereevaluated by using a modified version of Paribakht and Weshe’s (1997) Vocabulary KnowledgeScale and t-tests were performed. It was found that writing had a significant effect on thedevelopment of productive vocabulary.

The extent to which receptive and productive vocabulary learning tasks affect the development of L2 lexical knowledge and the conditions which can help the learners to acquire L2 words through appropriate classroom instructions have been matters of great concern to the practitioners in L2 vocabulary research.. This paper investigated the effects of receptive and productive learning from word pairs on comprehension, and the use of taught words in writing in advanced EFL learners of Persian. To this end, a quick Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered to the senior students population studying English teaching in Shahrekord Azad university ,and based on their OPT scores, a samples of 40 male and female students was selected and randomly assigned to two equal groups of 20 each. One group was taught 15 target words recep- tively while another group learned the same target words productively. After the treatments, two tests measuring reading comprehension and writing were administered to each group. The scores of the groups were analyzed via a one-way MANOVA. The results indicated that those who had learned their target words productively outperformed the receptive participants on the writing test significantly. Similarly, the receptive group did significantly better on the reading compre- hension test than the productive group. The findings of this study revealed that receptive vocabulary learning may be more beneficial to understanding a text and productive learning is more effective in improving the use of students' taught words in writing. The results of this study can benefit teachers and students to become aware of the merits and demerits of vocabulary learning tasks, and help them to select the tasks that best suit their needs.

Objectives: The present study investigated whether children with normal language (NL) and children with delay in vocabulary development (VD) show difference in performance on non-word repetition and quick incidental learning (QUIL), whether these factors correlate with one another, and whether these factors could predict children’s receptive vocabulary. Methods: The study included children between 2 to 6 years of age, 19 NL and 19 VD. The experiments consisted of two tasks: non-word repetition to measure phonological memory, and QUIL to measure vocabulary learning ability. We compared group performances on each task. We also investigated correlations among factors and predictors. Results: The results were as followed. There were significant differences between two groups on all two tasks showing that children with VD performed significantly lower than children with NL. In the VD group, receptive vocabulary correlated only with the non-word repetition task, whereas receptive vocabulary correlated with both non-word repetition and QUIL tasks in the NL group. The strongest factor which predicted children’s receptive vocabulary was QUIL in NL group, whereas non-word repetition predicted VD group’s receptive vocabulary the most. Conclusion: The results show that implicit learning ability could be the important factor only in young NL group when they learn receptive vocabularies. On the other hand, phonological short-term memory promotes receptive vocabulary learning in VD group. It indicates that children with VD inefficiently learn vocabularies compared to NL children, and if children with VD could facilitate implicit learning ability, it could result in effective vocabulary learning.

Objectives: In order to find effective vocabulary intervention methods for children with delayed language, this study focused on a vocabulary list that teaches them. In this study, we examined whether arbitrating a vocabulary list that shared the same semantic network with children with delayed language would help children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary learning. Methods: For this study, A total of 13 children with specific impairment language aged 4-5 years participated in this study. We conducted a Mann-Whitney U test with the data. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in receptive vocabulary learning rates between groups arbitrated under a Semantic Network and those that were not. In the case of expressive vocabulary learning rates, it was significantly higher in groups taught under the Semantic Network. Results showed that generalizations to expressive vocabulary exhibited no statistically significant differences between the two groups, but generalizations to receptive vocabulary showed significantly higher rates in groups that applied the Semantic Network. Conclusion: We found that when teaching vocabulary to children with Specific language disabilities, arbitrating a list of vocabulary sharing semantic networks is more effective when learning expressive vocabulary and generalizing receptive vocabulary. In addition, the correlation coefficient between children’s episodic buffers and receptiveness, and expressive vocabulary learning rates was low in groups learning under the Semantic Network, while in groups learning independent vocabulary.

