The Effects of Post-Reading Activities on Young EFL Learners' Word Learning

Abstract

Many teachers give little classroom attention to direct vocabulary instruction, assuming students will learn words incidentally through reading. This study used storybooks to assess the effects of three types of post-reading word instruction on word learning: word instruction in context, word instruction in isolation, and repeated reading, which served as the controlled condition. Three intact classes of fifth graders and three intact classes of sixth graders at an elementary school in Taipei City were recruited for the study. A counterbalanced treatment, post-test-only design was used. The results showed that word instruction in isolation promoted written and spoken word learning beyond word instruction in context and repeated reading. For the higher-proficiency students, those receiving word instruction in isolation performed significantly better than those who read the stories repeatedly and those receiving word instruction in context. On the other hand, no significant main effect of post-reading activities on written or spoken word learning was found with the lower-proficiency students.