The effects of code-switched reading tasks on late-bilingual EFL learners' vocabulary recall, retention and retrieval

Abstract

Tasks with a high involvement load would induce a higher success rate of retention and recall of target words for learners. A high task-based involvement load is defined by the need to focus on target words, the mental search for target word meanings by guessing from context, and to select and decide on the word meanings that are most appropriate in context. This study investigates the efficacy of codeswitched reading, a high involvement load task, in raising the lexical retention-retrieval performance of EFL learners, who were late Chinese-English bilinguals. An experimental group (n = 78) was learning vocabulary from reading codeswitched texts. A comparison group (n = 76) was reading graded readers without lexical glossing. An immediate retrieval test was conducted without prior notice followed by a delayed retrieval test a week later. Independent-samples t-test results show that the EFL learners in the experimental group significantly outperformed the comparison group in lexical retention-retrieval. The experimental group's recall scores were higher than those of the comparison group. The higher involvement load of codeswitched reading tasks and the visual salience of codeswitched target words accounted for the higher retention-retrieval scores of the experimental group than those of the comparison group.