The present study explored the effects of different task types on the autonomous vocabulary learning of EFL learners. To this end, two types of tasks with similar but slightly different levels of involvement loads were developed: a corpus-based task and a word map task. The participants of the study were 41 EFL students from a university in Seoul, Korea. They were divided into two groups: a corpus group (n=20) and a word map group (n=21). A total of 33 target words were selected and the experiment was administered during a period of five weeks. Major findings from the study were as follows: First, the corpus task proved to be more effective than the word map task in productive vocabulary learning, whereas the two tasks showed similar effectiveness in receptive vocabulary learning. Second, the two tasks varied in the effectiveness of vocabulary learning depending on the learners' vocabulary proficiency levels and the specific domains of vocabulary knowledge (receptive and productive). Lastly, the corpus group responded more positively than the word map group to their task and to the vocabulary learning. The findings indicate that the corpus task has advantages over the word map task and provide ‘residual’ empirical support for Hulstijn and Laufer’s (2001) involvement load hypothesis. Based on the findings, some pedagogical implications were made for the effective teaching and the autonomous learning of vocabulary.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare and examine the children’s performance between Language Delayed (LD) and Typically Developed (TD) children in vocabulary learning tests (expressive, receptive, definition) across three-reading strategies (eliciting question, non-eliciting question, decontextualized question) in adult-child book reading assessment.Methods: A total of 22 children (12 children with LD and 10 TD children) aged 4 to 5 years participated in this study. The participants performed vocabulary learning tests (expressive, receptive, definition) across 3 reading strategies after 8 reading sessions.Results: LD children received significantly lower scores than TD children on expressive · receptive vocabulary learning and definition tasks. Moreover, in the case of expressive vocabulary, there was no significant group difference in eliciting questions. In addition, in the definition task, the group difference according to strategies was greater when using the decontextualized questions, than when using the non-eliciting questions.Conclusion: It turned out that children with LD have difficulties in receptive · expressive vocabulary learning and definition. Also, it was remarkable that the pattern of relationship between these performances was different in each group. In particular, TD children scored the highest in expressive vocabulary learning under the decontextualized question strategy, whereas in the case of children with LD, they scored the highest under the eliciting question strategy. It suggests that the necessity for mediation of non-experts, such as parents or caregivers, plays an important role in word learning and intervening for children with LD through educating and using an effective reading strategy.

The present paper seeks to address the connection between the receptive vocabulary size and motivation towards EFL of a group of CLIL primary graders by paying special attention to learners’ gender variation. In particular, our goal is to probe into (1) gender variation in EFL receptive vocabulary size, (2) gender variation in motivation towards the foreign language, and (3) the relationship between motivation towards the foreign language and scores in a receptive vocabulary test. No statistically significant differences are found on gender variation neither in EFL receptive vocabulary size nor in motivation, both boys and girls follow quite similar patterns; finally, we have identified a positive correlation between boys’ levels of intrinsic motivation and the number of words they know receptively. The waning effect of CLIL on gender variation, as shown in previous research, is adduced here as one of the possible sources of lack of differences both in vocabulary achievement and motivation.

The present paper seeks to address the connection between the receptive vocabulary size and motivation towards EFL of a group of CLIL primary graders by paying special attention to learners’ gender variation. In particular, our goal is to probe into (1) gender variation in EFL receptive vocabulary size, (2) gender variation in motivation towards the foreign language, and (3) the relationship between motivation towards the foreign language and scores in a receptive vocabulary test. No statistically significant differences are found on gender variation neither in EFL receptive vocabulary size nor in motivation, both boys and girls follow quite similar patterns; finally, we have identified a positive correlation between boys’ levels of intrinsic motivation and the number of words they know receptively. The waning effect of CLIL on gender variation, as shown in previous research, is adduced here as one of the possible sources of lack of differences both in vocabulary achievement and motivation.

This study aimed to investigate which word‐related variables play a role in Dutch‐speaking children's L2 word learning through out‐of‐school exposure prior to classroom instruction in the foreign language. We used different measures to investigate the role of frequency, concreteness, cognateness, and age of acquisition (AoA) in receptive vocabulary learning. The results showed that cognateness and L1 AoA were important predictors of receptive word knowledge for all the participants. The findings confirmed that cognateness is important in vocabulary learning and that less proficient learners tend to guess the meaning of words based on their L1. The results also showed significant interactions between proficiency and cognateness, frequency, AoA, and concreteness, indicating that more proficient L2 learners are open to L2‐related variables such as L2 word frequency. This indicates that word‐related variables contribute in different ways according to learners’ proficiency levels.Open PracticesThis article has been awarded the Open Data badge. All data are publicly accessible through the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/ndr47/ and via the IRIS database at https://www.iris-database.org. Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki.

