Language Teaching Research

Knowledge of English affixes plays a significant role in increasing knowledge of words. However, few attempts have been made to create a valid and reliable measure of affix knowledge. The Word Part Levels Test (WPLT) was developed to measure three aspects of affix knowledge: form (recognition of written affix forms), meaning (knowledge of affix meanings), and use (knowledge of the syntactic properties of affixes). A total of 118 derivative affixes were selected based on frequency data from the British National Corpus. First, data was collected from 417 Japanese university students to revise poorly working items using Rasch analysis. Second, the responses of 1,348 people representing more than 30 different native languages were analysed to determine the affix difficulty levels. A description of the test, justification for its design, and practical implications are provided.

If known words can be defined psycholinguistically as ‘form–meaning mappings’, the present article investigates whether prompting learners to evaluate whether the form of a new second language (L2) word fits its meaning generates ‘mapping elaborations’ that aid recall. Thirty Dutch-speaking upper-intermediate learners of English were invited to rate and motivate the degree of congruency they perceived between the form and meaning of 14 novel L2 words. Their ability to recall the form and the meaning of the target words was measured in an unannounced post-test. Recall was found to be positively related to the number of learner-generated mapping elaborations triggered by the task. Elaborations of a sound–symbolic nature appeared particularly useful for rendering the form of new words memorable.

This research inspects the allocation of involvement load to the evaluation component of the involvement load hypothesis, examining how three typical approaches to evaluation (cloze-exercises, sentence-writing, and composition-writing) promote word learning. The results of this research were partially consistent with the predictions of the hypothesis: the two writing tasks with greater involvement load led to significantly better word learning than cloze-exercises with lower load, while composition-writing was significantly more effective than sentence-writing despite the same involvement load according to the matrix of the original model. Such results are explained from the perspectives of information organization and pre-task planning, based on which evaluation induced by cloze-exercises is suggested to be allocated with ‘moderate evaluation’ as it involves no use of chunking, hierarchical organization or pre-task planning, evaluation induced by sentence-writing with ‘strong evaluation’ as it involves chunking and pre-task planning at the sentence level, and evaluation induced by composition-writing with ‘very strong evaluation’ for it involves chunking, hierarchical organization and pre-task planning at the composition level.

The current study investigated the effects of three forms of output activity on EFL learners’ recognition and recall of second language (L2) vocabulary. To this end, three groups of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) were instructed to employ the following three output activities after reading two narrative texts: (1) summarizing the texts and incorporating target vocabulary in the summary; (2) generating several general comprehension questions out of reading texts and answering those questions while incorporating target vocabulary; and (3) making predictions about what is to occur in the texts and including target vocabulary in the prediction. The results of a cued response production test and a multiple choice recognition test indicated that the three treatment conditions resulted in significant development of vocabulary knowledge. Moreover, the results revealed that making predictions and questioning/answering were more effective than summarizing for promoting L2 words knowledge.

This study investigated the effects of three instructional modes: picture-book reading-only (PRO), picture-book reading plus vocabulary instruction (PRVI), and picture-book reading plus reading-based collaborative output activity (PRCOA) on young adult EFL (English as a foreign language) learners’ vocabulary acquisition and retention. Eighty Taiwanese university students with low to intermediate level English proficiency from three English reading classes participated in each of the three modes once during three weekly 100-minute sessions. Vocabulary knowledge was tested through two post-tests using a modified Vocabulary Knowledge Scale: immediately after each instructional mode to measure students’ vocabulary acquisition, and one month later to measure their word retention. The results showed that the PRVI mode was the most helpful for immediate word learning. However, the PRCOA mode was the most effective for word retention, and most conducive to bettering students’ productive knowledge in both acquisition and retention. This study suggests that explicit learning from vocabulary instruction that directs students’ attention to the words to be learned did not guarantee greater vocabulary gains than incidental learning where new words can be learned as by-products of classroom collaborative output activities. Without trying to memorize words, students learned vocabulary through mental investment in group discussions and generative activities, leading to their mastery of productive word knowledge.

This study investigated the impact of topic interest, alongside L2 proficiency and gender, on L2 vocabulary acquisition through reading. A repeated-measures design was used with 135 Korean EFL students. Control variables included topic familiarity, prior target-word knowledge, and target-word difficulty (word length, class, and concreteness). Participants read both high- and low-interest topic passages and took vocabulary posttests (word-form recognition, translation recognition, and translation production) immediately and four weeks after reading. Analyses revealed significant effects of topic interest and L2 proficiency, and a significant interaction between topic interest and gender. These results were maintained over time. The article concludes by discussing the facilitative role of topic interest, expanding on the motivational factor considered in the involvement load hypothesis.