Does a match-to-sample and physical prompting procedure result in receptive vocabulary learning in minimally speaking autistic preschoolers?

Letter to the editor response: does a match-to-sample and physical prompting procedure result in receptive vocabulary learning in minimally speaking autistic preschoolers?

A combined storybook and play vocabulary intervention was implemented as a single-subject study of 23 children of diverse typologies, including 10 with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), three with developmental disability (DD), five with Down Syndrome, and five with specific language impairment (SLI), who were currently receiving speech-language services and had an individual education plan (IEP) goal targeting language. Participants' ages ranged from 3 years-1 month to 7 years-4 months. A parallel treatment design was used to identify changes at (a) word level, (b) child level, and (c) in children of similar typological and developmental profiles. All children learned vocabulary words to criterion in both expressive and receptive modalities. Children of different etiological origin did not vary in the trajectory of their receptive or expressive word learning. These results suggest that the trajectory of word learning may be remarkably consistent across disability typologies. The theoretical and clinical ramifications of these findings are discussed.

The present study aims to measure the effects of the teaching of second language (L2) phonological forms on L2 receptive vocabulary learning. Two teaching methods were compared in a pre- and delayed post-test to evaluate their impact on L2 word learning. Participants ( n = 127; mean age = 12;6, i.e. 12 years and 6 months) were randomly divided in two groups that followed either an explicit teaching method focused on L2 phonological forms, or a communicative teaching method focused on meaning, in which L2 phonological forms were taught implicitly. The teaching methods in the two groups aimed to foster the skills and the learning of phonological forms involved in the development of receptive vocabulary. The two teaching methods trained the same skills and relied on the same vocabulary. They both targeted the phonological forms of two difficult phonemic contrasts in French as a foreign language. The two teaching sequences took place during mandatory lessons in French as a foreign language for six weeks (12 lessons), in a Swiss state school. Generalized mixed models were fitted to the data to test for differences across teaching methods in their impact on L2 word learning. Overall, the results indicate that participants made significant progress in word learning, with no significant differences between the two teaching methods. Pronunciation, discrimination, retention in verbal working memory, and the mastery of phoneme–grapheme correspondences are significant factors of vocabulary learning in French as foreign language. The teaching of L2 phonological representations and the training of their processing facilitated the learning of words in L2 French. However, the teaching of vocabulary in French as a foreign language rarely involves a focus on phonological representations.

This study investigated the differences between the receptive and productive vocabulary size of Afghan tertiary students in the context of vocabulary learning and teaching. Following the recent suggestion of the Afghan higher education curriculum committee to assess tertiary students learning and needs, the current study assesses English vocabulary learning in the Afghan tertiary education context by using both a productive and receptive vocabulary test. A number of senior students from the English department of Nangarhar University along with their English instructors participated in the study. The study found that the participants’ receptive vocabulary was larger than productive. Moreover, the vocabulary learning context of the participants was not conducive to vocabulary growth. The findings are explained and followed by suggestions for instructors to be implemented in future vocabulary teaching.

Although digital game-based vocabulary learning (DGBVL) has received increasing attention in the past two decades, the impacts of DGBVL on the depth of word knowledge are still not well understood, especially in regard to productive vocabulary learning and DGBVL’s long-term efficacy. This study leverages a quasi-experimental research design to investigate DGBVL’s long-term effects on receptive vocabulary (RV) and productive vocabulary (PV). Forty-eight Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) university students, assigned to the experimental and control groups, were instructed by a DGBVL approach and PowerPoint (PPT) lecturing, respectively, over the course of 18 weeks. Specifically, a mixed 2×2 repeated measures experimental design was conducted by adopting instruction type (DGBVL and PPT lecturing) and testing time (pretest and posttest) as the independent variables, with RV and PV proficiency as the respective dependent variables. The results suggest that instruction type and teaching time have significant effects on participants’ RV and PV learning achievements. However, teaching time’s effect size outweighs instruction type. The findings are highly encouraging for the use of DGBVL in the EFL classroom, as it may serve as an effective and long-lasting pedagogical tool within this context.